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"I'll laugh and I'll cry and I'll sing…" "Today" - The New Christy Minstrels Time really does fly when you're having fun, and the twins were a delight. I blinked, and almost two years had gone by, and they were running around the house every moment of the day - when they weren't levitating. Our darling Halloween babies, tricks and treats rolled into one. I'd been surprised to learn they were born on the day on which Vlad celebrated his birth - when Zee could get him to celebrate it at all. * * * The new house had been finished in record time. Four floors, all but the topmost hidden deep within the earth. Bedrooms, (including two master suites, because we were still hoping Vai would change her mind and consent to Star's family moving in with us), kitchen and living spaces, all as comfortable as Martian construction methods could make them, but with a plain Earth flavor-squared-off walls and hallways, American plumbing fixtures. From the inside you couldn't tell it wasn't an ordinary house. With its mostly underground construction it wasn't visible from Star's place, not even the top floor, so Vai never knew for sure if the kids came over to visit. And they did, all of them. Roca and Racho were in their last year of high school, and Lana and Rowan were sixteen, but they all seemed to like being at our house as well or better than hanging out with other kids their own age. Now that they were beginning to master the special skills Star and I had passed on, they were great babysitters for the twins. The youngest twins loved it best when they brought Vrai along with them. There was very little difference in their ages, and the three little ones rolled around the soft floor of the playroom like puppies, the older kids making sure they were safe when they splashed into the central pool. Now that I think about it, I'm sure Vai knew they visited. Vrai had always been a handful for her alone, even though he didn't seem to be quite as precocious as Lynny and Van. Maybe she was even glad to have a break from all the kids for a while. She had begun to paint in oils-odd, strangely beautiful landscapes that I recognized as views of the deserts and mountains of Krina, her home planet. * * * Other interesting things had happened. After over a year in a coma, Ravin finally awakened. Zee called me, even before she called Vlad, and I had scooped up the good doctor on my way. But the Ravin who opened his eyes was nothing like the monster I had stopped. With his more delicate body structure and pale brown hair and skin, I figured this had to have been the way he used to look, the Martian man he was before he had become vampire. His name had been Allene then, Allene t'Kyan[1], and Allene was what he answered to, when he answered at all. The man who woke up was little more than a zombie at first. He moved - slowly - but someone had to dress and feed him. Luckily for Zee, he remembered his toilet training. After a month or two, he had become capable of basic self-care, and Zee had set him minor tasks around the ranch-pulling weeds in the garden and sweeping floors and such. She said he spoke little, but was always cheerful, a small happy smile continuously on his face. Personally, I found his mental state appalling. I had done this to him, reduced him to a shambling idiot only fit to mop floors. Perhaps it would have been better to kill him outright than to watch him move about this way, all but mindless. But I made myself spend time there, watching him wash dishes, accepting the occasional cup of coffee from his hand, as he smiled into my face without the slightest sign of recognition. Vlad said he had never really expected Allene to wake up at all, but now that he had, further improvements were possible, even probable. All we could do was wait and see. Zee said Allene was no bother; she liked having him there and seeing him happy. I thought her patience was amazing, and who was I to interfere? * * * Gaelen's transformation seemed to be complete. Her body had grown until she was just over six feet tall, and her physical strength rivaled my own. Although she had some different ways of looking at and doing things, we seemed to be very nearly equal in potential. She had no problems separating errant twins from tall trees, though she tended to float up after them while I just reached out with thought. With an almost continuous mental rapport, we had become far closer than I ever knew two people could be. I counted myself very lucky to have found her… my wife, my sister. * * * One of the best happenings was a complete surprise. A few weeks back, when all of us were sitting down to a Sunday morning breakfast cooked by budding chefs Roca and Racho, there was a twang on one of the wards near the road. Rex, the shepherd mix who had strayed in and stayed to become a member of the family, rose from his place by the stove with a small bark, then headed for the front door, his tail wagging. Someone was close by, but Rex obviously thought they were friendly. The wards only warned us of a presence; they didn't stop anything. If necessary, one of us could do more, but I looked at Star and he smiled at me, and then everyone except Vai whooped at once-it was two of the children from Suria's lab! Leaving our pancakes behind, we walked out onto the porch