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“Sometimes you’re sleeping. Then I get to wake you up, like Buzzy does.” The kid grinned wide.
“How does Buzzy wake her?” Chris asked the little girl.
“With a bucket of water. Cold water.” She giggled.
“Sounds mean,” Chris said.
“I started it, so I guess it’s my fault,” Agatha admitted. Sometimes having four sisters wasn’t easy.
“Didn’t think that one through?” Chris popped the last of his cookie in his mouth.
“I didn’t think everyone would still be living here as they approached their thirties.” She shrugged. They actually had more fun together after they were all out of their teens than during them. There had been way less taking things seriously once they turned twenty.
Chris turned from them and went to the fridge, then grabbed out a pop and set it down in front of Agatha. Agatha looked at it as if it might bite. The action was so unexpected of him, and she didn’t want to think of him as that thoughtful. Instead of dwelling on it, she sat on the stool nearby and opened it.
Chris looked around. “Must have been crazy in here with five grown women.”
“Six, counting Mom and Emma and Violet here. It was a madhouse sometimes, but it’s quiet now.” She looked around the room, too, recalling the fights and make-ups that followed.
“What is your favorite memory of living here, Violet?” he asked the little girl.
She scrunched up her brow and thought. “When Mom started the food fight, and everyone joined in and there were potatoes everywhere.”
“That took hours to clean, and I still find odd foods around the house.” She loved her sisters, and they loved food until it all turned to hate, and it started to fly.
“Food fight.” Chris grinned at her.
“Yup, though Maby tackling Ag last weekend was fun.”
Agatha pulled her phone from her pocket. Maby had shut it off before its bath, which sometimes helped. This was one of those times.
“I would have liked to see that.” Chris was looking right at her as if he could see it happening.
“You just missed it. Ag called Cliff and told him you were sleeping in Maby’s bed. Then Maby dove over the table and tackled Ag to get her phone away from her.” Violet laughed.
“She can hit hard when she wants to.” Agatha shrugged and accepted that he knew it happened now.
“Are you excited to be a big sister, Violet? Since you’re so used to being a little sister?” Chris turned his attention to Violet, ignoring the funny story. Was it because she had overreacted when he had laughed at her?
“Yes, even though it is a boy. He won’t be the first boy in the family, but I don’t know when there will be another girl,” Violet told him, all serious.
“Boys can be fun too,” Chris said.
“No, they cannot. Boys are annoying.” Violet crossed her arms.
“I bet baby brothers are probably fun.”
“Do you have a brother?” Violet asked him.
“Yes, a younger brother and older sister.” He told her.
“Is your brother annoying?” Violet asked, taking a third cookie from the plate, though she knew the two-cookie rule.
“Yes, he is. I guess you’re right.” Chris threw up his hands. “Agatha, is there any way I could do a load of laundry before I have to walk around naked? I know that is against the rules.”
“You wouldn’t be the first to break that one,” Agatha admitted.
“You?” Chris asked.
