Cold, wind driven snow lashed the icy window pane and white, phantom-like drifts swept across the backyard, dancing in swirls and vortexes that seemed somehow put Rita in mind of Tazz, the cartoon Tasmanian devil who ripped across the badlands with tornadoic fury. Dark, leaden clouds covered the raw early December sky, so low that you could stretch your hand up and touch them and the dead, leafless trees along the snowy street shook like shivering concentration camp survivors, their boughs whipping this way and that in the frequent blasts of wind. With every gust, the old house on Franklin Aveue trembled as if with cold, and the fierce voice of winter moaned in the eaves like the miserable lamentation of a damned, attic-bound soul forever cursed to move among dust, boxes, and mouse droppings.
It had been snowing off and on since the previous morning, when a storm system moved in from Lake Michigan. The weathermen confidently stated that it would barrel over Royal Woods and bury it in up to eighteen inches of frozen death but the storm wound up only clipping the area. Detroit, which was often spared the worst, took the full brunt of old man winter's fury while points north received only a few inches to a foot. Royal County's highest total was eight inches recorded at Blueberry Hill Observatory. Downtown Royal Woods got maybe half of that. This, however, was just a taste of things to come, if the weather patterns over the past few months were anything to go by. It had been a cool, wet summer followed by a damp and unseasonably cold autumn. The first snow flew on October 15, leaving a light dusting on front yards, and two whole inches fell on the day before Halloween. That was rare but not unheard of: Back in 2001, a foot fell during the overnight hours of October 30-31, and trick or treating had to be canceled.
Rita had never minded the cold - she had lived her entire life in Michigan and had grown accustomed to it - but the older she got, the more it bothered her. She had always been, ahem, plus-sized, and her padding (as she modestly called it) insulated her from the worst of it. These days, however, each burst of cold air cut through her like a knife. Starting in November, a deep chill would settle into her bones and freeze her marrow, and nothing she did would entirely dispel it - no amount of fuzzy sweaters or burning logs, no hot showers or heated blankets would fully warm her. Her joints ached and burned, and she would turn the heat up and up and up in an attempt to find respite. She and Lynn had always kept the heat low in the winter to save on heating costs, now she cranked the old furnace to full blast, which cost an arm and a leg.
They could afford it now that most of the kids were grown and out of the house, but just barely.
Part of Rita's always being cold in the winter was undoubtedly due to her age. She was in her late forties and her body was changing in strange and dramatic ways - she did not suffer from hot flashes, but she was going through menopause regardless, her body gradually winding down its important reproductive functions after a metaphorical long day. In other words, and to put it simply, the baby factory was closing for business.
Another reason was less physical and more spiritual.
Her family had fallen apart.
Well, saying that might be just a bit of an exaggeration, Melodramatic, even. It was not an outright lie, however, as things had changed significantly over the past few years, and for the worse. Once upon a time, the Loud clan was exceptionally close. Rita birthed an astonishing eleven children (which would have netted her and Lynn a reality show on TLC if they had gotten started ten or fifteen years sooner) and the bonds they shared with each other, and with her and Lynn, were strong and solid. The kids were something of a team and spent a lot of time together. Oh, they fought and bickered and all that, the way most siblings do, but they also displayed an impressive and adult like capacity for empathy and understanding. Rita had never met a child who would reflect, see the error of their ways, and then work to make things right until she met her own kids. Lynn joked that they were "old souls" and Rita couldn't help but agree. They were kids and immature in many ways because of it (just as Rita once was, just as anybody once was) but they were remarkably advanced in other ways.
Rita had always been proud of them for that.
Of course, as they got older, they went their own ways in life. Luna got in trouble once with the police when they found a dime bag of pot on her. They took it away and gave her community service. Rita did not like the idea of her daughter using any drugs - including alcohol - but she had been a teeanger herself, so she knew it would happen. God, one time she went to a party a friend of hers was holding in the field behind her house, and she got so drunk that she passed out at the feet of a scarecrow, looking for all the world like a human sacrifice to a pagan god. She also smoked pot here and there. It was only inevitable that her teens - or at least one or two of them - would do the same. That's just how teenagers are. She didn't like it, but that's how it goes sometimes. Luan started dating a boy in tenth grade that neither Rita nor Lynn liked - he was a little punk and nothing but trouble.
