hello pals! I'm Joanna, a 20 something year old graduate student with a newfound interest in The Righteous Gemstones. I'm not really sure what I want to do with this blog yet, but I've been writing fics for ages so I thought it was fitting to make a page. I'm currently writing for Gideon mostly, but I'm open to more if anyone would like to drop anything in my inbox <3 I'm also keen on sharing ideas with anyone who wants to see what I'm working on. xoxo- Joanna
Reader or Ruthie is at that preteen age where she doesn’t want anything to do with chores or church responsibilities and cries wolf a lot- the whole family’s fed up with it and her attitude, so she gets scolded by lots of people when she keeps complaining and saying her stomach hurts leading up to the big Easter Sunday weekend when she’s supposed to give a sermon
Everyone changes their tune quickly when she faints onstage and they find out shes got appendicitis
🏥
Ruthie wasn't a difficult baby.
Sure, she wailed like a banshee through weeks of colic and was a mischievous little toddler. Even as she got older, you'd sometimes find an infant Finn covered in marker, despite her being old enough to know better than to draw on him. She got into tiffs at school and copped an attitude at home, but they were the kinds of things most kids went through. Well, at least that's what the parenting forums insisted during the especially hard days.
No, things didn't get hard until this year.
Once Ruthie started high school, she changed.
You tried to be understanding. Puberty was already a beast on its own. Add a new school and the expectations that came with being a Gemstone, and she'd become a bit of a nightmare.
She spent most of her time holed up in her room. The one time you walked in without knocking, she tore into you, and what started as a lecture about boundaries spiraled into a full-blown shouting match. She threw fits whenever you wouldn't let her spend hours at the mall with her friends and sobbed the day you caught her rolling her skirt so it sat halfway up her thighs instead of just above her knees. She screamed at you and Gideon that she was grown, earning herself a grounding she insisted was completely unfair.
You tried to give her grace. You let her skip church on the occasional Sunday, though she almost always complained when you didn't swing by the house for lunch at Jason's Steakhouse afterward. She skirted responsibilities, "forgot" the chores she didn't want to do, and tested every boundary she could find.
Gideon understood her better around that time. He'd gone through the whole I don't believe in God or Jesus or any of that shit phase when he was around her age. Growing up a preacher's kid is hard, especially when your family is on television and streamed into homes around the globe. Before Ruthie could even properly smile, her face was known to thousands. She was expected to keep perfect grades and never misbehave. She'd been prompted to stand up straight and taught how to angle her face perfectly before she was even in the double digits.
So you and Gideon let her take a step back with a few stipulations.
Ruthie still had responsibilities at the church, like small speaking parts during important events. She agreed, and in September delivered a short sermon during Aimee Leigh's Birthday Give-A-Thon. Ratings were high, and many praised the sermon she'd written with help from her father, Jesse, and Eli. She seemed proud of it, chattering about the experience nonstop for nearly a week.
By Christmas, though, she seemed completely uninterested. She gave a noticeably drearier performance during the annual retelling of the birth of Jesus and flatly refused to participate in the nativity scene that year, citing embarrassment. She knew photos would end up on the Gemstone website.
Late winter and early spring weren't any easier. The arguments got louder. Doors slammed harder. Neither you nor Gideon could seem to get through to her.
You harped on her constantly about her chores. After you "messed up" the carefully arranged order of her closet, you stopped washing her clothes, insisting that if she was old enough to reorganize her wardrobe, she was old enough to run the washer and dryer once a week.
Instead, she let her laundry pile up in her room.
Rather than wash it like any normal person would, she asked Amber to take her shopping. Once that started looking suspicious, she asked Judy. Then Kelvin. Then Keefe. She cycled through all of them twice before you caught on, sparking yet another argument between the two of you.
She let dirty dishes pile up for days and picked fights with Finn just so he'd end up being punished with doing them instead. She refused to help Gideon in the garden, claiming stomach aches before disappearing into the bathroom with her tablet and phone. More than once, the only way to get her out was to use your own phone to shut off her service.
It all came to a head the Thursday before Easter Sunday.
On Monday, Ruthie came home with a note that required a signature. You read through it once, trying to ignore the anger pulsing through your body before calling for Gideon. Ruthie had been failing geometry. After a few pointed questions, you found out she'd been completely blowing off the tutor you'd hired during the first semester, when she'd really started to struggle. Instead, she'd been spending those two hours a week wandering the mall with her friends.
On Tuesday, Gideon got a call from the school asking him to bring Ruthie more appropriate clothes. After you'd dropped her off that morning, she'd changed into a skirt so short people walked five steps behind her on the stairs. The dress code violation earned her another grounding, meaning she'd miss her friend's birthday dinner.
Wednesday, she stomped around the house all afternoon. She begged you to lift the grounding, promising she'd be at your mercy if you'd just drop her off at the restaurant. Another argument erupted when you refused, earning you the title of the worst mother in the world. In the heat of it, she declared she wouldn't be doing her mini-sermon during Sunday's service, ending it with a venomous I hate you. It was the first time in her life she'd ever told you she hated you.
You weren't in the mood on Thursday morning. After spending most of Wednesday night crying into Gideon's shoulder, you woke up with a crick in your neck and no desire to speak to anyone, especially Ruthie. The silent treatment lasted most of the day.
Dinner passed in near silence, something Ruthie couldn't stand.
"So you're just not going to talk to me, Mom?" she snapped, tossing her fork onto the table after about twenty minutes.
"Seems like we got it all out last night," you shrugged. "You feel your way, I feel mine. Right?"
She rolled her eyes. "You always do this. You make me feel bad, then make me do church shit to repent."
You bit your tongue.
"Dad? Back me up here."
Gideon shook his head. "You said you'd do it, sweetheart."
"Well, I won't." She crossed her arms. "Stupid fucking church."
"The church that gives me and your daddy a job?" you shot back. "You'd better lose that attitude, and quickly. That church is the reason you have a roof over your head and a plate full of food every night. Do you know how—"
"—many people would love a hot meal?" Ruthie interrupted. "Save me the sob story, Mom. It's getting old."
You stared at her for a long moment.
"Ruthie Leigh, your father and I have given you just about everything we possibly could. You just stick your hand out and say, 'Gimme,' and we've made it happen. But I think it's about time you learned what the real world looks like, sweetheart. You're doing that speech, and you're going to knock it out of the park like I know you can."
She frowned, but you weren't finished.
"You're going to smile, and you're going to talk to people and listen to their stories. Afterwards, we're taking the goddamned family photo, and as soon as that's done, you can go back to being a bitter teenager. But I hope that one day you can understand what it means to be a leader. Until then, I expect you to grow up and put your big girl pants on. The same way you want to yell at me, I want you to use that same attitude with your friends."
You pushed your chair back from the table and dropped your napkin beside your plate. "I don't feel well."
Without another word, you turned toward the hallway.
Friday was tense. Finn and Lucas fell silent anytime you and Ruthie ended up in the same room.
At one point, she'd fallen asleep on the couch, and you found yourself standing there, staring at her. Without her face twisted into its perfected scowl, she looked young. Far too young to be battling whatever she'd been wrestling with these past few months. It broke your heart to watch her flounder, desperate to carve out a place for herself in the world. You wished you knew how to help.
You spent most of Saturday at the church helping finish the Easter decorations, fighting back tears as you worked. Then came service rehearsal.
"Ruthie doin' her bit tomorrow?" Jesse asked.
You shrugged. "I don't know. She's supposed to talk for five minutes, so if she doesn't, it won't exactly derail the service."
Eli glanced up. "Something goin' on with her?"
You sighed, exchanging a tired look with Gideon. "She's just... growing up. I don't know whether I should tighten the leash or let it go entirely and hope she finds her way home."
Jesse opened his mouth, undoubtedly preparing to dispense some parenting advice, though one of his children had run away from home, another had ended up with face tattoos, and another barely spoke to the family. Eli caught it too, shooting Jesse a look before turning back to you.
"I'm sure she's just having some growing pains," he said gently. "She's a good girl."
By the time you made it home, it was after ten. You were finishing your shower when you heard Gideon talking with Ruthie in the hallway.
"Daddy, my stomach hurts," she whined.
"You'll be fine," Gideon replied. "You're still speaking tomorrow. We already told your grandpa you would."
"O-okay." There was a pause. "Can I take a Tylenol?"
"Sure, baby."
Sunday morning, you half expected Ruthie not to come at all. You heard her shuffling around her room before six, though you assumed she was just getting ready to sleep in until noon. Gideon had already shifted the car into gear when she came hurrying out of the house, her hair immaculate, her floral dress pressed and flowing, and her fist full of what you assumed to be her section of the sermon. She barely spoke during the drive, save for hissing at Lucas to stop shoving toys in her face while she practiced her speech under her breath.
