I wake up before both of them, only a few hours later. Sunlight is streaming in the window, and sometime in the past few hours Shiv has joined us on the bed. She lies curled in the crook of Ava’s elbow, and Nua’s arm is over her waist, his hand lying on the cat. I yawn, stretch, and look over at the clock. It’s late morning now, but the house is still asleep. I roll out of bed as quietly as I can, and Shiv lifts her head to look at me, then rests it back down on her paws.

I slip into the bathroom, and after I brush my teeth I gently push open the door to where Abigala is sleeping. But she’s not inside, and the door to the hallway is open a crack. I smile slightly and go downstairs. The lights are off in most of the rooms, in the living room and library and in Lilly’s office and her bedroom connected to it that Penny and Bayan have taken over now that she does not sleep there anymore. The only light in the hallway comes from the windows and from under the crack of the closed door to the room my parents slept in.

I knock gently on the door, and I can almost hear the smile in my father’s voice when he says, “Come in.” My mother is sitting on the foot of the bed closer to the window, and Abigala is lying across it. The room is set up like mine and Nua’s, and my father lounges on the other bed. He grins at me, and I smile back sleepily. My mother yawns. “Who else is awake?”

“From what I can tell, no one,” I answer, sitting on the foot of my dad’s bed, and he raises his eyebrows. “You left your wife’s bed?”

Abigala’s lips tighten, but I just shrug. “I suppose I did, yes. They were both asleep, I didn’t want to bother them.”

My mother looks at me for a moment, then raises her eyebrows and draws her legs up onto the bed. She crosses them and leans her elbows on her knees. “Tell me about her.”

I tilt my head, glancing at my father, and he smiles slightly. “I’m curious about what you said, when you said that she died but didn’t actually die.”

“Ah, yes,” murmurs Abigala, and I smile slightly. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“We don’t have anything but time,” says my mother quietly. I smile slightly.

“When I first met her, she was sick. In her lungs. And she had two other husbands, Nua and then someone else named Keol. And she was afraid that he was getting sick, too, especially since she always blew smoke at us.”

“Smoke?” asks my mother, and I nod. “She used to chain-smoke. Like, a pack a day, or more.”

“You said she was sick in her lungs,” says my father, and I nod. “Yeah. See, when she found out that she was sick, her mother gave Penny away so he wouldn’t get sick too, and then she married Keol, along with another boy who she had known growing up. But he didn’t want to be married to her, and her mother scared him. He killed himself. And after that she kind of gave up.”

“You slept with her,” says my father quietly, and I shrug. “She mostly slept with Keol. He was always the prominent, from the time that I was there, until he died.”

“Oh,” says Dad softly.

“Who’s the prominent now?” asks my mother, and I shrug. “She didn’t pick one.”

“Really,” says my father slowly, and I nod. “She says she wants to do something different.

“Keol died,” I continue after a moment. “But not from the smoke or anything. Ava used to give him some of her medication, but when Miss Lilly found out she stopped giving her the one she gave him. So he died from withdrawal, and then Ava stopped taking her other medicine and she died pretty soon after too. But Miss Lilly had made a deal with the doctors, and Keol really loved her, and asked her mother to do whatever she could to save Ava. So they took Keol’s heart and a pair of healthy lungs from some other dead person and gave them to Ava and restarted her.”

“Wow,” says my mother softly.

“And she ran away with Sloan and Bayan’s help to find Penny, in his rebel camp. And then Bayan sent us there, too, and then we got Bayan out. And then her mother, who’s been, like, stalking Penny ever since she gave him away, sent a message through Bayan that said that she had Abigala. So we came back here.”

“And the rest is history,” murmurs Abigala through a yawn, and my mother smiles slightly. “Wow.”

“Do you love her?” asks my father, and I look at him for a moment, then at the ground. I shrug. “I don’t know. I like her.”

“That’s always good,” says my mother quietly.

“Why’d she get us out?” asks my father, and I open my mouth, then say, “Don’t ask me to explain what goes on inside her head.”