Luan, of course, didn't see it that way, but it was only natural that she wouldn't. Rita herself had never had a boyfriend that was no good, but she was well aware that many girls did. A lot of the time, the boy wound up being decent enough, but sometimes he really was a little dirtbag. Luan's boyfriend was somewhere in between. He treated her well and seemed to genuinely like her - unlike most teenage boys, he wasn't after just that proverbial one thing. He was a delinquent, though, and already laying the groundwork for a life of utter failure at worst and bland mediocrity at best.
They finally broke up in senior year and Lynn and Rita were both glad of it.
Their other children experienced their own growing pains as they went through their teenage years. Lisa got braces and suffered from volcanic acne, which led to teasing. Lucy got moodier and spent most of her time alone in her room, reading and listening to depressing music. Lynn didn't have many problems, but she became something of a bully in high school; word got back to Rita that she was picking on other kids, and Rita was terribly disappointed. It made her feel awful to know that one of her children was doing that sort of thing and she made sure to give Lynn a good talking to. Lana fell in with a crowd of gearheads and dated a boy who worked on cars at his uncle's shop; Rita liked him enough but he and Lana didn't work out. Most high school couples don't. When you're sixteen and think you're in love, you believe your relationship is going to last forever. Chances are, it won't. Lola was homecoming queen and something of a snob, a more feminine version of Lynn Jr., come to think of it. In Rita's day, they would have called her a mean girl after the movie.
That disappointed Rita just as much as Lynn being a bully did.
Lily and Lisa were the only ones still living at home, the rest having gone off to start their lives. Lily was thirteen and wanted to be a YouTuber; she was gregarious and outgoing and crackled with buoyant energy that lit up the room whenever she was in it. Lisa was sixteen going on seventeen, and, like Lucy before her, spent most of her time shut up in her room,. Though still in high school like any other kid, she was taking advanced college courses in her free time. At this point, she would earn a master's degree shortly after graduating from RCHS. Of all the Loud children, Lisa seemed to be the one whose future was most assured, so it surprised Rita that the genius was having such a hard time deciding what to do with her life. She wasn't exactly sure which field she wanted to go into and once she thought about it, Rita understood. There are so many branches of science that it's enough to make you dizzy. Rita always pictured Lisa wearing a white lab coat and working with chemicals, but that was a very basic view of things. There were a million careers Lisa could choose based on her interests and, understandably, she was overwhelmed with the possibilities.
All of those things - from each kid having their own growing pains to Lisa struggling to figure out which tributary of the Great Scientific River she wanted to sail down - were completely and absolutely normal. That her children had grown up and moved away like pollen on the wind, each one landing in some far-flung locale was to be expected. She certainly never thought that they would all stay clustered underneath her wing, living at home as though nothing had changed, nor would she have wanted that. They were all welcome to stay as long as they wanted or needed to, but Rita wanted them to have normal lives and families of their own. She understood that times were tough and that things weren't the same as they were when she was a young woman, but staying at home into your thirties and forties isn't normal.
She was prepared, then, and always had been, for them to leave home. She was prepared for them to live hundreds or even thousands of miles away. She was even prepared for them to not call or text regularly; they would be busy with their own lives, of course, so they wouldn't have time to check in with her every day.
All of that was perfectly normal and Rita anticipated all of it.
What she was not prepared for, however, was the lingering animosity that hung over their family like a dark cloud. She never expected there to be bad blood between her and some of her children, and between her children in general. There was no reason for that to happen. They had always gotten along, more or less, and possessed the mental and emotional maturity to work through their issues. That was something Rita and Lynn had worked to instill in them. Confliction resolution was a skill that Rita had learned would serve one well in life and she wished that she had learned it a lot sooner than she had. For that reason, she and Lynn often took a hands off approach when the kids had a disagreement. Rita's mother didn't agree with Rita's parenting style and compared it to throwing your child into the deep end of the pool to teach them how to swim. "Your grandfather did that to me," Mom said in an outraged tone. "I almost drowned."
"Well, he was an alcoholic so he was probably drunk," Rita pointed out. "Lynn and I are sober."
"You are?" Mom asked sarcastically. "Going by the way you raise those kids, I wouldn't know."
Rita had lowered her brows dangerously and Mom shut up, though she would live to criticise her another day. That was Mom for you, though. She was impossible to please and no one could ever do anything right. She was the only person on earth who knew anything, and everyone else's thoughts and opinions didn't matter. Oh well.