Once you arrived and made your way through the crowd of excited attendees, she stopped in front of you.
"You're going to be fine," you whispered. "You're good."
Ruthie winced. "Mama... my stomach really, really hurts."
You shook your head. "Don't play that game now. You're going up there."
She nodded, one arm wrapping around her middle. "Mama, I'm serious."
"So am I. It's just the nerv—"
"You never listen to me!" Her voice cracked through the service hallway, drawing the attention of several nearby staff members.
Your jaw tightened. "We're not doing this here." You lowered your voice, though the edge never left it. "You're going up there, and that's final. Go find your daddy. You're right after him."
You slipped into your place in the front row, Finn swinging his legs against the pew while Lucas leaned against your shoulder, already distracted by the lights dancing across the stage.
The sanctuary dimmed as the choir filed out first, their voices swelling into the opening hymn as thousands rose to their feet. You sang because everyone else did, though your eyes kept drifting toward the wings. After the final chorus, Gideon stepped to the pulpit.
He smiled that practiced smile so easily recognizable to anyone who'd ever watched the Gemstones.
"Good morning, everyone."
The congregation answered in unison.
He welcomed everyone to Easter Sunday, led the opening prayer, and thanked God for family, forgiveness, and resurrection. You bowed your head when everyone else did, but your mind wasn't on the prayer.
"And now," he said, smiling towards the wings, "I'd like y'all to welcome my beautiful daughter, Ruthie Leigh."
The applause was warm as Ruthie stepped into the spotlight.
Even from the front row, you knew something wasn't right. She looked pale. The stage lights should've warmed her complexion, but instead they made her look washed out. Tiny beads of sweat clung to her forehead despite the sanctuary's impressive air conditioning. She smiled anyway.
"My... my name is Ruthie Leigh Gemstone..." Her voice wavered.
She paused like she'd forgotten what came next. Then she found her place again. Every sentence seemed to cost her something. She spoke slowly, carefully, as though she had to convince herself to say each word before it left her mouth. Once or twice she sucked in a sharp breath between sentences.
Your stomach twisted as the feeling settled in that something was wrong. You leaned toward Finn.
"Stay with your brother."
"What?"
"I'll be right back."
Before either boy could argue, you slipped from the pew and caught the attention of one of the production staff.
"This way," he whispered, switching on a small flashlight.
He led you through the narrow backstage corridors, weaving around cables and equipment as Ruthie's voice carried faintly through the walls.
"...and... remember that... Jesus... loves us..."
The applause erupted before you'd even reached the wings as soon as she'd finished. You rounded the last corner just in time to see Ruthie disappear behind the curtain. She made it three steps before her knees buckled. She hit the floor on all fours with a sickening thud.
"Ruthie!" You lunged forward, but a pair of stagehands and Gideon reached her first.
"Easy, easy," one of them said.
They carefully rolled her onto her side before lifting her farther backstage, away from the curtain and the view of the congregation.
Someone shouted, "Call an ambulance! Somebody get outside and flag them in!"
Another voice answered, "I'm on it!"
Ruthie's breathing came in broken, uneven sobs. "Mommy..."
The word came out as a whimper as Gideon flipped his tie over his shoulder. “What is it, Ruth?”
"I want my mom!" She wailed, fighting off Gideon's arms.
"I'm right here, baby." Your knees hit the floor beside her. You brushed damp strands of hair away from her forehead. She was burning up. "I'm right here."
She cried out as another wave of pain seized her.
"Stomach still hurts?"
She nodded frantically. Without a word, she grabbed your wrist with surprising strength and pulled your hand against the right side of her abdomen. The moment your fingers pressed through the fabric of her dress, your heart stopped as it was swollen and tender enough that even the lightest touch made her gasp.
Your breath caught.
"Oh, sweetheart..."
She curled tighter around herself, tears streaming down her cheeks. "It hurts..."
"I know." Your own voice cracked as you cupped her face. "I know, baby."
Behind you, footsteps thundered through the hallway as someone yelled that the paramedics had arrived. You never took your eyes off your daughter.
"Don't worry," you whispered, squeezing her hand. "I'm going to be with you the whole time."
An hour later, you and Gideon sat alone in the waiting room at Rogers Regional Medical Center.
The rest of the family was still at the church, undoubtedly tied up with the obligatory Easter photo ops and handshakes before they could slip away. For once, you were grateful. You couldn't stomach explaining what had happened over and over again.
The ambulance ride replayed in your mind instead. You'd climbed in beside Ruthie, never letting go of her hand as the paramedic worked around you in the small space.
"When did the pain start?" she asked.
You opened your mouth. "I... I don't know."
The words tasted awful.
"Has she been sick recently? Fever? Vomiting? Any medical conditions?"
"I don't know." Your voice grew quieter with each answer. "I thought..." Your throat tightened. "I thought she was trying to get out of speaking at church."
The paramedic glanced up from where she was checking Ruthie's vitals.
"We've... we've been fighting." It felt pathetic admitting it aloud. "I thought she was being dramatic."
The woman offered you a crooked, sympathetic smile. "Raised four teenagers myself," she said with a soft chuckle. "It gets easier."
You let out a humorless laugh. "Less scary?"
"Not really." She adjusted the blood pressure cuff around Ruthie's arm before meeting your eyes again. "But easier."
Another groan escaped Ruthie as the ambulance lurched around a corner. You immediately squeezed her hand. "I'm here, baby."
Her fingers weakly curled around yours.
By the time the ambulance reached the emergency entrance, the doors were already opening. What felt like all at once, Ruthie was loaded onto a different stretcher, paramedics and nurses calling out numbers you couldn’t understand. Someone asked for her name, then yours. You followed behind them, only able to focus at the sight of your daughter on the bed and crisp white sheets. A pair of hands landed on your shoulders, guiding you back through a set of doors you’d just passed, marked with bright red letters.
"We'll come get you as soon as we know something," a nurse promised gently.
Before you could say anything else, she disappeared.
That had been forty-five minutes ago.
Forty-five agonizing minutes of staring at the same speckled tile floor, jumping every time the emergency room doors opened. Gideon sat beside you, elbows on his knees, clasped hands pressed against his mouth. He hadn't said much since arriving. There didn't seem to be anything left to say.
Every few minutes, your mind replayed the morning.
Mama, my stomach really, really hurts.
Don't play that game now.
Mama, I'm serious.
You never listen to me.
Your eyes burned. You should have listened. You should have known. As a mother, you should have been able to see the change in her just like you could hear the difference between her hungry cry and her uncomfortable cry when she was an infant. Gideon's hand found yours, giving it a firm squeeze before either of you noticed he'd reached across the space between your chairs.
"You couldn't have known," he murmured quietly, as if he'd heard every guilty thought racing through your head.
You stared at the double doors leading back to the emergency department.
"I told her to smile." Your voice cracked. "I told her to grow up and deal with it."
The words hung between you and neither of you had the strength to pretend they didn't hurt. It took another few hours for an answer.
"Mr. and Mrs. Gemstone?"
You and Gideon were on your feet before the doctor had even finished saying your name. She held the door open and motioned for you to follow, leading you down a quiet hallway into a small consultation room. Framed photographs of Rogers through the years covered the walls.
"I'm Dr. Walker," she said as the three of you sat down. "I'm the surgeon who operated on Ruthie."
Your heart lurched.
"Ruthie's your daughter?" she asked, glancing briefly at the chart before continuing. "She came in with a pretty severe case of appendicitis. We couldn't tell from the imaging whether her appendix had already ruptured, so with Ruthie's permission, we proceeded with an emergency open appendectomy."
You found yourself holding your breath.
"The good news," Dr. Walker continued with a reassuring smile, "is that it hadn't burst. We got it out in time."
The air rushed from your lungs all at once. "Oh, thank God." Your hand instinctively found the necklace resting against your chest, your fingers wrapping around the tiny birthstones representing each of your children.
"She'll stay with us for a day or two so we can monitor her," Dr. Walker went on. "Mostly as a precaution. Because we caught it before it ruptured, we expect her to make a full recovery."
You nodded quickly, blinking back tears. "Is... is she okay otherwise?"
"She is." The doctor smiled again. "She's going to be sore for a while. Recovery from an open appendectomy isn't exactly pleasant, and she'll need to take it easy for the next month or so. Her primary physician will go over her restrictions before she's discharged."
You let out a shaky breath you hadn't realized you'd been holding. "Thank you."