Mom laughs, standing up, and sits down beside me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. I lean my head against her, she’s comfortable, she’s familiar, she smells like I remember, and I feel her press a kiss to the top of my head. “We appreciate it.”

“Me, too,” I murmur.

“I can’t believe she didn’t tell you,” says Abigala softly.

“I don’t want to talk about her,” I say suddenly, I don’t know if she means telling me about my parents or my parents about me, but I don’t want to rehash that right now. “What about you?”

“What about us?” says Dad, making eye contact with his wife, and I shrug. “What happened?”

Mom sighs, I can feel it against my head, and says softly, “They arrested us as soon as they got into the shelter. That’s why we always slept in the front room.”

“You shouldn’t’ve,” murmurs Abigala. Dad smiles at her slightly, but lets Mom continue. “They took us into jail, they wouldn’t tell us what had happened to you, to the rest of the boys. They got people to testify against us. Even some of the boys that we had placed.”

“Oh,” I say softly. Dad grins sadly. “Not their fault.”

“No,” agrees Mom, smiling slightly. “Only a few days ago did we hear the conviction. We were getting ready to spend the rest of our lives in prison when you two showed up.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“I found Jimmy again,” I say suddenly, and Dad sits up, staring at me. “Jimmy?”

“Jimmy Fellner,” I say, remembering his wife’s name. “From home.”

“Yeah,” breathes Mom. “Oh, god, how is he?”

I open my mouth, and then remember his son. I tilt my head, and then say, “He’s good. Ava’s gotten him out, actually, we’ve found a few houses that aren’t real agencies but aren’t illegal. We got him and Sina out.”

“Sina?” asks Dad, and I shrug. “Someone he came down to us with. But Dad.”

“Yeah,” says Dad.

“Did he ever tell you he had a kid?”

“What?” says Mom, looking down at me, and Dad sits up. “What? No.”

“His wife had a kid,” I say, “and he ran away to us when they found out about it, and then they tested to see who was the father and it was him, so he ran away from the place Ava’s mother put him because he heard she, his wife, was going to come looking for him again. And Sina went with him because he was turning eighteen.”

“Oh, god,” whispers Mom, and I smile slightly, although I’m not amused. “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“Okay,” she says after a moment. “We can look into that.”

“Are you gonna work with her?” I ask, looking up at her. I know that Ava needs help, and I know that she got my parents out, and I know that my parents have more experience than she does in how all of these agency things work. Mom sighs, and smiles a little, and says, “I suppose. If she wants our help.”

“She will.”

“Well,” says Dad, stretching a little. “Let’s find out. You got anything to eat in this giant house of yours, Aber?”

I laugh, and nod. “Yeah. Come on.”

I bring them down to the kitchen. My mother comments that she can smell the smoke, now that I’ve mentioned it, and I laugh a little. “Yeah, it was…not good, a couple months ago, but ever since the new lungs she’s been able to hold back. What do you want for breakfast?”

“I don’t know,” says Dad as we go into the kitchen; he raises his eyebrows, looking around, he goes to look into the dining room, and then out the sliding glass door to the backyard, and I hear him say, “Wow.”

“What do you have?” says Mom, and I laugh. “I don’t know, eggs, yogurt, toast, cereal, fruit.”

“What do you usually have?”

“Usually Bayan cooks,” I say, more to myself at this point. “And Taymer’s been helping with that, too, since he’s been here.”

Dad scoffs a little, coming back to sit at the little table in the kitchen. “How many people live in this house?”

“Nine,” answers Ava, pushing through the door, Nua trailing behind her in his pjs looking sleepy. “Counting you two, now. And Sloan comes in and out every so often. And then there’s Penny’s dog and my cat. Morning.”

She comes to me and kisses me on the cheek, and Nua does too, yawning, and then rubs his eyes. “You must be Aber’s parents, I’m Nua.”

“Hey,” says Mom, taking his outstretched hand, and he shakes Dad’s hand too, and then goes into the fridge.