Anyway, Lynn and Rita worked hard to teach their kids respect and tolerance. They were all such different people that they needed those two values just to get along in their day to day life. Diversity, Rita believed, wasn't always necessarily a good thing. In fact, it could be a bad thing sometimes. That's not to sound racist or anything, it's not about skin color or anything like that, it's about conflicting beliefs, values, and personalities existing in close proximity. Everyone shouldn't be the same - diversity is the spice of life, after all - but how can you have ten or eleven vastly conflicting personalities in one room and not expect a little strife and tension? You can't have a lion and a lamb in one place without a little friction. Likewise, you couldn't have a laid back chillhound like Luna in the same room with an arrogant and self-obsessed ball of energy like Lynn Jr. You could…but only if both of them were tolerant and respectful. Otherwise, they would inevitably butt heads.
Rita realized this and went out of her way to teach them respect for those who are different, whether that difference manifests physically (race, gender) or philosophically (a different political opinion, religion, or lifestyle). If her kids failed in other ways (and she didn't think they did), they did not in that area. They were all now more or less very tolerant people. Of course, Lynn had her penchant for bullying people in school, but that was long behind her. She was better now, working as a gym teacher in Iowa and competing in professional roller derby on the weekends for extra had no reason to ever suspect that her family would one day stand against itself. They had always been a house united by love and understand.
Then it happened.
Tolerance, like everything else, has a limit. There are some things that you cannot and should not accept, even from your family members, even from your children. You should always give your kin, especially your kids That list, as far as Rita was concerned, was fairly short, and contained only the worst of the worst. She never imagined that under any circumstance, one of her children would do one of those things.
Much less two of them.
It started five years ago when Lincoln, the family's only son, turned eighteen. He was an artist and gamer who planned to do something with his passion. Like Lisa, he didn't know exactly what. Unlike with her, however, it wasn't because there was so much to do, it was because there was so little. Artistic types - painters, musicians, writers - are a dime a dozen and there are so few opportunities for them to make money. Anyone can be a writer these days, for instance, abd people are so used to getting free content online that many of them no longer want to pay for it. Rita respected artistic talent but she really wished her son wasn't an artist, She would rather him be virtually anything else. Even if he aspired to wait tables for minimum wage, he'd be better off than if he wanted to be an artist.
And it wasn't that she didn't believe in him. She did - he was very talented. It's that there's just no money in it, unless you happen to be in the top one percent of the top one percent who gets a hefty contract with a major publisher. Anything else and there would be so little money in it that it wouldn't even make for a career…or even a so called side hustle. She tried not to be critical of his dreams but, like any parent, she wanted the best for him, and she just didn't think that working for peanuts was best for him. And like any young person, he thought that he would be the exception, the underdog who achieves his goals at the end of the movie to raucous applause, not one of the millions of people who try and try but never quite get there, one of the many raw talents who could have been superstars but never found themselves fated to be in the right place at the right time.
That was the secret ingredient to artistic success, you know, catching the right break at the right point. Many actors and bands were discovered at random in bars or on the street, while hundreds, thousands, of others, some just as talented if not more, fell through the cracks, never to be seen again. It didn't matter how good you were if you didn't get that little boost, and most people just don't. She had serious misgivings about Lincoln's prospects, but she supported his decision. If this is what he wanted to do with his life, and if he was well informed about the risks involved, then okay.
Lincoln's pursuit of what Rita thought to be a pipe dream was not the reason for the strife in her family. When he graduated, he moved across town to live with Lori, who had an apartment near the Unity train station. Neither Rita nor Lynn gave the matter much thought, as it seemed a natural stepping stone to Lincoln eventually having his own place. Lincoln had a job bagging groceries and delivering newspapers on the weekends, so they split the rent and utilities, which allowed both of them to save money. Not only that, but they weren't subject to the prying eyes of their parents. Lori was in her mid twenties but hadn't been able to find a job in her field - business management - so she was still stuck at square one in life. With Lincoln along, she could maybe start climbing the ladder.
No one else seemed to think it was odd that Lincoln and Lori should live together and all was well for a while.
Until the day Lynn Jr. walked in on them having sex.
They both had a bad habit of leaving the front door unlocked and Lynn often stopped by to see them. She wound up seeing a lot more of them than she could ever have hoped, and it led to an ugly scene, with an outraged Lynn screaming at them. Lori shouted back and the two almost came to blows before Lincoln got between them. Lynn came home and told Rita what had happened, and at first, Rita couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it. Lynn insisted, and Rita called her oldest daughter for an explanation.
"We need to talk," is all that Lori said.
In that moment, with sinking dread, Rita knew.
Lori and Lincoln came over later that day. As it so happened, all of the others were in town, from Luan to Leni, and staying at the house in preprepared for Thanksgiving. Rita wanted to take Lincoln and Lori aside and ask them about Lynn's accusation in private, but Lori sat her down on the couch with the others and said that she and Lincoln had an announcement to make. She circled her arm around Lincoln's waist and he did the same to her, slipping his hand into one pocket of her shorts. "We're together," Lori proclaimed.
