FIC: Ice Cream Is No Substitute for a Family Outing
Title: Ice Cream Is No Substitute for a Family Outing
Summary: Gabe Sullivan takes his daughter Chloe and his niece Lois on a roadtrip.
Rating: G
Word Count: 3900
Notes: I’m using Chloe’s backstory from “Legacy.” Thanks to the show, I have to PICK one of the FOUR we’re given which do not gel with one another. Thx.
Prompted from tobywolf13's kidfic-a-thon.
The Midwestern sky was blazing hot that day as Gabe Sullivan pulled into the parking lot of a small diner painted garishly in pink and turquoise. The whole state was warm and muggy, it seemed, and the air conditioner was only doing a little to cut them some slack. He sighed, marshaling the last bit of his patience, and turned to the two young girls in the back. His eight-year-old niece Lois was pulling a comic book out of five-year-old Chloe’s hands.
“Lois, please share with your cousin,” Gabe said, although his tone made it clear that it was not a request. He wasn’t particularly thrilled to have her along. Not that his disliked his niece. Not at all. Normally, when the families got together, Lois was very fun to play ball and wrestle with. But after Chloe’s mother Gillian had walked out on them, he had been working so much that he’d been hard pressed to find real quality time with his little girl, who still seemed anxious that if he left her sight for too long that he would not be coming back.
“I am sharing!” Lois protested, widening her eyes as she spoke to emphasize what she was saying.
“Are you?” Gabe asked.
Lois’ pink little lower lip rolled out and she took one of her two thick braids in her fingers to twist around, and Gabe sighed again. It must have been difficult for the girl, losing her mother so young. She had been about Chloe’s age when it had happened, and he knew that Sam was struggling enough with their youngest Lucy, and at home, Lois was spending a lot of time taking care of her little sister instead of being a child.
Chloe blinked owlishly from under the pink and blue bucket hat that he’d bought for her specifically on this trip. “Daddy, I wanna go hooome.”
“No, baby, we’re having fun!” Gabe exclaimed.
Chloe raised a brow skeptically.
“We want ice cream!” Lois demanded, then looked to her cousin, nodding eagerly so that Chloe would go along with it.
Chloe paused a moment, playing with the hem of the light pink strappy baby doll dress her mother had bought her for her last birthday. She nodded. “Yeah.”
“You can both have ice cream, but you have to have a little lunch first, alright?” Gabe got out of the car and walked around to Lois’s door.
“Stay still, Chloe,” Lois ordered, reaching over the younger girl to unbuckle her seatbelt.
Gabe paused for a moment, then reached out with his hand. “C’mon, Lois.”
“I’m grown up. I don’t need to hold your hand,” Lois said haughtily. She slid out of the car, taking Chloe’s hand. “Don’t let go, Chloe.”
Chloe gave a little frown, but did as she was told and hung close to Lois’s side as her father locked the car. Afterward the three of them headed inside, where a dark haired, wide-hipped waitress with a tag blazoned with the name “Aphasia” walked over. Her uniform mimicked the colors of the outside of the restaurant, and the skirt came just above her knee.
“Hey there!” she exclaimed. “Three?”
“Um, yes,” Gabe answered. “Do you have a booth?”
The woman grabbed three menus. “Follow me, honey.”
Checking back to see Chloe and Lois behind him hand in hand, Gabe followed the waitress. Chloe looked around the restaurant with wide eyes. “How… how come…” the small girl ventured. “How come there are so many grandpas here?”
“I dunno.” Lois wiped her free hand on her jeans. “Maybe there’s um… a nursing home ‘round here.”
“It’s Senior Tuesday,” the waitress explained. “They get a discount when they come in today.”
Chloe nodded sagely, as though such things were to be expected.
“Will Uncle Gabe get the discount? Cause… he’s um, pretty old,” Lois said emphatically.
Gabe rolled his eyes. The girl had no filter on her mouth. He was waiting for her to grow out of it. The waitress smiled, however, and laid their menus on the table. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Do you got pop?” Lois asked.
“Yes, we do.”
“Root beer?”
“One root beer coming right up. How about you?” the woman asked Chloe. “Would you like some soda?”
“I don’t like it. It’s spicy,” Chloe answered immediately.
The waitress blinked.
“She means she doesn’t like the carbonation,” Gabe translated. Chloe had learned the concept before she had learned the word, so lacking the vocabulary, she had found her own. Now he had a daughter at a fifth grade reading level who used some words that sometimes seemed an utter non sequitur to what she was describing.
“Oh, I see. And you sir?” the waitress continued.
“Water and coffee,” he instructed. “Bring her a raspberry lemonade. She likes those.”
Lois opened her menu and began reading the names of things and explaining what they were like for Chloe even though her cousin had been reading quietly in the car for most of the trip and so Lois was well aware that her cousin didn’t need help in that capacity. It killed Gabe to see his little girl like this. Before her mother had left, she had been such a chatty, lively child. Now it was hard to pry anything out of her. He’d been hoping that this road trip would bring them closer together.
