It was the morning of the Christmas party, and Sasha and Abra were in the kitchen, busily preparing treats to bring with them. Cooper had puttered around and tried to help for a while, but mostly he'd just gotten in the way. Eventually Abra started redirecting his energy towards small errands, like fetching herbs from the garden or picking up some mangos someone down the street had ended up with more than they needed.
When it was time to go and they all piled into the car, Cooper noticed that Mason wasn't nearly as anxious as he was. Just unenthusiastically resigned. He had already given up hope of this being anything but awful, so the worries couldn't get to him in the same way they did Cooper.
Maybe that was how Cooper should be, too. He had so many good people in his life. Maybe it was a mistake to invest any part of his heart in someone who had burnt him so many times in the past.
Or maybe he and Mason were just different people with different approaches to things, and maybe that was fine. Maybe that was what the world needed. Maybe that was what their family needed. A little bit of hope and someone who was quick to put their foot down when it didn't pay off.
Logan might have been the biggest optimist of them all, or maybe his relationship with their mom was just on a different wavelength. There was a time when Cooper found himself envying Logan for that connection, but now envy just didn't feel like it made sense. It had only ever brought them pain and torn them apart.
They made their way down a quiet street, each house uniquely its own and surrounded by nature. One of them had goats in its yard. The GPS announced their arrival, and they pulled up in front of a charming wooden house with a second story deck that seemed to wrap around the entire thing. Abra dismissed Cooper's attempts to help unload, so he took Sasha by the hand and led him toward the house.
Logan's welcoming wave from the deck guided them through a lush pathway and up the stairs to where the holiday spirit was in full swing, the deck sparkling with tinsel and fairy lights. The only decorations Cooper's household had invested in were a rather sad looking tree and some tinsel they'd wrapped around the mailbox, but Abra had been in festive baking mode for weeks, so it about evened out.
Cooper witnessed a moment of hesitation from Logan where he clearly wanted to greet Sasha but was worried about coming at it with the wrong energy, but Sasha immediately solved the dilemma for him by completely ignoring all of the adults and making a beeline for Abigail, who was sitting on a blanket on the deck.
Sasha sat down across from her at the edge of the blanket, and she immediately grasped her hand out towards a toy that was beyond her reach. When Sasha handed it to her, she gave him a big smile that included a lot of drooly tongue in a way only babies could pull off.
Bianca, who was sitting at a table on the deck, gave Cooper a smile and then waved Logan over to join her.
Cooper knelt and gave Abigail a kiss on her head as she pumped her arms in excitement, then he turned and did the same to Sasha. "I'm going to go help the others, okay? I'll be back in a sec."
Sasha nodded. He'd found a plush, jingly ball that he was having fun shaking around and Abigail immediately badly wanted it. He gave it to her, but the moment he picked up something else, her attention was on that instead.
Cooper headed back down to the car and found Ellie and Abra getting the last of the things together while Mason remained in the car, sprawled across the backseat with his phone held up above his face.
"What are you looking at?" Cooper asked as he peeked in at Mason.
"Trying to look up how long it takes an adult to die if they're shut in a hot car," Mason said as he tapped on his phone. "There aren't many sources for that data on adults because they just assume you'd get out, and the sources I can find aren't exactly anywhere you should trust. Though, maybe I should trust them more than the legitimate sites because those ones all have an agenda."
"What's their agenda?"
"Preventing children from dying in hot cars. So, you know, they're probably gonna er on the side of lower times, right?"
"Is that an agenda?"
"Of course it is. Just because you agree with it doesn't mean it's not an agenda." Mason let out a deep sigh as he stared up at the roof of the car. "What do you think mum would get me? I mean, if she was really going to try and get me something I'd like?"
"I don't know," Cooper admitted. "Sasha's hoping for a vase."
Ellie propped her chin on Cooper's shoulder so that she could look in on Mason as well. "Do you think your mum would get a guy a vase?"
"Probably not."
"Well..." Mason said. "Listen, not generally, but I feel like she might be just the right amount of homophobic to view gay men as basically being women."
"Shit..." Cooper murmured, because Mason wasn't wrong.
"Which might be the better option, considering that the only other thing she knows about him is that he is disabled. Personally, I think that's the deeper well for potentially offensive gifts."
"I'm not sure I'm going to like what I see looking back at me in this mirror she's holding up to us..." Ellie mused.
"Ehh, it's fine," Mason said as he sat up. "It's like one of those carnival funhouse mirrors that distorts everything. It doesn't mean anything about you." Mason stretched out his back and then shuffled along the seat to get out of the car. "Anyway, we're parked in the shade, and from what I'm seeing, my odds aren't that great."
