Change Rein - Anne Jolin Page 0,6

most nights anyway,” she babbles, dragging me into the house.

I acknowledge her with little nods, but my senses are completely overwhelmed the moment my boots cross the threshold of our house. It looks the same as always, knitted couch pillows still adorn the various furniture and given Aurora’s love of baking, which she got from our mother, the smell of baking cherries still reaches your nose as you walk in the door. After toeing off my boots in the entryway, I follow her into the kitchen.

“Get your filthy man-hands away from my pie,” my sister snarls, picking up a serving knife and waving it in Owen’s direction, “or you’ll become the next episode of Criminal Minds, you hear me?”

Sibling banter has always been unique with the three of us. Hovering somewhere between loving and then hoping people don’t overhear us because they’d likely want to lock us up. Nonetheless, hearing it makes my heart swell.

“Has anyone here even gotten wine from that liquor store in the last decade?” my father huffs, setting his twelve-pack and a bottle of wine down on the counter. “It’s absurd. Bloody Google Maps in that joint if you ask me,” he announces before dramatically growling off the countries that have their own wine sections at the local Liquor Barn. He’s nearly finished most of Europe when he finally sees me standing in the kitchen.

“Hey, Daddy,” I whisper, feeling somewhat out of place in the home I grew up in.

“London Bridge,” he says before swallowing against the lump in his throat. “You’re home.”

“Yeah,” I let out lamely, shifting on my feet.

Opening his arms, he grins, showing off the wrinkles of a life well lived. “Well, give the old fart a hug, would ya?”

There are men—salt-of-the-Earth, work-hard, love-hard, honest men who’d give you the shirt off their back when you really needed it—and my dad is the very finest of that bunch. While, to us kids, he’s a loving yet burly teddy bear who protects us from the monsters under our beds, to the outside world, Larry Daniels looks like a grizzly bear—the kind you absolutely do not mess with. Not that I’m suggesting messing with any bears is a particularly wise life choice, but for argument’s sake, you get my drift.

He’s nearly six-foot-four, always sporting a five-o’clock shadow, and the epitome of rough around the edges. His frame is hulking—not just in height, but size in general, after years of working on a farm. That, coupled with the fact he’s nearly always carrying a buck knife on his belt, means he’s pretty intimidating. And while I may have gotten my dainty European looks from my mother, I definitely got my mouth from my father. Heaven knows I have a mouth like a sailor, despite years of people telling me women oughta sound like a Hallmark card.

Looking at him now, I’d say the only difference between him and Owen, obviously other than age, is that my brother has tattoos. Otherwise, they’re like carbon copies of each other.

After moving around the island, I step into his arms, and the moment I breathe in the smell of his Brute cologne, my composure shatters. Making fists in his shirt, I cry against him.

“I know, sweet girl,” he sympathizes with a softness in his rough voice meant only for his children. “Your daddy’s got big shoulders, London. Why don’t you let me carry some of that weight you’ve been holding?”

Looking up at him, I feel so guilty for the time with my family my ambition has cost me.

“At least for a little while.” He winks.

After throwing my arms up around his neck, I squeeze him as hard as I can without hurting myself. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” he says back, his jaw tight. Daddy’s never been good with crying daughters.

“Can we eat already?” Owen whines.

I turn just in time to see Aurora whack him in the back of the head with her oven mitt.

“They were having a moment, you ass clown.”

I’m home.

Edmonton, Alberta

“DO I SOUND LIKE I give a shit?” I bark into the receiver.

“It’s illegal.”

After turning the phone on speaker, I toss it onto the bathroom counter. “Quit pretending you have a moral compass, Francis,” I huff, sliding my dress shirt up my back, leaving it unbuttoned in the front. “I want the accident to run in this week’s Sunday paper.”

“It’s going to cost you, Tucker.”

Angling my chin to the side, I eye the two-day-old stubble shadowing my jaw in the mirror. “Whatever it costs, get it done.”

“Do you