Callie had barely let me go when Aspen ran into her arms.
“I missed you, kiddo,” Callie said.
“I missed you, too,” Aspen said.
“I really am chopped liver,” Quinn said, then laughed.
Lina grabbed him into a big hug, squeezing him extra tight. “I missed you, Quinnlyn! Welcome Home!”
Home was where we were, too. I felt it in every fiber of me. When we got back to Tennessee, I didn’t have peace; I had anxiety. It didn’t feel safe. Even with Ravik gone, I felt uneasy.
Lina had another guest room ready for Quinn and me. She had the couch made up for Aspen. It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep. Hyder and the others had gone over to Kai’s house to stay the evening. With Kai spending summers in Tennessee, they all knew him well.
The next morning, we met the landlord at the house to get the keys. Callie and Lina had followed behind us. Quinn said a bunch of his cousins would be over soon to help us unpack, as long as we were good with Lina’s choice.
As soon as we pulled up, my heart sped up with excitement. I knew that this place was it before we’d even walked in. The driveway was long, making it away from the main road. The yard was enormous and clear; it spanned from the house all the way down to the main road. There was plenty of room for Aspen to play. The landlord was on the porch waiting, with a big smile on her face.
“Lina’s precious nephew, right?” she asked.
“That I am. This is my girlfriend, Zay, and her sister—our daughter—Aspen,” he said.
Aspen had been calling us mom and dad for the last couple of months, something that took a little while to get used to. We had started referring to her as our daughter. We were her parents after all, even if we didn’t birth her. Sometimes we would say sister by habit, but we would correct ourselves.
The home was a classic two-story home, with round banisters supporting the second-floor balcony, creating a covered front porch. Once we walked through the doors, there was a staircase togo upstairs. To the right, there was a large living room. To the left, there was a dining room.
If you went straight along the stairs down the short hallway, you would find yourself in a bathroom. If you turned left before the bathroom, there was a large kitchen. If you went to the right, there was an office with built-in shelves.
“Upstairs, the master bedroom has an en-suite bathroom. Then there are two bedrooms and another guest bathroom,” the landlord said.
We followed her up the stairs. Across from the stairs was a bathroom. To the right was the master bedroom. To the left were two bedrooms and a large laundry room.
We went back downstairs and out of the back door that was in the kitchen. The backyard was as large as the front, but it was fenced in. It was perfect for hosting friends or barbecues.
The whole house was perfect, actually. Lina and Callie really did pick the right house for us—for our family. It was exactly the new beginning that all of us needed.
“What do you think?” the landlord asked.
“It’s perfect,” I said.
“What she said,” Quinn said.
“I lovvvvvvvve it! Which room is mine?” Aspen asked.
Everyone started laughing.
“Whichever room you want on the left of the stairs,” Quinn told her.
She ran back up the stairs, darting from one room to the other and back again.
“I’ll take this one that looks into the backyard,” she shouted from the room.
“Okay!” I told her.
I looked over at Quinn, who shared a smile with me—joy emitting from both of us. Lina and Callie also had a smile. Quinn and Callie had been like her children, especially after both of their parents left. Having both of them home filled her with something that had been missing.
It didn’t take all of Quinn’s family very long at all to get the truck unpacked and moved into the house. Callie, Lina, Delilah, Minnie, Bellamy, Iris, and Maybelle helped get everything unpacked and put away. Within two days, it barely looked like we’d just moved in. They had the house put together almost as we had it in Tennessee. Of course, we had two extra rooms here. Quinn had already planned to turn the office into a reading space, lining our books up there.
The next morning, we went to Quinn’s uncle’s house to see Lucy. It was the reunion I was looking forward to the most. She had an enclosure with another young bobcat. As soon as I walked into her pen, she ran to me, jumped into my arms, and started licking my cheek. Happy tears rolled down my cheeks, and she licked them away. I’d been worried she would have forgotten who I was, but his uncle assured me that they never forget the person who first cared for them.