“Get me the eggs,” I say.

“I think,” says Mom, “I need to ask you a few questions, Ms. LeGatte.”

“Please,” says Ava, ducking under Nua’s arm as he holds open the fridge door, perusing the contents inside. “Ava is fine.”

“I’m sure she is,” says Mom. “Were you ever gonna tell us that you’re married to Aber?”

“Nua,” I say. “Eggs.”

“Eventually,” answers Ava. “We had more pressing concerns, though, when I was visiting you in jail.”

“I don’t think so,” mutters Dad, and I make a face at him, and then go to get the eggs myself. Nua pulls out a carton of milk and Ava gets busy spooning her yogurt into a bowl. Mom watches us for a moment, and then says, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” answers Ava.

“When’s your birthday?”

She squints her eyes, thinking, and then says, “Two weeks ago? July 5th.”

“Oh,” says Dad, looking at Mom, and then he looks at Nua. “You?”

“Twenty-two,” he says, rummaging in the cupboards for a glass. “Almost. August…”

“Eighteenth,” supplies Ava. “Hey, Aber, what about you?”

“What about me?” I say, finally cracking a few eggs onto a frying pan on the stove, and Nua comes up and looks at what I’m doing. “You never said anything about your birthday, you’ve been here almost a year now.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess.”

“February 28th,” says Dad, glancing at Mom, and I take the carton of milk from Nua. “We were underground, we weren’t keeping track of the days.”

“You never mentioned your birthday,” says Ava slightly accusingly, and I laugh. “We had way too much else to be worried about down there.”

“You two are just alike, aren’t you,” mutters Dad.

“Did you say underground?” says Mom. Ava laughs, going back to the fridge for her blueberries, and suddenly Bayan is there by the fridge too, when did he get here, he passes the container to her and says, “Miss Ava, you don’t need to pick out the best ones.”

“You don’t need to call me Miss Ava, but here we are,” she says, poking through the blueberries. She tosses the biggest fattest juiciest ones into a little strainer, and washes them, and then dumps them on her yogurt. I dump my eggs onto a big plate and put the frying pan in the sink, and Ava heads to the door.

“Where are you going?” asks Nua.

“Work,” she calls over her shoulder, and the door swings shut behind her.

I turn back to my parents, who are staring at me. After a moment I say, “This is Bayan.”

“Right,” says Dad slowly. “And…”

“You just haven’t met Penny yet,” I say, setting the plate of eggs down between him and Mom with a few forks. Abigala grabs one too and digs in, she’s been quiet all morning, but there’s not much for her to say. I wonder when we will talk about her. Bayan puts some bread in the toaster. Dad picks up a fork, looking at me still, and I say, “He’s Ava’s brother.”

“The twin,” murmurs Mom, picking up a fork as well, and I nod. “Yup.”

Abigala grins at me, her mouth full of scrambled eggs, and Nua sits down with us too, a few pieces of his own toast on a plate. “Seems like everyone’s got a twin around here.”

“Not you?” asks Dad with a slight laugh, and Nua smiles too. “Nope. Just me.”

“How long have you been here?” asks Mom, and he shrugs. “Two years now, about.”

“How about you?” she asks, looking at Bayan, and he says, “Fifteen.”

Dad raises his eyebrows, and Bayan takes his toast out of the toaster and puts it on a plate. It’s probably not his toast, it’s probably for Penny. He does not say anything else, he just takes some butter and a knife and silently leaves the room, and Dad looks at me again. I shrug. “He doesn’t talk much.”

“Penny talks enough for the both of them,” says Nua, his mouth full, and I laugh. And my dad laughs, too. It’s been a year since I’ve heard my dad laugh, since I’ve seen my mom smile, and I missed it, I missed them. Mom just leans back in her chair, looking at Nua, studying him, he doesn’t seem to notice. Then she looks at me, and just shakes her head, and smiles. “I guess we got some things to get used to around here.”