to meet them-Vai too, having been enlightened by Lana. And there they came, up the winding path, walking slowly, as though they had traveled a very long way, their heads held high, expressions doubtful but determined, as though they weren't at all sure of their welcome. With our permission, Rex had run ahead, and I watched as one of the figures bent to stroke the big dog's soft ears and receive an affectionate lick in return. I couldn't help but recognize the white/black hair and dark eyes. He was a more grown-up version of the boy who I had spoken to at Suria's, the body no longer a boy's, but tall and muscular. I remembered his name was Noel. The girl with him, her long platinum hair striking with its one dark streak, was Ariel. It was summer and hot, so they were both wearing only jeans and T-shirts, barefoot and kicking up whirls of dust in the morning sun. At the bottom of the stairs, they stopped and looked up at us, Rex now leaping happily back and forth between the family and the newcomers. The dog's approval was enough introduction for Star. He went slowly down the stairs, his arms spread wide, and the two wanderers came forward into his welcoming hug. There was almost no awkwardness between us at first. The older kids came down and led Noel and Ariel inside. Soon they were seated with their own plates of pancakes, and everything was on hold while we all ate. The food was good, but most of us couldn't match their gusto. After, everyone seemed to want to talk at once, but Star offered the newcomers showers, and they accepted. Finally, with them clean and fed and dressed in borrowed clothes, we all sat down in the great room. "First," Star said, we want you to know how very welcome you are. I hope you plan to stay with us." Ariel and Noel exchanged glances, and then he spoke. "You don't have to say that. We found the messages you left right away, but now it's been a long time, and we weren't sure you'd still want us. If you don't, that's okay, because we were doing fine on our own." He sat up a little straighter and looked at Ariel, who nodded her agreement. "Please stay," I said. "There are not so many of us that we can afford to lose you. You're both part of our family." Ariel frowned and wiped at her eyes and Noel blinked hard a couple of times. "I think we'd like that," he said finally. They were both so beautiful. I knew Noel was the son of Star and Vlad, and surely Ariel had Star's blood too. I made a mental note to tell Vlad that they had been found - or rather, had found us. "We are all together now," Star said, "and that is not a regular occurrence. Perhaps this is a good time to hear your stories." Ariel paled under her dark skin, and she gave Noel a meaningful look. I had so many questions. Where had these two youngsters been for such a long time? Did they know where the other children were? Less important, what had life been like for them with Ravin and Suria? I kept my peace, as Noel took a deep breath and started to speak - quickly, as though he had rehearsed this many times. "This isn't the first time we ran away. The first time was when I was about twelve. When we were younger, we just learned to stay out of the way when Dad had one of his bad times, but the older we got the less we wanted to be around. "Out of us five, I guess I was one of the lucky ones. She hardly paid any attention to me at all." He squirmed a little in his chair and looked around, but when no one interrupted he went on. "I guess it started when we were maybe eight or nine, her taking one of us off behind closed doors. At first it was only for what she called tests, like she'd done on all of us together since we were born, but after a while we all got an idea of what kind of "tests" she might be doing. Of course, Ray was her own son, so that made him exempt-or at least I hope it did-and two of us were girls and her tastes didn't seem to run that way. That left poor Harris to be the goat. "At first, I was too young to understand what had changed. I only knew that Harris didn't hang out with the rest of us much. He liked Cherry okay, but Ariel and Ray and me were beneath his notice. I guess he had it on good authority from her that he was better than us." I remembered Harris as the very dark boy I had seen. If Suria had taken Raven-Ray-with her, then Harris and Cherry were the ones still missing. "Ray and I were close, even if he was her son. Mostly, she ignored him right along with the rest of us. I already knew I didn't have a real mother, and it didn't bother me. The first minute I could, I planned to get out on my own, take care of myself." A determined look crossed Noel's fine features, then he looked around at all our rapt faces and his expression softened. "But it wasn't all bad. There were some fun times, even with her, when we were really little. Ray, Cherry, and Harris were born in the same year. Ariel and me came along a few months later, but we were close, all of us, even with Harris back then. We romped like a litter of puppies, laughing and running and eating with our hands when we were hungry, which was mostly. I remember she called us her little monkeys." The ghost of a smile lit his face and then was gone. "But when the time came for cleanup and bed, it wasn't her that coaxed us into the tub and then tucked us in. Dad was our teacher too. We were all home