So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Part One: Question Your Desires; Chapter One: Rachel, Saturday

This evening was Joanie's opportunity to celebrate her new rank with the family she'd indirectly chosen, and soon they'd all be meeting for dinner with some other friends, in a private banquet room booked in a family-friendly restaurant nearby in Coquitlam. 

While this evening was a happy occasion, though, it was tempered with sadness, which was why Joe DiTomaso, the man responsible for Joanie's entry into this makeshift family, wasn't here; it might have been just as well, for he would have taken up half the room himself with his size. 

The reason for Joe's absence was also the reason they'd stopped by Gladys' house before going on to the restaurant: they were walking down memory lane by looking through photo albums for pictures of the deceased in their salad days.

Emma sat with a photo album open on her lap, looking down on the grainy Polaroids and the clearer professionally-developed photos with the awe that Howard Carter must have felt upon discovering the tomb of Tutankhamen. The paper photos must have felt like ancient artifacts to this girl raised in the digital age, who kept all her dearest photos on her phone. She pointed down at one in particular and said, "Is that you, Dad?"

Al, who always lit up from the inside like a paper lantern whenever Emma called him Dad, sat beside her and looked at where she was pointing. "Yup. That's me on my bike. I put a lot of miles on that thing. By the time we moved away from Queensborough, it was ready to be retired; I think it went into the dump, which wouldn't be the thing to do nowadays. Oh, look!" he exclaimed, smiling and pointing to another photo. "There's me and Mum."

Emma gasped and looked at Rachel. "That's you! How old were you when you were in this picture?"

Rachel bent over and had a look. "Probably... ten or eleven?" She looked at Al, who nodded confirmation. 

Emma looked at the picture again and frowned. "Your hair's messy in this picture, Mum."

Laughter from the other chair. Rachel looked over at Lauren Hasegawa, Joe's wife, who was here with her kids Naomi and Tosh. Naomi, who was Emma's best friend in the entire world just as Lauren had been Rachel's when they were kids, sat on Emma's other side to look at the photos of their parents as children, smiling whenever she saw one she recognized, probably one with her dad in it, unmistakable with his auburn hair, which she'd inherited from him; the rest of her she'd inherited from Lauren.

"Your mum's hair was a tangle every day of her childhood," Lauren said. "Once she cut it because a hairbrush got stuck in it and wouldn't come out. Her hair was as short as mine was, then."

"Yeah, see, there's my mom," Naomi said, pointing at another photo. "Whoever thought that the bowl-cut looked good?"

"That was the style back then!" Lauren protested.

"For boys, maybe," Rachel shot back. 

"You should have kept yours as short as mine. Without a mom to comb yours out, you let it become a rat's nest more often than not." 

Emma looked up at her. "Your mom wasn't there?"

Rachel didn't fail to notice Emma never addressed her mom as Grammy like she addressed Al's mother; Jennifer McWilliam could never pass as a Grammy. "Not at first," she said diplomatically. "She had to go away for a while, but then she came back."

"Oh!" Emma said, brightening. "Like my mom!"

"Sort of. But my dad never left. He was always there, even if he worked a lot to support us." She was embarrassed to feel the sting of tears in her eyes. "He was the best dad ever."

She knew she was feeling sentimental about fathers today because it was unavoidable, given the recent loss. She looked at Lauren. "How's Joe doing?"

Lauren sighed sadly. "Not good. He's at his mom's with Johnny and Val and the kids, praying the rosary. I couldn't stand the idea of it, so I came here with the kids, who didn't want to be there either. Better to be here, with other kids, being happy. There'll be enough sadness at the funeral."