Here is chapter 36, I hope you enjoy it, and I'll update again as soon as I can. As usual I own nothing.
There was silence in the backseat the rest of the way home. The girls bathed and went down to watch TV while Patrick helped me hang their swimsuits up. "You didn't have to bad a time did you?"
"Actually it wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be, but I won't say I wasn't happy for an excuse to leave. How about you I saw that look in the beginning."
"Absolutely fine my dear," He kissed me, he tasted like beer, which meant I probably did to. "However the conversations were quite dull."
"Because you're just that much smarter than everyone else." I laughed, pulling him down the stairs.
"I never said that, I never said that at all."
"It was implied."
"I was merely stating I have little interest in lawn care and the stock market. I was however invited to join them for poker night on Mondays."
"No."
"No? How am I supposed to get to know the other men, it's for the kids."
"It will stop being for the kids when you steal all of their money."
"I know how to play without being obvious." He chuckled.
"Maybe I'll want your company at home on Monday nights."
"Well if that's your excuse, maybe I'll stay." He pulled me onto the couch to watch the girls show while William and Cass napped upstairs.
"What do we do about her?" I whispered nodding toward Alyssa, "About the barbeque."
"We have to talk to her, we knew it would be uncomfortable and not just for us. Something probably triggered a memory or someone said something. It comes down to do we want to talk to her now or let her cool off a bit."
"Alyssa sweetie do you want to talk about what happened today?" I sat up a little and untangled myself from Patrick.
"It wasn't fun anymore." She didn't even look away from the TV.
"Do you want to tell us why it wasn't fun?" I tried.
"Jacob started talking about his cool new step mommy and then everyone else started talking about their parents and Ella's dad works a lot but comes home to tuck her in and Abby's mom stays home all day to take care of her little brother. And they all have normal mommy's and daddy's and I don't get any!" She had curled up in between Patrick and I with her knees to her chest and tears falling down her face.
"I want a normal family." Emily whispered from her spot on the floor, Patrick invited her onto his lap and was silent for a minute.
"I have a question okay, and I need you guys to answer it, it's very important." He said after a minute, both girls looked up and nodded. "Can you tell me what a normal family is?" Both girls looked up at him in surprise, "I just really need to know." He shrugged.
"It's when there's a mommy and a daddy and then there are kids and they all love each other very much." Alyssa wiped the tears from her eyes.
"And the mommy and daddy protect the kids and are there for the kids and the kids love the mommy and daddy and everybody is happy." Emily added.
"I never knew that." Patrick nodded, and I realized where he was going with this.
"How did you not know that?" Alyssa whispered.
"Well I never had a mommy, and my daddy didn't do a very good job at protecting me, sometimes he even hurt me. I know he didn't love my mommy and I often questioned whether he loved me as anything other than a way to make money."
"Your daddy hurt you?" Emily frowned.
"Yep." He nodded, he had stated his childhood like it was a matter of fact, he had just come out and said I never knew if my dad loved me. I had thought it but I could never say that about my own life, my own dad.
"You know what I didn't know that's what a normal family was either." I wiped Alyssa's tears as Jane caught my eye.
"You didn't know either?" Emily looked over at me.
"Nope, my mommy died when I was little just like you guys, and then my daddy hurt me and my brothers and then he died too, and I had to raise my three little brothers all by myself." Neither girl said anything afterward.
"I know we aren't a normal family, we aren't your parents, but we love you and you know we're going to do everything we can to protect you right." Patrick broke the silence.
"That's almost like a normal family I guess." Alyssa crawled onto my lap.
"You know what being normal is overrated anyway." Patrick smiled, scooting into the space Alyssa had vacated with Emily on his lap.
"Of course you would say that." I laid my head on his shoulder.
"Is that because he's ec centric?" Emily looked up.
"Yeah that's because he's eccentric." I laughed, "But we wouldn't want him to be normal would we."
"Then we wouldn't get different pancakes every other morning." Alyssa giggled.
"I promise I won't get to normal if you guys don't." He kissed each of the little girls. "Come one we left the party early lets have our own."
"Okay!" Emily jumped out of Patrick's lap.
"What do you say?" I turned to Alyssa.
"I promise it won't be a normal party." Patrick lifted her off my lap and started messing with the radio dial until he found some Disney channel station. With that taken care of he lifted Emily into his other arm and the three of them started dancing around the living room. Patrick looked like a complete fool spinning around with the girls, but before I knew it I was getting pulled into their ridiculous dance. Before that party was over William had stumbled out of bed and I had my one dance partner for Patrick's two. Soon the girls were dancing on their own and Patrick was dancing with Cass. "One of these days you and I will dance together as a real couple." He smiled passing me while I spun with William.
"Okay I'll add dancing to the list with the theatre, before reminding you we never have any alone time." I answered, "We're raising four kids, and when we're not with them we're at work."
"Ahh yes the three oldest kids." He chuckled, and I just rolled my eyes, "You disagree?"
"Their not children Patrick."
"No but they'd react the same way if we told them mommy and daddy were having sex." He whispered.
"You sir, are impossible."
"That seems to be the general consensus."
"Patrick I'm hungry." Alyssa fell to the floor and then her sister fell next to her as if to single the end of dancing.
"Well let's see if we can find something simple to make for dinner what do you want?"
"I don't want dinner cause that means we have to go to bed afterwards."
"Well if your hungry and don't want dinner what do you want?" He set Cass in her rocker and laid down in between the girls.
"Ice cream!"
"Well to have ice cream we have to have dinner." William and I joined them on the floor.
"Chicken fingers!" William squealed crawling over his sister and I to get to Patrick, that boy was impossible to separate from Patrick now and I was torn between jealousy and how adorable the two of them were together.
"I think I can handle that. If that is okay with the ladies."
"Fine but only if we get ice cream." Alyssa pouted.
"And I'm not going to bed right away either." Emily nodded. In the end the kids didn't go to bed right after dinner they got to stay up and play a couple board games but got bored when they realized that Patrick was letting us all win whenever we played memory.
Tonight Patrick and I were laying in bed when I couldn't help but bring it up, it was something we never talked about it was almost an unspoken agreement that things before we met were talked about as little as possible. "What you told the kids today, that's what those scars are isn't it?" He followed my hand to his side.
"It usually wasn't that bad, that was just a really bad night." He whispered, he ran his hand over each of my scars, some were from work but most were from beer bottles thrown decades ago. "Yours are worse."
"Patrick that looks like it was a knife."
"It was one bad night he was drunk he lost a lot of money and I wasn't fast enough. It was nothing."
"Then the thing about your dad not loving you."
"What about it?"
"Did you mean that, my dad did terrible things but for some reason I still think he loved me."
"That's because you only see the best in people." He leaned over and started kissing every scar, "That's why I love you so much. You've seen the absolute worst in people and you still care about them."
"I think you're over exaggerating."
"I'm not at all." He finished with my scars and his lips found my neck. "You've seen me at my worst, you know what I've done and you still let me into your house, into your bed."
"You aren't as bad a person as you seem to think you are."
"You're not helping your case." He chuckled.
"I know you're a good person."
"I know who I am, and I know who you make me want to be." He was just watching me now, "Maybe someday I'll be that person you seem to think I am."
"I know exactly who you are, I'm waiting for you to see it to." I curled up in to his chest.
"I love you Teresa."
"Good night Patrick."