schooled, because she didn't want us away from the house. "Dad was a funny guy. He had a temper, anybody could see that, but he never used it on us kids. With us he was gentle and reasonable, and that stayed true even if he'd been snarling about something else the moment before. Cherry said he scared her, but I was never afraid of him. "We did all the things with him that kids do with their fathers-and a lot of other things, too. How many families are lucky enough to spend their summer on a sailboat? We did that one year, with Dad as the captain and us kids as crew. She stayed behind. She preferred her test tubes over sun and wind and water." Ravin, he was talking about Ravin. "I knew Dad was a vampire. I think we all did. He wasn't like in the movies and stories-sun never bothered him at all, and he usually ate the same things we did at meals. But, every now and then he'd get that look, and we knew he'd be gone for a while, until he'd filled that special need he had for blood and… stuff." He stopped a moment and looked around, but none of us seemed to have a thing to say. He took another deep breath. "We learned to stay away from both of them sometimes, like when Dad started acting really weird. Ariel always said she did something to him, and I think so too. But whatever happened, he changed completely, acted like he didn't see us at all, and before long we knew he'd be locked in the basement. "It was one of those bad times, right after I was twelve, when I first ran away. I could do things, get people to give me money so I could eat and stuff. They never seemed to really see me, but they'd reach in their pocket or purse and out would come a five dollar bill, and I'd take it and walk away. I stayed gone for a week, that time, long enough so Dad was his regular self again when I got back. "The next time, Ariel went with me. We'd spend most of the day in the movie theater, going from show to show, eating popcorn and hot dogs, and sometimes we'd sleep there too, overnight. But we always went back to her place eventually. I liked Cherry a lot, then, and Ariel was kind of sweet on Ray. A couple times all four of us sneaked out to the movies. We'd sit in the back and make out, and Ariel and I would make sure no one saw us-Cherry and Ray couldn't do the things we could." Ariel had blushed a little when Noel mentioned making out at the movies, and she fixed her eyes on Noel, as though pretending the rest of us weren't there. "I guess Harris left home too, sometimes, but he mostly went alone, sometimes with Cherry. I don't know where he went-he wouldn't hang out with the rest of us. "Then there was the night everything went wrong. She ran around the house, ranting and raving like Dad in one of his spells. She started packing things, grabbed Ray and made him pack his stuff too. It was like the rest of us didn't exist, not even Harris. We all had knapsacks ready for emergencies, and Ariel and I grabbed ours pretty quick, and so did Cherry and Harris. But when the shit really started to hit it, the two of them said they wouldn't go with us. Harris acted all superior and said he had important things to do. Cherry said she wanted to go with Harris. We waited by the back door, to see if things would die down like usual, and then we heard crashing and screaming and all of us headed for the alley. But Harris went one way, with Cherry right behind him, and Ariel and I went the other." He slumped a little, as though the telling had worn him out. Ariel looked like she wanted to sink through the floor and hide. They were both so young. Neither of them could be over sixteen. Noel looked up again. "Since then we've lived where we wanted, in empty houses and stuff. When it was cold we'd spend the nights in the theater or at the mall. Nobody ever found us because we didn't want them to. But we couldn't get jobs, because we're too young and because we don't have birth certificates or anything." He looked over at Ariel, and she met his gaze. "Last night, we talked it over and decided to come out here and see if you'd help us." I had tears in my eyes by then; I think most of us did. Vai surprised me by standing and going over to Ariel. "You poor dears," she said, taking one of her hands. "Of course you're welcome to stay, as long as you like. I hope you'll consider this your home." She put a slight emphasis on "this," so I guess she didn't want them visiting Gaelen's and my house either. But that didn't worry me. Two of the lost were found, and there was hope that the others would eventually find their way to us too. One thing did worry me-did Noel mean what I thought he meant about Suria's treatment of Harris? As twisted as we now knew her to be, surely she hadn't abused an innocent child? * * * Noel was given the bedroom next to Roca's, and Ariel seemed so uncomfortable around all of us that Lana suggested she start out in the guest house where she could have her own space. I sensed that she would have preferred to have Noel stay out there with her, because the two were certainly lovers, but Vai's Victorian sensibilities kicked in, and she assigned them rooms without seeming to notice their real preference. Oh well, the walk to the guest house only took about five minutes. Noel could probably sprint it in thirty seconds. * * * Since that time, the newcomers seemed to have settled in to