"I should also tell you..." Dr. Walker's smile turned faintly amused. "She was pretty insistent on giving me a message before the anesthesia fully kicked in."
You exchanged a glance with Gideon. "She wanted me to tell you she's sorry for ruining Easter. And..." the surgeon chuckled softly, "...she asked if you could bring the pasta salad from Piggly Wiggly ready for dinner tonight."
A wet laugh escaped you before you could stop it, even Gideon smiled.
"That sounds like our girl," he said.
"Though as excited and delicious as that sounds, she'll be on a liquid diet as we used a paralytic for her intestines."
Dr. Walker stood, gathering the chart beneath one arm. "She's asleep now and will probably stay that way for another few hours. As soon as she's in recovery and ready for visitors, someone will come get you."
"Thank you," you said again, your voice barely above a whisper.
After the doctor slipped out, the room fell quiet. You covered your face with both hands, tears falling instantly. Gideon stepped closer, wrapping an arm around your shoulders before pressing a kiss against your temple.
"See?" he murmured. "She's going to be just fine."
You nodded against him. "I know."
Your laugh caught somewhere between a sob and a smile. "...I'm still buying that pasta salad for when she comes home and probably a pony or something."
Gideon grinned. “You are not buying her a pony. We’re still recovering from the chickens you insisted we keep.”
You shook your head. “Fine, but I am buying her the biggest tub of that pasta salad for her when she gets home.”
By the time Ruthie was settled into a room and you were let in, she was still asleep. The steady beeping of the monitors filled the silence as you quietly pulled a chair to her bedside. Color had returned to her cheeks and someone had taken her hair out of her ponytail, leaving it in crinkled waves around her head. Despite being almost as tall as you now, she looked so tiny under the blankets.
Carefully, you lifted the blanket and untied the side of her gown to peek at the incision. A thick pad of gauze covered most of the right side of her abdomen, secured with strips of tape that stretched across her skin. It looked angry even without seeing the stitches beneath. Your stomach flipped as you let the gown fall back down and tied it slowly.
Poor baby, you thought, a fresh wave of guilt washing over you.
Gideon cleared his throat from the door. “I’m going to go home and check on the boys. Need anything?”
‘Uh, some clothes,” you mumbled. “For both of us. Some pajamas for her mostly.”
Gideon nodded. “I’ll be back soon.”
Settling into the chair again, you began thumbing through the stack of discharge information the nurses had already dropped off. Instructions about lifting restrictions. Pain medication schedules. Warning signs to watch for. Shower instructions. School excuses. Follow-up appointments. You read the same paragraph three times without retaining a word.
You leaned against the chair waiting for Ruthie to fully wake. According to texts from Gideon, he’d set out with the boys to get the downstairs guest bedroom ready for their sister. You received text after text from Lucas through Gideon’s phone, asking exactly what he should set at the stairs for Finn to take to the room until he called you.
“Hi, mama,” he grinned, his face half hidden by the screen.
“Hi, Lukey,” you smiled back.
He panned over Ruthie’s messy room. “Do you think she’s like her bunnies and bears?”
"I think she would." You smiled. "Take her big blanket and her favorite pillow, too. It’s the one with the flowers."
He nodded enthusiastically. “What about-”
"Mama?"
The tiny voice from the hospital bed made your head snap around.
“Oh, Lucas, I have to go. Ask your daddy for anything else,” you said quickly, hanging up and tucking the phone into your purse.
Ruthie sat up slowly, wincing at the twinge in her side. You were out of your chair before she'd fully opened her eyes. You slipped one arm behind her shoulders just enough to help her sit a little higher before guiding the straw from your water cup between her lips. She drank greedily.
“Gave us quite the scare, Ruthie Leigh,” you murmured.
She paused for a breath. “Sorry.”
You brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
She sat back against the pillows, suddenly looking more exhausted than she ever had before.
"How do you feel, baby?" you asked, taking her hand and absentmindedly rubbing your thumb across her knuckles.
"They carved me up like an Easter ham." She glanced down toward her bandaged stomach with exaggerated offense. "Feels rude."
"It was pretty rude."
She huffed a tiny laugh before wincing. "Oww..."
"Don't do that,” you playfully scolded.
"I'm trying not to."
You reached up and smoothed a few strands of hair away from her forehead. "Well," you said softly, "that's my fault."
She blinked.
"If we'd gotten here sooner..." Your eyes dropped to the blanket. "You probably would've had the smaller surgery and been home by now."
Ruthie was quiet for a long moment.
"I kept saying my stomach hurt..." she whispered, shame creeping into her voice. "But... I didn't tell you how bad because I thought it would go away or that it was nothing.”
"And I thought..." Your voice cracked. "...I thought you were trying to get out of your speech."
Then, as gently as you could, you leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her forehead. "I should've listened to you."
"So should I," Ruthie whispered. “It’s my fault for lying about stomach aches.”
You shook your head immediately. "No." The word came out firmer than you expected. "You are fourteen years old. I am your mother. I should know the difference between defiance and pain."
Ruthie's eyes welled with tears. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."
"It happens. That doesn't make it okay, and I'm not going to pretend it is just because you're hurting right now. But..." You squeezed her hand. "...I think we both learned something this week."
Her stomach grumbled. “When can I eat? I want a burger and pasta salad.”
You sighed. “Doctor said that you’re on a liquid diet, baby. You’ll get sick if you eat something until the anesthesia really wears off.”
She rolled her eyes. “I just want a burger or something.” She scowled at you. “What happened to ‘your daddy and I give you the world and whatever you want’?”
You raised an eyebrow. "I believe that speech also included something about gratitude."
Ruthie groaned. "Mama..."
"And," you continued with the hint of a smile, "while we're waiting for dinner service, this might be the perfect time to talk about your recent behavior."
She let her head fall dramatically back onto the pillow. "I knew this was coming."
"You did."
"And you're still going to do it while I'm recovering from surgery?" She huffed.
“I am.”
She sighed under her breath again. “Can you at least brush my hair? It feels like a rats nest.”
You smiled. “Of course, honey. Scoot over.” You stood to reach for the mini hairbrush you always keep in your purse. “Should we talk about tutoring or the dress code first?”
“Okay, I can explain the tutor,” she defended.
Two days later, Ruthie had fully settled into the downstairs guest bedroom, looking every bit like a tiny convalescing princess. Extra pillows had been piled behind her back. Her favorite blanket was tucked around her legs. Stuffed animals occupied nearly every available surface, and a bell Jesse had jokingly left on the nightstand had somehow become an official part of the room.
Lucas and Finn had enthusiastically volunteered to be her butlers while she recovered. Judging by the mischievous glint in Ruthie's eyes every time one of them walked past the doorway, she intended to take full advantage of the arrangement.
Reader surprises Gideon in his office at home wearing one of his oversized cardigans… and nothing else 👀
hehe lil bit of mean!gideon, ruined orgasm, workaholic husband
Gideon had promised you many things when you married. A home to raise a family. Love. Support in everything you would ever need.
He had been there through the worst of your postpartum depression and every flu season when you were too sick to care for yourself. He defended you when you needed it, took the blame when the kids were upset, and carried burdens without complaint. Gideon had always followed through, which made it all the more confusing that now he barely seemed able to leave his home office.
The kids weren’t too little now and you could leave them alone for hours if you needed to get things done. Though you tried to avoid parentifying Ruthie, sometimes you left her to keep an eye on Finn, entertained by a movie and his toys, while she tapped away on her tablet or read a book.
Because they’d gotten older, Gideon decided to step forward in the church. He traded his Wednesday morning sermons for the opening prayer on Sundays. He started traveling again, supporting Abraham’s ministry he’d taken over from Gideon when Ruthie was born.He spent long hours drafting sermons, answering emails, and meeting with struggling members of the congregation, doing his best to guide them onto a better path.
Every evening, after the kids showered, you'd send them upstairs to get ready for bed. Gideon would join them there, talking with them about their day before praying and tucking them in. Only after they were settled would he get ready himself and eventually slip into bed beside you, wearing the same quiet, proud smile as he recounted the day's events until his voice lulled you to sleep.
He'd made good on every promise until now, except one: sex.
Part of you felt strange for noticing your husband that way, almost guilty for looking at him like a piece of meat. But it wasn't your fault he was so effortlessly attractive, with all the makings of a devoted husband and an even better father. The longer the two of you went without that private closeness, the harder it became to ignore the way his forearms flexed while helping Ruthie fix her bike or the warm smile he sent your way after church while you waited for him to finish another conversation.
