Cecelia heard a dull thud and her mother screaming. Her green eyes shot open and she jumped out of bed, running to her parents' bedroom. The sight would scar her forever.
Her father was lying on the ground and he wasn't moving, not even to breathe while her mother was kneeling by him, sobbing.
"Dad!" Cecelia cried as she moved next to her mother. "Dad, please, wake up!" She cried as she tried nudging him awake as she had done so many times before. Her tears were now flowing openly.
"Mom, you have to call 911. You're the only one who saw what happened. I'll wake up Mattie." She said, already getting up to wake her younger brother.
"Okay, Cici." Her mother agreed, also getting up. Cici heard her mother calling and she picked her brother up out of his crib.
"Cici? What happening?" He asked in his limited vocabulary.
"Dad's gone to the moon. He won't be coming back." She said, using the age old lie.
"Why he not come back?" Mattie asked.
"You know how he sometimes has to work really late?" She asked her brother who nodded. "It's just the job that they're having him do." Cici lied. Mattie nodded, satisfied.
Before long, they were ushered out of the house by the police. "Do you know how your father died?" An officer asked Cici while she was holding her brother.
"Shh!" She hissed, gesturing to her brother who was only just barely awake. It only took a few minutes more for Mattie to fall asleep. "No, I don't know how my father died. I just woke up when I heard a thud and my mom screaming "Cici explained.
The officer nodded and moved away. Cici carried her brother over to where their mother was sitting in the back of an ambulance, an orange shock blanket draped around her shoulders.
"Mom? Are you okay?" Cici asked. She didn't get an answer, which surprised her.
An ambulance attendant explained that her mother had gone into shock and that she'd be taken somewhere where they could help her, but that Cici and Mattie needed someplace else to stay.
"Well, there's our uncle, our dad's brother. His name is Devon Miles. But we haven't seen him in a while." Cecelia said.
The ambulance attendant laughed a bit. "That's okay." He said
The two children were taken to an office in police headquarters where they'd stay until their uncle came for them. A man was about to call Mr. Miles then, but Cici protested."It's 2 in the morning. He's probably asleep." The agent agreed to call Devon the next morning and the exhausted six year old fell asleep.
The next morning began as any other did for Devon Miles. He got up, got dressed and was about to have breakfast when the phone rang. Puzzled, he answered it. A man on the other end informed him of the tragic death of his younger brother and the need for someone to take care of Cecelia and Matthew. Devon, of course, agreed and it was agreed that he would be in Phoenix to pick the kids up as soon as possible.
Two hours later, he was disembarking the plane and had hailed a taxi to the police headquarters. Devon was directed to an office in the back and saw the two children, asleep.
The girl, who was six if he remembered correctly, had straight blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders and a tanned skin from playing outside. The boy, who was three, was just as tanned and had the same shade of blonde hair as his sister, though his was much shorter. They were both wearing pajamas that looked very wrinkled.
"You're Devon Miles, right?" The police officer in charge asked. In response, Devon nodded.
"How long has it been since you've seen these kids?" The officer asked.
"It's been four years since I've seen Cecelia and I haven't actually met Matthew." Devon answered.
The officer nodded and took this down. He had Devon fill out some paperwork and prove that he really was Devon Miles before the man could take the kids home.
When the two men got back to the room, Cici was doing a Sudoku puzzle and half humming to her brother who was trying to balance on one foot. Just as he was about to fall, Cici stuck one leg out and caught him.
"Aha!" She exclaimed triumphantly.
"What, sis?" Mattie asked.
"I finished the puzzle." She explained, ruffling the boy's hair.
Devon cleared his throat, alerting the children to his presence.
"Uncle Devon!" Cici exclaimed, rushing over and throwing her arms around her uncle's legs. He awkwardly patted her back and the officer in charge laughed a bit and muttered something about Devon not knowing what he was getting himself into.
Devon took them to their house where he had them pack a suitcase of clothes and change into clean clothes while they were at it. Not surprisingly, Cici was done first and had to check Mattie's suitcase. She pushed him out of his bedroom and started packing for him. When she came out a few minutes later, Mattie began to talk about not having his special teddy bear, so Cici packed a bag with some things that she knew that she couldn't live without and told Mattie to do the same. After she inspected his bag (she had to remove several sandwiches and some other food) she talked to the neighbor woman about taking care of the house while they were away, because no one knew how long their mother would be in the mental hospital. The neighbor woman agreed and the small group of Miles' went to the airport and, by extension, San Francisco.
As it turned out, Devon had a large house with plenty of room for raising two relatively young children, even if they were both rather mature. For the first few weeks, Mattie and Cici shared a room and bed while a more suitable bed was being set up for Mattie. Over the course of the next six months, both bedrooms were transformed from stark, boring bedrooms into places that reflected both children's tastes.
It wasn't long before Devon needed someone to watch the children while he was at work, so he took them over to the mansion of some friends of his. Their mansion was about the same size as Wilton Knight's and they had three children. Twins, the same age as Cici and a girl that was Mattie's age.
When he introduced the children, Cecelia was surprisingly shy, but Rory's outgoing personality and confidence had him, Cici and Rory's twin sister Sage getting on like a house on fire. Mattie, meanwhile, was talking with Melody, the youngest girl, with some trepidation. After all, girls had cooties. It wasn't until 20 minutes later when Cici patiently explained that there were no such things when he finally played happily with Melody.