our family life. Star's lawyer, Mephic, had no problem locating copies of their birth certificates (they were both recorded as offspring of Suria and Ravin, but their last name was Suria's, not Allene's), and Vai had seen to it that they bought new clothes and enrolled them in the junior year of high school, and we had volunteered answers to some of the questions they hadn't asked. Noel seemed upset about Ravin - Allene - but not surprised. When I said he wasn't a vampire anymore, Noel looked at me kind of funny, but he didn't say anything. Star took the new kids to visit Allene, at their request, but he showed no more recognition of them than he did for anyone else. Vlad… I think Vlad fell in love with Noel as soon as he saw him. "My son," he always said when referring to Noel, as though being a father was a new and wonderful experience. Noel seemed to take to him too, and he often went with Vlad to the Affair, where I'm sure the vampire showed him off. Of course, Star was Noel's "father" too - or something - but he was glad to stay in the background and let Vlad act the paternal role. Vlad and Star had always been good friends, and I think Star was glad for him to at last have a child he could call his own. I wasn't surprised when Noel announced that Vlad was legally adopting him and that his last name would soon be changed to "Drackett." So time marched on, and the newcomers found their own unique places in the family. None of us forgot about Cherry and Harris - or Raven, for that matter, but we did fall into a routine, as people do. * * * Gaelen and the twins and I slept at our house, but we still spent time at Star's. Vai's new artistic pursuits seemed to have mellowed her a little, and she began to smile and act more like her old self. Star's house was full of kids these days, or at least it always seemed that way. It was great having Noel and Ariel as part of the family, but thanks to them, teenage hormones were now running even more rampant than they ever had before. Roca had seldom brought his girlfriends to the house, at least not for sex, but now he was making eyes at Ariel, and she didn't seem unwilling. Distance always helped a little with privacy issues and, thank the gods, Ariel was still installed in the guest house out back. Noel and Rowan, on the other hand, had taken one look at each other and jumped into the nearest bed (or back seat, or coat closet), and it was anybody's guess when and if they'd ever jump back out. If they'd had a song, it would have been "Night and Day." No prude, I was glad to see Rowan enjoying himself, but with the unavoidable telepathic resonance, their exercises kept sexual tension at an all time high around Star's house - impossible to completely screen against - and it was getting a little wearing on all of us adults. (Except for Vaira, of course, who was "deaf" on that wavelength.) Whenever we came over to Star's for a visit, it was like you couldn't think of anything but sex, and even I couldn't have sex all the time. One day when we were all together and the noise level (on all wavelengths) was particularly high, due to Rowan and Noel going at it in his bedroom, right above our heads, Star looked over at me. He didn't have to speak; I knew what he was thinking. "I suppose something should be said," I volunteered. He smiled pleasantly, like always, but I sensed his relief at my suggestion. "Yeah," I agreed, "I guess it's time. Just leave it to me." Famous last words. I started up the wide white staircase that led from the front hall, just as there was a short break in the upstairs action, and arrived within seeing distance of the top floor just as Noel was walking down the hall from the bathroom. Then Fate stepped in - or maybe it was only biology. I'd seen the kid every day for weeks now, but somehow something was different this time. He was walking toward me, clothes disarranged from his latest roll in the hay, black/white hair fetchingly awry, lips swollen from kissing… and eyes like two burning coals. I was more than halfway up the broad staircase, busily thinking that I planned to say something calming and offhand like "give it a rest" or, "that's enough for tonight," but when that big bundle of rampaging hormones looked straight at me I felt a bolt of energy sizzle the air from his eyes to mine and all the way through my guts to my toes, with a major conflagration erupting just below my navel, and what I said, in a strangled voice was, "Forget it." Then I turned to retreat, mouth open, breathing suspended, covered in good intentions, but I didn't even make it down one step before he stopped me with a single crude but effective sentence, "I'll never forget the hard-on you gave me," delivered in a breathy growl from those sweet sixteen-year-old lips. The idea of descending the staircase and walking away from him left my brain like a haystack leaves the ground in a hurricane. I couldn't have refused that unspoken invitation if I'd tried - and I confess I didn't try. My wife, my kids, sometime lovers Star and Vai, plus other assorted children were here and there in that big house, and I forgot them all in a storm of desire the like of which I had never known. In under an instant I was at Noel's side, looking deep into his eyes to make sure I hadn't misunderstood. I hadn't. I took his hand, said, "Hold on," and we