Intimacy wasn't the issue. You and Gideon talked, checked in with one another. You'd tell him you were feeling anxious, citing it was probably your cycle or life moving to fast to think about and he'd help by taking a few hours to dedicate to you and the family for some quality time. He'd come to you with his problems, asking you for your opinion and fresh perspective. The trouble was that those moments alone almost always drifted into conversations about everything except the two of you. Something thoughtless his father had said. Finn needing a new school uniform for the second time in three months. Ruthie convinced her teacher had it out for her after another spat in class.
By the time the dishes were done and the lights were off, you'd shared your worries, solved your problems, and exhausted yourselves, yet somehow never found your way back to each other.
You knew part of it was biology and there were hormones making you feel needier than you probably were. Over a decade of marriage had built a bond that only seemed to deepen with time, and lately you found yourself growing desperate for the kind of closeness that used to come so naturally. Yet everything seemed to conspire against you.
Morning kisses that lingered just a little too long had once been enough to lead somewhere else. Now they lasted only until the alarm clock interrupted, even on the rare days you woke up early together.
When Gideon came home for lunch, you were tempted to convince him to take the rest of the afternoon off, to steal a few quiet hours before the kids returned from school. Instead, he'd brush a quick kiss across your lips, grab something easy to eat, and disappear back into his office with an apologetic explanation about another lunch meeting.
And once the children were finally asleep, the opportunity slipped away again. It was impossible to predict which of you would lose the battle first, but one of you was always too exhausted by the day's demands to do anything more than crawl into bed and fall asleep.
The plan came to you after your latest failed attempt.
You'd barely swung a leg over Gideon's lap, your lips just brushing his ear, when Finn shouted from upstairs that he couldn't find his dinosaur. Gideon had laughed softly, promised he'd be right back, and nearly toppled you onto the couch in his hurry to help.
When he finally returned, expecting to find you waiting, he discovered you already tucked into bed with your back turned. He assumed you were upset, but you weren’t. If he hadn’t gone, Finn would have wandered downstairs and you’d be stuck paying for a lifetime of therapy.
No, you were plotting, and tomorrow would be the perfect day.
The kids had field day at school, which meant they'd come home tired, overheated, and more than a little cranky. For weeks you'd promised to stay the entire event, but this time you told a harmless little fib, claiming you had to leave early for a doctor's appointment.
Instead, you drove home where, sure enough, Gideon was shut away in his office again, buried under work. Amber and Jesse happily took over in the parents' section and promised to treat Ruthie and Finn to an early dinner and dessert before bringing them home.
That bought you several uninterrupted hours.
After getting back, you took a shower to rinse away the sweat from the parent relay race, your stomach fluttering as your carefully laid plan seemed to be falling into place. Once dry, you slipped into one of Gideon's oversized cardigans, smiling despite yourself. It didn't hang quite as loosely as it had years ago, but it was still unmistakably his. The confidence faded a little when you caught your reflection in the mirror. You'd considered doing your hair and putting on makeup, but the effort felt unnecessary. Gideon had always insisted he liked you best exactly as you were, barefaced and comfortable. Besides, you’d either sweat it off or cry it off later. You tugged self-consciously at the edge of your underwear where it peeked out beneath the hem of the sweater, too shy to forgo it entirely.
Then you glanced down the hall and sighed at the sight of his open office door, which meant he wasn't on a call, just sitting at his desk, thumbing through paperwork.
“Hey, baby,” he murmured without looking up from the calculator on his desk. “What’s go-”
“Though I’d come sit with you,” you shrugged, padding over to stand beside him. “Missed you.”
“I missed you too,” he husked, voice hoarse.
You trailed a finger over his shoulder, eyes trained on his already straining slacks. “Can I have a seat?”
He nodded wordlessly, kicking away from the desk to give you more room to sit. You carefully perched yourself on his thigh, grinding slowly against him. A jolt traveled through your body, making you fight back a content hum.
“Warm in here,” you mumbled, fiddling with one of the buttons on the cardigan. “Mind if I take it off?”
“N-not at all,” Gideon said hoarsely.
You undid the first button slowly, the second and third even slower. Gideon gulped behind you, his boner digging into the bottom of your spine. You sighed, shrugging off the fabric and dropping it to the side. In a moment of panic, you checked to make sure his webcam was covered. Reading your mind, he slid the little cover over with a hum.
His hands roamed the expanse of your waist, one traveling up. You shuddered when he cupped one of your breasts and pinched. Your eyes slipped closed, lips parting with soft sighs the harder he pulled at them, so he continued with one hand, letting the other move over your soft stomach, down your hip and finally to the thin cotton covering your modesty. You slid further down his thigh, giving him more room to slide his hand under the fabric.
“Get yourself ready for me, darling?” He whispered, smacking your tit lightly before paying attention to the other.
You shook your head, eyes fluttering shut as his finger circled your neglected clit. “No. Waited for you, baby.”
He hummed again. “Soaked.”
You make a short, warning noise. You feel yourself clench at the sudden intrusion of two fingers, mind clouded as Gideon shifts beneath you. He moves until you’re standing on shaky legs, leaning against his desk with your panties around your knees, his own hands leaving your body to work his belt.
“How do you want it?” He asks.
You move over to the couch he has in his office, laying down with your head on the arm rest. “Make love to me, baby.”
He obliges, untucking his shirt and discarding his button up and slacks halfway there. He settled between your thighs, his hands running over your skin carefully. He pushes into your wet cunt, fully sheathed in one easy moment, sliding home. Your back arches, feeling weeks of tension and stress melt away. Gideon moved his hips slowly, grinding against yours.
“Missed you,” he grunted, tangling a hand in your hair and tugging a little, just to get a better look at you.
“Missed you too,” you gasped.
Gideon hiked one leg over his hip, driving your other even higher so your calf settled on his shoulder. You cry out at the feeling of his cock nudging against your front wall, dragging deliciously over that sensitive spot. You grip the couch with both hands, already clenching rhythmically around him.
“Oh, fuck yeah,” he mumbled, drawing the words out. “Feels nice, doesn’t it?’
You nodded with a whimper. You could feel every inch of him deep within you, and as you tried to compose yourself enough to dirty talk back. Instead, the wet sounds of his cock sliding in and out of your wet cunt mixed with your heart pounding.
“Already goin’ a little stupid on me?” He teased, earning a frown from your lips. “Don’t worry, baby. I won’t get too mean.”
"I like it," you admitted. You gasped when his thumb swiped over your clit, dancing side to side in a slow swipe in time with his thrusts. Gideon knew you better than you knew yourself, especially when you were so out of it, already in a different headspace. He could tell you were already close, “Gideon, please.”
“Gotta make it worth the wait,” he tutted. “You can cum now, but I have a meeting in five minutes.”
You whined. “No. Cancel it.”
“Can’t.” He kissed your calf. “Cum now, or wait?”
Your breathing picked up until you felt his thumb stop moving, waiting for an answer. “Fuck, Gideon,” you panted. You felt him slip out of you and squirmed a little bit in his lap as he waited for an answer. “I’ll wait, honey.”
“Yeah?” He whispered, eyes still dark. He helped you sit up, leather squeaking beneath you.
You nodded. “But promise me you won’t take long.” You cradled his jaw in your hand. “I’ll wait for you in bed.”
Gideon bit his lip, pulling you in for a hug and a deep kiss. He pulled away, forehead resting against yours. “Five minutes and I’ll be done. I swear.”
You pecked his lips again. “I’ll time you. In the meantime, I’ll call your parents.” You giggled when he slapped your ass on your way to the door. “I have a feeling we’ll need all night.”
The doctor’s office receptionist calls the house saying the results of the Gemstone pregnancy test are ready and a scared Jesse freaks out and yells some very not-nice slut shaming things at his apparently loose trampy teen daughter who he doesn’t believe while she cries
Turns out Pontius and McKayla did NOT go to the arcade like they said they did last Friday (up to you if it’s +\- 👀)
“Daddy,” you called out, raising your voice just enough to carry down the hall. “Do you want your regular sandwich?”
Jesse adjusted his grip on the stack of pillows balanced against his chest as he passed the kitchen. “Yeah, baby,” he answered without looking up. “And bring the whole box of chips.”
“You got it.”
You pulled another slice of bread from the bag, laying it carefully atop your own sandwich before reaching for the mayonnaise again. The kitchen smelled like toasted bread and deli meat, sunlight spilling through the windows in warm stripes across the countertops.
Truthfully, you’d been looking forward to this weekend for months.
Every summer, you and your dad disappeared into the living room for an entire weekend dedicated to rewatching his favorite movies. It had started when you were little, just one film on a rainy afternoon, but over the years it had become tradition with the same battered DVDs, the same worn blankets, the same oversized bowls of popcorn and family-sized bags of chips. Everyone else in the house rolled their eyes whenever June rolled around.