When their waitress returned with the drinks, he sat up and took his cup of coffee gratefully. “Thanks. I’m not sure we’re done.”
“Yes, we are,” Lois disagreed in a bossy tone. “I want… um… off the Kids’ Menu, the hot dog?”
“You want fries?”
“Yes! And mustard and relish on the hotdog.”
“We’ll bring you guys the ketchup and mustard bottles, hon,” the waitress told her before kneeling beside the booth. She looked at Chloe, who was looking straight down on the table. “And what do you want to eat, sweetie?”
Gabe looked at her hopefully.
“Chloe wants chicken fingers and the fruit salad,” Lois informed the waitress.
“Lois,“ Gabe warned.
“That’s what she wants!” Lois protested, her voice rising in pitch. She looked at her cousin. “Isn’t it, Chlo?”
Chloe nodded and leaned against Lois’s shoulder. The waitress smiled widely. “Gosh, how cute.”
Gabe ordered his sandwich and watched as the two girls sat together, Lois chatting away, and Chloe watching her quietly. It took him quite awhile to notice that occasionally Chloe was whispering back to Lois. He listened closely while pretending to drink his coffee and look out the window.
“-keep looking but I can’t find anything,” Chloe whispered. “No one says anything about it, but I’ll find out-“
“Here are some crayons,” Lois declared, grabbing the box the waitress had left on the table. She opened it for Chloe, who took the green crayon and began drawing a circle. Lois herself took the black and just started making dark scribbles on the children’s menu in front of her. “This… this is my daddy’s plane that he flies.”
Chloe looked over Lois’ shoulder and nodded. She returned her attention to her drawing. Lois continued to talk about the different kinds of planes, listing everything they could do, and which ones her father could fly. Chloe looked over again, frowned slightly, and reached over to write something.
Under the plane, Lois had written in black, “my dad’s plain.” Below that, in wobbly green letters, Chloe had written, “plane.”
“Oh. That’s a homo… a homothing,” Lois said, crossing out her first word. Chloe nodded, and the two girls continued to draw. A few minutes later, the waitress returned with their food, and Lois took their drawings aside and held them up for her uncle. “There’s the planes. P-L-A-I… no. P-L-A-N-E-S. Right?”
Chloe nodded again. Gabe lifted his hand to point at the green stick figures. “Who is that, Chloe? Hm?”
Lois looked to her cousin, who was staring at the chicken fingers distrustfully. Chloe picked a grape out of her fruit salad instead and ate it.
“Chloe, baby? What did you draw there? Is that someone you know?” Gabe asked again. He pulled the drawing closer and looked at the picture. There were some bars across the top, and he realized that it was the pattern of the header for The Daily Planet… more or less. Her mother had always been an avid reader of the newspapers and watched CNN avidly. Beside the green stick figures and a scribbly circle were lots of squiggles that he thought looked like the print beside an article. “Is this your story, sweetheart? And this is the photograph for it, right?” He leaned over and dipped one of the chicken fingers in a little cup of honey mustard sauce on her plate. “Eat, baby. Take a bite. It’s not too hot.”
Chloe dawdled for a few moments before leaning over and licking the sauce off the chicken finger. Gabe sighed. His wife had always been able to convince Chloe to eat.
“You need some protein, Chloe. Eat!” he insisted.
“Un-uh!” Chloe responded, smashing her lips together.
Gabe frowned and set the chicken finger down. Chloe resumed eating the fruit. Such a weird kid. Getting Lois to eat fruit or veggies was a chore. He tried a new tactic. “Fine, don’t eat. You’ll be hungry later when we’re back on the road.”
He began eating his sandwich and looked up at her occasionally. His daughter picked out the grapes and cherries, leaving the banana and bits of melon, then sat there sipping her lemonade. Lois had mustard and relish smeared all over her face. With a bit of a groan, Gabe reached over the table, took the girl’s face in his hand, and wiped it off with the other.
“You girls. What am I going to do with you? Is the hot dog good?”
“Mm! Mm!” Lois answered, nodding as she chewed. She swallowed and smiled. “I love wieners.”
“I’m glad.” Gabe picked up his sandwich again. His eyes drifted to the window as he ate.
His eyes flitted back up to the girls when Lois picked up one of Chloe’s chicken fingers and opened her mouth. He was about to snap at her for taking Chloe’s food, until he realized she wasn’t eating it, only pretending.
“Don’t… don’t you eat that!” Lois ordered, and then made ‘nom nom’ noises over the piece of chicken. Chloe giggled. “I’m gonna um… eat them all! Ha!”
“No!” Chloe snatched one and bit into it.
“Don’t you eat that!” Lois repeated, laughing as she watched her cousin finally munching on her lunch.
Gabe sat back in amazement. With some cajoling and teasing, Chloe had managed to eat a few of her chicken fingers and some of Lois’ fries. The older girl looked proud of herself.
“We have room for ice cream,” Lois wheedled, hugging her little cousin with one arm and a big grin.
Gabe laughed and called the waitress over to order the girls a sundae to split.
