private
“There you go! Much better. When you said you were the janitor it sounded like you were pretty much picking up garbage your whole life. Let’s not go there. You do more than that. Like… a supply teacher! You’re the assistant and I teach the class! See? It all works once you think about it! I could think of so many more analogies, but I would be talking too much. The kids just need a chance to grow, and it’s my fault for not giving them that chance lately.”
“Psh, are you serious? Leekie’s dead. You killed him, remember? If anything, Rachel would’ve had a deal with someone else to not only have that happen to her, but to every one of us as well. Blackmailing a world leader? Rachel’s not that powerful if you think about it, Donnie.”
“What will fix things is if we let them be independent and fly out of the nest. I can’t keep telling them what to do anymore. For heavens sake, Liana and Gemma will be off to college soon just like Oscar was two years ago. Our job as parents as of now is to just give them the advice they need for the future. I know you wouldn’t be opposed to trying!”
“I mean, custodial workers do more than just take out the trash, but...yeah. Yeah, you’re right...talking too much. The important thing right now’s to focus on the kids and what they need. But it was always gonna be hard -letting them go one day- so you shouldn’t blame yourself for this. It’s on both of us.”
He winced at his wife’s not-so-gentle reminder of his personal role in accidentally ending the life of the renowned scientist. Which...sounded really terrible, when he thought about it in those terms. It sounded worse than “unintended murder”, which was sort of the way that Donnie had chosen to think of it as for all this time. “Yeah, well...” he mumbled. “They could’ve had a...contingency plan for that kind of thing, or something...”
He wouldn’t have put it past either Dr. Leekie or Rachel Duncan. Er...Dierden. Those DYAD types were all about the plans-on-top-of-other-plans. Their backup plans had backup plans, and no matter what Alison said to dismiss her clone-sister’s power, he didn’t feel any safer thinking about her. “Maybe not, but she is that scary!”Â
Another bout of anxiety twisted inside him at the thought of his little girls going away for schooling, even though he had tried to prepare for that exact scenario long before now. It just...wasn’t as easy a thought to stomach, now that it was swimming around in his gut.Â
“You’re right...” he sighed, resigned. She always was. “We’re just going to have to...let them do their thing, and hope they trust us enough to let us know if there’s a problem. I agree with you.” He always did. “Whatever you wanna do, Ali, I’m with you, one-hundred percent.”