Your brothers refused to participate anymore, insisting they’d already seen every one of Jesse’s “classics” a dozen times. But they had no appreciation for good cinema anyway since they watched their own movies. You spent every Friday night at the theater watching forgettable superhero sequels and painfully predictable romantic comedies and watched enough new releases that by the time your marathon came around, you’d forgotten half the twists and could enjoy them all over again.
More than anything, though, it was yours and Jesse’s thing.
Church consumed most of his time. School consumed yours. Between sermons, homework, practices, errands, and obligations, uninterrupted hours together had become rare. So every May, the two of you circled one weekend in June on the calendar and guarded it fiercely.
You smiled to yourself as you assembled the second plate, cutting his sandwich diagonally because that was how he insisted it tasted best. Once the food was ready, you scooped generous helpings of vanilla ice cream into a glass bowl and drowned them beneath chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and a cherry balanced neatly on top.
“Just me and Dad,” you murmured with quiet satisfaction, admiring your handiwork. “No stupid brothers bugging me. Mama’s not gonna make me wash dishes until Monday.”
Just then, the home phone rang. You turned toward the sink to rinse the mustard from your fingers, but Jesse was already crossing the foyer. Since he was passing anyway, he lifted the receiver from its cradle.
“Gemstone residence,” he greeted easily.
A woman’s professional voice answered.
“Hi, this is Regina with Planned Parenthood. We have some test results ready for you. If you could give us a call back at your earliest convenience so the doctor can discuss those results with you, we’d be more than happy to schedule a follow-up appointment.”
Jesse hung up before another word could be spoken.
For three agonizing seconds, his mind refused to process what he’d heard. It simply sat there, blank, suspended between confusion and disbelief.
Then the meaning hit him all at once and his stomach dropped. The dread lasted only a heartbeat before something hotter surged up to replace it, burning through his chest until it settled behind his ribs like molten metal. He set the handset carefully back into its cradle, though his fingers trembled against the plastic. Every thought came crashing into the next. Maybe you’d planned to tell him today. Maybe this movie weekend had been chosen because you hoped shared laughter and nostalgia would soften the confession.
He’d trusted you. He trusted that letting you date had been the right decision. Trusted that a teenage boy with a car could still have decent intentions.
What a fool he’d been.
By the time he reached the kitchen doorway, the anger had hardened into certainty. You looked up, oblivious, putting the whipped cream back into the refrigerator with a pleased little smile.
“Help me carry the sandwiches,” you said. “There’s that bag with the drinks, and I can get the—”
Before you could finish, Jesse snatched the sundae from your hands and set it onto the counter with enough force that the spoon rattled against the edge of the bowl.
“Movies are canceled.”
You blinked.
“Upstairs.”
“What?” You laughed once in disbelief. “No. We just—” You stamped your foot, frustration bubbling over. “Daddy, we’re supposed to do our movies!”
“I don’t care.” His voice cracked through the kitchen like a whip. “Upstairs.”
You stared at him, waiting for the punchline that never came. When you didn’t move, he jabbed a finger toward the staircase.
“Go,” he barked. “Before you really piss me off.”
Your face twisted into an offended scowl. You grabbed your own sandwich from the plate, clutching it to your chest as you brushed past him.
“Fine,” you muttered under your breath. “Jesus Christ.”
The words barely registered over the gurgling of the blood rushing in his head. He waited until your footsteps disappeared overhead before turning toward the living room and shouting for his wife. His hands planted themselves on the countertop as though it were the only thing keeping him upright. His breathing had gone shallow.
His little girl.
His princess.
Pregnant while still driving on a learner’s permit. She hadn’t even paid taxes yet. The image forced itself into his mind uninvited: senior prom photos with a toddler balanced on her hip, college plans abandoned, childhood ending before he’d been ready to let it go.
His throat tightened. Amber hurried in from the den, embroidery hoop still in one hand and concern already written across her face.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” she asked softly. “I thought today was your movie day.”
Jesse swallowed hard before answering. “I got a call.” He looked at her, voice dropping almost to a whisper. “From Planned Parenthood.”
Amber frowned, the concern in her face giving way to confusion. “What?”
Jesse scrubbed a hand over his mouth and nodded toward the phone in the foyer.
“Just a minute ago. Some woman said they had test results ready and wanted a call back.” His voice tightened with every word until it snapped. “Jesus Christ, Amber. What the fuck?”
Amber’s expression faltered.
“Do you think it’s for…”
“Well, I don’t think our sons can get pregnant, can they?” Jesse shot back, harsher than he intended. He paced once across the kitchen before stopping dead. “I’m dealing with this now.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
They both knew what it meant to become parents young.
They’d been barely into their twenties when Amber found out she was pregnant with Gideon. She left school almost overnight, trading lectures and term papers for doctor’s appointments and baby clothes. They had been scared, overwhelmed, and utterly unprepared, but they had also been deeply in love and soon, Gideon had become the center of their universe.
There were nights when he screamed for hours with a fever that wouldn’t break, when exhaustion left Jesse and Amber snapping at one another over nothing, slamming cabinet doors and retreating to opposite sides of the house until cooler heads prevailed. Sleep was scarce, but every milestone felt hard-won. Truly, it had been the only real work Jesse had ever done in his life until then.
There were other nights, quieter ones, when they would stand shoulder to shoulder beside his crib after finally coaxing him to sleep, saying nothing as they watched his tiny chest rise and fall in the dim glow of the night-light. Those moments made the rest bearable and eventually convinced them to bring more into the world.
Pontius arrived with all his stubbornness, followed by you, then Abraham, until the Gemstone house was bursting with noise and scraped knees and forgotten lunches and endless laundry. Their family had grown into something larger than either of them had imagined.
They hadn’t married until Gideon was three years old, a fact the congregation had whispered about for years afterward. Jesse could still remember the sideways glances, the carefully worded sermons from older pastors, the gossip disguised as concern.
Amber’s own family had been less subtle. When she became pregnant, they’d thrown her out without hesitation, leaving her on the curb with a single suitcase until she mustered enough strength to walk to the nearest gas station to call Jesse from a payphone. Jesse’s parents had taken her in instead, giving her a room, a seat at the dinner table, and the reassurance that she wasn’t facing motherhood alone.
As furious as Jesse felt, there was one thing he knew with absolute certainty, he could never put you through that. And if he tried, Amber would stop him before he got halfway to the front door. She would sooner leave him herself than watch her daughter navigate pregnancy abandoned by her own family.
Amber drew in a slow breath and set her embroidery hoop on the counter.
“Okay,” she said, her voice steady despite the worry in her eyes. She looked toward the staircase leading to your room, then back at Jesse. “Lead the way.”
The trip upstairs was loud enough to announce itself.
Jesse’s shoes hit every step with enough force to rattle the banister, Amber only a pace behind him, trying unsuccessfully to keep up without matching his fury.
Your bedroom door was half-open until he shoved it the rest of the way.
You looked up from where you’d thrown yourself across the bed, still pouting, your untouched sandwich balanced on a paper plate beside you. A movie magazine lay open in your lap, though you clearly hadn’t been reading it.
“What now?” you muttered.
Jesse didn’t answer immediately. He stood in the doorway, shoulders squared, breathing hard through his nose as though he’d run a mile instead of climbed a staircase.
“Get up.”
You frowned. “Why?”
“I said get up.”
With exaggerated annoyance, you swung your legs over the edge of the mattress and stood. Amber lingered near the doorframe, her eyes moving between the two of you.
“Daddy, what is going on?”
“That’s exactly what I’m here to find out.” His voice was sharp, stripped of any warmth. Jesse had spent more than half his life raising children, but subtle conversations had never been his strength. He didn’t know how to ease into difficult questions or soften accusations with careful phrasing. His instincts were to confront, to demand, to drag the truth into daylight.
“Where have you been?”
You blinked, a nervous laugh breaking free. “What?”
“After school. Weekends. Every place you’ve gone that you haven’t told us about.”
“I’ve been… here? At Sarah’s? At the mall?”
“And what have you been doing?”
Your confusion deepened into offense. “Living my life?”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
“I’m not!” Your brows knitted together in frustration. “I honestly don’t know what you want me to say. Shopping. Watching Jersey Shore with Sarah and making fun of how ridiculous everybody acts. Normal stuff.”
“What about Noel?” He demanded. “You been having sex when you go see him?”
Your face reddened. “What? Did Gideon say something? Daddy, I swear-”
“So there is something?” Jesse boomed.
“There’s nothing!” Your voice cracked. “You’re not even letting me answer!”
