Vinnie and Theresa sat on the couch, Gary with them. Bea sat in an armchair. The girls sat on the floor. Joe sat in the other armchair and I perched on the arm.

Everyone stared at everyone else and sipped their coffee.

Vinnie had eaten two pieces of coffee cake before I said, “Bea, the girls need to go to get their school supplies. We waited for you to get here because we thought you’d like to come with.”

“Yeah, we need notebooks and pens and rulers and stuff. You always came with us to get our school supplies,” Keira reminded her and Bea smiled at her granddaughter.

“That’d be just fine.” Then she pulled in a visible breath, her smile turned timid and looked at Theresa. “Theresa, would you, uh… like to come with us?”

Theresa glowed. “I’d love to.”

“Good,” Vinnie declared, “gives Cal and Gar and me a chance to do man stuff.”

I bit my upper lip, wondering how Gary would take to being nicknamed “Gar”, not to mention being sucked into “man stuff” with two men he didn’t know when he’d come down to see the girls and me.

“Like what?” Kate asked.

“Anything that doesn’t include shoppin’,” Vinnie answered and Kate giggled.

“You can look after Mooch,” Keira suggested, Mooch in her lap squirming to get out in order to lay waste to something. “He doesn’t like to be in his box much.”

“What kind of dog is that?” Gary asked his granddaughter.

“American Husky,” Keira answered and Gary’s eyes came to me then they went back to Keira.

“What else?” Gary asked and Keira tipped her head to the side.

“What else?”

“Yeah, he got anything else in him?”

“Nope, pure bred,” Keira replied proudly and Gary looked back at me.

“That’s luck, Vi, finding a pure bred puppy at the pound,” he commented, knowing I didn’t have the money to buy a pedigree dog.

“We didn’t get him at the pound. Keira’s friend’s dog had a litter. She fell in love with them so Joe bought him for her,” I blurted, not thinking, too freaked out by the morning to watch my words.

“What?” Kate and Keira asked in unison.

“Shit,” Joe muttered as my body tensed and I looked at my girls.

“Um…” I started.

“Joe bought him?” Keira asked and the look on her face was a look I’d never seen before on my daughter. She had a great number of expressions. Her face always spoke volumes most of which I was fluent in. This one I was not.

“Um…” I repeated trying to read her expression and Keira looked at Joe.

“You bought him?” she whispered.

“Vi,” Joe murmured on a prompt, clearly not wishing to wade in this time.

I made a split second decision and it was the same decision I almost always made with my girls. Complete honesty.

“I, honey… I didn’t have the money. I knew you wanted him really badly but I couldn’t afford him. I told Joe and he thought you should have a puppy so he gave me the money so you could get Mooch,” I admitted, wishing this wasn’t playing out there, in the living room with Tim’s folks and Joe’s folks looking on. In fact, wishing it wasn’t playing out at all.

Keira and Kate were both staring at Joe.

Then suddenly Keira surged up and I jumped at her movement then froze, wondering what she was going to do. Mooch yapped and ran away and I watched in stunned silence as Keira threw herself full body at Joe. She ended with her knees to the floor, her body between his legs, her torso in Joe’s lap, her face in his chest, her arms wrapped around him and, before I could open my mouth or even move, she burst into tears.

“I knew you were always lookin’ out for us,” she cried into his chest, “I knew it!”

That lump hit my throat again but it was so big this time, it choked me.

Joe’s hand dropped to Keira’s hair and he bent forward. “Baby, hey,” he whispered.

“I knew it!” she sobbed into his stomach.

What I knew was this wasn’t about Joe and the dog. This was about my sweet, crazy, strong, beautiful daughter losing her Dad and losing her uncle and living in a world that was uncertain, being afraid of that world and needing something to hold onto. They’d been strong a long time, both my girls had. And I was proud of them. But even the strongest person in the world needed something to hold onto.

And the man who bought you the dog you always wanted was the perfect choice.

Further, my daughters’ sudden connection with Aunt Theresa and Uncle Vinnie wasn’t weird. It was them grasping onto any family they could get as the bedrock of their own kept shifting. It was just pure luck that Joe provided such excellent additions.

When Keira kept sobbing into Joe’s chest, I blinked away my tears as Joe twisted and handed me his coffee mug then he put his hands in her pits and hauled her up into his lap.