After they had devoured the ice cream, which Chloe had needed very little coaxing to help with, Gabe took both girls with him into the bathroom to clean up before they got on the road. He first led the girls into the stalls, and when they were finished, Lois guided Chloe to the sink and made sure she got some soap on her hands. With Lois watching Chloe, Gabe went into the stall alone and told them to stay close.
“I like your pretty dress…” Lois told her.
Chloe let Lois dry her hands. “It’s pink. Like Piglet.” She stood back, as Lois tended to her own hands, and looked around the restroom. Then touching the back of her blue sneaker, she watched a few women coming and going from the bathroom. Abruptly she darted out the door.
“Chlo!” Lois exclaimed, whipping her head around. She ran after the girl.
Inside the stall, Gabe scrambled to get his pants back up. It had been stupid to leave them alone, and he should have known it.
“Chloe!” he yelled as soon as he burst out of the stall. He ran out into the restaurant trying to spot the girls. To his immense relief, he could see the top of Lois’ golden brown head and rushed over to her. “Where is your cousin?”
“I can’t see her!” Lois complained, almost in tears. “She ran away!”
Gabe looked around and stumbled around the restaurant, his heart in his throat. How had he managed to lose them both? Spotting the waitress, he touched Aphasia”s shoulder and stopped her. “Have you seen my little girl? Blue and pink hat with a pink dress?”
“I think so. Follow me.” The woman motioned with her hand and Gabe followed her out onto the patio where there was a family eating with their three kids, and Chloe sitting in between the larger children and looking up at the mother with big, shiny eyes. Gabe felt his heart break, seeing the woman with that wavy blond hair. She looked a bit like Gillian, but she was talking to her husband and didn’t look like she’d noticed the addition to her little brood who had followed her from the bathroom.
“Chloe, baby, it’s time to go,” Gabe said gently as he walked over to the family. The parents frowned as he came forward. He looked at them and nodded to the kids. “You’ve got a stowaway.”
“What now?” the man asked, running his hand over a balding forehead covered in sweat.
Gabe walked around behind the kids and plucked Chloe off the seat. “We’ve got to go, babycakes.”
“I wanna, please… I wanna-“
“Baby,” Gabe interrupted before she could say what he was afraid she was going to say. Gabe slipped one arm around her back and propped her up on his hips.
“Daddy, pleeease, doon’t!” Chloe whined pitifully. “I miss Mommy!”
Gabe pressed her face to his shoulder as she began to cry. “That’s not her. Mommy left,” he whispered into her ear. Jostling her a little bit, he turned from the baffled family, reached out for Lois’ hand, and took them both back into the diner so that he could pay the bill.
“Uncle Gabe, I’m sorry,” Lois said dejectedly, dragging her feet.
“No, Lois. It’s my fault. I should have remembered to watch the both of you. That’s my job, not yours, baby,” Gabe insisted. Chloe made some vague whimpering noises into Gabe’s shoulder as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
As the cashier took his care of the bill, Aphasia came up with their drawings and a plastic wrapped package. “Hey, girls! I’ve got some cookies here for you. Maybe you can have them later if you’re good.”
“Hear that? I can give your girls some cookies when we get to the hotel.” Gabe signed his check and gave the cashier his driver’s license. He petted Chloe’s back. “We’ll be out of here in a few minutes, baby.”
Gabe took his child back to the car and deposited her in the backseat, where she pulled off her hat. He felt his own eyes stinging with tears as he saw her closely shorn hair and those big green eyes. Chloe had gotten a hold of his electric clippers when he wasn’t properly paying attention, and Gabe knew that he was a lucky, lucky man that she had only mauled her hair and not been found hurt and bleeding. If there ever were a man less prepared to take on raising a child alone, Gabe didn’t think CPS would have stood for it.
Chloe had her mother’s blond hair. Her mother’s eyes, and her mother’s chin, and his mother’s nose. Such a classic little beauty, his little girl. Just looking at her little pouting lip brought back memories of Gillian displeased, and he was half afraid to touch his little girl, let alone wrap his arms around her and lie by telling her that it would be alright.
His fingers brushed over the short, fair locks on her head and gave her a smile. “I love you,” he assured her. It wasn’t something he’d said a lot before Gillian had left, but he said it now. “And your Mommy loved you too”
“Then why isn’t she here,” Chloe muttered.
Gabe took a deep breath. He knew he was never going to be able to answer that. Not really. He patted her cheek and turned away so that she wouldn’t see him crying. “Strap Chloe in, Lois.”
Lois had opened up her own door and crawled into the seat next to Chloe, so she obeyed with a sharp nod and a salute. Until recently, Gabe had been hard on Sam for turning Lois into a little soldier, but it must have been so helpful to him. Lucy was almost the same age as Chloe.
Gabe started the car again to the tune of Lois chattering again, only more softly this time.
“I miss my mommy too, Chloe. Me and Lucy… we do. An’ it’s really hard. It really hurts. I know.”
