Sixty-Three

Isobelle

Today would be a glorious day, I could feel it. Not only had I responded to my father's latest text, which was an urgent plea for me to speak with him or else he would call his contacts at the FBI, I became the bigger person and forgave my mother. All this stress was not good for the baby. I wanted the next nine months to be drama free — if that was even remotely possible, considering I lived with rowdy quadruplets who bickered and fought one another at every given opportunity. Just as I hit send, my phone rang. It was Dad. After a moment of panic, staring at my phone as if Satan himself was calling me, I answered with an incredible meek, “Hello.”

Dad's breath rattled down the line as he considered what to say. “Hello, flower,” he returned in his broad Yorkshire accent, sounding flustered.

“How are things with you and Mum?” I tested the water with a flinch of my eyes.

“Hm, well . . . we've had a lengthy chat,” he revealed, pausing in between, most probably because Mum was the