The air left the room with an almost audible sucking sound. Rita's hand flew to her mouth and several of her daughters - she didn't see who at the time - gasped. Beaming like she had won the lottery, Lori explained that she and Lincoln had been "a couple" since he was eleven. Rita couldn't say what exactly did it - maybe Lori's smug, seemingly mocking expression - but she snapped. "Since he was a child?"
It hurt to recall the incident, so while Rita thought of it often, she did her best to not go into detail. She was furious with them, angrier than she had ever been at anyone or anything else. If she gave the matter much consideration, she would say that what angered her the most was how abnormal Lori and Lincoln's relationship was. She was desperate for her children to be normal and well-adjusted, like any parent. This wasn't normal, this wasn't well-adjusted, it was sick, it was wrong. How could they do this? God, they were brother and sister!
And it had been happening for years.
Since Lincoln was a child.
Looking back, Rita realized that she could have handled it better, should have handled it better, but she didn't. She said very harsh things to Lori. At one point she called her a pedophile and threatened to call the police on her. In her heart, she didn't mean it, she was just so…so…livid. How could Lori do this? She was supposed to protect and watch over Lincoln, to help and guide him through life, not to seduce him. She was older, wise, she should have known better, yet she did this.
Lynn Jr., Luna, Lola, and Lisa agreed with her that Lincoln and Lori's relationship was wrong. Leni, Luan, Lucy, and Lynn Sr., however, accepted it. Lana and Lily had no opinion, Lily because she was too young and Lana because quote "I really just don't care, now can I go back to working on my car, please? I really gotta get that alternator switched out."
Lori didn't just take Rita's accusations sitting down. She screamed, Rita screamed, it was ugly. Finally, Lori and Lincoln stormed out, swearing to never come back "where we're not wanted." The rift caused by their relationship and by the fight ran deep in the family, with both factions - the one against the relationship and the one who tolerated it - bumping heads. Leni, Luan, and Lucy accused Rita of overreacting, and Lana casually agreed. Rita yelled at them too, unable to believe that they didn't see how wrong it was.
All of this led to a tangled web of Louds not speaking to one another and carrying animosity toward each other. For the longest time, Leni, Luan, and Lucy stayed away from Rita and wouldn't answer her calls. She and Lynn Sr. had many arguments, Lynn saying she was too harsh and Rita accusing him of not caring that Lincoln and Lori were throwing their lives away. In her more sober moments, Rita could accept that perhaps she was too abrasive - because of her emotions - but that didn't change the fact that what Lincoln and Lori were doing was wrong, nor did it change the fact that Lori had taken advantage of Lincoln. Rita knew her son, there was no way that at eleven years old, he initiated a sexual relationship with anyone. He was innocent and naive, sheltered even. Lori even admitted to Leni that she was the one who started it. She told Leni that she had always had a crush on Lincoln and finally decided to "make her move".
She tried to forgive her daughter for what she had done, but she simply couldn't. It was one thing being in a so called relationship with her brother, that was bad enough, but the way she went about it deeply disturbed Rita. It felt predatory.
Shortly after the big Thanksgiving blowout, Lincoln and Lori left Royal Woods under the cover of darkness. No one knew they were going except for Leni, Luna, and Lucy. They packed their things into Lori's beat up 2005 Neon and left at midnight, per Lucy. "Which befits their forbidden love," Lucy stated. Rita didn't know for three days, and when she finally found out, she exploded on Lucy, Luna, and Leni. They refused to tell her where Lincoln and Lori had gone, if they knew in the first place, and that began a six month period of no contact with the three girls. They made no effort to reach out to Rita and Rita made no effort to reach out to them. She felt betrayed, lied to, and gaslit. They acted like incest was no big deal and scoffed at her for taking exception to it. They treated her like she was the crazy one, not Lincoln and Lori. That both hurt and offended her, which led to her stubbornly refusing to even try and patch things up with her daughters.
"You shouldn't feel bad," Lynn Jr told her, "they're being dumb."
They were, Rita thought, but she still felt bad anyway. As angry as she was at all of them - Lori on down to Lucy - they were still her children and she loved them. As time wore on, days turning into weeks and weeks into months, the weight of everything that had happened began to bear down on her. She started to realize that she had made a mistake. She could have handled the whole thing a lot better. How should she have reacted, though? Should she have welcomed the news of her son and daughter having sex with open arms? Should she have been entirely okay with it as though it were normal? She didn't know, but threatening to call the police wasn't the right thing to do, and calling Lori names wasn't the right thing to do either.
