Chapter 4 #3
Remedy looked equally speechless.
After a long moment, he smiled.
"I think you might be right."
Charlie nodded as though adults taking so long to understand obvious things was perfectly normal.
"I know."
She slipped one tiny hand into mine.
The other immediately found her father's.
Without ceremony...
Without asking...
She linked our hands together.
"There."
Both of us looked down.
My fingers rested against Remedy's larger hand only because Charlie had insisted they belonged there.
The warmth of his skin startled me.
Not because the contact was inappropriate.
Because it felt...
Safe.
Completely, unexpectedly safe.
Charlie admired her work with obvious satisfaction.
"Now nobody's by themselves."
A silence settled around the three of us.
Not uncomfortable.
Not awkward.
Full.
Like something none of us quite knew how to name.
I became suddenly aware that my hand still rested against Remedy's.
I started to pull away.
"So..."
Charlie interrupted before either of us could move.
"Can we all color?"
Remedy laughed quietly.
"You never stop, do you?"
"Nope."
She looked between us.
"I need help."
"What happened to Pancake?"
"He needs a family."
My heart squeezed painfully.
Children always found the simplest words for the biggest truths.
Remedy looked toward me.
"If you don't have plans."
The invitation wasn't forceful.
Or expectant.
Merely offered.
As though he genuinely meant it when he wanted me to have the choice.
"I'd like that."
Charlie's answering squeal echoed through nearly the entire children's wing.
"I knew you'd say yes!"
She immediately took off toward the art room, dragging both of us after her before either had the chance to object.
The art room looked considerably less organized than it had that morning.
Crayons occupied every available surface.
Construction paper had somehow migrated beneath several chairs.
Markers rolled lazily across one table while Nathan and Emily argued over whether dragons preferred blue or green skies.
Emily looked up first.
"Charlie's back!"
Nathan smiled shyly.
"Hi."
Charlie immediately climbed into the chair beside him.
"We're making Pancake a family."
Emily gasped.
"He gets babies?"
"Maybe."
Charlie frowned thoughtfully.
“Do dragons lay eggs?”
Every adult in the room looked at one another.
Finally, Remedy cleared his throat.
"I'll leave that scientific discussion to someone else."
The children erupted into giggles.
I settled beside Charlie while Remedy took the chair across from us.
He looked surprisingly comfortable holding a green crayon between two tattooed fingers.
Charlie handed him a sheet of paper.
"You draw Daddy Dragon."
"What makes him a daddy?"
"He protects everybody."
Charlie answered so quickly that it was obvious she hadn't needed to think about the question at all.
In her mind, being a father had nothing to do with strength, motorcycles, or even dragons.
It meant protecting the people who depended on you.
Listening to her, I couldn't help thinking she'd described Remedy more accurately than any adult ever had.
She turned toward me.
"You make Mommy Dragon."
The words landed so unexpectedly that my hand froze around the yellow crayon.
Emily didn't seem to notice, and Nathan certainly didn't. To children, families simply existed in whatever shape love created them.
Some were large, others small, some shared the same blood while others found one another along the way, but none of that seemed to matter.
They cared only that someone stayed, someone loved them, and someone made them feel safe.
Charlie looked at me expectantly.
"You can make her pretty."
I swallowed.
"I'll do my best."
As we colored, the room slowly filled with quiet conversation.
Nathan proudly explained why foxes should be allowed to ride dragons.
Emily remained convinced every dragon deserved at least three birthday cakes every year.
Charlie decided Mr. Pickles should become honorary dragon commander.
Remedy listened to every word with complete seriousness, occasionally asking questions that encouraged the children to tell longer stories.
As I watched Remedy with the children, I realized the gentleness I'd seen that morning wasn't something he put on for frightened families or grateful volunteers.
It remained just as present when no one expected anything from him, woven so naturally into the way he spoke and listened that I doubted he even realized he was doing it anymore.
People respected Remedy because he saved lives, but the children loved him for an entirely different reason.
Around them he never hurried, never dismissed their fears as childish, and never made them feel as though they were too small to matter.
Saving a life earned admiration. Making someone feel important earned trust, and I was beginning to understand that trust might be the rarer gift.
I glanced down at my drawing.
The mother dragon curved protectively around three tiny hatchlings sleeping beneath one enormous golden wing.
Without thinking, I'd drawn one hatchling clutching a stuffed bear.
My breath caught as memories surfaced before I could stop them.
Oliver had carried a stuffed dinosaur everywhere he went, Emma and Ellie had shared a threadbare rabbit between them, and little Grace had fallen asleep every night clutching a faded yellow blanket because babies inside the Order weren't allowed toys.
Even now I could picture every one of them as clearly as if they were sitting across the table from me.
My fingers tightened around the crayon.
Before the memories could pull me under again, a warm voice interrupted my thoughts.
"It's beautiful."
I looked up.
Remedy's attention never shifted to my face.
Instead, he studied the drawing itself with quiet appreciation, never asking questions or looking at me with the curiosity so many people carried whenever they sensed old wounds.
He simply admired what I'd created and allowed the silence to remain exactly what it needed to be.
"You've got a gift."
I looked back down at the page.
"So do you."
He smiled faintly.
"I'm drawing a dragon."
I returned the smile.
"I wasn't talking about the dragon."
Our eyes met for only a heartbeat, yet the moment lingered longer than it should have. Neither of us spoke, but the silence between us no longer felt uncertain. It felt comfortable, as though we were both slowly learning that not every meaningful conversation required words.
Then Charlie proudly held her own picture above her head.
"Finished!"
The spell broke instantly.
Everyone leaned closer to admire her masterpiece.
Across the top of the page, written in large crooked letters, she had proudly titled it:
THE FAMILY PANCAKE.
None of us had the faintest idea what "The Family Pancake" was supposed to mean, but none of us had the heart to explain that dragons probably weren't named after breakfast either.
Somehow, in Charlie's wonderfully uncomplicated world, it made perfect sense, and that alone was reason enough for the rest of us to accept it without question.
Sitting around that crowded little table, surrounded by crayons, children's laughter, and conversations about dragons, I felt something awaken inside me that I had buried years before.
For the first time in longer than I wanted to admit, a small part of me allowed itself to wonder what it might feel like to belong to a family again.