"Mom," Rowena calls out from her stall in the bathroom.

"Do you need a tissue?" Rilla calls out as she washes her hand having finished before her daughter.

"I think I need more than a tissue," she says hesitantly and Rilla looks up in the mirror, and then at the woman who was also in the washroom.

"Can I come in for a moment?" Rilla asked quietly by the door. Another lady who was washing her hand gave Rilla a look of sympathy, motioning to her purse. Rilla shook her head and padded her own. Rowena unlocked the door and Rilla stepped in. When the emergency was taken care of with the promise of more talks when they got home. The ladies washed their hands as the young woman wiggled at the uncertainty of what was going on.

"What if it moves?" She asks awkwardly whispering.

"You'll be fine, panties help keep it in place," Rilla tells her. "Though thankfully we are at the store, and luckily we have no one underfoot, or your father to explain to." She tells her daughter.

"I am never telling him!" Rowena exclaims and Rilla laughs out loud.

"Dear, he will realize at some point." Rilla points out wrapping her arm around her daughter and leading her down to the elevator. The young woman was rather thankful her mother hadn't made such a scene, though she was sure that would come later at home.

Rilla pulled her over to the counter that was filled with trinkets and cosmetics.

"May I offer assistance?" The lady said kindly, looking between mother and daughter as if she saw this moment every day.

"Yes, Thank you," Rilla said smiling back to the clerk. "We need a small-size sanitary belt, and two boxes of the Junior size Kotex, please. Do you have bloomers available or do they catalogue only?" She asked.

"We have some up in ladies' wear, if you ask they will bring them out for you," the lady said before turning to Rowena who is still beet red. "Is there a kind you might like better? With a narrow, or wide belt, white, or beige? The pink ones are rather popular with young ladies your age."

Rowena looked around before she quickly pointed to the pink one. Looking like she was ready to run from the shop. The clerk smiled at her and nodded her head.

"We'll take three of you them, and a package of safety pins as well?" Rilla told her as she watched Rowena play around with a bullet of lipstick that was pale pink.

"I think that would look nice on you," Rilla encouraged Rowena. She always told her daughter to wait and not be in a rush to grow up when she played with her mother's cosmetics. Rowena looked up in shock at her mother's suggestion. "If you have a special occasion," She added on quickly, but the colour would barely show on her daughter.

"Thank you!" Rowena said wrapping her arms around her mother.

Rowena rushed up the stairs, flying past her father with her bags of things. He looks to Rilla who pats his cheek and kisses him.

"I'll explain later," she whispers. "Where is Ollie, I have his tie and the corsage for him."

"He's been trying to slick back his hair for the past hour," Ken tells her as their gangly son comes down the stairs in his suit.

"Oh look at you," Rilla said as swept off imaginary dust from the shoulders of her son. "Your first dance."

"It's just a dance," Oliver went red and groaned. "I don't know why I have to be this dressed up for it."

"Because that is what was said in the school newsletter, and you're not even in formal wear. You're in your Sunday suit, the Winter Formal will be much more formal." Rilla told him as she pulled out the tie she went to pick up that afternoon. "It will match her dress perfectly."

"Thank you," Ollie says ears going redder.

"Corsage is in the fridge, don't forget it." Rilla reminds him, before kissing his cheek and Rowena comes racing down the stairs, hair freshly brushed out and her new pink lipstick on her lips.

Ken looks to Rilla, who mouths later.

"I remember the time Jimmy went with Violet, oh she was a nice girl whatever happened to Violet?" Ken says looking at the golden hair man in the living room.

Jimmy looked up from his chair, on a rare night off. "She was only with me to try and get closer to Fred Burns," Jimmy said drily.
"Oh right," Rilla frowned. "Who was that nice one with the red hair then? Didn't you take her to dance once?" Rilla's brow furrows, "What happened to her?"

"Lydia didn't like the idea of being married to a cop," Jimmy tells them.