A pit of loss opened in her stomach over time and she began to feel awful about how she had acted. She apologized to Leni, Luna, and Lucy and asked them to please ask Lori and Lincoln to call her.
They never did. In fact, they stopped talking to the family altogether. Their social media accounts went dark and their numbers went out of service. Calling them got a prerecorded message and looking them up on Google turned up no results. It had been years since anyone had heard from them and as far as anyone knew, they were simply gone, vanished in the night like runaways. Rita searched Facebook every so often, going so far as to create new accounts in case they had her blocked, but she could find nothing - no pictures, no posts, not a single thing. It was almost like they no longer existed.
The others had accepted her apology but they blamed her for driving Lincoln and Lori away. They had never said so but she could feel it in the air and see it in their eyes, Their relationship had never quite recovered. Everything that had happened would sit heavy between them for the rest of their lives like a dark cloud, and nothing Rita could do would change that. She couldn't take back what she had said and she supposed she couldn't blame Lincoln and Lori for not wanting to talk to her.
This was just another regret that she would have to live with. Like anybody, she had her fair share of those. This one, however, was the biggest and most painful, and thus the only one that kept her up at night. At one point, the aching in her chest became so great that she prayed to God for the first time since she was a little girl. She didn't know exactly what she wanted the Almighty to do about it, but she figured that he was God, and that since God was all powerful and all knowing, he would have the right solution all picked out and ready to go before she even folded her hands.
Nothing happened.
Not that she expected it to.
Rita was raised a Catholic but lost her faith many years ago. She did not know if God existed or not, but if he did, he didn't intervene as directly in the lives of humans as he was given credit for. Despite her many prayers, nothing changed with her family. They were still at odds with each other and things were still tense between them. The animosity no longer took the form of open warfare but it was always lurking beneath the surface, ready to come back at the slightest provocation.
Presently, Rita stood in at the kitchen sink and washed a pot. Outside, snow fell lazily over the already blanketed backyard. The window was fogged from the humidity in the kitchen and ice coated the exterior. She turned the sink off and went to the stove, where potatoes, stuffing, and other veggies boiled. The smell of honey ham perfumed the air and when she opened the oven to check on the rolls. It was Christmas Eve and everyone was in town for the holiday…everyone except for Lincoln and Lori. Lynn hung Christmas decorations in the living room with Luan and Lola, Luna, Lana, and Lynn Jr. drank egg nog on the couch, and Lucy read from a book of ghost stories, ghost stories being a Christmas tradition, per Lucy. Rita had heard something about that but never understood what ghosts had to do with Christmas.
Rita peered into the oven, saw that the rolls had a long while to cook yet, and closed the door. She wiped her hands on the frilly waist apron she wore and went to the fridge, where she grabbed a gallon of milk. She sat it next to a large ceramic bowl on the counter and then prodded the potatoes boiling on the stove with a fork. They were soft but not soft enough.
Most families have Christmas dinner on Christmas Day. The Louds, however, had it on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, they ordered Chinese food from a little place in downtown Royal Woods that made the best moo shu pork in all of the midwest. It was a tradition that started when the oldest girls, Lori through Luan, were small. One of the neighbor's dogs broke down the kitchen door one Christmas morning and tore the turkey, which was cooling on the table, to shreds. The stores and restaurants were all closed, so they couldn't easily replace it. The Chinese place was the only thing open in the whole town so they went there. The Peking duck was to die for and Rita looked foward to it every year.
"Luan?" Rita called over her shoulder.
A minute later, Luan came into the kitchen from the dining was tall and slender in a pair of jeans and a red sweater, her rusty brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. "Can you watch the food, please?" Rita asked. "I need to use the bathroom."
"Sure, Mom," Luan said.
"Thank you."
Reaching behind her back, Rita untied the apron and sat it aside. While Luan manned (or womaned) the stove, Rita went to the bathroom. In the living room, a roaring fire crackled in the hearth, where thirteen stockings were hung with care, all red with white trim. A giant fir tree stood to one side, festooned with ribbons, lights, and glass balls that sparkled in the firelight. Christmas music drifted from a stereo on an end table and presents in shiny paper impatiently waited to be ripped open. Though Lincoln and Lori naturally never came to Christmas, Rita still hung their stockings with the others in the hope that they would one day return. She had all but given up hope and had resigned herself to the eventuality that they would probably never come home.
