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He came to him and hugged him. Daniel could tell that he was crying, but he’d bet his life that he was both overwhelmed and happy at the same time. He knew that he would be as well. When he pulled away, he grabbed him again and told him that he loved him so much.
“And I, you, son. You’ve been a great son-in-law and a better man than anyone I’ve come across. Thank you for taking such good care of my little girl.” They both laughed, and he asked if they had names yet. “I mean, you did know that you were having triples, I’m assuming.”
“Twins. We thought we were having twins. Even the doctor was surprised when the girls were born one right after the other.” Patting him on the back and wiping away his own tears, Daniel asked if he could see Sen. “Yeah. She was sleeping when I left her, but she told me to bring you in right away with Luke. Did he make it here?”
“He’s on his way.” He thought about the young man who was going to run for the presidency after serving as governor of Ohio within the next decade. There was no doubt that he’d do it too. Right now he was studying to get a doctorate in the law because he wanted to be prepared when he hit the White House. For a sixteen year old, he had his life pretty much mapped out better than he ever had. “Did he tell you that he’s going to be taking on a large case? I still see him as that little boy that was in need of male companionship, and here he is driving and going to one of the most sought-after colleges in the nation.”
As if he’d summoned him to them, Luke showed up and hugged everyone. As they made their way back to Sen’s room, Luke was telling them how traffic had been backed up for miles because of an accident on the highway.
“However, it didn’t appear to have any fatalities at least. Just a lot of banged up people that were standing alongside of the road.” Daniel told him not to mention that to his sister, or she’d be wanting to go to the ER and help out. “Don’t you know it? Getting her nursing degree had made her the happiest but she doesn’t take that many breaks.”
All of the Branch girls, well now they were all for the most part married, had gone into some kind of medical field. He’d never been more proud of anyone than he’d been at them. Daniel entered Sen’s room and noticed that she was still sleeping. However, the babies were there, and he couldn’t help but to peek in on the three of them.
“You can hold her.” He grinned at Sen when she struggled to sit up in bed. Daniel knew better than to offer her his help. They were still independent and would murder you in your own bed if you offered to help anyone of them. “We’ve not named one of the girls yet. And as you suggested, we didn’t name either one of them Abby. I think there are enough in this family as it is.”
“Yes, I think that we all have at least one child named after her.” Daniel picked up one of the girls and handed her to Sen when she asked. After Luke had a seat, he handed him the other girl, and he sat down with the little boy. “My goodness, young man, you’re going to be a heartbreaker. Look at all that hair you have already.”
Stripping the baby down to his bare skin except for his diaper, Daniel counted his fingers and toes. Also, because he couldn’t break the habit of being a doctor even though he had been retired for a little while now, he checked his heart and lungs. When looking at the child’s face, it looked as if he was fully aware that he’d not been ooh and awing over him but giving him a full workup.
“When will Mom be back? It seems like she’s been gone forever, and I know it’s only been a couple of days.” He told her that she was on her way home now. That the assignment was over on this case. “I’m so proud of her for doing what she does for the government. I’ve seen some of her videos online. I know that I can’t tell anyone that it’s her, but I’m very proud of her.”
“I am as well. However, I think this is the last one that she’s doing. She’s sick of missing out on important events.” Luke said that the baby he had had pooped. “Well? Change her. I know you know how to do it.”
“Gross, no, I’m not changing her diaper. Yuck. I might get it on my hands or something.” He took his sister’s baby and handed her the dirty diapered one. “You do it. She’s your kid.”
Daniel took the little girl and changed her himself. Also, doing a thorough examination of her, he was happy that she was as healthy as her brother had been. Once he had her snapped into her clothing again, he took the other child and changed her, too.
“You’re going to have to tell them when they’re older that you checked them out after the doctors and nurses did it. They’ll think it’s funny that grandda had to make sure that they weren’t duds.” He kissed Sen on her forehead before taking the little boy back and holding him. “I love you, dad. I always have.”
“And I love you too. After their time was up, the staff saying that Sen needed her rest, he remembered to take their pictures. Lying them side by side, he took about ten pictures that way and alone. Then he laid them in Sen’s arms with their blankets off and took one of her holding her babies. He couldn’t wait to show the others his newest grandbabies.
