Time's Tragedies- The Books Of Beginning [2]

58. Faking Normal

"Pass me that knife," Jake instructed.

Abby, sitting on the kitchen counter, an Agatha Christie novel in hand, did as she was told. Jake took the cutting knife and got to work chopping onions and peppers, while Eternity got out a large pan and turned on the stove. The boy and his pink haired friend were attempting to make chicken tortilla soup for dinner tonight. 

"How spicy am I allowed to make this, anyway?" Eternity questioned.

"Just don't kill anyone, other than that, I'll let you handle the spices," Jake replied.

Eternity shot him a teasing grin, "what, you think I'm planning to bludgeon someone?"

"That's not what I was saying," Jake groaned, "and you know it. You're just being difficult for the sake of being difficult."

"Being difficult is my best quality," Eternity quipped without missing a beat.

"That doesn't sound worrying at all," a new, teasing voice floated from the entryway to the room. The pink haired teen spun to see Rafe watching the trio with amusement.

Abby lifted her head from her book, "ignore them, they're just making tortilla soup in the most chaotic way possible."

"Abby, my dear friend, I do everything in the most chaotic way possible," Eternity exclaimed dramatically. 

Rafe shook his head with find exasperation. While it was obvious to anyone with a mere fraction of a brain that the connection between Lili and Eternity ran deepest of all the relationships Eternity had developed with the Wibberly family, that didn't negate the fact that the teenager was close with Abby and Jake as well. Between honest Abby, who always spoke her mind, and confident Jake, with a great deal of pride, Eternity had found similarities to herself, as well as intelligence, compassion, and friendship. When they were sniping at each other like all siblings did, it was so natural that it was as if Eternity had always been with them. It made it clear, to Rafe at least, that Eternity was comfortable, that they were becoming home for her. 

"Is this what happens when Lili leaves you three unsupervised?" Rafe joked from where he stood, back leaning against and pressing into the wall. 

Jake snorted, "actually, Lili not being here is probably the only thing that's kept us all from dissolving into disaster. I love her, but she is terrible in the kitchen. Though, in all fairness, Abby is too."

"Hey!" The youngest Wibberly exclaimed, "I'm not that bad!"

"Sure thing," her brother rolled his eyes, "but you're still banned from messing with my cooking, and if you try, Eternity will stop you."

Eternity held up a spatula with a wicked grin, reaching out to lightly bop Abby on the head with it. The girl scowled, "I'm not gonna touch your soup. Now get that thing out of my face."

Eternity tapped her once more, laughing when the eleven year old stuck her tongue out. Rafe sighed at their antics. While his beloved kids were fairly well behaved and got on quite well (thankfully, they did not share Michael and Emma's gift for nonstop arguing) no one could say they weren't stubborn. Stubborn, and very clever, which made for quite the combination. 

His eyes flicked from his son, kind, curious, confident, skilled and with knowledge of that fact, to his daughter, honest, intelligent, determined, insecure and brash all at one, to the girl adopted into his home, creative, brave, sarcastic, unrelentingly stubborn and incredibly broken all at one. And though she was not there, he couldn't see these three without thinking of Lili as well, his eldest, protective, poetic, loving, unconditionally devoted and magically unhinged. 

They, those four, they were so extraordinary and wonderful and flawed, so smart and so young and so full of emotion, of fear and anger, and love. There was so much life, so much soul in them, so much expression radiating from the scrunch of Jake's nose as he focused on his knife strokes, the way Abby bit her lower lip when she read a particularly interesting passage of her book. The way Eternity always had to be moving, drumming her fingers against the counter, and the way Lili tilted her head to the side when anger and startling calm came together within her.