Lou was awake before the sun broke over the foothills. What little sleep she’d had was fitful and fraught with nightmares. The talk with her daughters went relatively well considering their young age and the sensitive subject matter, but it had been stressful.

It always amazed her that children could be so honest and at the same time so willing to adapt and change. She knew she should take a lesson from her children, but couldn’t see how to do so.

She had decided the best way to handle the situation was to be truthful with the girls about who the boy was. It was a policy she and Kid had always agreed on - honesty with the children. They had both been told enough lies in their lifetimes that they didn’t plan to perpetuate the habit with their own children.

She’d taken the girls out onto Buck and Jenny’s porch and set them in the swing. It was the very same swing she had spent many a night in, confessing her secrets and hopes and dreams, when the house belonged to Emma and then Rachel.

“Girls, I need to talk to you about something very important,” Lou began, her tone soft but serious. “I wanted to talk to you like big girls, because that’s what you are.” She had to stop when she felt the tears begin to well up.

“It’s about that little boy, isn’t it?”

Lou nodded her head at her oldest daughter. She tended to forget how intelligent and perceptive Mary Emma was. “It is, sweetheart.”

“He was very quiet at the table, Mama.”

“I know, baby.” Lou smoothed Sarah’s hair as it blew in the evening breeze. She hoped she wasn’t going to be too far over her younger daughter’s level of understanding. “He was quiet because he was feelin’ shy. Like the two of you are when you meet new people. You see he was meeting an important person today.”

“Important like Grandpa Spoon? He’s the Marshal.” Mary Emma was very proud that her surrogate grandfather was one of the most influential people in town.

“Well, not exactly like that. He was meeting your daddy. You see girls, Jackson, that’s the little boy’s name, well, your daddy is his daddy too.”

There, it’s out in the open, thought Lou. She exhaled; completely unaware of the fact that she had been holding her breath through the entire sentence, but she didn’t feel any better about the situation. In actuality, she felt a sense of loss of innocence for her daughters. Damn Kid for putting them all through this!

“Daddy is his daddy?” repeated Mary Emma. “Then are you his mama?”

Lou looked down patiently at her daughter and into deep brown eyes that exactly matched hers. At six years old, the child was an exact likeness of what she looked like at that age. “No, I’m not his Mama. He has another Mama.” Who’s probably lurking in the shadows somewhere.

“Where is his Mama? He must be sad without her.”

Lifting Sarah from the swing, Lou sat down and held her on her lap. Sarah was the more sensitive of the two girls and Lou was touched by her concern. “He might be sad, yes. Girls, what I really need for you to understand is that Daddy being Jackson’s daddy too, changes things a bit. If your Daddy is his Daddy well, that makes him your brother.”

“Our brother?” questioned Mary Emma with a look of amazement on her face. “Like Sally has Ike and Noah? Like Katherine has Michael?”

There it was, thought Lou. The essence of their troubles laid out in the most basic terms. “Yes, just like that, Mary Emma. You now have a big brother.”

“Will he play with us or only the boys? I don’t want a brother who won’t play with us,” stated Sarah with a very serious look on her face.

Lou hugged her daughters close to her. “I don’t know if he’ll play with you, girls. I’m not sure he’ll be living here with us.” It pained Lou to even think about telling the girls she had sent their father off into the night.

“Where would he live? With his own Mama?”

“I don’t know, Sarah. We haven’t figured that out yet,” she said honestly.

“Well, I want him to live with us.”

Kissing the top of the young girls head, Lou smiled wistfully into her hair. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

Lou could feel Mary Emma fidgeting on the swing beside her and worried that the young girl was upset now that she’d had some time to digest the new situation. “What’s the matter, sweetie? Are you tired?”

The girl looked up at her mother, tears in her eyes, and nearly broke her mother’s heart with her question. “If Daddy is Jackson’s daddy too, does this mean he doesn’t love us anymore?” Mary Emma considered what her mother said very carefully and nodded her head. “Where is Daddy, Mama? He promised to read us a story before bed.”

“He went to town for the night, so he won’t be able to tuck you in. How about I read you that story instead?” She was determined to keep their routine as normal as possible for her children.

“But you don’t do it right, Mama,” pointed out Mary Emma.

“What’s wrong with my storytelling?”

Cuddling in Lou’s arms, Sarah piped in, “You don’t make the voices like Daddy does.”

Rising from the swing, balancing Sarah on her hip and holding Mary Emma’s hand, she led them towards their own house across the yard. “What if I promise to do the voices? Would that be okay?”

“All the voices?”

“Yes, Mary Emma. All the voices.”

Stopping on the porch before entering the house, Mary Emma concentrated very hard on the tips of her shoes. To Lou, it appeared as if she was having an internal battle.

With Sarah still clinging to her neck, she crouched down so she was eye-level with the child. “What’s the matter, sweetie? Do you have something to ask me?”

Mary Emma nodded her head quickly, the motion sending both braids bobbing.

“You know you can ask me anything. You know we have no secrets in this family.” Lou’s heart skipped a beat at her own lie. Until tonight.

“Mama, when we say our prayers, would it be okay if we say one for Jackson?”

The child looked at her expectantly and this time, Lou couldn’t stop her own tears. Pulling her daughter into an embrace, she felt as if her heart would burst with love for the children in her arms. It appeared as if they could weather any storm their parents brewed around them.

“You can say a prayer for anyone you’d like, baby girl,” Lou whispered. “Anyone in your heart.”

She hadn’t even realized she’d gotten out of bed, but Lou found herself standing in the doorway to Mary Emma’s room. She watched her two oldest daughters sleeping in the one bed, curled together where they had drifted off during the previous night’s story.

“I’ll try to do right by you girls, I promise, but right now Mama needs to go away.” Lou walked deeper into the room and pulled the blanket up under their chins.

It was a decision she had reached in the darkest hour of the night. She wasn’t running away this time, not like she had tried to do when Kid spurned her attempt to tell him about her first marriage. This time she just needed to get away for a short while and sort out her thoughts. In a few weeks she knew she would be better able to handle what ever lay ahead for her family.

To be continued...