Lois wrapped her arms around Chloe’s shoulders, and through the rearview mirror, Gabe could see them snuggling together tightly. Gradually, Chloe stopped crying. Lois pulled out their pictures from the restaurant and began talking about planes and trucks for approximately twenty minutes. Gabe counted as he drove.
Then the little whispers came, and Gabe turned down the radio to hear them better.
“-green an’ have um… antennas. An’ tentacles. An’ that’s the ship and it’s a… bazillion times faster than those planes.”
“Of course!” Lois agreed. “Alien ships are really really fast.”
“They came down um… in the desert, and um… they study us.” Chloe pointed at the picture for a moment. “Not all of them are bad, though. Some of them are good and friendly. But some of them use these tubes and things and will um… turn your body inside out!”
“Ew! Gross!” Lois giggled. “I’d look pretty funny inside out.”
“Yes.”
“What else do they do?”
“They write reports on us. For school. An’ they keep track of us. It’s a…” Chloe looked off to the side for the word she didn’t know. “It’s a total Watergate.”
“Huh? What does that mean?”
“It means that…” Chloe’s voice had slowly begun to rise, and while quiet, was quite encouraging. “That a lot powerful people are doing something and covering it up.”
“Uncle Gabe!” Lois said. “What’s the word for that? When um… when you have… people…”
Gabe took a breath waiting for Lois to finish asking the question.
“When people are all pretending that they aren’t doing something that they are?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is conspiracy,” Gabe offered, cracking a smile. Chloe must have heard the reference from her mother.
Lois nodded and turned back to her cousin to continue to talk about conspiracies, aliens, and fighter planes. When they finally reached the hotel, both girls had fallen asleep. Lois woke when the car stopped and looked around groggily. “Uncle Gabe, I have to pee.”
“Hang on a second, Lois. We’ll be in the room soon. Stay right here.” He locked the door and went inside to get the key for their room. That done, he returned to the car and opened the door for Lois and let her out before leaning over and scooping Chloe up in his arms. “We’ll order a pizza,” he said quietly to Lois, who gave a little jump of joy.
Gabe laid Chloe on the bed, then left the girls in the room while he ran out to get their bags. Lois sat on her heels, bouncing on the unoccupied bed and watching the television while Chloe still slept. Smiling at them, Gabe set the bags by the nightstand, shut the door, and sat down to order the pizza.
“What do you like on your pizza, Lois?” Gabe asked, rubbing Chloe’s small back as he dialed the number the kid at the desk had given him.
Lois continued to bounce. “I like everything. Even anchovies and gummy bears.”
“Ugh.” Gabe stuck his tongue out. “No, I was thinking more along the lines of pepperoni, mushrooms, or black olives.”
“That’s good too.”
“Chloe will only eat the cheese pizza,” Gabe said. “But we can order her a little one.”
“You could um… order pineapple. She likes sweet stuff.”
“Yeah?” Gabe thought about that for a moment. What a big sister this girl was. “She might, but I don’t want to risk her turning her nose up at it.”
Lois shrugged and flopped on the bed to rest her head in her hands as she watched. While Gabe waited for their food, he undressed Chloe and put her in her pajamas. The girl didn’t make a peep as he dressed her. He tucked her under the covers and let her rest until the pizza was delivered.
When it came, he set the girls up at a little table beside the television and put the slices on their plates for them. Chloe proceeded to pick the cheese off her pizza and ate it, ignoring the crust. Gabe decided the battle wasn’t worth it when she was tired and Gillian considered pizza junk food anyway.
Before he tucked in to his own dinner, he walked over to the pictures that the girls had been drawing and examined Chloe’s. This was going up in his office. He returned to the table and sat down with them, leaning over to give Chloe a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“It’s a very good story, babygirl,” he told her. “I love it.”
“’Ank ‘oo,” she said with her mouth full.
Gabe wiped her mouth gently and gave her another kiss on the soft fuzz of her hair. “Let me know when you have another story, okay? I want to keep up to date on these important things.”
Chloe paused and then shrugged her head to the side. “Okay, daddy.”
Gabe took one of each of the girls’ hands, and then whispered, “I love you both, girls. We’re going to have so much fun at the park tomorrow.”
Chloe blinked silently and wrapped her arms around her father’s waist tightly. Lois giggled and got out of her chair to run over and hug him from the other side.
“I’m trapped!” Gabe complained.
“Forever!” Lois shouted.
Chloe just laughed and looked up at her father with a smile. He petted her head gently. “Forever,” he repeated. “Forever and ever. Eat your dinner, baby.”
He didn’t know if she believed him, but his girl was smiling, and that was good enough for now.
Once they were finished, Gabe made sure the girls went to the bathroom before he tucked them into bed. He only knew a few stories-never had learned where Gillian had come up with her tales since she didn’t read them from a book-but he told the two he could remember well to the girls as they listened with rapt fascination.
Afterward, he turned off the light and laid in his own bed listening to the girls whisper to one another in anticipation of the following morning, likely to be just as hot and muggy as this day had been. But the rides at the water park would be refreshing, and together they would make a go of having a good time. Gabe Sullivan, the surrogate sister Lois, and his resilient, whispering little conspiracy theorist.
