Lee was so lost in his thoughts, he didn't hear Phillip coming out of his room until he heard his voice asking if he was okay.
"Oh...uh...yeah. Fine. I was just...thinking."
"About the orphans? Me too," Phillip said. "It's pretty sad, huh? I just wish we could do something about it."
"Yeah," Lee agreed. "Listen, I need to go talk to your mom about this whole thing so we can figure out what to do, but do me a favor, will ya'?"
"What's that?"
"Go kinda' easy on them. They haven't had an easy life."
"I know. I feel lousy for them."
"Me too, Chief. Me too." He walked off in search of his wife leaving his older stepson alone with his thoughts.
"Your dad's kinda' cool," Glenn told Jamie while Lee was out in the hall.
Jamie nodded. "Yeah, he is, but he's not actually my dad."
"He's not?" the younger boy questioned in confusion. "He acts like your dad."
"No, he doesn't," Jamie snorted in disgust. "I mean, he acts like a dad or at least he tries to, but he acts a whole lot better than my real dad. My dad's just...he's stupid. He does all this dumb stuff like buying Phillip and me fancy presents or taking us on big trips when all we really want is for him to pay attention to us and act like he cares. Lee asks about our day when we get home from school and he does stuff with us, not just the big stuff either, but he comes to our school plays and ball games and-" He broke off when he saw Glenn's face fall. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking. It's kinda' hard on you that you can't do that stuff anymore, huh?"
The younger boy nodded sadly. "Yeah, I miss that stuff, but I miss my mom and dad more. They were like that too, always there for all our stuff."
"Just one more reason my dad is an idiot. He doesn't think about stuff like that, the people who can't be there for their kids when he just chooses not to be."
"So, if Lee's not your real dad, does that mean you guys are adopted or something?"
"Not exactly, Jamie explained. "He's our stepdad. You know, 'cause he married our mom."
"Ohhhh..." Glenn let out a little sigh of disappointment. He was hopeful for a moment that if the older boys had been adopted, maybe their parents would adopt him and his sisters too. "I...uh...I better go get a shower before bed."
Just as Glenn was collecting his pajamas to take to the bathroom, Phillip poked his head in. "Hey, Wormbrain! Are you done in the bathroom so I can get in there now?"
"I'm done, but Glenn hasn't been in there yet," Jamie answered. "And don't call me wormbrain, Stupid!"
"You can have it first," Glenn offered to keep the peace between the two brothers. The last thing he wanted was to cause trouble.
"Nah, it's cool. I can wait," Phillip told him. "You go on."
When Glenn departed, Phillip closed the door while his brother looked at him curiously. "What's up with you? You're never that nice. Plus, you came in here yelling about the bathroom and now, when he offered to let you go first, you just gave up without a fight."
"See? This is why you're a wormbrain, Wormbrain. I didn't really care about the bathroom. I just wanted to talk to you."
"You wanna' talk to me?" He eyed his brother suspiciously. "After you had a big temper tantrum about not sharing a room with me?"
"Okay, I was being a jerk, but come on, weren't you a little put out when we got here and there were all these other kids here? And that Mom and Lee started paying all this attention to them? It was like...well, almost like Dad, you know?"
"And this is why you're stupid," Jamie retorted. "It's not like Dad at all. He ran off to Europe to be with his new wife and made us choose between spending Christmas with him or with Mom. Mom and Lee aren't making us choose. They're just trying to make the best of a bad situation."
"I know that now. When I got so mad earlier, it wasn't really about the other kids. I just...I've just been sore at Dad for so long..."
"Tell me about it," Jamie grumbled. "You're lucky. You at least have some real memories of when he was around like a dad is s'posed to be 'cause you're almost three years older than me. I don't have that. By the time I was old enough to know what was what; it was pretty much just us and Mom and then Grandma after they got divorced."
"Sometimes, I think you got the better end of that deal," Phillip sighed. "I have all those memories of Dad being...you know, a real dad, but I think it makes it worse because I do remember what it was like when he acted like he cared. I can't help wondering what changed. Why did he decide he didn't want to be a dad anymore?"
"Maybe." Jamie shrugged. "I don't think either of us got the good end. We still don't have a real dad."
"We have Lee now," Phillip reminded him. "I know he's not our dad, but he's the next best thing and he tries."
"Yeah. I was just telling Glenn that. He may not be our real dad, but he at least shows that he cares and I think that's all he's trying to do with these kids, you know? Is that all you came in here for; to complain about Dad some more?"
Phillip frowned. "No. One thing about being in a room by yourself...it gives you time to think."
"You think?" his younger brother teased.
"Shut up! I'm trying to be serious here. The point I was making is that we may have gotten shafted in the dad department, but they have it so much worse than we do since they have no parents. Just like Lee. His mom and dad died when he was just a little kid and I think he...um..." Phillip paused, unsure of how to express his thoughts.
"He sees himself in them," Jamie supplied.
"Exactly! Which is a good thing because kids like that who don't have anybody, they should have someone show them they care like Lee does with us all the time. But it's also kind of a bad thing too because..."
"What's going to happen to them when we go home and they're right back to having nobody again?"
Phillip laughed and joked, "How come we never agree on stuff like this when we're at home?"
"I don't know. Maybe because we see each other all the time and just get on each other's nerves?"