Upstairs, Rita used the bathroom, washed her hands, and went into the hallway, pausing to pick up a random discarded sock lying in a corner. She turned it over in her hands, trying to figure out whose it was. It looked a little big to be Lily or Lisa's. Hmm. Even though her kids were adults, they still made messes and threw their things around like children, expecting her or their father to clean them up. She tossed the sock into the nearest bedroom, which happened to be the one Lucy and Lynn used to share when they lived at home, then went back downstairs. Luna was standing in the middle of the living room with a glass of egg nog and laughing at something Lana had said,. They were both buzzed and Rita made a mental note to not add alcohol to the next batch she put out.
She was almost to the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Luna and the others were too caught up in their good time to realize it, or to care if they did, so Rita sighed and went to the door. "Don't worry, I'll get it," she said with a touch of exasperation. Right as she spoke, Luna and the others erupted into raucous laughter that drowned out her voice. Sigh. What was it Rodney Dangerfield used to say on all the late shows? I can't get no respect? That's how she felt sometimes, as though she couldn't get any respect.
Putting that aside for now, she unlocked the handle and opened the door to a blast of cold, snowy air.
For some reason, perhaps to keep the snow out of her eyes, she tilted her head downward. Thus, she instantly saw the little girl.
About four or five with long, messy blonde hair and big doey eyes, she wore a sweater that was so big on it that its sleeves swallowed her tiny hands. She held a stuffed rabbit to her chest and stared up at Rita with apprehension. Rita zeroed in on that rabbit.
She knew it.
"Hi, Mom."
Rita looked up, and there, standing behind the little girl and looking every bit as apprehensive were Lori and Lincoln, Lincoln in a heavy coat and Lori wearing mittens and a knit cap. Rita's heart sank into her stomach and for a long moment, all she could do was gape at her son and daughter in disbelief.
Then she began to cry,.
She held out her arms and pulled Lori into a tight embrace that nearly dragged the poor girl off her feet. Rita squeezed so tightly that Lori's eyes bulged from their sockets and a strained grunt loosened from her chest. The little girl backed up against Lincoln's legs, staring at Lori and Rita as if uncertain of what was happening. Was Rita being nice to Lori…or was she physically attacking her? Tears streamed openly down Rita's cheeks and her bottom lip quivered dangerously. She bit down on it to keep from breaking down fully and held her daughter at arm's length, looking her up and down as if for damage. "I missed you so much," she said. She hugged Lori to her breast again, and Lori stumbled, almost slipping on the icy front step.
Done with her daughter, she went for her son next. The little girl saw Rita's intent and dashed out of the way to hide behind Lori. Rita swept Lincoln into a hug and did the same thing she had done with Lori, squeezing him like he was an empty toothpaste tube and she a woman who really, really wanted one more brush before buying a new one. "I never thought I would see you again," she said.
"It's okay, Mom," Lincoln said, "we're here now. Merry Christmas."
From the strained sound of his voice, his spine was about to snap in half. Realizing that she was going to kill him if she didn't let up, Rita released him and blotted her eyes. Her gaze went to the little girl, who peeked out from behind Lori, and for the first time, Rita really comprehended her presence. "This is Loan," Lori said. She moved aside and the little girl was exposed, vulnerable to the snow and cold, to the stranger looming over her. "Can you say hi to Grandma?" Lori asked.
Even though Rita knew who the little girl was in her heart, hearing the words out loud hit her like a bomb blast.
Lincoln and Lori's daughter.
Rita's mind spun. One of the main reasons she had been against Lincoln and Lori's relationship in the first place was the possibility of them having children. She was worried - rightfully so, she might add - that if they reproduced, their child would be cursed to a life of sickness and ill health. Dramatic deformities aren't typically present in first generation incest children, but they are at an outsized risk of congenital diseases such as anemia and various syndromes and disorders. Rita was greatly disturbed by the thought of willfully saddling an innocent baby with such a high probability of birth defects, and Lincoln and Lori's flippant attitudes toward her concerns was one of the key points of contention in the days and weeks following their shocking revelation.
The little girl looked normal - was downright adorable in fact - but that didn't mean she had been spared a genetic disorder.
Disorder or not, Rita was instantly in love with her.
"Hi, sweetie," she said and held her arms out, "can you give me a hug?"
Loan darted behind her mother's legs and everyone laughed. "Come in, come in," Rita said, realizing that they were all but galavanting in the falling snow, "we're going to catch our deaths out here."
Turning around, she cupped her hand to her mouth. "You'll never guess who's here!" she cried.
