with me and put on a dressing gown. We’ll get that Panadol for your sister while we’re upstairs, too. I washed your clothes, but you won’t want to put on those tiny jeans again. Nothing relaxing about tight jeans. You’ll need a bath and a good long sleep before you think about getting dressed again.”
That left me and the two girls, who were still standing there, carefully not staring at me. I thought about it, then said, “You can wash your hands at the kitchen sink,” turned my back, went into the kitchen and washed my own, then sat down at the head of the table, put a sandwich on my plate, and took a bite, starting straight in on my belated dinner like a man with no manners at all. Presumably a situation they’d be more comfortable with. The dog plopped down beside me, laying her muzzle on her paws with a sigh, and the girls filed past without a word, washed their own hands, and sat quietly at the foot of the table, as far from me as they could get. I considered getting up to hand them the sandwich platter, but decided I was better off shoving it down the table without speaking, so I did. They were going to get an odd idea of proper male behavior, but as far as I was concerned, they already had an odd idea of proper male behavior. I wasn’t going to be able to teach them better at five in the morning.
Mum and Daisy came downstairs after a couple minutes, fortunately. Daisy had my mum’s fuzzy blue dressing gown wrapped about twice around her, and fuzzy socks on, too. When I smiled, she lifted her chin at me and said, “Don’t laugh. I’m cold.”
“I’m not laughing.” I pulled out the chair beside me, and she sat down and took hold of her own sandwich like she was very glad to make its acquaintance.
I told Mum, “You could sit down yourself.”
She said, “Nah. Got to go to work, don’t I. No rest for the wicked.” The girls looked up, startled, and she laughed. “Or so they say. I’ve looked out nightdresses, Gray, but now that I see these girls, they’ll be streets too big. Find them a few of your T-shirts instead to wear to bed, once they’ve had a lovely long wash. That’ll do.”
Daisy
Fruitful and Obedience looked like they wanted to drop through the floor. Wearing a man’s T-shirt. A strange man’s. To bed. When they’d be all but naked. Talking about it in front of him, not to mention the “lovely long wash.” They stared intently at their plates and chewed in mortified silence, and I thought about Orientation to Outside lessons and abandoned the thought. None of us had the energy.
As for Gray, he finished his own dinner-for-breakfast, pushed his chair back, causing the dog, who clearly had a crush on him and had in fact been lying with her head on his stockinged foot, to get up in a hurry. He picked up the last half-sandwich on the platter after an inquiring look at the three of us that only I responded to, then handed it to the dog, who downed it in two quick gulps. After that, he stood there looking solid and tough, like I might not have got the picture before, and said, “I’ll look out those T-shirts and put them on my bed, along with an elastic bandage to tape Fruitful’s ankle. No undies to fit, I’m afraid, because even mine would fall straight off, but your clothes are just there on the bench, Daisy, and Mum’s got the master bedroom made up for you and the girls. Same one you were in before. We thought that’d be more comfortable, though you’ll have to cuddle a bit. One bed, eh. You’ll have the flash bath, anyway. I’m guessing that bath’ll feel choice after all this.”
The girls had forgotten about keeping their eyes cast down. They were staring at him as if he were Satan risen from Hell, and I had to laugh.
“Gray,” I told him, “you realize that every word out of your mouth has been more improper than the last.”
He looked confused. “It has? What did I say?”
“Never mind.” I was still smiling foolishly, punch-drunk with physical fatigue and emotional release. “It’s funny, that’s all. Cheers for the loan of all of it, though I can’t believe we’re putting you out of your own bed.”