"Yeah, probably."
"But even though we get on each other's nerves, I would never want anything to happen to you," Jamie replied honestly. "I've always had a big brother and I wouldn't know what to do without one. When Mom asked Sunny about why they ran away, it made me kinda' sad 'cause they had to hide out here just so they could be together for Christmas."
Phillip nodded in agreement. "And we thought we had it bad by having to choose which parents to spend Christmas with, but it doesn't even compare."
"Right. They had to sneak around and maybe even break the law just to be together. I can't even imagine what that's like. It was hard enough when Mom got hurt and we were worried that she wasn't going to make it. I was so scared, but if something had happened to her, we still would have at least had Dad and Grandma."
"And Lee," Phillip added. "Don't forget, they were already married then. We just didn't know it yet."
"But the point is we wouldn't have been on our own like Sunny and Glenn and Ivy are."
"I know that. That's why I wanted to talk to you to see what you thought about..." He shook his head. "Never mind. You'll just call me stupid again."
"Oh, come on! You came in here for a reason and now you're gonna' chicken out?"
"I just thought..." He trailed off uncertainly.
"What? You might as well say it 'cause it's probably the same thing I thought."
Phillip took a deep breath and finally spit out all in a rush, "Well, you know how Mom and Lee have been kinda'...arguing about having another kid? You know, the whole thing about how Lee wants a kid of his own and Mom's not really sure she wants to have another baby because they're so much work? Well, what I was thinking is since they're already sort of taking care of these other kids, why couldn't we take them home with us since we're gonna' get that big new house? Couldn't Mom and Lee adopt them or something?"
"We were thinking the same thing," Jamie informed his brother. "But I don't really know all that much about how that stuff works...you know, the legal part of it, but it's not as simple as you make it sound. They can't just 'take them home with us' like you suggested. That would be kidnapping."
"I know that. I'm not stupid," Phillip argued. "But if they wanted to, they could do it the right way...where it's not kidnapping."
"Why do you care? I thought you were annoyed that they were here."
"I was at first...until I started really thinking about how sad it would be not to have any parents at all and nowhere to go to feel safe." He paused for a beat and then asked, "Do you think they'd go for it?"
Jamie laughed. "Well, you know how Mom is. Even though she promised not to tell on them, she's probably already trying to figure out where they came from so she can see where to go from there and at least make sure they're going to have a good home to go back to."
"But why couldn't it be our home? Think about it. Mom would have the little girl she always wanted, not just one, but two of them. You'd get to be a big brother and I-"
"You think Sunny's cute," Jamie teased.
Phillip rolled his eyes. "No. That's not all I think about, you know."
"Yeah, right. I saw how you looked at her when you first met her."
"Okay, maybe at first I did think about her like that, but that was before she slugged me. But I spent some time talking to her when I was helping with dinner and she's actually...I don't know...just cool. You actually have some stuff in common with her 'cause she's really into art like you with your photography stuff and she's super smart, not book-smart like you, but more street-smart."
"She proved that when she socked you in the face," Jamie laughed.
"Yeah. She really knows how to take care of herself, but it's hard for her to take care of herself and her brother and sister. She tries so hard to protect them, but maybe she could use not only a mom and dad, but a big brother too...you know, to protect her."
"Wow, you guys really did talk, huh?"
"Well, Mom kinda' started it talking about how kids at school could be mean and when she did, Sunny started talking more about how she had to learn to defend herself because kids were mean to her."
"Like you always defended me when people called me names for being so smart," Jamie interjected. "I kinda' miss that now that you're in a different school."
"But that's just one more good thing if they did come home with us. Sunny's only a little older than you, so you guys would be in the same school and you could sort of...look out for each other."
"That all sounds great, but you're forgetting one very important thing, Doofus. Even if Lee and Mom do decide that's what they want, what if they don't want to come home with us? What if they're happier just being on their own?"
"You don't really believe that, do you? Haven't you seen how sad and confused they seem?" Especially the little one, Ivy. Just think about what you said a little bit ago about Dad. You were bummed because you don't really have any memories of Dad being around for us so just think how she feels or how she'll feel when she gets older if she has no one to be there for her at all?"
"Yeah, you're probably right, but it's still not as simple as you want it to be. Mom and Lee may not even think about something like that, you know?"
"Well, maybe we should talk to them about it; get them thinking about it," Phillip suggested.
"Oh, sure, like it's that easy." In a mocking tone, he added, "Hey, Guys, I know Lee's just now getting used to us, but how would you feel about adding three more kids?"
"Sure, it sounds stupid when you say it like that, but why can't we just talk to them about it honestly like we're talking now? They're pretty good at listening to us about stuff, like when we had to decide whether to go with Dad."
Jamie perked up a bit. "And when I talked to them about this whole baby thing," he added.
"So, what's the worst that could happen? They just say 'no' and then it's done and over with, but if we don't bring it up, there's not a chance they'll say yes, is there?"
"I guess you're right."
"Sooo...who's gonna' do it...you or me?"
"Both of us," Jamie answered firmly. "That way they know it's something we're both on board with and they don't have to do that whole big thing they like to do of talking to us separately. I mean, the one-on-one stuff is nice sometimes, but when it's something that affects all of us, then all of us should talk about it...together."
"Okay, so let's do it...now."