As it turned out, a few of them could have guessed. Leni and Luna were the ones responsible for arranging this Christmas miracle. They had spent countless hours tracking Lincoln and Lori down and had finally found them through means that sounded a whole lot like techno witchcraft to Rita. Instead of calling, both girls personally went out to visit them, turning up on their doorstep unannounced. That's when they learned that they had a new niece they had never met. They both begged and pleaded with Lincoln and Lori to come home, but at first, they resisted the idea. But eventually broke down when Leni told them how sorry Rita was. "She feels really bad about everything and she really wants to see you guys again," Leni said.
That swayed them, and they made plans to come out at Christmas. All of this happened in August, and neither Leni nor Luna had breathed a word of it to anyone, not even to Lucy, who had always sided with Lincoln and Lori.
Rita and Lynn were both ecstatic to have their two wayward children home, and most of the girls seemed happy too. Lynn and Lola, however, were visibly tense and stiff, as though suddenly thrust into the presence of some dangerous and malignant beast. Rita noticed their tight smiles and judging side eyes, but she willed herself to believe that she was mistaken. She was so overjoyed to have Lincoln and Lori back that she didn't want to accept or face the chance that there was any remaining friction. Why should there be? It had been five years. Everything that had happened was water under the bridge. Rita did not support or accept their relationship anymore now than she did back then, but she was willing to overlook it for the sake of having a relationship with her son and daughter. The girls would do the same, she figured, they just needed time to come around.
Loan proved to be the hit of the party. Even the sisters who weren't wild about having Lincoln and Lori back were taken with the sky little girl. She sat on Lynn Sr.'s knee and nervously sucked her thumb while everyone crowded around to coo over her. "She's totes adorbs," Leni said.
"Don't let her shy act fool you," Lori said lightly, "she can be a real hand full. Wait until she gets to know you guys."
Rita was only in her forties but her back was already starting to go bad from years of carrying too much extra weight. Despite this, she picked Loan up without a second thought and held her aloft. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Would you like a cookie?" she asked.
The little girl's eyes widened.
"You like cookies, huh?"
Loan's head bobbed up and down.
Laughing, Rita carried her into the kitchen, sat her at the table, and went to the counter, where a plate of freshly baked cookies was covered with a scrap of tin foil. Rita took two of them, then a third because two felt stingy, and poured a glass of milk, all of which she gave to her granddaughter. Loan gradually loosened up a little, and ate them as she kicked her legs happily back and forth. Rita stood over her and lovingly stroked her hair. Loan looked very much like Lori had at that age. In fact, she greatly favored her mother. There wasn't much of Lincoln in her.
Of course, Lincoln and Lori had the same genes so could she really favor one over the other?
That thought was painful, so Rita forced it away. Her mind went to a different topic, but that one was just as painful.
Was Loan healthy? She wanted to ask Lincoln and Lori but she was afraid of offending them and starting an argument. It was a perfectly valid question but they might take it the wrong way. She certainly didn't want them to feel like she didn't accept Loan or anything, that wasn't it. She just worried, that was all.
When Loan was done with her cookies, she went into the living room to be with her parents. Lucy, Leni, Lana, and Lily were chatting with Lincoln and Lori and the others looked uncomfortable Rita was back and forth cooking and visiting so she didn't understand.
Until she did.
Lincoln and Lori were being very open with their affections, to put it mildly. They were hugging, kissing, putting their arms around each other, and generally not hiding their feelings. Every time Rita saw Lincoln kiss Lori or Lori hold Lincoln's hand, something went through her, something akin to disgust but not quite. She understood that they were together and was willing to tolerate it, but did they have to be so in your face about it? It was making things awkward. At one point, when Rita could stand no more, she took Lori into the kitchen to talk to her. She realized that this might start an argument but she couldn't stand seeing her son and daughter carry on like this. She said as much in the most diplomatic terms she could muster, and sure enough, Lori took offense.
"We're not doing anything wrong," Lori said defensively.
"I know, honey," Rita said, even though she disagreed, "but you have to understand where we're coming from. I know you and Lincoln love each other but…we're still adjusting to it. You are brother and sister, after all."
Lori rolled her eyes. "This again."
"Lori -"
"If you're not willing to accept us, maybe we should leave."
Before Rita could reply, Lynn Jr., who had come into the kitchen, inserted herself. "Maybe you should. I don't wanna see my sister tongue fucking my brother. You guys are doing this on purpose."
Lori spun around. "Screw you, Lynn."