Amber raised a hand between the two of you, but he was already wound too tight to hear it.
“For months we’ve trusted you,” he said. “We’ve trusted the rules, trusted the supervision, trusted that when you told us where you were, that’s where you’d be.”
You looked between your parents, bewildered. After Noel moved to Chicago for school, you visited him each month with the stipulation that Gideon chaperone the two of you constantly and you stay in the hotel with Gideon each night.
“Gideon lets Noel and I have time alone together,” you admitted quietly. “He doesn’t stand in the room with us every second. He goes off and does his own thing because he thinks we deserve a little privacy, plus he looks weird following us around everywhere. We go to museums, get food, watch movies, and walk around campus. Then he meets back up with us later.”
Amber’s eyes widened. “He leaves you alone?”
“Sometimes,” you said. “Usually for a few hours. Sometimes longer.”
Jesse’s jaw clenched. The revelation landed like a betrayal, not because of what he knew had happened, but because of everything he suddenly realized he didn’t know.
“You mean to tell me,” he said slowly, “that your brother has been ignoring the arrangement your mama and I put in place?”
You swallowed. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“To us,” Jesse replied, his voice low and controlled now, “it matters a great deal, especially now that we have Planned Parenthood on the other line.”
Your stomach dropped. “I have never been there.”
Amber’s expression softened, though worry still clouded her eyes. “Then why are they calling this house?”
“I don’t know!” you cried, frustration spilling over into tears. “I promise! I just… I don’t want to do that, and I’m not lying.”
Jesse studied your face, waiting for the hesitation, the flicker of guilt, the tell that would confirm the awful picture he’d built in his mind. Instead, he found only panic. His shoulders sagged.
“Baby,” he said, the edge finally leaving his voice, “I’m sorry. If something happened, you’re not going to go through it alone, I just don’t want you lying to me.”
“There is no ‘it’!” you shouted back, the force of it making your voice crack. “Noel and I haven’t done anything besides watch movies and laugh. When Gideon lets me spend the night, I sleep in Noel’s bed and Noel takes the futon. His roommate can tell you!”
Amber’s brows pinched together. She reached instinctively for your hand. “Honey… even one time can change everything. You know that, right?”
“Yes! I do!” you sobbed. “That’s exactly why I’m telling you the truth!”
The only sound was your uneven breathing and the distant hum of the air conditioner downstairs.
“It’s for me.”
Everyone turned to where Pontius stood in the doorway.
He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His hair was uncombed, his eyes swollen and rimmed red, his shoulders slumped beneath an old T-shirt that hung off him like he’d forgotten to eat. One hand still rested against the doorframe, as though it were the only thing keeping him upright.
Jesse frowned. “What did you just say?”
“The call.” He glanced at you, guilt washing over his face as he watched you wipe tears from your cheeks. “It was for me.”
Your crying stopped almost instantly.
Amber blinked. “Pontius… Planned Parenthood called about you?”
He gave a small, miserable nod. “I used our house number because Makayla was too scared to use her cell or her house number.”
Jesse’s confusion overtook his anger. “They said they had test results.”
“I know.”
“And you let us think—”
“I didn’t know they were calling today.” Pontius’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I was going to tell y’all after I figured things out.”
You stared at your brother, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Pontius dragged a hand over his face and exhaled shakily.
“Makayla called me last week,” he admitted quietly. “She said she hadn’t had a period in two months.”
Amber’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “I thought you weren’t seeing her anymore.”
Pontius gave a helpless shrug, looking suddenly much younger than twenty.
“She’s not all bad, Mom.” He stared down at the carpet as he spoke. “It’s the twenty-first century, so we've been doin' a no strings attached thing. When I tell y’all I’m going out late with the guys…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Most of the time, I’m with her.”
Jesse pinched the bridge of his nose but motioned for him to continue. “Go on. ”
“Please tell me you didn't make her go alone,” your mother whispered.
“Of course I didn't. Pontius’s voice cracked. “She didn’t want to be there by herself.” He swallowed hard before adding, “They told us they couldn’t give us an answer right away. Some protesters came through earlier that week and damaged equipment, so they had to send everything to another lab.”
His composure finally broke. “I’m sorry.”
Amber looked painfully divided, her gaze flickering between the daughter she’d just watched sob through false accusations and the son who now looked like he might collapse under the weight of his own fear. You let go of her hand, urging her forward just before she wrapped her arms around Pontius. The moment her hand settled against the back of his head, he folded into her, pressing his face against her shoulder. His body shook with quiet, exhausted sobs that barely escaped into the room.
Across from you, Jesse looked as though the anger had drained completely out of him. You wiped at your cheeks with the heel of your palm and gave a small shake of your head. There would be time to sort through that later. Instead, you looked at your brother.
“So… do you know?”
Pontius lifted his head from Amber’s shoulder, his eyes red and swollen. He shook his head once.
“No.” His voice was barely audible. “I guess we should find out.” He glanced toward the hallway leading to his room. “Makayla’s here.”
The admission caught everyone off guard.
“She’s been waiting in my room since this morning,” he continued. “She didn’t want to be alone when the call came.”
Jesse straightened, the role of frightened father giving way to that of family patriarch.
“All right,” he said quietly. “Nobody’s facing this alone.”
Pontius led the way, Amber keeping a hand lightly against his back as though afraid he might disappear if she let go. Jesse followed with his jaw set, his expression unreadable. You lingered a step behind, still trying to shake off the sting of everything that had happened in your bedroom. Pontius stopped at his bedroom for half a second before Makayla emerged.
The girl who normally arrived with perfect eyeliner, glossy lips, and enough confidence to fill the room looked exhausted. Her mascara had smudged into faint gray shadows beneath swollen eyes. Her hair, usually meticulously styled, was thrown into a hasty knot with strands escaping in every direction. She still wore yesterday’s sweatshirt, sleeves stretched over her hands until only her fingertips peeked through. When she looked up and saw all of you standing there, she immediately wiped at her face.
For once, she had no sarcastic remark ready.
You’d never exactly liked Makayla. As far as you were concerned, she’d spent the better part of two years acting vaguely annoyed by your existence, treating you like an overeager little sister who tagged along too often. Every holiday dinner came with some passive-aggressive jab disguised as humor, every family barbecue with a look that said she’d rather be anywhere else. Now, seeing her like this, you wondered how much of that attitude had been armor.
“You told them?” she asked softly.
He nodded. “I had to. They thought it was for my sister.”
“Thanks, by the way,” you nodded. “Saving my ass, Ponch.”
Her gaze shifted nervously toward Jesse and Amber.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to drag your family into this.”
Amber’s face softened almost immediately. “Oh, sweetheart.” She moved forward before anyone else could react and sat on the coffee table opposite the couple. “You don’t owe us an apology for being scared.”
Makayla’s lip trembled. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
“You called the right person,” Amber replied, placing a reassuring hand over hers, leading Makayla through the house and towards the living room while whispering how the family would always be there for her.
Across the room, Jesse remained standing with his arms folded. The sternness was still there, but the sharp edges had dulled. Looking at Pontius and Makayla together, he no longer saw reckless kids trying to hide from consequences. He saw two frightened young adults waiting for news that could change the course of their lives.
You found yourself drifting toward the opposite end of the couch and sitting down quietly. Makayla glanced at you, clearly expecting resentment after everything that had unfolded upstairs. Instead, you offered a small, uncertain smile.
“It’s okay,” you said. “Seriously. We can hash it out later.”
She stared for a second before giving the faintest nod in return. The silence stretched through the room until the shrill ring of the home phone echoed down the hallway once more. Every head turned at the same time as Pontius stood so quickly that the couch cushions bounced behind him. The phone sat innocently in its cradle, shrill enough to fill the entire first floor. Pontius reached for it, then stopped with his hand hovering over the receiver. He looked back at Makayla.
“They’ll probably ask if they can discuss it in front of everyone.”
Makayla had risen from the couch but hadn’t moved any closer. Her fingers were still knotted in the sleeves of her sweatshirt.
She gave a shaky nod. “It’s okay.”
“You sure?”
She swallowed. “If I hear it alone, I’m just going to have to tell everybody afterward anyway.”
Pontius searched her face one last time before picking up. “Hello?”
“Hi, may I speak with Makalya, please?” The woman asked, supplying Makalya’s last name.
“This is her,” Makayla said, her voice even despite the sheer terror on her face.
“Before we continue, I need to verify that I’m speaking with the correct person. Can you confirm your date of birth?”
She did, wiping her cheeks. Amber reached for Jesse’s hand without taking her eyes off the phone. Jesse let her, his fingers tightening around hers almost unconsciously. You found yourself counting the seconds. The caller continued gently.
