Page 13

May 2nd, 2027

“Maaamaaaaaaaa,” Luna’s voice sounded from the hallway and Lynn heard the thuds of her small feet hammering on the wooden floor. A couple of moments later her daughter rounded the corner at high-speed, a white paper held out in front of her while she made a beeline for Lynn.

“Looks like someone’s really excited to finally be home, huh?” Lynn smiled at her daughter as she welcomed her with open arms. She had just started to get everything ready for lunch when Nate returned with the girls. He had picked them up at daycare just like every day.

Even though today seemed to be like every other day, May 2nd was a day Lynn always tried to take off to be at home with her husband, because on that day 16 years ago, Nate had been kidnapped by Aiman az-Zawahiri. Exactly sixteen years ago the worst three months of Nate’s entire life had started, the time that he thought had broken him beyond repair and still haunted him till this day.

“I made this for you,” Luna said with a big grin on her face when she came to a halt in front of her mother, the paper still in her outstretched hand.

Lynn grabbed the paper and turned it around. Scattered over it she found several stickers, combined with different colored drawings. The background was almost completely covered in navy blue, although Lynn could see some white and black as well.

“This looks beautiful, Luna! ”

“It’s you,” the girl added.

“Me?”

“Fleur said we should draw something that reminds us of our parents. Ann made Daddy and I made you.”

Curious about her daughter’s statement, Lynn invested a little more time to take in all of the different stickers Luna had put on the drawing; a bird sitting in its nest with hatchlings and some unhatched eggs around it, some flowers that reminded her of the bouquets that Nate got for her every week, a bed, a stethoscope, a and cat wearing glasses and a doctor’s coat.

“Wow, you captured me pretty nicely, Baby. Good job,” she said with a smile before engulfing Luna in a big hug, but the little girl didn’t want to be hugged as she was too excited to explain every detail of the drawing.

“It’s blue because you always have blue clothes and I even found this cat. I had to fight with Timothy about it, because his dad is a doctor too, but you’re the cooler one, Mama.”

Luna’s eyes were shining so brightly that Lynn couldn’t stop herself from smiling. The drawing was so thoughtful, especially for someone her age, that she hadn’t expected it to be so detailed and fitting. The Pediatrics had told her that the girls were further in their development than their age, but she didn’t realize exactly what that meant.

“I don’t know about that, Baby.”

“He’s a dentist.”

“Well, then you’re right. I am cooler than him,” Lynn laughed while pressing Luna’s drawing to her chest with pride.

“No one likes dentists,” Nate’s disgusted voice came from the other side of the room and Lynn watched him enter with another drawing in his hands.

“But we like getting our teeth checked every year, Honey,” Lynn responded, shooting her husband a warning glare.

“Of course we do. ”

He passed the drawing in his hands towards her with a shit-eating grin before leaning in and pressing a light kiss to her nose.

Lynn studied the paper in her hands, seeing some stickers of a swing, and a man carrying a child on his shoulders. She could also see a penguin right next to a heart sticker. Ann had captured her father perfectly and Lynn’s heart was warmed by the fact that the girls only ever saw the new version of Nate and not the broken soldier he used to be.

For Luna and Ann, their father was the guy who threw them around in swimming pools, who pretended to help them do a 360 on the swing while whispering that they couldn’t tell Mama, and who cuddled in bed with them every morning before making sure she wouldn’t feed them broccoli for breakfast.

For the girls, Nate was sunshine.

Even though they had witnessed one of his nightmares, it hadn’t had any lasting effects on them, because in this picture there was no evidence of Ann seeing her father as an unstable PTSD patient that dealt with anxiety attacks on a daily basis.

“Where is our little Picasso?” Lynn asked with a smile of her own.

“She went upstairs because she wanted to draw another one. Said that the stickers in daycare weren’t good enough for the one she had in mind.”

Lynn raised an eyebrow at her husband, but nodded in response.

“Darling, I have to head over to Oliver’s to help him with renovation. You okay with me leaving you alone with the girls?”

“What about lunch?”

“We’ll order pizza later.”