"So just Constance then?" Rowena asks him. Constance a morality officer turned Children's Aid representative.

"Yes, escort her to events so her mother gets off her back and you off of mine," Jimmy explains, trailing off at the end.

"Well, I'm sure you will find someone," Rilla told him before turning her attention back to Oliver as she patted his hair. "I don't understand why you refuse to let your curls show."

"They're childish, I'm not a child anymore," Oliver said.

"So you keep telling me," Rilla sighed. "but you'll always be my baby." She said. "Even if you are taller than me at fifteen."

"Mom," Oliver groaned.

"Okay, Okay," Rilla stepped back from him. "John's father will pick you and the boys will spend the night at their place?"

"He is and I do," Oliver said nodding.

Rilla smiled and kissed his cheek before she left him be, letting Ken step forward.

"Be a gentleman," Ken said gruffly before looking back at his wife who was listening to Rowena say something about something about lipstick. "If her bag is on the opposite hand while walking, or standing next to you. It means she wants you to hold her hand. No smoking or drinking," he added at the very end. "No funny stuff." He said quietly.

"Dad!" Oliver grumbled.

"Have fun," Ken laughed slapping his back lightly.

"You promised me a dance," Oliver heard as he felt his coat being tugged. Clara was dressed in her favourite dress which was light pink organza with flounces upon flounces with a garland of silk flowers. It had been a copy of a Shirley Temple dress. Lillian had cleverly made it adjustable so it would fit her longer than a year. Even her hair had been styled in ringlets the previous night.

"Very well, once dance," he said as he held out his hands to her. Jimmy reached over and turned on the record player for them. Clara giggled and swept herself into a curtsy the matching ruffled panties showing as she did. Oliver mock bowed and dance around the living room with her.

"It's not fair, why can't I go to a dance, like a grown-up dance not those kiddy ones at school?" Rowena whined from her chair in the corner.

"Your time will come," Rilla told her. "You're only thirteen, don't be in such a rush to grow up," Rilla told her. She saw Ken chuckle to himself, he had heard from Walter just how Rilla wanted to go to that dance that one night. How Walter coaxed his mother-in-law to let Rilla have her night of fun.

"We'll be late if we don't head out soon," Ken said looking at the clock. "Plus it's almost bedtime for you Clara," Ken told her.

"Will you be home to tuck me in?" Clara asked her father as Oliver to stopped dancing and gave her a bow.

"Of course," Ken said as he scooped her up, feeling his back protest slightly. It would only be a little while longer she would be small enough for such things. "Take your bath and be good and I'll be back." He kissed her hair and set her back down as he grabbed his jacket and car keys. He stopped turning to Rilla who was still standing there.

"I won't be long," he said kissing her cheek before he left.

"Rilla nodded and watched Ken and Oliver leave. "Come on Clare-bear," she said to her youngest. "Bath time," she told nudged the five-year-old towards the hallway leaving the other two on their own.

"Jimmy, will you dance with me?" Rowena asked as she leaned against his chair. Jimmy looked at her with a raised eyebrow and hummed for a moment. "Please?" She added.

"Very well," Jimmy said standing up as a new song started on the player.

"Do you think you can take me to your Christmas gala one day? Rowena asked him

"Possibly, depends on Mom and Dad and if I have a wife or not," Jimmy grinned as he twirled her around in the living room.

"Then you're not allowed to get married, you'll live with us forever," Rowena told him giggling.

"What happens when you get married one day?" Jimmy chuckled.

"I'll live down the street and visit often," Rowena told him. "Do you like Connie?" Rowena asked him.

"Constance is a good friend," Jimmy said after a moment.

"But you don't like-like her?" Rowena prodded him for an answer.

"My feelings are none of your business," Jimmy tutted her with a smile.

"Well, I think you two should get married, you go to events together all the time anyway,"
Rowena told him a matter of factly.

"Getting married is more than just attending events Roe," Jimmy said shaking his head. "You should love the other person."