were out of there. Having sex in a family where even the littlest kid is a telepath makes privacy almost meaningless, but I guess some rational part of my mind still existed - enough to move us as far away as I could without leaving the area completely. The dark side of the moon might have been a better choice, but it was cold and unfriendly there if I remembered right - so I settled for a spot near the top of the Rocky Mountains. The etiquette between all of us adults - what we tried to drum into the kids - was best summed up as "don't look," and it was the best we could do. Lead walls would give you privacy from Superman, but we weren't that lucky. I knew there was no way that they didn't all know exactly what Noel and I did on that deserted mountaintop, but I was fairly certain they wouldn't be eagerly trying to watch us. Gaelen knew how much I loved her, and I hoped she'd understand my closing the doors on our continuous mental communion for a while. I couldn't share this with anyone, not even her. I could hardly admit to myself that it was happening. The thinking part of my mind just kind of went on standby while the rest of me was busy feeling! And what feelings they were. Noel knew almost nothing of sexual finesse or technique. What he had was enthusiasm, and that was plenty. We'd had three orgasms each in less than an hour when I noticed he was shivering. Somewhere in the first five seconds after our arrival in that high alpine meadow, we'd shed our clothes. The air temp was probably below freezing, but I hadn't noticed… self-centered of me. I'd managed to forget that Noel had not been raised by anyone who knew how to train him in the control of his body, or any of his other natural talents. Hell, he was just a kid, damn it. Remembering an old Star Trek episode, I heated a nearby boulder till it radiated warmth our way, raising the ambient temp to maybe forty degrees F. Noel stopped shivering - I guess he had some sort of instinctive resistance to adverse climate conditions - then smiled, sat up, and started brushing at the dirt and moss his skin had collected during our… efforts. So, ardor sated for a moment, I conjured a blanket - two, one for on top. We lay there, warm now, looking up at the stars. Noel had reacted pretty well to my dragging him off into the night. I realized belatedly that it might have been the first time he'd traveled anywhere by teleportation - jumping. Of course, his mind had been no more on transportation than mine had. What I'd done had been thoughtless - instinct, well honed by years of experience. Yeah, I was the experienced one, the one expected to "know better." By any standards, Noel was a child to my over ninety years of age. What the hell had I done to him? Well - I was pretty sure what I had done - but why? And why had the compulsion to do it seemed so irresistible? Noel chose that point in my musings to distract me directly and utterly, and, like the sexual marathon that I'd been ready to censure at home, we were off again. The next time I came up for air the sun was shining overhead. Was Noel susceptible to sunburn? His skin was dark like Star's, but it seemed possible, especially at this altitude. Anyway, the area, though remote, was still part of Rocky Mountain National Park, and there was always a chance that some enterprising hikers would come by and see us, now that it was light. For many reasons, we needed to move. Looking at Noel, sleeping peacefully for the moment, I knew I didn't want this idyll to end yet. Whatever made this superheated sexuality between us, I hadn't finished exploring and savoring it. It felt so good that maybe I never would. If I squinched my eyes just right I could imagine the little town of Estes Park hiding down in the valley far below. Maybe…. But first we'd need clothes. Whatever we'd been wearing last night was long gone. When I was in a hurry I just dumped irritating things like clothing into the never-never land of another dimension, and it wasn't the kind of place that gave things back later on. I reached into my closet in the house in Evergreen where there was plenty of winter clothing, and grabbed enough for the both of us. My clothes wouldn't really fit Noel's slighter frame, but they'd be okay till we could do better. Getting down off the mountain wouldn't be much trouble either, as long as Noel didn't freak on me. When he woke up looking at me, his eyes shining, I wanted nothing more than to go right back to what we'd been doing, but you could hear his stomach growls echo off the peaks for miles around. Geez, I'd been abusing the kid in more ways than one. I grabbed him a couple of granola bars out of thin air and my Evergreen home pantry, then urged him into the warm clothes and parka and we jumped a mile or two to the nearest campground parking lot where I'd surreptitiously stashed my Ford Bronco. Once inside of it, we could go down the mountain and into town in a more ordinary fashion. Noel wanted to drive, and had gotten his license, but I didn't trust him on those high snow-packed roads. Looking over at him, sitting next to me wrapped in a too-large parka, he was just like any kid, gawking out the window at the frozen landscape. How had I let what happened between us happen? Then he looked over at me and I understood all over again. There was no logic to this attraction. It