In The Family

Chapter Two

Jed arrived in the kitchen to find Abbey sitting contemplatively on a stool at the counter. She was looking over her mug at something he couldn’t see. He stopped suddenly when he saw exactly what.

Sitting at their kitchen table were two children. A vaguely familiar young girl and a small boy. The girl looked at Jed suspiciously with wise green eyes and a frown that refused to abate. Something seemed to click in her mind though and she rose from her seat like a shot and launched herself at him. With little time to brace himself, he spun her around to distribute the shock of her leap.

“Uncle Jed, Uncle Jed.” He knew her immediately.

“Lesly?” She nodded into his shoulder. “My, oh my. Little Lesly, how you have grown.” She grinned into his shoulder. “You’re how old now?” She pulled her head away from his shoulder.

“Ten.”

“Already?” She smiled and nodded. “My dear, you are nearly all grown up.” Her smile grew and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He looked over her shoulder to the little guy slumped shyly in his chair. “Pumpkin, who’s that you brought with you?”

“My brother, Toby. You never met him, huh?”

“No, not yet. Would you like to introduce us?” She nodded and wriggled down from his arms. She reached out to him gently and guided him to stand in front of Jed.

“Toby, this is our Uncle Jed and that lady over there is our Aunt Abbey.” He followed her hands and she pointed out their hosts. “Uncle Jed and Aunt Abbey. Can you remember that?” He nodded slowly. She looked to her uncle apologetically. “Don’t be mad at him, okay? He’s kind of slow, ‘cause mommy didn’t take all her medicine when she was having him.” Jed kneeled down to them and nodded, taking Toby’s hand gently and giving it a squeeze.

Warm blue eyes met warm blue eyes and Jed’s heart stopped because the law could say what the law would say, but in his heart he knew that this was his son. And a crooked smile on an unforgettable face made this girl Abbey’s. And now, after all these tears and all these years, here they were. Their children, here to stay.

But only if he could convince Abbey.

He ruffled Toby’s dirty blonde hair and thumbed a stain on his cheek. He grinned and clutched Jed’s hand briefly before letting go and retaking a hold of his sister. He was the very image of Jed Bartlet as a boy. So mild and kind of heart. Even seeing him now made Jed feel robbed of the opportunity to watch his son grow up. To see both of his children grow up. Abbey’s isolation from their reunion was a testament to the bitterness she still harbored towards the whole situation.

“I’m gonna talk to your Aunt Abbey for a second, okay? You wanna wait for me at the table?” Lesly nodded and led Toby back to sit. Jed stood up and dusted his knees off. “Abbey, could I talk to you outside for a moment?” She took another leisurely sip of her drink and glared at him knowingly.

“What for?” His voice deepened with his frustration.

“Abigail.”

“What for, Jed? You’ve already decided that we’re doing this, so why are we even talking about it?” Toby whimpered and covered his ears. Les held him to her sadly. She’d thought that things would be different with Uncle Jed. She’d prayed that they would be. All that was left was for them to hit each other. Then, things would be exactly the same. Love was supposed to be different in the big houses.

“Uncle Jed, please don’t yell.” Jed pursed his lips and nodded.

“Guys, you’re going to be staying here for awhile.” Beyond her resolve, Abbey smacked down her mug and rose to leave less than quietly. “Abigail.” She didn’t stop nor did she answer as she disappeared into the hall to find her sister. She’d be damned if she’d be forced to take responsibility for children she’d had taken from her in the first place.

She slammed the sitting room door open, only to encounter no one. She turned to the agents stationed outside for an answer.

“Did you see the woman in here, just now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Where is she?”

“She left a few minutes ago.”

“Did she say anything before she left?”

“She said to tell you to give the children her love.” She narrowed her eyes angrily.

“To give them her love?” They both nodded carefully. “That bitch.” They both manage to hide their reactions to her uncharacteristic use of profanity. “She just left?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We wouldn’t happen to know where to, would we?”

“No, ma’am.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so. My sister isn’t known for leaving a forwarding address.”

“Ma’am, would you like us to look for her?”

“No, no, she won’t be found until she’s ready. Whenever the hell that’ll be.” She clutched her skirts silently. “Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Austin. You’ve been a help.” They nodded, though feeling guilty for not keeping Sienna from leaving. “Have a nice evening.” They returned the sentiment softly and pretended not to hear her curse her sister’s name as she stalked back to the elevator. “Selfish…cold, misguided…” She was nowhere near wrong.

She calmed and steeled herself before reentering the kitchen. Part of her melted as she saw Jed munching on milk and cookies with the children. Les was cuddled close to his side and Toby was sitting in his lap. They were listening with rapt attention as he told them a story about Zoey as a child.

“Zoey did that?”

“Oh, yes, she did.”

“Can I meet her?”

“Of course, honey. I’m sure she’d love to visit you. I’ll call her down myself.”

“Cool.”

“Cool,” Toby parroted mildly. He had settled into Jed comfortably and didn’t seem ready to let go.

