The Academy In My Head

The Great Candy Divide

Sean settled into his favorite chair in the family room, exhaling slowly as he relaxed after a long, difficult shift. One of his favorite patients had been into the clinic for a check up and they had ended up spending hours at the hospital. It had been touch and go for a while but the patient had stabilized and was resting comfortably after an emergency appendectomy. They'd caught it just in time, well, just after just in time to be honest. He'd been lucky to catch it just after the appendix had ruptured. Any more time and it would have been far too late. He'd just leaned his head back against the chair, hoping for a few moments to rest when he heard the pitter patter of little feet.

Okay, forget pitter patter.

It definitely had to be their 3-and-a-half-year-old twins because he still wasn't quite sure how two stealthy individuals like Luke and Sang had produced a mini pack of elephants.

"Daddy Sean sleeping."

"He just gots here. He no sleep yet."

He cracked an eye open and peered at them. Gabriella brightened. "You right, he woked!" she squealed, nudging her brother before flinging herself at his knees. "Daddy Sean, you been gone long time todays. We misseded you." She said.

Griffin, not to be outdone, flung himself at the other leg. "Yeah, where you go?" He grinned up at Sean. He had his mother's eyes, but the grin was pure Luke.

"Well, I did go to work today." Sean said, shifting to help them up onto his lap before he gave them each a hug.

"Ohhh. Superhero doctor daddy." Gabriella nodded solemnly. "You save today?"

"Yes, baby girl." He gave her a soft smile. "But I'm glad to be home with you both."

Griffin leaned in, his fingers finding his mouth, the signal to Sean that the twins were getting tired. "Story time?" Griffin asked. "Please? We's been soo gooder today."

Sean smiled. "We can manage a story before bedtime." He said, glancing up to see Sang in the doorway giving him a 'Ten' with her fingers. Ten minutes was the perfect amount of time for a story. "What'll it be tonight... princesses, dragons... race cars?"

"We wants a good story." Gabriella shook her head. "Something about candy!" She grinned.

"No candy." Griffin pouted. Sean choked back a laugh. "Candy no good for you, Gabi... Daddy North says so."

There was a storm cloud brewing on his twin sister's face and Sean cleared his throat. "You've given me an excellent idea for a story. Have we discussed the big Taylorsville split yet?"

Both twins stared up at him, heads tilting to the opposite side as they thought about it. He'd started spinning Old West style stories for them a while ago, loosely basing characters on their family and it seemed to work best whenever any of the kids were having a rules issue or just wanted to hear something about one of the parents. They both shook their head. "No, Daddy Sean. We don't thinks so." Griffin said.

"Well then we need to fix that." Sean winked and helped them get comfy in his lap, smiling slightly when Sang took up a spot inside the door. His beloved Pookie also loved the Old West style stories, particularly when he could either tell her things about all the other guys when they were growing up or when he managed to relate it to something the kids were dealing with. "Gather round, my lovelies and listen to my cautionary tale of brothers divided. It's a tale that is as old as time. A firm line divides these brothers, no, not because of an inheritance, water rights, treasure, cattle or a woman.

No, this is the story of how the sleepy little town of Taylorsville was split into North Taylorsville and Taylorsville proper."

"Like Daddy North?"