His phone was passed around for about an hour. Cassie showed up just as he got it back and took it from him again. She, of course, cried not just for missing out on seeing them born but also that she was a grandma again. Everyone thought that they were too young to be grandparents, but he didn’t care. They called him that, and he was thrilled beyond words that he had that title, too.
On the way home, Cassie was telling him about the special assignment she’d been asked to do. No names were given to him, but details. She had been assigned to fly a drone over some houses that the feds were fearful of making bombs and other explosives that were being built there.
“Even the main house on the farm was full of bomb making equipment that they were lucky it didn’t explode with all the heat in the house. They were actually growing pot in the basement as well as storing large amounts of cocaine, too. It was a bomb just waiting for the opportunity to go off.” He asked her what had happened to it. “When I left, they had hazmat there, taking things out one at a time. They’re going to have to kill the animals that lived there as a decoy. One of the vets that had come along with us said that they’d been breathing that stuff in since birth and would need a fix like a newborn child would be if the mother had been doing drugs when she carried them. This world is messed up.”
“I agree.” Pulling into the garage when they got home, he was surprised to see a great many mail-order-like boxes on the front steps. “What have you ordered now? Not that I care, but I’m going to be the one that has to carry things in, so hopefully, it’s not too heavy.”
“It’s the stuff that I ordered for the Fourth of July picnic that we’re having. Mostly, it’s paper plates and décor. I think that all of us getting together with the townspeople is going to be a yearly event. It’s going to be that fantastic. I’m so glad that we thought of it before Caleb did. I love getting ahead of him.” He did as well, and it had been like that since he’d come to this area to be with his family. “Oh, and Liz’s things too. With her starting school this fall, she’ll need to get uniforms and shoes. I can’t believe our baby girl is ready to start first grade already.”
Daniel refused to think about that. To him and his way of thinking, she was still just a baby telling him to read to her every night. His brothers had been making fun of him since it had been mentioned that she’d be dating in a few more years, and he’d slapped them in the back of the head. How dare they say something like that to him. She wasn’t ever going to date, nor was she ever having sex. He was going to put his foot down with that notion.
~*~
Cassie sat by the headstone that proclaimed that her brother had lived for only a short period of time. He’d been thirty-one when he’d been killed. It still, after all these years, hurt her to remember that she had lost him. Like every time before, she brought him a small duck. She’d finally had to purchase a basket for them, there had been so many. It had been his favorite toy from baby until he was murdered. There had been hundreds of them in his house when she and Daniel had moved in.
Once she had all the weeds pulled from his gravesite, she leaned back in the chair that she’d brought with her so that she could rest a bit. Wiping away the tears that were coming more and more because she was pregnant again, she told Bradley that she loved him.
“Sen had her baby last week. Well, her babies. Two little girls and one son. We couldn’t believe that she’d named her baby boy Daniel Benson Bradley Hutcheson. It’s a mouthful, but I think he’ll have no trouble growing into it. The girls are Emma Cassandra and Emily Grace. I love the names. You’d end up calling them EC and EG just to be confusing for us all.” She laughed and noticed a couple sitting on the ground near a headstone similar to her brothers.
Cassie also knew that it was a baby girl who had been killed in a car accident along with her older brother. It must have been her birthday today. They had cake and candles there for her, too. She looked at her brother’s grave again.
“The ex-president is in prison, much to his disappointment. He’s told everyone that he sees that he was innocent of the things that they caught him at. But no one believed him, I guess. He can’t have a trial, either. The government body doesn’t want the public to know that they’d elected a murderer and he was in office for two terms.” She saw the young woman coming toward her with a slice of cake in her hand. If she was here when they visited, they always shared what they had brought for their children.
“Meggie would have been three today, and Jess would have been nine.” Cassie told her that her brother had been gone for just over six years. “Yes, well, it’s hard on those of us that are left behind, don’t you think? I miss them every day. Does the grief ever go away?”
“No, it does soften a bit more over time, but you still miss them, and it hurts.” She nodded. This was the first time since Cassie had been seeing them here that they’d ever spoken of their losses. “There are days when I’ll think of him and smile. Thinking about something he would have said to me before laughing like a braying jackass and it will bring a smile to my face. Then, other times, I can have the same thought about him, and I’ll cry my heart out. But it’s easier now, too. I have my own husband and children to help with it, the depression. Thankfully, I have an entire family of babies and adults around that I can hold, too.” Nodding, the other woman looked away before turning toward her again.
