“You’re bringing friends home after school today?”
“Yep! Elsa and Nanami. We’re going to do our homework together.”
“Me too.”
After Flora hurried out the door, Willow went about her typical day. She hadn’t gone back to work yet. There wasn’t anyone to watch Skye, and she didn’t want to leave her rambunctious werewolf toddler with a random babysitter.
So instead, she took care of Skye herself.
“Mommy, mommy, mommy!”
“Yes, Skye?”
“I waited forever! I wanna go outside.”
“Okay, but you have to stay with me, remember?”
What followed was slightly over an hour of Willow watching Skye like a hawk while Skye ran around faster than any toddler had the right to.
Eventually Skye wore herself out and they went back inside for lunch and naptime.
After naptime, Willow read to Skye for a while until Skye wanted to run around again. This time, thankfully, she was running around inside.
Flora came home from school, bringing her two friends with her. They were very polite to Willow, but quickly escaped to hang out in Flora’s room.
Willow made them snacks, but she was mostly watching Skye. It was a full time job.
-------
“Your mom is really nice.”
Flora flipped the page of her homework booklet. “Willow’s not my mom, but she is really nice.”
“Who is she, then?”
“She’s my aunt, my dad’s sister. I barely remember my mom, and I haven’t seen my dad in years.” She looked down. “They both left a long time ago.”
Nanami was quiet. Elsa said, “I’m sorry.”
Flora smiled at them. “It’s alright. Like I said, it was a long time ago. And I have Willow, and she’s always been great.”
The mood was still slightly down, so Flora continued. “Families are complicated. Mine might be a little unusual, but I’m happy with it. I’d rather have that than have both my parents still here and miserable.” Flora remembered enough to know that it would have been miserable.
Nanami made a face. “That’s true. My parents are still together, but they can’t stand each other. They’re never going to get divorced, even though that would be less traumatic for us than watching them fight all the time and cheat on each other.”
Elsa nodded. “I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess you’re right.”
She looked back down at her homework and grumbled, “Why do I need to write a book report? I want to be an astrophysicist. I don’t think they’re gonna ask me what I thought about Crisis Barn when I’m studying space.”
Nanami shrugged. “You can copy mine if you want.”
“I’m not going to copy yours! I’ll do it, I just want to complain about it.”
Flora smiled. “It’s nice that you know what you want to do.”
Nanami looked up. “You’re really smart, Flora. You’ll figure it out. I’m just gonna inherit my dad’s business empire.”
Elsa snorted. “You're such a rich kid.”
Flora looked down at her homework to hide her expression. She really didn’t know what she wanted to do. She just knew that she wanted to live comfortably. If she, like Nanami, had parents who led her down a path to guaranteed success… what would she do with that? Instead, her parents had left her with Willow, who’d been living off unemployment since they moved here. Flora was old enough and smart enough to know that, as much as Willow said she just wanted to stay home while Skye was young, Skye’s birth had left Willow incapable of performing her previous, physically demanding job, and there weren’t many jobs around here Willow was qualified for. Flora wasn’t old enough to work yet, but she expected she would get a part time job when she was. It was hard for her to even imagine the privileges her friends took for granted.
Author's Note: Sorry about the lack of pictures in the last scene, Flora's room is just terrible to take pictures in. I will not be setting scenes there in the future. This was a pretty quiet chapter, but next chapter will be the last one where the focus is really on Willow before it shifts to the kids - Flora will be a teenager in Chapter 12, and we'll see Skye as a child in Chapter 13. I'm trying to find a consistent release schedule (not necessarily the same days every week or anything, but just so I'm releasing chapters pretty regularly), so I'm trying to have a decent backlog of chapters for release. Next time: the conclusion of Willow's plotline, and I finally release the rolls for this generation (even though at this point you can probably guess).
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