"Like mom and dad?" Rowena replied. "They love each other, it's rather sickening at times watching them as they are."

"It's endearing," Jimmy said correcting her as the song finished. "They have been through a lot together, you're lucky to have had such an example all your life."

"I suppose so," Rowena shrugged as she sat down and swung her legs over the edge of the chair, before remembering her new phase of life and covering her legs with the afghan. "Do you want to go make some fudge?"

"I think Mrs. Clarke would give us a tongue lashing if we use her supply of sugar for such things," Jimmy told her, reminding her that sugar was an economy that not every person had.

"I don't get it, we have money, we go to fancy schools and have this house. Yet Mom and Dad are always going on about saving and helping the less fortunate and I can't even make some fudge." Rowena huffed.

"You're sounding rather self-absorbed and selfish there Roe," Jimmy told her with a look. "All Mom and Dad want is for you to understand why things are the way they are right now. When the economy crashed it was a frightening time for them. Canada fared better than the United States, and a lot of people lost a lot of money. Your Uncles Jerry and Joseph lost their jobs. I got lucky with the police force. Dad counts himself extremely lucky to have managed as he has. As for your education, it's important to them. Mom wants you to know there is more to life than what society expects of you, and Oliver is technically your father's heir to the company." He explains to her.

"What if all I want to do is get married and be a mother?" Rowena countered back.

"Then that is your choice," Jimmy said shrugging. "Just choose someone who loves and respects you."

"Have you ever been in love?" Rowena asked him changing the subject back to him.

"I was once," Jimmy said after a moment, "and that is all the information you are getting from me, missy." He said to the thirteen-year-old.

"How am I supposed to know what love is if no one tells me what it feels like?" Rowena countered back.

"You'll know," Jimmy told her after a moment. "It's one of the most wonderful feelings in the world." He told her.

Rowena made a face and looked toward the clock with a sigh.

"Come on, let's go make some cookies," Jimmy told her. "I'm sure we can get away with that."

"Thank you!" Rowena grinned and jumped up from her chair.

Rilla sighed as she slipped into bed later that night, rubbing lotion into her hands. Ken still pacing from the news she told him.

"How? How is she already grown up enough for this? It feels like yesterday when I first held her in my hands. Red and screaming," Ken let out his thoughts from the day.

"It was going to happen sooner or later," Rilla patted his arm. "I was her age, she's been so moody lately I was just waiting for it to happen. She's been boy crazy at that." She said sighing as she patted the bed and beckoned him. "At least we have another seven-eight years before we have to worry about Clara," Rilla told him.

"I really don't enjoy the sound of her dating," Ken cleared his throat.

"But you have no problems with Oliver dating? Isn't that a double standard dearest?" Rilla teased him.

"Oliver can barely stumble his way through talking or dancing with a girl. The chances of having to worry about him with a girl right now are slim, but the boys that Doe is already starting to attract. I am not ready for that nor do I want it in the upcoming years." Ken said. "She has your beauty and the Ford charm. It doesn't sound good in my mind."

"We still have to trust her, the more we forbid something the more she will try to defy us." Rilla reminded him before she made a move to kiss him. Squeaking quietly as she felt his hands find the hem of her nightgown, letting her know that any talk of children could be postponed

"We have probably twenty minutes before we get interrupted," Rilla told him breaking for a breath of air while glancing at the clock on the table.

"Good thing we are well-practiced and stocked up on precautions?" Ken said nuzzling her neck with a smirk.

Sure enough, as soon as Rilla cleaned herself up in the washroom and Ken had managed to find his own bottoms once more. A small dark hair child came scampering from her room holding her teddy bear. Her lip quivered as she said something about monsters and shadows on her walls from the brewing storm. Rilla made room for her as she scooted closer to her husband. Clara climbed in with her own blanket and cuddled into her mother.

"I love you, Mummy, I love you, Daddy," Clara said before she fell back to sleep.