Summary: Gabe Sullivan takes his daughter Chloe and his niece Lois on a roadtrip.
Rating: G
Word Count: 3900
Notes: I’m using Chloe’s backstory from “Legacy.” Thanks to the show, I have to PICK one of the FOUR we’re given which do not gel with one another. Thx.
Prompted from tobywolf13's kidfic-a-thon.
The Midwestern sky was blazing hot that day as Gabe Sullivan pulled into the parking lot of a small diner painted garishly in pink and turquoise. The whole state was warm and muggy, it seemed, and the air conditioner was only doing a little to cut them some slack. He sighed, marshaling the last bit of his patience, and turned to the two young girls in the back. His eight-year-old niece Lois was pulling a comic book out of five-year-old Chloe’s hands.
“Lois, please share with your cousin,” Gabe said, although his tone made it clear that it was not a request. He wasn’t particularly thrilled to have her along. Not that his disliked his niece. Not at all. Normally, when the families got together, Lois was very fun to play ball and wrestle with. But after Chloe’s mother Gillian had walked out on them, he had been working so much that he’d been hard pressed to find real quality time with his little girl, who still seemed anxious that if he left her sight for too long that he would not be coming back.
“I am sharing!” Lois protested, widening her eyes as she spoke to emphasize what she was saying.
“Are you?” Gabe asked.
Lois’ pink little lower lip rolled out and she took one of her two thick braids in her fingers to twist around, and Gabe sighed again. It must have been difficult for the girl, losing her mother so young. She had been about Chloe’s age when it had happened, and he knew that Sam was struggling enough with their youngest Lucy, and at home, Lois was spending a lot of time taking care of her little sister instead of being a child.
Chloe blinked owlishly from under the pink and blue bucket hat that he’d bought for her specifically on this trip. “Daddy, I wanna go hooome.”
“No, baby, we’re having fun!” Gabe exclaimed.
Chloe raised a brow skeptically.
“We want ice cream!” Lois demanded, then looked to her cousin, nodding eagerly so that Chloe would go along with it.
Chloe paused a moment, playing with the hem of the light pink strappy baby doll dress her mother had bought her for her last birthday. She nodded. “Yeah.”
“You can both have ice cream, but you have to have a little lunch first, alright?” Gabe got out of the car and walked around to Lois’s door.
“Stay still, Chloe,” Lois ordered, reaching over the younger girl to unbuckle her seatbelt.
Gabe paused for a moment, then reached out with his hand. “C’mon, Lois.”
“I’m grown up. I don’t need to hold your hand,” Lois said haughtily. She slid out of the car, taking Chloe’s hand. “Don’t let go, Chloe.”
Chloe gave a little frown, but did as she was told and hung close to Lois’s side as her father locked the car. Afterward the three of them headed inside, where a dark haired, wide-hipped waitress with a tag blazoned with the name “Aphasia” walked over. Her uniform mimicked the colors of the outside of the restaurant, and the skirt came just above her knee.
“Hey there!” she exclaimed. “Three?”
“Um, yes,” Gabe answered. “Do you have a booth?”
The woman grabbed three menus. “Follow me, honey.”
Checking back to see Chloe and Lois behind him hand in hand, Gabe followed the waitress. Chloe looked around the restaurant with wide eyes. “How… how come…” the small girl ventured. “How come there are so many grandpas here?”
“I dunno.” Lois wiped her free hand on her jeans. “Maybe there’s um… a nursing home ‘round here.”
“It’s Senior Tuesday,” the waitress explained. “They get a discount when they come in today.”
Chloe nodded sagely, as though such things were to be expected.
“Will Uncle Gabe get the discount? Cause… he’s um, pretty old,” Lois said emphatically.
Gabe rolled his eyes. The girl had no filter on her mouth. He was waiting for her to grow out of it. The waitress smiled, however, and laid their menus on the table. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Do you got pop?” Lois asked.
“Yes, we do.”
“Root beer?”
“One root beer coming right up. How about you?” the woman asked Chloe. “Would you like some soda?”
“I don’t like it. It’s spicy,” Chloe answered immediately.
The waitress blinked.
“She means she doesn’t like the carbonation,” Gabe translated. Chloe had learned the concept before she had learned the word, so lacking the vocabulary, she had found her own. Now he had a daughter at a fifth grade reading level who used some words that sometimes seemed an utter non sequitur to what she was describing.
“Oh, I see. And you sir?” the waitress continued.
“Water and coffee,” he instructed. “Bring her a raspberry lemonade. She likes those.”
Lois opened her menu and began reading the names of things and explaining what they were like for Chloe even though her cousin had been reading quietly in the car for most of the trip and so Lois was well aware that her cousin didn’t need help in that capacity. It killed Gabe to see his little girl like this. Before her mother had left, she had been such a chatty, lively child. Now it was hard to pry anything out of her. He’d been hoping that this road trip would bring them closer together.
When their waitress returned with the drinks, he sat up and took his cup of coffee gratefully. “Thanks. I’m not sure we’re done.”