“Keirry, honey, what’s this?” Joe whispered into her ear when he had her in his arms and she’d burrowed in closer. He, too, knew it wasn’t about the dog.

She yanked her head out of his neck, looked at him and demanded in a fierce tone, “Don’t ever go away, Joe.”

At my daughter’s words, I felt my breath choke me so hard I heard it too and that choking sound wasn’t just coming from me.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, honey,” Joe replied gently.

“Promise!”

I hiccoughed with my effort to swallow back my tears and heard Kate’s small whimper in an effort to do the same.

“I promise,” Joe said, his tone just as fierce then he put an arm behind her knees and he straightened from the chair, Keira held to his chest.

I straightened too, murmuring, “Joe.”

“I got this, buddy.”

“Joe –”

“Got it,” Joe repeated and walked from the room down the hall.

I stood there, staring down the hall. Then I turned and stared at our group, seeing Bea and Theresa flat out crying. Gary and Vinnie were both looking at their laps. Vinnie had his arm around Theresa.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice sounding suffocated. Kate’s arm wrapped around my leg and she pressed in tight.

Bea got up and walked to me. Taking the mugs out of my hands, she said gently, “Nothing to be sorry for, Violet,” she gestured to a chair, “sit down, honey.”

I didn’t sit down. Instead, I bent down and pulled Kate up to her feet.

Then I told everyone, “Please, I’m sorry, we need a minute.”

“Anything you need,” Bea replied instantly.

I nodded, put my arm around Kate’s waist and led her down the hall to Keira’s room. Joe was in bed with a still crying Keira tucked into his side. His eyes came to us as we entered the room. Without hesitation, we all crawled into Keira’s double bed and curled into Joe.

It would be much later when I wondered why my girls and I did this and why it seemed so comfortable. Me, maybe, my girls, no.

And when I thought about it later, I would come to the conclusion that it just came natural because it was us and it was Joe.

In other words, the new us.

So when a situation became emotional, what else would we do?

After awhile, when the Winters girls got their shit together, I took my cheek from Joe’s shoulder and looked at his face.

“That didn’t go as planned,” I told him.

“Far’s I can see, buddy, it couldn’t have gone better,” Joe replied.

I looked at him and saw he believed what he was saying and his belief made me smile at him. Even so, my smile was shaky.

When Joe leaned into me, his kiss was firm.

When Joe was done kissing me and I was feeling a lot less shaky, Keira’s head came up from Joe’s other shoulder and she looked at him.

“Sorry I went all wussy on you,” she whispered, her eyes not quite catching his, her voice trembling and I realized that she was worried she’d disappointed him and my stomach lurched.

Joe’s arm went from around me and he turned toward Keira. Kate (who was tucked in front of me) and I came up on our elbows. We watched Joe put his hand to Keira’s jaw to tip her face up further toward him.

“Never bury somethin’ deep, baby,” he murmured. “Takes twice as much courage to be who you are, say what you think, feel what you feel and let it show then it does to bury it. That shit you been holdin’ onto will destroy you. You got a safe place to get rid of it, and you do, then you get rid of it like you just did. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Keira whispered, a shaky smile on her lips too.

I stared at Joe thinking maybe he was Superman.

There was the sound of a throat being cleared and we looked to the door to see Gary standing there.

“Um… sorry to interrupt, Joe, Vi, but… there’s a young man at the door. Says his name is Dane. I tried to –”

My body jolted when Kate screeched, “Aiyee!” and leaped from the bed, ran passed her grandfather and then disappeared.

Keira sat frozen against Joe for half a second then she followed her sister with just as much energy. Joe was not far behind but he was hindered since he was dragging me with him.

“I thought I told you!” we heard Kate shout as Joe hustled us down the hall.

“Katy –” we heard Dane.

“No!” Kate interrupted him. Then she asked a very familiar question. “Do you have your head sorted out?”

Oh shit.

There it was. Proof that my daughters were soaking up all things Joe.

We hit the living room and Theresa was standing behind Kate like a sentry. Bea was close too, though not as close as Theresa. Vinnie was standing by the television, his eyes on the scene playing out in front of him. Keira was sitting on her knees in the couch, facing the door. I felt Gary come up behind Joe and I but the minute we hit the room, Dane’s eyes shot to Joe and his face paled.