Up All Night (Mount Hope Book 1) by Annabeth Albert

Author:Annabeth Albert [Albert, Annabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Annabeth Albert
Published: 2024-03-27T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Sean

“What’s with the goggles?” I asked Wren as I came into the kitchen. Denver was due any second for our long-awaited cooking lesson date. It had taken longer than expected for our schedules to align. In the meantime, the rotating chart of meal duty had brought a lot more order to the household. But Wren was still Wren, as evidenced by the white lab coat and goggles with a graphing notebook and tablet at the ready on the kitchen island.

“Safety first.” Wren waved a hand dismissively as if everyone sported lab wear for weeknight dinner prep. “Burgers are notorious for splattering. And I want to experiment⁠—”

“No experimenting.” I groaned. “Patty melts. Home fries. A salad. Let’s stick to the basics.”

“Do you know where the world would be without science?” Wren’s tone turned scornful. “My dad always said—sorry. My other dad.” Wren sucked their lips in, then pushed them out in a pout, eyes going from mocking to sad. “Guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“Of course it matters.” I stepped closer to the island. Wren could be funny about touch, so I didn’t offer a pat, but I tried to pitch my voice as sympathetic as possible. “Wren, it’s okay to say your dad’s name. You kids called him Dr. Dad, right?”

“Yeah.” Wren’s pouting expression made them look far younger than thirteen. Because they were so smart, it was all too easy to forget they were still a kid. A kid grieving an enormous loss. In my opinion, Wren needed a hug, but their stiff body language said otherwise.

Instead, I leaned into Wren’s favorite subject. “Dr. Dad would be proud of your commitment to scientific inquiry.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” Wren practically spit out the words, the most emotion I’d seen from them. “Why’d he have to die?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.” In my own parenting experience, I’d learned that admitting when I didn’t know something was even more important than sharing things I did know or having the perfect explanation. I kept my voice soothing, hoping that helped. “All I know is that it’s okay to miss Dr. Dad. It’s okay to be sad and angry and upset all at the same time. And it’s okay to talk about him, to remember things he said.”

“I don’t want to make my other dad any more sad,” Wren whispered, their guilty tone breaking my heart. “And I keep screwing up my experiments, which isn’t helping, but it’s like…I’m missing something, and I can’t find it.”

Oh. I’d felt exactly like that for years and years. I’d lived with that feeling for so long that I hadn’t noticed its absence until that second. Or, more accurately, until Denver. I’d been missing something, and now, I’d found it, but whether I’d get to keep it was the real question. However, Wren needed me to be focused on them, not my personal life.

“I get it. We’re all a little off as we figure out how to move forward.” I included myself in that because I was also in a new phase, still finding my footing, but surer every day.

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