I lay on the couch, staring upward at the cracked ceiling. Sleep seemed impossible to catch that night, and I wasn't about to count sheep.

My mind was a tumult of thoughts. Thoughts that, like a giant wave, gathered force and smashed against the side of my skull, before coming together again only to continue breaking surf in my mind.

Mom was asleep in Original Cindy's room. She had moved after Dad had come in and asked for a place to sleep in. And I wasn't about to give up my couch. So, Mom moved, and Dad got her old room.

I now listened to his peaceful, deep breathing from the room a couple feet away. It surprised me on how placid he could be in his sleep; I had never seen Dad truly calm.

Mom and Original Cindy breathed in tiny little traces, nothing more than two tinkling breezes forming to become one. It was like they were whispering secrets in their sleep to each, talking about the eighteen years that had been forgotten between them. I wondered briefly if Cindy knew anything about Dad. Who knew, and to be perfectly honest, who cared?

Rolling over on my side, still struggling for sleep, I smiled to myself at the thought of Cindy and Mom like little girls sharing a sleepover. Cindy had the hair rollers and mud mask, while Mom had the fuzzy pajamas. Now all they needed were some pictures of guys to giggle and whisper about.

I was dressed in a nightgown that Cindy had bought me during the day at the department store she worked at. Mom was going to go job shopping the next day. She said it wasn't fair that Original Cindy had to pay the bills. Unfortunately, that meant I was probably going to have to get a job as well. Not something I was looking forward to, but c'est la vie, right?

From my position on the couch, I could see Dad's dark boots in the shadows of the doorframe. He hadn't even bothered to change his clothes. Besides, there was nothing he could wear. Well, I supposed there was an old teddie of Original Cindy's…

I wanted to go to him and wrap my arms around him, begging him to stay and be a real dad. Not just other man in the world. Despite all the fights we had, I still loved him.

I remembered my coffee date with James the next day. Surely I was going to have to ask him about Max and he. Something was amiss there.

Finally, as sleep came towards me, a gentle rain over my ocean of thoughts, I wondered which color sweater to wear with James tomorrow. Yet, my thoughts were clouded, and my breathing became one with my parents.

For a moment, for that one perfect night, we were one family, bonded together by more than blood-by love and a sense of belonging. Manticore had never existed, and a man named D. Lydecker had never been born.

We were a family of three-the perfect family. A father and mother with their loving daughter, breathing together as one, which caused our hearts, the steady pulse, to form a single rhythm. And on that night, that ever immaculate night, three became one.