“Yes, we are,” Lois disagreed in a bossy tone. “I want… um… off the Kids’ Menu, the hot dog?”
“You want fries?”
“Yes! And mustard and relish on the hotdog.”
“We’ll bring you guys the ketchup and mustard bottles, hon,” the waitress told her before kneeling beside the booth. She looked at Chloe, who was looking straight down on the table. “And what do you want to eat, sweetie?”
Gabe looked at her hopefully.
“Chloe wants chicken fingers and the fruit salad,” Lois informed the waitress.
“Lois,“ Gabe warned.
“That’s what she wants!” Lois protested, her voice rising in pitch. She looked at her cousin. “Isn’t it, Chlo?”
Chloe nodded and leaned against Lois’s shoulder. The waitress smiled widely. “Gosh, how cute.”
Gabe ordered his sandwich and watched as the two girls sat together, Lois chatting away, and Chloe watching her quietly. It took him quite awhile to notice that occasionally Chloe was whispering back to Lois. He listened closely while pretending to drink his coffee and look out the window.
“-keep looking but I can’t find anything,” Chloe whispered. “No one says anything about it, but I’ll find out-“
“Here are some crayons,” Lois declared, grabbing the box the waitress had left on the table. She opened it for Chloe, who took the green crayon and began drawing a circle. Lois herself took the black and just started making dark scribbles on the children’s menu in front of her. “This… this is my daddy’s plane that he flies.”
Chloe looked over Lois’ shoulder and nodded. She returned her attention to her drawing. Lois continued to talk about the different kinds of planes, listing everything they could do, and which ones her father could fly. Chloe looked over again, frowned slightly, and reached over to write something.
Under the plane, Lois had written in black, “my dad’s plain.” Below that, in wobbly green letters, Chloe had written, “plane.”
“Oh. That’s a homo… a homothing,” Lois said, crossing out her first word. Chloe nodded, and the two girls continued to draw. A few minutes later, the waitress returned with their food, and Lois took their drawings aside and held them up for her uncle. “There’s the planes. P-L-A-I… no. P-L-A-N-E-S. Right?”
Chloe nodded again. Gabe lifted his hand to point at the green stick figures. “Who is that, Chloe? Hm?”
Lois looked to her cousin, who was staring at the chicken fingers distrustfully. Chloe picked a grape out of her fruit salad instead and ate it.
“Chloe, baby? What did you draw there? Is that someone you know?” Gabe asked again. He pulled the drawing closer and looked at the picture. There were some bars across the top, and he realized that it was the pattern of the header for The Daily Planet… more or less. Her mother had always been an avid reader of the newspapers and watched CNN avidly. Beside the green stick figures and a scribbly circle were lots of squiggles that he thought looked like the print beside an article. “Is this your story, sweetheart? And this is the photograph for it, right?” He leaned over and dipped one of the chicken fingers in a little cup of honey mustard sauce on her plate. “Eat, baby. Take a bite. It’s not too hot.”
Chloe dawdled for a few moments before leaning over and licking the sauce off the chicken finger. Gabe sighed. His wife had always been able to convince Chloe to eat.
“You need some protein, Chloe. Eat!” he insisted.
“Un-uh!” Chloe responded, smashing her lips together.
Gabe frowned and set the chicken finger down. Chloe resumed eating the fruit. Such a weird kid. Getting Lois to eat fruit or veggies was a chore. He tried a new tactic. “Fine, don’t eat. You’ll be hungry later when we’re back on the road.”
He began eating his sandwich and looked up at her occasionally. His daughter picked out the grapes and cherries, leaving the banana and bits of melon, then sat there sipping her lemonade. Lois had mustard and relish smeared all over her face. With a bit of a groan, Gabe reached over the table, took the girl’s face in his hand, and wiped it off with the other.
“You girls. What am I going to do with you? Is the hot dog good?”
“Mm! Mm!” Lois answered, nodding as she chewed. She swallowed and smiled. “I love wieners.”
“I’m glad.” Gabe picked up his sandwich again. His eyes drifted to the window as he ate.
His eyes flitted back up to the girls when Lois picked up one of Chloe’s chicken fingers and opened her mouth. He was about to snap at her for taking Chloe’s food, until he realized she wasn’t eating it, only pretending.
“Don’t… don’t you eat that!” Lois ordered, and then made ‘nom nom’ noises over the piece of chicken. Chloe giggled. “I’m gonna um… eat them all! Ha!”
“No!” Chloe snatched one and bit into it.
“Don’t you eat that!” Lois repeated, laughing as she watched her cousin finally munching on her lunch.
Gabe sat back in amazement. With some cajoling and teasing, Chloe had managed to eat a few of her chicken fingers and some of Lois’ fries. The older girl looked proud of herself.
“We have room for ice cream,” Lois wheedled, hugging her little cousin with one arm and a big grin.
Gabe laughed and called the waitress over to order the girls a sundae to split.