"Of surviving?" Cooper asked.
"No, the other one," Mason said as he shut the car door behind himself. "And if death is going to be such a pain in the ass, I guess I'll just come and spend time with my family instead. Is mum here yet?"
"Oh God, I hope not," Cooper said. "I left Sasha alone up there. Well, with Logan and Bianca and a baby, but you know..."
"Go. I'll help carry stuff."
"Thanks," Cooper said, grabbing the first couple of containers he saw before jogging off down the path.
To his relief, everything was as he'd left it. Bianca and Logan were still at the table, Sasha and Abigail were still sitting on the blanket, and Cooper's mother was nowhere in sight.
"She's not here yet, is she?" Cooper asked, balancing the containers as he approached. The contents—lamingtons and gingerbread people—remained mostly intact despite the rush, save for one gingerbread man now tragically bisected.
"No, we made sure you'd have some time first to settle in and have a tour of the new place," Bianca explained. "She'll be here in about half an hour."
"You think she'll actually get here at the time you told her to?" Mason interjected as he stomped his way up the last of the stairs. "She loves being early to everything. She can't stand feeling like she's not involved in something."
"I talked to her about it and she understands the importance," Logan said.
Mason scoffed. "Right, because talking to her is something we've never tried before. My mistake."
Logan sighed. "Look, the point isn't that she's some poor, misunderstood victim and it's our fault for not explaining things before. That's not what I'm trying to say. For someone to change, they have to want to, and I think she's at that point. She's open to doing the hard work because I think she's starting to see that she can't just control everything. If she wants this family, she's going to have to work for it and accept that it might not perfectly match whatever image she has in her head."
Mason put the containers he was carrying down on the table. "Yeah, because she doesn't have the power to force us to be in her life anymore. It's not because she suddenly cares about how we feel."
"I think it's more complicated than that, but I can also understand why you'd feel that way, so I'm not going to debate you on it. You should make your own judgments based on how she behaves today."
Mason said down on the blanket next to Abigail, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles as he fluffed up her hair. "Oh, I will. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's judging people."
"But if you come into things with your mind already made up—" Logan started to say, but he stopped when Bianca put a hand on his shoulder. He exchanged a look with her, and then nodded his head. "No, it's okay. Of course nobody's going into this with a blank slate after everything that's happened. I know sometimes I push too hard to try to make things perfect. Mum does the same thing. Perfect doesn't exist, though. It's not real. Nobody and nothing is perfect, so you're just constantly setting yourself and everyone around you up for disappointment and failure. I don't want that. I just want something that's real and mine."
"Reality isn't always pretty," Mason countered. "It doesn't always have a happy ending."
"I know," Logan said. "And I'm not going to pretend that I'm not still struggling with that, but I do get it."
The conversation was interrupted by Abra and Ellie making their way up the stairs onto the deck, carrying the rest of the food.
"Hello!" Abra called out cheerily. "Would it be okay if we use your kitchen? Just need to add some finishing touches."
Bianca, all smiles, rose to assist them. "Absolutely! Everything looks incredible. You really didn't have to go to so much trouble."
Abra, setting down the dishes, waved off the praise. "Oh, it's nothing. It feels good to contribute to an occasion we're actually part of."
Logan chimed in, eyeing the assortment of dishes. "We've got some things that might interest you too. Grandma's repurposing the old house for events, so we're clearing out some furniture. It's mostly bedroom stuff—beds, dressers, nightstands. Cooper, do you still need a bed?"
"No, I sleep on Sasha's bedroom floor now and I'm extremely content," Cooper said. "I like the futon mat, anyway. You can move it wherever you want and you can roll it up and put it out of the way when you're not using it. Abra and Ellie do still need a bed frame, though, and I sure wouldn't say no to a dresser."
"Yeah, it turns out bed frames do have a purpose after all and you can get mould under there if you don't have proper airflow," Ellie interjected. "I mean, we don't have mould yet, but I saw some pictures on the internet and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since..."
"That can definitely be arranged," Logan assured her. "We'll have a look through everything after Christmas and sort out whatever you need."
"Man, the subtle threads of privilege that weave their way through Cooper's life sure do come in handy," Ellie commented. "Being poor with a rich family is a cushy kind of poor at times."
"You're basically family now, too," Logan pointed out.
"And you didn't even have to be raised by our lameass parents," Mason added. "Almost feels like cheating."
Ellie laughed, "You guys are great, but let's be honest, a little outside perspective doesn't hurt. You need the sanity check that is having people not raised by your parents in your lives."
"Oh God, she's not wrong..." Logan murmured. "Anyway! Let's get you shown around and set up in the kitchen. Mum will be here soon."