“Thank you for waiting. We received the laboratory results from your pregnancy test.”
Pontius instinctively reached for Makayla’s hand again. She laced her fingers through his and squeezed so hard it looked painful.
“The laboratory result is negative. Based on the testing performed, there is no evidence of pregnancy at this time.”
Makayla’s face went completely blank while Pontius let out a breath so forceful it sounded like he’d been punched.
“Negative?” she repeated, almost afraid she’d heard wrong.
“That is correct,” the caller replied. “The result is negative.”
His knees buckled just enough that he had to catch himself against the foyer table, one hand still refusing to let go of Makayla’s.
“Oh, thank God.”
Makayla covered her mouth. A single sob escaped before relief overtook her. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she doubled over, laughing once through the crying in sheer disbelief.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God.”
Amber’s own tears finally fell. She pressed a hand to her chest, visibly collecting herself before asking, “Is there anything else she needs to do?”
The caller explained that if Makayla’s symptoms persisted or if she had ongoing concerns, she should follow up with her healthcare provider for further evaluation, but that the test itself was negative.
After a few more questions, Pontius thanked her quietly and ended the call and the line clicked dead. Makayla threw her arms around Pontius. He hugged her back tightly, burying his face against the top of her head. With small nods, the two of them excused themselves to the kitchen. Across the room, Jesse closed his eyes.
He hadn’t realized how tense every muscle in his body had become until they all relaxed at once.
When he opened them again, he looked straight at you.
“Don’t think you and Gideon are off the hook for leaving you alone with Noel.”
You stared at him for a beat, incredulous. “Dad, really?”
His expression didn’t soften, but the anger that had fueled it earlier was gone, replaced by the weary resolve of a father who’d just been reminded how quickly fear could outrun facts.
“I set those rules for a reason.”
“And I followed them,” you replied. “Mostly.”
“Mostly isn’t the word I’d use.”
You sighed, rubbing at the dried tracks of tears on your cheeks. “Gideon trusts me, and he trusts Noel enough.”
“I’m not interested in whether Gideon trusts Noel,” Jesse shot back. “I’m interested in whether I do.”
Amber gave him a sidelong look. “Maybe now isn’t the time.”
“No,” Jesse said, quieter this time. “Now is exactly the time.”
He leaned against the banister, the fight having gone out of his posture. “You’re getting old. I know that. I know I can’t supervise every minute of your life, and I know one day you’ll make your own choices whether I like them or not.” He paused. “But when your mother and I ask your brother to keep an eye on you, and he decides to play tourist instead, that’s something we’re going to discuss.”
You folded your arms. “I never asked him to leave.”
“No,” Jesse admitted. “I suspect he did it because he thought he was being kind or that he could pull a fast one on your old man.”
As the oldest sibling, Gideon had quietly appointed himself the family’s unofficial third parent years ago. He was protective without being suffocating, responsible without trying too hard to be authoritative, always hovering somewhere in the strange middle ground between brother and guardian. Sometimes it was annoying. More often than not, it was comforting. He never made you feel like you were being babysat.
Even when your parents insisted he accompany you on trips to visit Noel, he did his best to make the arrangement feel less like surveillance and more like support. He’d help carry your luggage through the airport, insist on paying for breakfast, and then, just before you parted ways, launch into the same familiar speech about keeping your phone charged, making sure your location was being shared. He insisted you text him each time you’d be away from your phone like when going to bed or into a movie with Noel. And the last part, delivered with complete seriousness no matter how many times you rolled your eyes:
“If you want to say no, you can say no. About anything. You don’t owe anybody an explanation. Call me, day or night, and I’ll come get you. I don’t care if I have to leave dinner or run across Lake Shore Drive to get to you.”
You used to groan whenever he reached that part.
“I know, Gideon.”
Retelling it now to your parents, you realized he didn’t give the speech because he doubted you or felt like you needed the reminder, he gave it because he wanted you to know he was there for you.
You watched your father’s expression shift from irritation to contemplation.
“So he did talk to you,” he said at last.
“All the time,” you grumbled, eyes rolling involuntarily.
“And he made sure you knew you could call him?” Your mother asked.
You nodded proudly. “In a heartbeat.”
Jesse nodded once. “That’s the son I raised.” Then, after a beat, he added dryly, “He’s still in trouble for not telling us.”
Before you could defend him and beg for mercy, the front door swung open.
Abraham barreled inside first, still dressed in his grass-stained soccer uniform, shin guards bulging awkwardly beneath his socks and cleats clicking against the hardwood.
“I’m starving,” he announced to nobody in particular. “Coach made us run suicides because Tyler wouldn’t stop talking.”
Gideon followed at a much slower pace, duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a sports drink balanced in his free hand. He kicked the door shut behind him with practiced ease. The moment he looked up, his easy expression faltered.
“What happened?”
When no one answered, Gideon looked to you next, searching your face. “You okay?”
You managed a small smile, unable to figure out a way to warn him. Stepping over to him, you reached up and gave his shoulder a sympathetic pat.
“Good luck.”
His brow furrowed. “With what?”
Your smile turned almost apologetic. “You’ll find out.”
Jesse cleared his throat, motioning for Gideon to sit on the sofa. “Gideon.”
The single word was enough to stop him in his tracks. “Yes, sir?”
You caught Gideon’s eye one last time from the staircase and mouthed, Sorry. He sighed, dropped his duffel bag by the door, and squared his shoulders as if reporting for duty. Satisfied that the incoming lecture no longer involved you, you continued upstairs to your room, closing the door behind you.
For the first time all day, the house’s worries belonged to someone else.
The mom always reminds me of Judy Gemstone, I feel like this would be her if her and BJ ever had kids 😭
this mom cracks me up so much😭😭😭 the idgaf video always SENDS ME
I think Judy would love to do bits like this if she ever had kids (I could see her choosing to foster/adopt older kids (10+ age range)) just to make them laugh and then go shopping for no reason. I love her sm
Younger sister reader finds Gideon/Pontius/Abraham’s special lady magazines hidden in a box like how Judy kept her boy band magazines and Amber flips her lid and makes them apologize Diary of a Wimpy Kid style
“I’m sorry women”
“Stupid boys,” you grumbled, searching through your laundry for your gym uniform.
After entering high school, you realized just how disgusting boys could be. You thought you understood it back in middle school, but ninth grade had shattered those illusions almost immediately. Middle school boys still had mothers who reminded them to shower, shoved deodorant into their backpacks, or quietly washed their hoodies before they started smelling like a biology experiment. High school boys had apparently been released into the wild and the results were horrifying. Every hallway carried some combination of overpowering body spray desperately trying to mask sweat, old gym socks, and the unmistakable scent of someone who hadn't discovered laundry detergent. Some boys seemed to believe Axe body spray counted as a shower. Others apparently thought wearing the same hoodie every day somehow trapped the smell inside it. It did not.
Of course, not all boys were like this. Like, James your history class. He always smelled faintly of fresh soap and whatever pomade he used to keep his hair perfectly combed despite arriving five minutes before the bell every morning. His uniforms were crisp, his shoes were clean, and he even carried hand sanitizer clipped to his backpack. Unfortunately, he also had absolutely lethal morning breath. By second-hour study hall, before he'd had a chance to chew gum or drink enough coffee to kill whatever monster was living in his mouth, talking to him from less than three feet away was an endurance sport. Your tiny crush had survived exactly two conversations before you quietly surrendered your assigned seat to another girl and relocated across the room. Admiring him from a distance was much safer.
“What the fuck,” you grumbled, staring at your overturned basket.
You'd dumped the whole thing onto your bedroom floor, expecting your gray gym shirt to be buried underneath a pair of jeans or rumpled in with your pajamas. You already knew what had happened.
Though your brothers never had hygiene issues, they had responsibility issues that somehow balanced things out. Gideon forgot practical matters constantly. He'd drive the car for hours and return it with the gas gauge blinking angrily on empty, leaving all three of you stranded on the way to school while your dad shouted at the three of you over the phone. Pontius lived in a permanent state of almost remembering things. Homework assignments disappeared into the void until deadlines passed, forcing one sympathetic teacher to give him a bright red folder she checked every morning because she knew he'd never remember to turn work in himself. And neither of them could ever remember to bring home their gym clothes.
You found the concept of gym clothes disgusting. The entire system seemed engineered by someone who had never met a teenager. Students spent an hour running laps, climbing ropes, and playing volleyball until they were drenched in sweat, then stuffed the damp shorts and T-shirt into a metal locker where they sat marinating overnight. The next afternoon, everyone was expected to pull the same clothes back on as if stale sweat and locker mildew simply stopped existing after twenty-four hours.
