It's in the Genes

Good Morning

"Parker, if you don't want to go to school hungry, you should stop playing with your food. The bus is going to be here in like ten minutes, and you still need to finish your food and get dressed."

Parker looked up at me with a heavy-lidded gaze that practically screamed his disinterest. "But it doesn't taste good," he protested.

"I'm sure it tastes fine," I replied, sighing.

"Well, it doesn't," Parker said with a little jerk of his head. The little turd. "You burned it."

"Just because it isn't bleeding doesn't mean it's burned," I corrected.

It had been an interesting morning. One of the livestock had been in labor and Niall had gotten called in extra early. Niall normally makes the breakfast for the kids ahead of time, and I just make sure it's warm. It's not that I'm a bad cook, but I'm a vegetarian and the kids very much are not. Niall can actually eat meat, and thus knows how long to cook things for, how to prepare them, and how Parker and Sybil like everything. Sybil is more flexible in how she likes her meat; Parker is not, and likes everything practically raw. While Sybil was content with her breakfast that morning, I once again failed to meet Parker's particular expectations.

"To me it does," he mumbled, reluctantly shoving food in his mouth.

I watched his dejected, Oscar-worthy performance until he finished. I grabbed his iron pills from the cabinet, handing him one. "Here."

This he took without protest, thankfully. Nonetheless, he still took the opportunity to protest something else.

"Dee, can I stay home from school today?"

"Are you sick?" I asked.

"Not physically."

"Then no."

"But my legs are really cramped and school just makes it so much worse," he complained. He gazed up at my with his big, dark eyes. While he wasn't as adorable as when he was younger, there was a still enough childish cuteness in his pudgy, round features to make my heart feel like someone was squeezing it. That, and I felt his plight. I hated that we had to hide who we were and that it came with such physical discomfort. I felt in my own back and my limbs. I wished that he, as young as he was, didn't have to deal with the same thing. But for Parker, more than the rest of us, secrecy was essential.

"I know, bud," I murmured, crouching down to his height—though, truth be told, I didn't have to crouch that much anymore. "Look, tonight we can all go out back and you can stretch your legs. But today, you need to go to school. I'd like to save your absences for days when you need to be out."

Parker looked down. I know he didn't like my response, but he understood it. "Okay," he sighed, plodding to his room to get dressed.

I stood back up and frowned. Niall and I were lucky. We managed to avoid having to go to school—well, "normal" school. While neither of our childhoods were something we would wish upon Parker or Sybil, we never had to hide what we were. Now, as an adult, it was hard on both Niall and me—I hated to think what it was like for Parker and Sybil, the both of them trying to fit in and figure themselves out at the same time. I didn't know who it was harder for, out of the two of them. The first five years of Sybil's life were similar to Niall and mine's, so she had experienced both the difficulties and the freedoms that had come with it and could compare the present with her past. Parker was so young, and he never had to go through what the rest of us did.

"He'll get over it."

Sybil's gaze met mine, calm and steady. It's weird because she's fourteen, but talking with her is sometimes like what I imagine it would be like to talk with a friend in soft tones over a dark sleepover. Sometimes it's comforting, sometimes it's concerning.