“Okay. Go help Oli. I’ll be fine.”

Nate drove his fingers through Luna’s hair, messing it up on purpose while the girl groaned and giggled in response, before he placed a loving kiss on his wife’s mouth.

“Love you,” he whispered on her lips .

The heat of his words sent a shiver down Lynn’s spine. Even after all these years the man didn’t need to do much to make her knees buckle.

“Love you more,” she returned before they broke apart and Nate headed towards the hallway.

“Bye, Little Star, I’ll be back in a few hours,” he shouted up the stairs and Lynn could hear a faint “bye Daddy” in response.

“So, we’re having a girls day, huh?” Lynn smiled at her daughter, who was occupied with taming her hair after her father’s “vicious” attack.

“Girls’ daaaaaaay,” Luna exclaimed and jumped up and down.

“Will you go get Ann and then we can finish making lunch together?”

“What’s for lunch?” Luna asked, as if the answer were crucial whether she would get her sister or not.

“Chicken fajitas,” Lynn answered.

The kid tilted her head to the side just a little, as if she was seriously thinking if she was okay with the dish or not.

“Ok,” she yelled, before sprinting out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

“Be careful,” Lynn shouted after her, but it had no effect.

Instead of going after her daughter, she continued making lunch. It didn’t take long for her to hear more footsteps out in the hallway, accompanied by excited voices from her daughters, who rushed down the stairs to help in the kitchen. Or maybe they were just hungry; Lynn didn’t care.

Ann was the first to enter the living area with another paper in her hands that she proudly showed to Lynn.

“Luna helped me with Daddy’s but I couldn’t help her with yours, so I made one for you as well,” the little girl explained.

Lynn placed the kids’ wooden step-stool next to the stove, helped Luna climb it, and gave her the spatula. Luna stirred the onions and peppers in the pan so Lynn could look at Ann’s drawing without being distracted.

A while ago she had bought the girls some medical themed stickers, so it wasn’t a big surprise that she found a bunch of them on the drawing. She also found some food, hearts in various colors and a sticker that represented a family. The only thing Lynn didn’t understand right away was the cute little ghost that was placed next to a sticker of a doctor.

“What does the little ghost mean, sweetie?”

“It’s Auntie Ann,” her daughter responded with a wide grin on her face, that she had definitely inherited from Nate, because it looked exactly the same as her husband’s.

“Oh,” Lynn breathed, and for a short moment the reminder that her sister was dead felt like someone squeezed her heart a little too tight.

She gained control over her emotions quickly, so that she could give Ann a kiss as thanks, and placed the drawing on top of Luna’s that was lying on the dinner table.

Her second daughter joined the first on the stool in front of the stove, so she placed the chicken inside the pan too and let it sauté. No onions or peppers were burned as Luna was highly dedicated to her role as chef, and probably to having a tasty lunch, because that girl prioritized food above a lot of other things.

With a little help from Lynn, the girls finished making lunch and put plates and glasses as well as the tortillas and the chicken fajita mix on the dinner table. Although Lynn tried to maintain a straight face, the sudden reminder of her sister made her mind wander into a host of memories.

“Your Auntie Ann hated peppers,” she commented while helping to stuff a tortilla for each of the girls.

“Why?” Luna asked, curious .

“We never knew why, but she wasn’t able to digest them normally, so she had stomach pains every time she ate peppers. That’s why we avoided cooking them as much as possible.”

“Oh nooooo, but they are so yummy,” Luna responded with a slight grimace on her face.

“Yeah, what a shame,” Lynn laughed.

“Tell us more about Auntie Ann,” her other daughter requested.

“Oh yes,” Luna added before taking a huge bite of her tortilla. That girl…

“Did I tell you the story of when Auntie Ann got a tattoo without our parents knowing it?”

“What’s a tattoo, Mama?” Ann asked.

“A tattoo is like a drawing on your skin, but it’s permanent. Meaning you can’t wash it off. It’s ink under your skin.”

“Oh like that one man we saw in the supermarket that had his arm full of drawings?”

“Yes, Baby. That man had lots of tattoos on his arm.”

