"I'm home!" Lee called, closing the door and hanging his coat up in the alcove.
"Daddy!" Molly shouted as she barrelled into him. She stretched her arms over her head and hopped up and down impatiently, waiting for her father to lift her into his arms.
Lee chuckled and hoisted her against his shoulder, smiling at her in confusion. "Steady on, princess. What's got you so excited to see me tonight?"
"No reason. I just love you so much!" Molly linked her arms around her father's neck and kissed his cheek. "You're the best daddy in the entire world!"
"Aw." Lee cocked his head knowingly. "What do you want?"
"Well, Amelia from my ballet class is having a harvest party at her uncle's house out in the country this Saturday. Everyone else who's been invited is already picking out their costumes, but when she gave me my invitation, she said I'd be too scared to go. The house is supposed to be haunted, and she didn't want her party ruined by babies like me. But I'm not a baby. I'm seven years old. And Mummy said I could only go to the party if you said it was okay. You'll let me go, won't you, Daddy?"
Lee blinked. "Right. Well…"
"Oh, please, Daddy?" Her face crumpled pleadingly, her bright hazel eyes large and round. She squeezed his neck even tighter, pushing out her lower lip piteously.
He sighed, nearly coming undone at the sight of his beautiful daughter's sad expression. "Of course I will. We can't let that witch Amelia think you're scared." He clasped her tighter and smiled. "What's more, you tell your mum to help you pick out the scariest costume you can find. I want all those brats to know Molly McKinnon is the life of the party. Amelia's going to rue the day she called my daughter a scaredy-cat!"
"Yay!" Molly wriggled in his arms, impatient to be put down. He carefully stooped down and released her, watching her run off into the kitchen just as Benji appeared from behind the stairs and chased after her.
"No fair! Why do you get to go to a haunted house?" He shouted, reaching out to catch at his sister's shirt.
They both nearly collided with their mother, who'd just appeared at the kitchen threshold. The twins sharply checked their speed and darted around her, sprinting out into the garden.
"Don't get too dirty! Dinner's nearly ready!" Lucy called to their retreating backs. Shaking her head, she turned back around to face her husband. "Well, I see you've fallen victim to Molly's charms once again."
Lee shrugged helplessly. "I know, but I didn't see any harm in it."
"For now, maybe. What are you going to do when she starts begging you for things like a moped, or a nose piercing, or a night over at her boyfriend's house?"
Lee shuddered and shot her an appealing smile. "Start crying and hope her mean old mum says no?"
"Gee, thanks." Lucy folded her arms. "Are you sure she's old enough to attend a party like this by herself?"
"What, you don't think the place is really haunted, do you?"
"Of course not!" Lucy shook her head. "But that's not going to keep Amelia and her friends from trying to scare the living daylights out of all the younger kids. I attended my share of harvest parties and I know how they go."
"Don't you worry about Molly." He nodded past her to the open garden door, where the girl could be seen now chasing after her brother. "Like her mum, she can give as good as she gets."
Lucy rolled her eyes. "Just go get dressed and washed up, will you?"
Lee turned towards the staircase just as Charlie finished descending from his room, bookbag in tow. He smiled at the boy. "Hey, son."
Charlie walked past him, his eyes trained on the floor. He offered nothing more than a monosyllabic grunt as he morosely passed through into the kitchen.
Lee frowned at Lucy. "What's up with him?"
"I don't know. He's been like that ever since he got home from school. I tried asking him about it, but all he said was something about presentations."
"Presentations?"
Lucy sighed. "Charlie's class are doing a unit on superheroes. They've been reading all the stories about heroes in classical mythology, like Hercules and Beowulf. This week, they're supposed to prepare an essay on their all-time favourite superhero to present to the class. Everyone has to dress up as the hero they've chosen and give the reasons why they're the best superhero in front of the parents at the autumn assembly this Friday night."
Lee closed his eyes and groaned. "Autumn assembly already?"
"Yes. And yes, you do have to come with me." Lucy held up a finger. "I'm not sitting through thirty kids in fancy dress reading their essay papers by myself. Besides, it will be cute to see all the ideas they come up with." She beamed. "There's even going to be a special prize for the best presentation, and you know what an excellent writer Charlie is."
Lee arched a brow, intrigued. "Oh? What's the prize?"
"A brand-new Kindle Fire. For reading all their assignments, of course, and totally not for surfing the internet and playing tablet games." Lucy smiled knowingly.
"And who's going to be judging them?"
"A real-life superhero – one of the Grenfell Tower first responders."
"Blimey." Lee nodded, impressed.
Lucy gestured over her shoulder. "Why don't you go talk to him really quick before you wash up? Charlie thinks the world of you. Maybe he'll be more willing to open up to his dad."
"All right." Lee sighed and slowly headed towards the kitchen. "I hope it's not girl trouble, or anything."
"Please. When has a day passed that girls have not given you two trouble?" Lucy teased.
Lee rolled his eyes and disappeared into the next room. He saw Charlie hunched over his notebook on the table, scribbling furiously. Lee pulled out the dining chair next to him and tentatively took a seat. "Mind if I join you?"
Charlie shook his head, not looking up from his work.
"Working on your essay?"
Charlie momentarily paused, shooting his dad an inquisitive look.
"Your mum told me about the autumn assembly."
"Oh. No," Charlie replied, turning back to his paper.
"Do you know who you're going to write about yet?"
Charlie shrugged. He hunched closely over the table, blinking fervently.
Lee huffed in frustration. "Come on, son. I know something's up. You aren't having any problems with Izzy, are you?"
"No." Charlie quickly shook his head. "She's busy writing her essay. She's giving hers on Supergirl."
"Right." Lee nodded. "Do you know what anyone else is doing?"