After they had devoured the ice cream, which Chloe had needed very little coaxing to help with, Gabe took both girls with him into the bathroom to clean up before they got on the road. He first led the girls into the stalls, and when they were finished, Lois guided Chloe to the sink and made sure she got some soap on her hands. With Lois watching Chloe, Gabe went into the stall alone and told them to stay close.
“I like your pretty dress…” Lois told her.
Chloe let Lois dry her hands. “It’s pink. Like Piglet.” She stood back, as Lois tended to her own hands, and looked around the restroom. Then touching the back of her blue sneaker, she watched a few women coming and going from the bathroom. Abruptly she darted out the door.
“Chlo!” Lois exclaimed, whipping her head around. She ran after the girl.
Inside the stall, Gabe scrambled to get his pants back up. It had been stupid to leave them alone, and he should have known it.
“Chloe!” he yelled as soon as he burst out of the stall. He ran out into the restaurant trying to spot the girls. To his immense relief, he could see the top of Lois’ golden brown head and rushed over to her. “Where is your cousin?”
“I can’t see her!” Lois complained, almost in tears. “She ran away!”
Gabe looked around and stumbled around the restaurant, his heart in his throat. How had he managed to lose them both? Spotting the waitress, he touched Aphasia”s shoulder and stopped her. “Have you seen my little girl? Blue and pink hat with a pink dress?”
“I think so. Follow me.” The woman motioned with her hand and Gabe followed her out onto the patio where there was a family eating with their three kids, and Chloe sitting in between the larger children and looking up at the mother with big, shiny eyes. Gabe felt his heart break, seeing the woman with that wavy blond hair. She looked a bit like Gillian, but she was talking to her husband and didn’t look like she’d noticed the addition to her little brood who had followed her from the bathroom.
“Chloe, baby, it’s time to go,” Gabe said gently as he walked over to the family. The parents frowned as he came forward. He looked at them and nodded to the kids. “You’ve got a stowaway.”
“What now?” the man asked, running his hand over a balding forehead covered in sweat.
Gabe walked around behind the kids and plucked Chloe off the seat. “We’ve got to go, babycakes.”
“I wanna, please… I wanna-“
“Baby,” Gabe interrupted before she could say what he was afraid she was going to say. Gabe slipped one arm around her back and propped her up on his hips.
“Daddy, pleeease, doon’t!” Chloe whined pitifully. “I miss Mommy!”
Gabe pressed her face to his shoulder as she began to cry. “That’s not her. Mommy left,” he whispered into her ear. Jostling her a little bit, he turned from the baffled family, reached out for Lois’ hand, and took them both back into the diner so that he could pay the bill.
“Uncle Gabe, I’m sorry,” Lois said dejectedly, dragging her feet.
“No, Lois. It’s my fault. I should have remembered to watch the both of you. That’s my job, not yours, baby,” Gabe insisted. Chloe made some vague whimpering noises into Gabe’s shoulder as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
As the cashier took his care of the bill, Aphasia came up with their drawings and a plastic wrapped package. “Hey, girls! I’ve got some cookies here for you. Maybe you can have them later if you’re good.”
“Hear that? I can give your girls some cookies when we get to the hotel.” Gabe signed his check and gave the cashier his driver’s license. He petted Chloe’s back. “We’ll be out of here in a few minutes, baby.”
Gabe took his child back to the car and deposited her in the backseat, where she pulled off her hat. He felt his own eyes stinging with tears as he saw her closely shorn hair and those big green eyes. Chloe had gotten a hold of his electric clippers when he wasn’t properly paying attention, and Gabe knew that he was a lucky, lucky man that she had only mauled her hair and not been found hurt and bleeding. If there ever were a man less prepared to take on raising a child alone, Gabe didn’t think CPS would have stood for it.
Chloe had her mother’s blond hair. Her mother’s eyes, and her mother’s chin, and his mother’s nose. Such a classic little beauty, his little girl. Just looking at her little pouting lip brought back memories of Gillian displeased, and he was half afraid to touch his little girl, let alone wrap his arms around her and lie by telling her that it would be alright.
His fingers brushed over the short, fair locks on her head and gave her a smile. “I love you,” he assured her. It wasn’t something he’d said a lot before Gillian had left, but he said it now. “And your Mommy loved you too”
“Then why isn’t she here,” Chloe muttered.
Gabe took a deep breath. He knew he was never going to be able to answer that. Not really. He patted her cheek and turned away so that she wouldn’t see him crying. “Strap Chloe in, Lois.”
Lois had opened up her own door and crawled into the seat next to Chloe, so she obeyed with a sharp nod and a salute. Until recently, Gabe had been hard on Sam for turning Lois into a little soldier, but it must have been so helpful to him. Lucy was almost the same age as Chloe.
Gabe started the car again to the tune of Lois chattering again, only more softly this time.
“I miss my mommy too, Chloe. Me and Lucy… we do. An’ it’s really hard. It really hurts. I know.”
Lois wrapped her arms around Chloe’s shoulders, and through the rearview mirror, Gabe could see them snuggling together tightly. Gradually, Chloe stopped crying. Lois pulled out their pictures from the restaurant and began talking about planes and trucks for approximately twenty minutes. Gabe counted as he drove.