Ann only nodded in response, patiently waiting for Lynn to continue the story about their aunt.

“Your Auntie had just turned 18 and, to celebrate, she asked me to go to a tattoo studio with her. She’d seen a blackbird tattoo that she wanted to have on her ribs.”

“What’s a blackbird?” Luna asked.

“It’s one of the birds we have in our garden, Little Moon. Hold on…” Lynn grabbed her phone out of her pocket and googled for a picture of a blackbird to show it to the girls. Both looked at the pictures with their mouths wide open, the food on their plates almost forgotten.

“Oh yes, I’ve seen these,” Ann said to her sister, while pointing at the phone screen.

“Me too,” Luna responded.

“There’s a band from the ‘60s called ‘The Beatles’ and they have a song called Blackbird. Your Auntie loved that song so much that she wanted to have a reminder of it on her skin every day. So right after her birthday we went to that tattoo store to get it done. She was super nervous because, not only was it her first tattoo, but our parents didn’t like tattoos and she knew they would freak out if they found out that she’d got it.”

“Why do Granny and Poppy not like tattoos?” Luna asked.

“They think that one day you’ll regret it, because it’s on your skin forever and maybe you won’t like it anymore when you’re older.”

Their parents had always been more on the conservative side and tattoos just didn’t fit into that. Lynn was sure that until the day she died her parents didn’t know that Ann had a tattoo. It wouldn’t have changed anything to be honest, as it was her sister's decision what to do with her body, but as the family had been through so much with Jensen’s OCD diagnosis, Lynn was sure that Ann didn’t want to upset them for ridiculous reasons.

“But then you can get a new one, right?” Ann intervened.

“Technically you can do cover ups, but that doesn’t work with every tattoo. So before getting one, you have to be very sure.”

“And Auntie Ann was sure?”

“Yes she was, Little Moon. She’d wanted that tattoo for over a year, but you’re only allowed to get one after you’ve turned 18 so she had to wait.”

“Did it look beautiful?” Ann asked.

“It did. It suited her so much, especially because of the meaning it had for her. Your aunt didn’t regret getting that tattoo her whole life.”

“Did she have more tattoos?” Luna was hard to understand with her mouth full of chicken fajita.

Lynn looked at her with a clear ‘we don’t speak with food in our mouth’ intention but her daughter only shrugged her shoulders in return.

“I don’t think so. I know she had some plans to turn her upper body into a botanical garden with different plants she liked, but with her job occupying more and more of her time, she never managed to get new ones.”

At least that was what Lynn remembered when she saw the lifeless body of her sister in the cell in Iraq, only covered by a ripped tank top and old blanket. There hadn’t been any other tattoos that caught her eye but, on the other hand, she’d been so consumed by the fact that she had been too late to save her sister’s life, that she wouldn’t be surprised if she missed a tattoo.

“Do you have one, Mama?”

“No, Ann. I don’t have any tattoos.”

“And Daddy?”

“Daddy neither.”

Although Nate had been doing so much better with his PTSD, the fear of needles remained and getting a tattoo would have been impossible for him. Lynn was sure he’d never be healed enough for that. But that was okay.

After the tattoo story, the girls decided to focus on getting some of the food in before it was too cold to enjoy it, so the dinner table fell into a comfortable silence. Despite their well-known hate for anything green, the girls were actually pretty good eaters and even enjoyed the onion-heavy chicken fajitas, something not many other kids would eat. Maybe the secret ingredient of Marta’s home-made salsa made the difference.

When they were done with lunch, they cleaned the table together and each of the girls were allowed to have one item out of the sweets stack that was stored in a kitchen drawer. Luna went for a small bag of Sour Patch Kids and Ann chose a Snickers. Lynn grabbed herself two Snickers as well and the three made their way towards the couch where they snuggled under a blanket with a book that the girls chose.

