“Dad hasn’t eaten dinner,” Lily explained. “And when he doesn’t eat, he gets really grumpy.”
“You look like someone who fixes things,” Chloe added, pointing to Emily’s sketchbook and the pastry display. “You draw houses and make cookies that make people feel better. So you’re coming with us to bring him dinner.”
The idea sounded ridiculous.
Yet as Emily looked at the hopeful faces in front of her, she felt something she hadn’t felt in years: purpose.
Twenty minutes later, she was driving toward the river with a picnic basket prepared by Mrs. Margaret and two energetic twins chatting in the back seat.
When they arrived, bright construction lights illuminated the steel skeleton of a massive riverside building. Even unfinished, it stirred Emily’s long-buried architectural passion.
“There he is,” Lily whispered.
A tall man stood nearby studying blueprints, exhaustion written in his posture. Beside him stood an elegant woman in a sharp suit speaking impatiently while tapping on a tablet.
“That’s Victoria,” Chloe whispered with obvious dislike. “She wants to marry Dad. But she’s mean. She says kids should be seen and not heard.”
Before Emily could respond, the girls ran across the site.
“Daddy!”