To Love a Raven
Fisher shifted his weight nervously, lifting the cake higher to make sure his grip was solid. He was not about to ruin the day because his sweaty hands couldn’t hold onto a box.
His fretting, however, was short-lived. For no more than ten seconds had lapsed after they’d knocked before the door was slung open, the box removed from his person, and he found himself stepping into a homey kitchen that smelled divine—like cinnamon rolls and apples and sunshine.
He glanced around for the source of the smell and discovered instead that he was surrounded by a small horde of brunette women.
Besides the hair being identical, Fisher could easily clock the features that resembled Drie in each of her sisters, in a nose or an eye or a curve of the mouth.
But he was struck with the realization that much of her stature and appearance must have come from her father’s side.
She stood several inches shorter than her sisters—two of whom were still in high school—looking like a little freckled pixie next to them.
Fisher scanned the group quickly, trying to distinguish who was who before he introduced himself.
Jeden was easy enough due to her perpetual squint, as Drie referred to it.
She looked like an athlete, strong and fierce.
She was also the tallest of the group by several inches, despite leaning heavily to one side, all of her weight resting on the leg that did not have a brace wrapped around the knee.
Rosy was also quick to identify, being the second tallest and the curviest, with soft, delicate features.
Though she was only a few inches shorter than Jeden, the difference in presence between them was striking.
Even with the handicap, Jeden was intimidating, exuding confidence.
Rosy, however, was shy to the extreme, standing toward the back of the group in an oversized hoodie, with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, watching him with a wary, appraising eye.
Reclining against the wall beside her was the only other guy in the room, who Fisher knew to be the best friend, Lucas, a curly-headed teenager with a pimple patch on his chin.
Sam and Nellie, however, were trickier to identify.
Drie had warned him that they were nearly identical replicas of their mother with oval faces, high cheekbones, and wide smiles.
“Even their personalities mirror,” Drie had said, telling him stories of the shenanigans they’d gotten into growing up.
But where she said Sam’s mild criminal tendencies manifested into more subtle manipulations, Nellie had left a path of destruction in her wake, despite remaining utterly unrepentant.
Ironically, he was able to identify Nellie because she was the only one who crocheted, and she was sitting calmly on the kitchen counter, away from the group, working on what appeared to be a striped sweater.
Feeling grounded in his deductions, he smiled to the room at large. “It’s great to finally meet you all. I’m Fisher, and Drie has told me so many stories.” He stepped forward with a hand extended. “You must be Jeden?”
She nodded and shook his hand warmly. “Likewise. I feel like I know you already.”
He moved about the room, getting similarly polite responses from Sam and Rosy. Lucas tilted his head back in the briefest of nods, offering a, “Hey, man.” And from Nellie, who didn’t even bother to look up from her project, a mildly concerning, “I know who you are.”
“Nelja.” A fresh voice spoke up from the second doorway, and Fisher grinned in excitement when Grandma Ruby walked into the room.
“The lady of the hour!” he announced as he moved in her direction. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Ms. Raven. I hope you’ve been having a fantastic birthday so far.”
She waved a hand with a scoff. “I can’t remember the last time I was called that. Grube, please. Or Grandma Ruby, if Grube is too informal for you.”
“Grube it is.” He looked back over his shoulder at Nellie as her words finally registered. “Did you just call her Nell-ah? I thought it was Nell-ee. I’m sorry if I pronounced it wrong.”
“No, you got it right,” Drie said, walking around Fisher to hug her grandmother. “You know how some families have cutesy, unique naming traditions like using the same first letter or rhyming?”
“Like naming all their sons to sound like a bunch of medieval blue-collar townsfolk?”
“Exactly.” Drie winked. “Well…our mother was a little less subtle.” Nellie snorted as Drie paused.
“She, uh, quite literally numbered us. She used different languages to make it less obvious, but my name translates to the number three. Nellie chooses to go by a nickname because Nelja is the Finnish word for the number four, and nobody pronounces it correctly.”
“Can only take so many Nel-jahs. I’m not going to spend my life correcting people.” Nellie yanked too hard on the yarn and sighed, setting down the hook and pulling out a row of stitches. “Easier just to give the public an idiotproof option.”
“That makes sense,” Fisher agreed.
Nellie’s eyes darted up to scan him, unimpressed. “We’re not friends.”
“We may not be friends,” he said, lowering his voice, “but I have to say, I’m a total fan.
” Drie groaned, slapping a hand over her face as he continued.
“’Birch, please, leaf it to me’, was absolute genius marketing at work.
The whole thing. Just incredible. Whenever the statute of limitations passes on a criminal charge, I have a thousand questions for you. ”
“Please don’t encourage her.” Jeden groaned from the other side of the kitchen, pulling a steaming cobbler out of the oven. She looked in their direction, her eyes not quite landing on Fisher. “Fraud, lies, property destruction, trespassing. She’s going to end up in prison if she keeps it up.”
“Settle down, Jeden,” Nellie said, glancing up once more at Fisher, the corner of her lip twitching minutely.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” she said with the perfect balance of confusion and confidence, all the while discreetly lifting three fingers from the hold she had on her yarn.
“Jeden may not be able to see that, but I certainly can,” Grube grumbled.
“I was just stretching,” Nellie answered sweetly, countering Grube’s raised eyebrow with wide puppy-dog eyes.
With the ice broken, the lingering concerns that the sisters had carried began to thaw.
Nellie remained pretty frosty, though she wasn’t overtly warm with anybody that he noticed, and Fisher could never get a good read on Sam.
Her words never quite matched her expressions.
They seemed measured, like he was talking to a reporter or a spy.
But by and large, he felt welcomed into the fold.
The conversation flowed easily while they ate, and afterward, when they cleared the table for a game of Rummy, sweet Rosy came out of nowhere and swept the board, taking them for all their Hershey’s Kiss bets.
Later that evening, when Fisher lay in bed with a sleeping Drie in his arms, his heart ached.
He remembered all too well how it felt to regret his decisions, to find himself at his own rock bottom, not knowing if there was a path back from the mistakes he’d made.
Knowing now how incredible it felt to love a Raven, he hated to think how close he came to missing out on the rest of her family. How close he came to losing her.
He ran his hand gently down her back, simply appreciating the opportunity to hold her in his arms after everything he’d put her through, and the bravery of her forgiveness, allowing them to get to that point.
Affection stole through him as he listened to her soft snores, flooding him with an intoxicating warmth and the compelling desire to spend the rest of his life making sure she never doubted the depth of his love again.
But for the time being, he pressed a lingering kiss to the top of her head and let his eyes fall closed, wishing, for once, that time would stand still.