"Girls," Rita admonished, "please, it's Christmas. I just want -"
"It's gross," Lynn said. "They're acting like white trash."
Luna appeared behind Lynn, her eyes narrowed to angry slits. "Why don't you shut the fuck up, Lynn?"
"It's nasty," Lynn said.
Sighing, Lori stormed out of the kitchen, and Rita's heart dropped. She went after her. "Please, Lori -"
"We're leaving," Lori announced to Lincoln.
Everyone in the living room looked up at her. "Why?" Lana asked.
"We're not wanted here."
That statement cut Rita like a knife…and it made her angry. "Lori, stop this," she snapped. "You're putting words into my mouth. I never said you weren't wanted, I just asked you to tone it down a little."
"Lynn's the one who doesn't want you here," Lucy said. "She can leave."
"How about you leave?" Lola asked nastily. "No one wants to hear bloody ghost stories."
The room erupted into chaos. Everyone was on their feet now arguing and yelling at each other, the pro-cest faction against the anti-cesters, sister against sister, old animosities that Rita never knew about or thought were long dead coming to the fore like blood from broken skin. Lynn Sr. raised his voice in an attempt to calm the tempest, but no one was listening, their acrimony running high and loud. Loan's eyes darted fearfully from one company to another, her little chest rising and falling with her swelling panic. No one saw her beginning to cry, no one saw her run for the door and dart out into the snowy afternoon.
"EVERYONE, SHUT UP!" Rita yelled. The din died down. "I only asked that you tone it down. We are still coming to terms with this, Lori. I am willing to accept that my son and my daughter are having children together but you have to accept that we can't just forget that you're related. And another thing…why is it so cold in here?"
Everyone looked around confused. The front door stood open, wind driven snow sweeping through and covering the carport. Lori looked around and her eyes widened. "Where's Loan?"
Rita's stomach clenched.
"Oh, my God, she went outside," Lola said, pointing at tiny foot prints in the snow, already half filled in.
At once, the tension in the room broke and everyone began to panic. They rushed to the door and looked outside. The world was lost in a haze of freezing white. Rita spotted footprints leading away from the door. "That way," Lynn Jr. said and pointed.
Heedless to the cold and to the argument they had just been having, everyone rushed outside, kicking through drifts of powdery white. Rita's shoes were instantly soaked and the wind cleaved through her thin blouse, but she paid no attention, her only thought being for Loan. The poor thing was probably terrified and cold. If they didn't find her soon…
Rita didn't even want to think about it.
By unspoken consent, the Louds fanned out across the yard. Lynn Jr. and Lori checked around one side of the house and Lincoln, Lola, and Lucy around the other. They allied cupped their hands to their mouths and called her name, but the wind ripped their words away and blew them into the ether. Rita's heart slammed fearfully against her ribcage and the snow was making her feel disoriented. She lost the foot prints but picked them up again and nearly tripped over the little girl, who was huddled in the snow and hugging herself, shivers racing through her body. "I FOUND HER!" Rita cried. She plucked the little girl up and started back to the house, everyone coming out of the woodwork, Lori and Lincoln both running.
Back inside, everyone was talking excitedly at once. Rita took Loan to the fireplace and sat her in front of it while Luan and Leni made her hot chocolate. Lynn Jr. grabbed a blanket and draped it over her. Lincoln and Lori both knelt next to her and gave her a fierce hug. "Don't ever do that again," Lincoln said.
"Why did you go outside without us?" Lori demanded.
"I got scared, Mommy," she said. "Everyone was mad and yelling, I thought they were going to hurt me."
Now everyone looked thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Lynn Jr. looked at her feet and rubbed the back of her neck and Lola nervously fidgeted with her dress.
"Oh, we're not going to hurt you," Rita said, "we love you." She hugged the little girl. "I'm sorry," she said to Lincoln and Lori. "I shouldn't have acted that way."
"We should have been more sensitive," Lincoln said, "we do know how hard it is to accept our…lifestyle."
Lori nodded. "But we love each other, Mom, and that's not going to change." She looked around at all her sisters. "Nothing is going to change that. It might be wrong or gross but it's who I am and who we are."
"I shouldn't have snapped," Lynn said. "It's not my place to judge."
Once everyone had made up, Rita finished dinner and they all sat down at the table. The tension was gone, the air had been cleared, and they had a wonderful, loving, and family oriented meal. It was hard to accept, Rita reflected, but so are many things in life. That doesn't mean you can fight them all or bury your head in the sand and pretend they don't exist. No, she didn't like it, but she loved her children and her granddaughter, and like Lori said:
That would never change.
THE END