didn't need logic; it was a force I could barely resist. Using all my feeble will power, I kept the car on the road and heading for town. At one point, Noel started to scoot closer to me, and I had to ask him to keep his distance. I didn't think I'd lose it enough to actually endanger us, but better safe than… you know. I remembered several motels that had those little cabins, sitting off by themselves - separate. What I wanted was one that was really separate, and preferably soundproof. Yeah - like there was a chance of that. Well, the dark side of the moon was still a possibility. Sightseeing was good there if you liked stargazing and rocks, but I didn't think Noel would appreciate the climate. We'd just have to adapt to our surroundings. We did find a cabin, and we stayed there for almost a week before I could force myself to find a little control, and maybe start to use my brain for more than keeping my ears apart. I think Noel would have been happy to stay longer, but we had managed to exchange a few words beyond "yes!" and "oh, God!" and he did want to learn more of what Star and I knew about our abilities. With that, and the promise that he'd still get to fuck me now and then, we went home. * * * Shit, I could hardly face Star, let alone Gaelen, but he only looked at me curiously, and she seemed more interested in "why" than "what." Once Gaelen and I had put our heads together, the crux of the matter seemed to be that I was median and Noel was male. Maybe if we'd had more input from Muir, it wouldn't have come as such a surprise, but I couldn't blame them for not telling us, because Star and I being median had amazed everybody, including and especially us. We'd both lived most of our lives thinking we were male. Noel wasn't the only true male among us, of course. Star's son Roca was male too, and older than Noel, but I'd never felt attracted to him at all. Now that the young and sexy cat was out of the bag, I still wasn't about to forget that I'd dandled Roca on my knee not too many years ago. Somehow that seemed to make a difference in what passed for my logical mind, putting a damper on any sexual attraction there might have been between us. That feeling didn't seem to run both ways, though. I didn't find out till much later that it pissed Roca off that I'd picked Noel instead of him. That added to the tension in the household, not to mention Rowan's jealousy over my usurping his favorite boyfriend. Sigh. * * * So it was left to a young man, barely more than a child, to teach us all something more about ourselves as a people. There weren't that many of us, and I sometimes forgot that fact, amid the wonder that there were even two of us, Star and I, when I'd lived so long thinking that I was the only one. We were all young, too - even Star and me. Lecurela granted the blessings of real adulthood only after you attained one hundred years of age. The Earth year wasn't that much different from the Lecurelan one, so that meant I almost qualified, and Star, more than thirty years my junior, wouldn't be an "adult" for quite a while. When he did attain that rarified status, he was eligible and obligated to return "home" and take up the reins of rulership for which he had been designed-for which we had both been designed. I tried to explain the extra-special feelings of being with a male to Star, but knew that my words, or even mentally shared feelings, would never accurately communicate how it felt to be with Noel. Poor Star, even if he wanted to try it with one of the youngsters, there were none out there to whom he was not closely related. And, even though that primarily biological taboo had no meaning for people whose genetics were as clean as ours - no bad traits to reinforce and pass on to offspring - they would both be for him like Roca was for me: out of the question. * * * I found that, in the end, I had done Noel no favors. Still naïve in his own way, he had fallen head over heels in love with nasty old me. Oh, I was half in love with him too, Gaelen notwithstanding. How could I not be? He was the son of Star and Vlad Drackett, two people I found ultimately attractive. But I knew in my heart that we were too different to ever be a real match. Our bodies met with an overwhelming passion I couldn't deny, but our minds did not quite fit. Our vastly unequal levels of experience made him too young in many ways. Suddenly, everything about my nature was clear. In Gaelen, I had found my mate. In spite of the sexual nature of our relationship, we were the equivalent of a Muiran bonded pair. And Star had Vai. Though they were not, and never had been, as close as Gaelen and I, still, he had a female in his life. So, what Star and I probably needed, or at least might want, to complete our families, were adult males of our own species. Except… there were no adult males of what passed for our kind. To add to the confusion, we both already had children with our chosen mates. We didn't need males to reproduce like "real" Muirans did. But there was nothing to be gained by mooning over something that just couldn't be. After much thought and meditation, my final conclusion was that things were perfect, just as they were. With Gaelen and the twins I already knew I was blessed beyond any deserving. Life was good. The End
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