Reminisce

One of the days in your childhood, these two question are going to come up: "What does your mom do?" and "What does your dad do?" expecting to hear the answer of a job. Well for six year old twins Anna and Lucia, this was that day.

Their friend Mackenzie came up to them with a big smile on her face while they were finger painting and pointed to the big, pink bow in her hair and asked, "See my bow? My mommy did it."

"That's nice." said Lucia, clearly enthralled by the tree that she was painting.

"My mommy is a nurse." Mackenzie said, still smiling.

"That's nice." said Anna, also enthralled with her painting, also of a tree.

"What does you guys' mommy do?" She asked. The two twins look at each other, and then they both blinked at the same time, and turned to their friend.

"We don't have a mommy." They said in unison, not looking happy or sad about it. They had simply stated a fact of their life.

"Did she die?" asked Mackenzie innocently.

"No, we just have never really had a mommy." stated Anna.

"That's silly," said Mackenzie, with a look on her face that clearly said she didn't believe them. "Everyone has a mommy."

"We don't." said Lucia. "We have a Daddy, and we have a Papa, and we have a baby Sissy named Michelle, but we don't have a mommy. We never have."

"If you say so…" said Mackenzie, still clearly not believing them. She walked away without saying anything else.

"We're home!" yelled both the twins simultaneously. They put down their matching pink backpacks and they took of their matching shoes and placed each in their laundry room.

"Hello Lucia, hello Anna!" yelled back their Papa, Reed Van Kamp-Anderson. "Come in to the art room, I want your opinions on something!" The two girls went, mostly because they didn't really know what an "opinion" was and they were eager to learn new things.

"Hi, Papa!" They said together. Anna begun to speak the question that was on both of their minds. "What does opinion m- What is Daddy doing?" She interrupted herself when she noticed, for the first time, Shane Van Kamp-Anderson standing completely still in front of Reed's canvas, in what appeared to be a dancer's pose.

"Well, an opinion is what you think of something, while a fact is something that is true about that thing. If I said 'Roses smell good,' then that would be an opinion, but if I said 'That Rose is red,' then if the rose was red, that would be a fact. Get it?" He explained. Both girls thought about it for a second then nodded, so he continued. "Now as for what Daddy is doing, he is posing for my new painting." He pointed to the canvas, which now displayed a very realistic painting of one Shane Van Kamp-Anderson, in that very same position.

Finally neither girl could take it anymore. They had to ask what was on their mind. "Why don't we have a mommy?" They both blurted. "Everyone else in our class has one. Why do we have a Daddy and a Papa but no mommy?"

Reed looked at Shane, and Shane looked at Reed, both wearing grim expressions that were impossible for the girls to read. Reed motioned for Shane to come over, he mouthed something to him, then said, "Girls, go wait in your room really quickly, please. I need to talk to your Daddy alone."

"But what about our question?" asked Lucia.

"We will be in there in a second to answer that, and explain a couple of things." said Shane softly. Now the girls were looking at each other and wearing matching expressions that was impossible for their fathers to read. When the girls were gone, Shane turned to Reed.

"I swear, sometimes I forget that those girls are only six." Shane said with a small laugh. "I wonder what they will be like when they get older."

"Yeah…" Reed said with a weak smile. Shane could tell that his mind was elsewhere. "Why do you think that they asked that? I knew they were going to eventually ask, but I figured that we could just throw it in with "The Talk", but at six years old? Are they ready?"

Shane smiled. Reed looked really adorable with his brow all furrowed like that. "They are smart girls; we have raised them well so far. I'm not saying that we need to go ahead and give them THAT "The Talk", but they deserve to know why they don't have a mother."

Reed smiled and took Shane's hand. He squeezed it and said, "I think you're right. C'mon, let's go."