“Yeah, cool,” Jed said to himself. He looked up when he noticed Abbey’s presence at the door. She was watching Toby with a concerned face. Though she hadn’t been listening to Lesly earlier, she noted his blank expression and slow speech. Her ire towards her sister only rose, as did her anger. This beautiful boy had been hurt by her sister before he was even born. That woman destroyed everything and everyone she touched.

She straightened up and smiled at them as they watched her warily. Since they were staying…

“Are you hungry?” They held up their cookies in response. “Now, that’s not food. Real food. Shall we see what we have? Lesly, would you like to help me look?” She nodded hesitantly and accepted Abbey proffered hand. “Any idea what you’d like to eat?” She shook her head and looked over her shoulder at Jed. “Okay, well, let’s see what’s in here.” She opened the fridge and encountered a lot of food that no child could pronounce much less eat. “Well, basically this is pasta with Chicken.” The real name was French and she just wasn’t going there.

“Do you like pasta, Toby?” He shrugged and hid his face in Jed’s neck. “Okay, let’s try something else. Ham sandwiches. How about that? Lesly?” She nodded shyly. “Toby.” He didn’t answer but curled into a ball and covered his face with his hands.

Jed gave him a tender squeeze and dropped a kiss to his hair. “Toby, what do you want to eat?” He mumbled into lap so that Jed couldn‘t hear. “What was that, punkin?”

“Peanut butter and jelly,” he muttered.

“Well, peanut butter and jelly it is, then. Abbey, you want me to make it?”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of Lesly here.” She helped her hop onto the counter as she pulled various Tupperware containers from the fridge and set them onto the counter. She peeked into the boxes and made faces. “Yeah, it doesn’t look great in there, but that’s why we have a microwave.”

Her ears perked up. “You have a microwave?”

“Yeah.” Her expression told a story. “You don’t have one at home?” She shook her head embarrassedly. “Well, that’s okay. You can use ours. Come on, hop down and we’ll put this in.”

As Abbey helped Les warm up her food, Jed showed Toby to best way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Now, you spread the margarine on the bread so that the jelly doesn’t seep through. ‘Kay?” He nodded with rapt attention. He laid one piece of bread on top of the other. “And voila! You want it cut?” He smiled. “Okay, across or in triangles?” He shrugged. “Triangles it is, then.” He cut the sandwich and led mini-Tobus back to the table. “I’ll get you some milk.”

Les plopped down across from him and poked warily at her Angel Hair pasta. “Go ahead, honey, try it. It’s better than it looks. You want some lemonade?”

“Yes, please.” She poured the glass and set in next to her plate. Jed handed over the glass carefully and waited until he’d safely taken a drink to breathe again. Both children seemed to have healthy appetites and attacked their food with a vengeance.

Jed leaned over the counter to his wife rested his hand on hers. He mouthed, “Where’s Sienna?” She shrugged. He frowned, not understanding. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She wasn’t up there. She left and said to send her love to the children.”

He sighed angrily. “I told her I’d talk to you first. We’re a united front, Abbey. If you didn’t agree, they weren’t staying.”

“It doesn’t matter now. They’re here and we’re responsible for them.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“They’re not our children, Jed. They’re not our responsibility. Our children are grown and on their own. What the hell are we going to do with two more children? We’re too old for this.” He pulled her closer by her arm.

“They are too young for this. They are too young to be shuffled around like their mother’s been doing with them. They need somewhere stable to be, even if it’s just for a while. They need us, Abigail.” She kept her eyes averted.

“They’re not ours.”

“But they are.”

“The law says otherwise.”

“As a maker of the law, I say that law is wrong. Look at those children, Abigail Ann. Look at them and tell me you don’t see yourself in Lesly. Look at Toby and tell me you don’t see me. Do it. Just do it.” She gave the munching little ones a sideways glance and shook her head.

“I can’t.”

“Then why can’t you take this opportunity, this gift that your sister has given us and love them while they’re here? We may never get another chance like this.”

“That’s why,” she hissed furiously. “Because, any day now, whatever she’s got going is gonna fall to pieces and she’ll be back at our doorstep and she’s going to take them back. And it’s going to break my heart.” She paused to take a shuddering breath. “I’ve ached for them, Jed. I’ve ached for Lesly and I never even knew Toby existed. I ached for my children. We did her a favor and she took advantage of that. We did something only family does. She destroyed that trust. Just like she’s destroying these children. I won’t let her destroy us, too. You know what will happen when she walks out of our lives with them again. It will kill you and you know it will. And yet, you still take the risk.”

“Yes, I do, because that’s what parenthood is. If she keeps bringing them back; I’ll keep loving them. And, of course, losing them will hurt me, but I can’t do anything else. And neither can you.”

“Oh, I can do something else.” He stood up straight and dropped her hand.

“And what is that?”

“I can not get attached. Because, with my sister, anything goes and nothing is constant. The law may be wrong, but those children aren’t ours. And she will take them back. She’s welcomed to them.” She waved to the children and headed upstairs to set up a guest room.

“You’re really that bitter?” She stopped and seemed to think about it before turning back to look at him.

“I really am.” Hearing only his silence, she left the kitchen, and wandered wordlessly down the hall with her skirts still clutched in her fists.

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