"Jake McKenzie's going to be Cristiano Ronaldo." Charlie rolled his eyes.
"Ronaldo?" Lee frowned. "He's not a superhero."
"He is if you're a Manchester United fan like Jake and his dad."
Lee shook his head. "I should've pegged him for a United prat, being a literal devil and all."
"I don't know who I'm doing yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something." Charlie slid a slip of paper towards his father, the top part of which was covered by other papers sitting on top. "So can you just sign off on my paper that I have to hand in for the assembly?"
Lee's brow furrowed. "Why is your class making the parents sign off on your essay topics?" He reached to pull the paper out from the stack, but Charlie quickly slammed his hand down on top of it.
"I don't know, they just do! Can you just sign it, please?"
"Let me see that paper, son. Something's not adding up here." Lee tugged at the sheet. Charlie frowned back at him defiantly, refusing to lift his hand.
"Just…sign…it," he growled.
"I'm not signing anything until I read it!" Lee met his son's gaze and held it. "I promise, whatever it is, that I won't get mad at you. I know it's tough. I didn't like making my mum sign off on all my detention slips when I was in school."
Tears burned in the corners of Charlie's eyes, which he quickly blinked away. Looking down in resignation, he sat back and released the stack of papers. "I wish it was just a detention slip," he muttered.
Lee pulled out the paper, burning with curiosity. He silently read the brief message before slowly looking over at his son. "Charlie…your teacher says you're having trouble reading the board in class. Is that true?"
"No!" Charlie crossed his arms. "I could read the board if I wanted to!"
"Then why don't you?"
Charlie shrugged sullenly.
"I guess they won't find any problems, then, if we take you to an optometrist like your teacher recommends?"
"No! Please, don't!" Charlie leapt to his feet. "Just sign it and let me give it back! Forget you ever read it!"
"Forget?! How can I forget that me own son is going blind?!" Lee angrily raised his voice, standing to loom over the boy. "How long has this been going on? How long have you been keeping this from us?"
Charlie ducked his head and darted out of the room. He brushed past his mother and raced up the stairs before slamming his bedroom door shut.
Lee, who'd followed him out, stood at the base of the stairs. "You stay up there until you're ready to give me some answers, young man! And consider yourself grounded indefinitely! No friends, no PlayStation, no YouTube, and no pudding! You hear me?!"
"What did he do? What did he say?" Lucy asked anxiously, coming up behind Lee. "What's going on?"
Lee thrust the note at his wife. "I don't know. You tell me!"
Lucy quickly scanned the message and closed her eyes. "Oh, God…"
"Did you know about this?!"
"I had my suspicions…Charlie has been blinking and squinting an awful lot lately, but I didn't think much of it." Lucy bit her lip.
"You didn't think much of it?! Lucy, why didn't you say something earlier?!" Lee cried, regarding her with incredulous rage.
"I didn't know it was affecting his classwork!" Lucy frowned at him defiantly. "And will you calm down?! It's not that big a deal!"
"Not that big a deal?! What if he has myopia? Who knows how much damage he's already done?!"
"Then we'll buy him a pair of glasses!" She forcefully took her husband's arm and led him over to the sofa. She thrust him down on the seat and glowered over him. "You have myopia. It's a very common condition. We shouldn't be surprised that Charlie has it, too."
"Exactly. I'm responsible for this." Lee dropped his head in his hands, his voice suddenly very small. "I was even Charlie's age when my eyesight started going off. I don't need to tell you what happened when I suddenly showed up at the schoolyard one day in a pair of NHS frames."
Lucy sat down next to him. "You weren't bullied over your glasses, were you?"
Lee lifted his head to shoot her a disgusted look. "Come off it, Lucy. You know the names and rhymes as well as I do. They never change." He gazed down at his hands. "I heard them all. Day in, day out. That's when I started being funny at school and not just at home. I had to do something to make it stop. I figured out that if I beat them to the punchline, they had nothing left."
Lucy smiled. "See? You found a way to cope with it."
"Yeah. It was miserable, though." He sighed. "It's bad enough that I had to go through it. And now I've passed my terrible eyesight on to my son."
Lucy rested her head on his shoulder and stroked his arm. "There's no need to feel guilty, Lee. Believe me, if I'd really cared about a few bad genes, you wouldn't have any children at all."
"You really know how to comfort someone, you know that?" Lee drawled sarcastically, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Lucy warmed at his cheerier expression. "You can't argue with the results, though, can you?" She nuzzled his neck and kissed his whiskered jaw. "Most people have to wear lenses at least some of the time, if not all of the time. It doesn't stop them from living fulfilling lives. It certainly didn't stop you from having friends, or girlfriends, or jobs…" She bussed the corner of his mouth again. "…or from finding the love of your life."
"Yeah, but you didn't know just how bad my eyes were when we met. I knew how to hide it by then. I didn't own my first pair of contact lenses until after I'd left school. And even now, my eyes are drying out at such a rate that I'm having to wear the specs more and more."
"You don't hear me complaining, do you?"
Lee flushed. "Quite the opposite, actually." He looked down at her and patted her hand. "But I'm an old man. Old men are supposed to be nearly blind. It's different when you're a kid."
"Charlie's lucky to have you for a father, then. He's got the benefit of your experience. You can help him out, give him advice, warn him what's to come. And you know exactly how he's feeling."
"Yeah." Lee looked down abashedly, feeling terrible for the way he'd lashed out at Charlie earlier. "I should probably go talk to him now."
"Good idea." She gave him a quick kiss and stood, disentangling herself from him. "In the meantime, I'll finish getting dinner ready, round up the twins, and call your optometrist to book Charlie in for an appointment."
Lee winced. "I guess Charlie's vision isn't the only thing that's about to double."