Then the little whispers came, and Gabe turned down the radio to hear them better.
“-green an’ have um… antennas. An’ tentacles. An’ that’s the ship and it’s a… bazillion times faster than those planes.”
“Of course!” Lois agreed. “Alien ships are really really fast.”
“They came down um… in the desert, and um… they study us.” Chloe pointed at the picture for a moment. “Not all of them are bad, though. Some of them are good and friendly. But some of them use these tubes and things and will um… turn your body inside out!”
“Ew! Gross!” Lois giggled. “I’d look pretty funny inside out.”
“Yes.”
“What else do they do?”
“They write reports on us. For school. An’ they keep track of us. It’s a…” Chloe looked off to the side for the word she didn’t know. “It’s a total Watergate.”
“Huh? What does that mean?”
“It means that…” Chloe’s voice had slowly begun to rise, and while quiet, was quite encouraging. “That a lot powerful people are doing something and covering it up.”
“Uncle Gabe!” Lois said. “What’s the word for that? When um… when you have… people…”
Gabe took a breath waiting for Lois to finish asking the question.
“When people are all pretending that they aren’t doing something that they are?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is conspiracy,” Gabe offered, cracking a smile. Chloe must have heard the reference from her mother.
Lois nodded and turned back to her cousin to continue to talk about conspiracies, aliens, and fighter planes. When they finally reached the hotel, both girls had fallen asleep. Lois woke when the car stopped and looked around groggily. “Uncle Gabe, I have to pee.”
“Hang on a second, Lois. We’ll be in the room soon. Stay right here.” He locked the door and went inside to get the key for their room. That done, he returned to the car and opened the door for Lois and let her out before leaning over and scooping Chloe up in his arms. “We’ll order a pizza,” he said quietly to Lois, who gave a little jump of joy.
Gabe laid Chloe on the bed, then left the girls in the room while he ran out to get their bags. Lois sat on her heels, bouncing on the unoccupied bed and watching the television while Chloe still slept. Smiling at them, Gabe set the bags by the nightstand, shut the door, and sat down to order the pizza.
“What do you like on your pizza, Lois?” Gabe asked, rubbing Chloe’s small back as he dialed the number the kid at the desk had given him.
Lois continued to bounce. “I like everything. Even anchovies and gummy bears.”
“Ugh.” Gabe stuck his tongue out. “No, I was thinking more along the lines of pepperoni, mushrooms, or black olives.”
“That’s good too.”
“Chloe will only eat the cheese pizza,” Gabe said. “But we can order her a little one.”
“You could um… order pineapple. She likes sweet stuff.”
“Yeah?” Gabe thought about that for a moment. What a big sister this girl was. “She might, but I don’t want to risk her turning her nose up at it.”
Lois shrugged and flopped on the bed to rest her head in her hands as she watched. While Gabe waited for their food, he undressed Chloe and put her in her pajamas. The girl didn’t make a peep as he dressed her. He tucked her under the covers and let her rest until the pizza was delivered.
When it came, he set the girls up at a little table beside the television and put the slices on their plates for them. Chloe proceeded to pick the cheese off her pizza and ate it, ignoring the crust. Gabe decided the battle wasn’t worth it when she was tired and Gillian considered pizza junk food anyway.
Before he tucked in to his own dinner, he walked over to the pictures that the girls had been drawing and examined Chloe’s. This was going up in his office. He returned to the table and sat down with them, leaning over to give Chloe a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“It’s a very good story, babygirl,” he told her. “I love it.”
“’Ank ‘oo,” she said with her mouth full.
Gabe wiped her mouth gently and gave her another kiss on the soft fuzz of her hair. “Let me know when you have another story, okay? I want to keep up to date on these important things.”
Chloe paused and then shrugged her head to the side. “Okay, daddy.”
Gabe took one of each of the girls’ hands, and then whispered, “I love you both, girls. We’re going to have so much fun at the park tomorrow.”
Chloe blinked silently and wrapped her arms around her father’s waist tightly. Lois giggled and got out of her chair to run over and hug him from the other side.
“I’m trapped!” Gabe complained.
“Forever!” Lois shouted.
Chloe just laughed and looked up at her father with a smile. He petted her head gently. “Forever,” he repeated. “Forever and ever. Eat your dinner, baby.”
He didn’t know if she believed him, but his girl was smiling, and that was good enough for now.
Once they were finished, Gabe made sure the girls went to the bathroom before he tucked them into bed. He only knew a few stories-never had learned where Gillian had come up with her tales since she didn’t read them from a book-but he told the two he could remember well to the girls as they listened with rapt fascination.
Afterward, he turned off the light and laid in his own bed listening to the girls whisper to one another in anticipation of the following morning, likely to be just as hot and muggy as this day had been. But the rides at the water park would be refreshing, and together they would make a go of having a good time. Gabe Sullivan, the surrogate sister Lois, and his resilient, whispering little conspiracy theorist.