Reading a book to the girls was one of Lynn’s favorite activities and she loved that both kids enjoyed this time as well. Whether it was bedtime stories or reading a book throughout the day, both loved to hear their favorite stories over and over again. Today they chose a ‘hide and seek’ book about animals on a farm. Ever since the zoo visit, the girls were even more into animals than before and were forever asking for facts about specific animals. Neither Nate nor she could answer most of them but, thankfully, they’d become experts in secretly Googling with their phones on their thighs while pretending to know the answer. Both of them had learned more about animals in the past few months than in their entire lives.

“Fleur has a black dog, too,” Ann commented when they were going through the pets that lived on the farm in the book.

Fleur was the girls’ daycare teacher and the two adored her. Lynn and Nate liked her as well, because Fleur was one of the rare people out there that actually loved their job and put everything into it. Her smile was addicting and the girls had told them multiple amazing stories about Fleur already.

“Really? What’s the dog’s name?”

“Loki!” Both girls exclaimed loudly.

“That’s a cute name.”

“One time she brought him with her and we were all allowed to pet him and give him treats. He was so fluffy,” Ann explained.

“I want to have a dog too, Mama,” Luna added and it wasn’t a big surprise for Lynn.

That demand was inevitable, because the girls were in love with every dog they ever saw out on the street. She and Nate had thought about getting one but, with the insecurity of whether Nate would go back to the CIA or not, they didn’t want to get another living being to take care of. As much as both of them would love to see the girls growing up with an animal, it wasn’t the right timing for a dog. Maybe they’d go for a cat, as cats were way more independent and with their garden and the safe and secure neighborhood they were living in, an outdoor cat would be the perfect choice, but the kids had more of a connection to dogs than to cats, so they weren’t sure .

They’d postponed the decision for now.

“I know, Baby, but we don’t have enough time for a dog right now. Maybe when you’re older, okay?”

Both girls shot her a pout in return, but she could live with it. It was the right decision. Thankfully neither of the girls decided to throw a tantrum and Lynn thanked the universe for it. She wanted to enjoy their girls day for as long as possible without the girls freaking out over not getting a dog.

“Then we have to ask Fleur to bring Loki more often,” Ann said to her sister who nodded frantically in return.

“I can talk to Fleur, if you want to?” Lynn suggested.

“Yeeeeeeeees,” Ann and Luna answered in unison.

“Okay, I’ll talk to her as soon as I see her. Promise!”

“Mama?” Luna asked.

“Yes, Little Moon?”

“Is Fleur your sister, too?”

Lynn furrowed her brows and it took her more than one moment to understand where that question came from.

On the last parent’s day at daycare, Fleur had told them that her last name was ‘Summers’ which was Lynn’s maiden name. It was a funny coincidence, especially as Lynn hadn’t met anyone else with that name other than her family members.

“Not that I know of, Luna. But we have to ask Granny and Poppy next time we meet them if they’ve hidden any secret family members from us,” Lynn laughed in response.

“Maybe Fleur is a superspy and that’s why Granny and Poppy haven’t told you about her,” Luna suggested.

The more time the two spent with Oliver and Marta, the more they got to know about superheroes, spies, and science fiction stuff that the two used to watch a lot.

“Yeah maybe. ”

“It would be so cool if Fleur was your sister. Then we could cuddle Loki as much as we wanted,” Ann added to the conversation and all three of them laughed.

“Yeah, that’d be cool,” Lynn agreed.

The three girls spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about other creative scenarios that would explain why Fleur’s last name was also ‘Summers’ and, the more they thought about it, the weirder the stories got. From Fleur being an unknown twin of either Ann or Lynn and being kidnapped out of Thea’s belly during pregnancy by aliens, to secret adoption programs from the government that turned Fleur into a superspy whose job it was to protect the twins from the bad guys Oliver and Nate used to hunt. Most of the stories were created by Lynn, but she was surprised how much creativity the girls included into them.

When Nate returned home later that evening, he found all three of his girls asleep on the couch and carried them one by one into their bed in the master bedroom. They’d been so out of it from all the scenarios they’d created that not even Lynn woke when he carried her up the stairs. Luna was the only one slightly mumbling about aliens in her sleep, but Nate didn’t mind. He placed them all under the big blanket and snuggled in between them, his arms wrapping around his entire world.