10.
I wake up after four hours of sleep, not feeling completely rested but kind of grateful to have slept at doesn't come to me easily anymore.
First Dad.
Then Mom.
And now Rose.
Everyone I've ever loved is eventually taken away from me.
I head down to the kitchen to make some coffee when I stop in my tracks and three suitcases are brought into my checkered suitcases that are stacked outside the house-keeper's 's means that she's back.
I knock at her door. "Open up T!" I yell.
A minute and a half later, the door opens and I'm met with the sight of an unhappy Tanya Denali. "Edward", she says tearfully as she envelops me in a hug.
"When did you get here?" I ask.
"I let myself in an hour ago."
"How're you doing? How's your son?"
She laughs dryly. "Really Edward? You're making small talk. You're asking me how I'm doing!"
"What's with the tone?" I say. "What's wrong?"
"What's right?" she chokes out before tightening her hold on me.
I pat her back. "T…"
"Alice called me."
I should have known. Alice wasn't eager to leave me to fend for myself and Masen so she called in for reinforcements which resulted in Tanya cutting time with her son and daughter-in-law to get back here.
"What's going on Edwad?" calls out a sleepy Masen as he walks down the stairs with his teddy in his hand. "Watcha doing?" He rubs at his eyes.
"Guess who's back?" I say and he turns to look.
He runs towards us in excitement and jumps into T's awaiting arms.
I leave the hallway, wanting to give them both time to re-connect.
T has been with our family for nearly twenty seven years. She was hired when I was a year old and my parents needed someone to help around the was in med school and Mom was studying interior design back then. Raising me, studying for their degrees and managing a household wasn't easy for the two of them to cope was a thirty year old woman whose husband had recently left her and their son Garrett to run away with his needed work and that's how she found then, she's been a permanent fixture in our home and I can't imagine what we would have done without her.
In case you're wondering, Tanya is 57years old while Edward is 28. She was hired when he was a year old. What do you think of this? I'm sure that none of you expected T to be an old lady!