You did your best to avoid contributing to the problem. Before every class, you'd spray your uniform with an embarrassing amount of perfume and put in only the minimum effort necessary to earn a passing grade. You walked when you could, volunteered to keep score whenever the teacher allowed it, and perfected the art of looking winded after jogging only half a lap. Surely colleges could overlook a C in gym when the rest of your transcript actually mattered.
Every once in a while, after the dreaded mile run beneath South Carolina's muggy sun or an especially brutal game of flag football, you'd cave and bring your uniform home midweek to wash it. Wednesday was usually the breaking point. But you weren't perfect either, and there were mornings when you realized with horror that your freshly laundered clothes were still hanging in the laundry room while first period ticked closer.
The only thing worse than wearing your own stale gym clothes was borrowing from the communal bin.
The coaches insisted everything in there had been washed by one of the volunteer moms from whatever sport happened to be in season. They spoke with complete confidence, holding up folded gray shirts like they belonged in a department store instead of a plastic tote labeled Loaners.
You didn't buy it for a second.
If the school was willing to cut corners in the cafeteria by calling frozen pizza "Italian Day" and serving vegetables that somehow managed to be both soggy and undercooked while advertising the opposite in the brochure, then there was no reason to believe they suddenly became meticulous when it came to laundry. For all you knew, those loaner shorts had been through a rinse cycle and nothing else.
So when your own uniform disappeared over the weekend, your first suspect wasn't the washing machine, it was your brothers.
You headed to Pontius's room first. The boys were occupied downstairs with your father. Sunday evenings meant sitting through that morning's church service all over again, notebooks open on their laps while he expected them to take observations and constructive criticism. As if he'd ever rewrite a sermon because one of his sons suggested a better transition.
His room looked exactly as you'd expected. Textbooks lay splayed open across the carpet, half-finished homework mixed with tangled phone chargers and discarded socks. A backpack had collapsed beside the desk, spilling loose papers onto the floor. Somehow, despite the clutter, his school uniform had been carefully draped across the bed. You picked up the gray gym shirt and checked the collar tag anyway.
P. Gemstone.
Gideon's room was much neater. You opened his closet and found his uniforms hanging in perfect rows, each one freshly pressed exactly the way he liked them. He'd somehow convinced the housekeeper years ago that wrinkles were a personal affront, and she'd indulged him ever since. His dress shirts faced the same direction. His shoes sat beneath them in matching pairs. Even his ties were organized by color.
You sighed. “Great.”
Backing out of the closet, your eyes wandered around the room for some clue. The desk was spotless except for a stack of church notes and a half-finished crossword. His hamper was empty. The dresser drawers were all shut. Then something gray peeked out from beneath the foot of the bed.
You dropped to your knees. “There you are.”
Your fingers caught the edge of the fabric and tugged. Out slid your gym shirt, bunched into a dusty little ball as though someone had kicked it under there in a hurry. Your faded initials you'd written inside the collar in permanent marker confirmed it was yours.
“Unbelievable,” you muttered, already thinking of insults to berate him with later. As you reached farther underneath to make sure nothing else had disappeared, your hand brushed against something slick and the curiosity got the better of you.
You lowered yourself until one cheek nearly touched the hardwood floor and squinted into the shadows. Wedged between the mattress and the box spring, just visible where it had slipped loose, was the corner of a magazine. Its glossy cover caught the light leaking in from the hallway.
It had been hidden carefully, far too carefully to be accidental. For a second, you simply stared.
Well… that's suspicious, you thought, a grin already forming.
You tugged until the magazine finally slid free with a soft scrape against the box spring. A laugh escaped before you could stop it. It was an old issue of Playboy, the cover curled just enough around the edges to suggest it had been passed between more than a few owners before finding its way beneath Gideon's bed.
“The Diamond Heiress,” you whispered, reading the title under your breath.
The familiar bunny logo had been recreated in glittering gemstones, and the model was posed with strategically placed diamonds in what was clearly someone's idea of tasteful extravagance.
You snorted. “Really, Gideon?”
Balancing the magazine on top of your recovered gym shirt, you eased yourself off the floor and brushed the dust from your knees. Your annoyance at having your clothes stolen had already begun to evaporate, replaced by something far more entertaining: revenge.
You could have easily screamed at Gideon over dinner, maybe even marched downstairs and ripped him a new one over the gym clothes. It would simply end with your father taking your side and take away the car keys for everything but driving to school in the morning. No, the best revenge was quiet. Patient. The sort that sat in the back of someone's mind until they unraveled themselves.
You pictured slipping the magazine under your own mattress and waiting. Gideon would eventually realize it was missing. He'd tear apart his room, then his closet, then probably accuse Pontius of borrowing it for reasons nobody wanted to name. Every passing day would make him a little more convinced that someone had found it, and every family dinner would become an exercise in forced calm while he wondered who knew.
Or maybe there was an even better option. You imagined returning it one page at a time. Not damaged beyond recognition, just subtly altered. A pair of cartoon mustaches here. Speech bubbles there. Tiny annotations in thick black marker pointing out absurd headlines or scribble bikinis over the models. By the time Gideon collected all the pages, he'd have a thoroughly useless keepsake and the lingering suspicion that his little sister had orchestrated the whole thing. The image nearly made you laugh out loud.
Clutching both prizes to your chest, you slipped into the hallway, already savoring the possibilities. The carpet muffled your footsteps as you headed toward your room, your mind darting from prank to prank, each one more elaborate than the last. The gym shirt no longer felt like the important discovery of the afternoon. It was merely the breadcrumb that had led you to something infinitely more valuable: leverage.
You rounded the corner and nearly collided with your mother.
She caught your shoulders before either of you stumbled, her gaze dropping immediately to the magazine peeking out from beneath the folded gray T-shirt. One eyebrow rose with practiced precision, the expression of someone who had raised children long enough to know that any explanation beginning with “It’s not what it looks like” rarely improved matters.
Before she could ask, the words tumbled out of your mouth.
“I just found it.”
Your mother looked from your face to the bundle in your arms and back again.
“I went looking for my gym shirt,” you continued, unfolding the shirt just enough to expose the initials inside the collar.
Your mother blinked once and in real time, you watched the fury ignite behind her eyes.
She rarely ever had moments like this. Running a household full of Gemstone men required almost supernatural patience, and she'd cultivated an unshakable calm over the years. She was the one who diffused arguments before they became shouting matches, who found missing wallets and permission slips, who quietly redirected tempers with a look instead of a lecture. It took a lot to genuinely rattle her. For one suspended moment of silence, you worried you'd crossed a line. You'd gone looking for a misplaced gym shirt and somehow stumbled into evidence that might send Gideon to the guillotine instead of earning him the mild psychosis you'd imagined.
“What is this?” she asked, though her tone suggested she already knew the answer.
“Found it in the dirty laundry,” you said quickly. “Well… sort of. I was looking for my shirt. With all of us tossing clothes down the laundry chute, things get mixed up. I tracked mine to Gideon's room and…” You gestured helplessly toward the magazine.
She took it from your hands without another word. Her expression didn't change as she turned it over once, studying the worn cover, but the tightening of her jaw was enough. The air around her seemed to sharpen, then she pivoted on her heel.
You followed instinctively.
The two of you moved through the house in silence, her heels striking the hardwood with crisp, measured clicks that echoed through the hallway like a metronome counting down to disaster. Every step seemed deliberate, every stride carrying the certainty of someone who had already decided this conversation was happening now. By the time you reached the sitting room, even the television seemed quieter.
The conversation between your father and your brothers died the instant your mother appeared in the doorway with the magazine held plainly in front of her.
“Anyone care to explain what this is doing in my home?” she spat.
You swallowed hard, your mouth suddenly dry, and glanced at Gideon.
The color drained from his face so quickly it was almost impressive. His posture stiffened, his shoulders pulling back on instinct before sagging ever so slightly as recognition dawned. For the briefest second, his eyes met yours, and you could practically see him retracing the chain of events that had led to this exact catastrophe.
Your father looked from the magazine to your mother, then to Gideon, whose expression had settled into the unmistakable panic of a man mentally reviewing every questionable decision he'd made in the last month. Pontius, meanwhile, looked like he wished the floor would swallow him whole despite having nothing to do with it, shrinking deeper into the couch as if he could become invisible through sheer force of will.
“Abraham, go to your room,” your father said evenly.
Abraham immediately began to protest. “Dad, n—”
“Now, Abraham!” Your mother raised her voice, another thing she almost never did.
The effect was immediate. Abraham scrambled out of his chair but couldn't resist sneaking one last glance at the cover. The look your mother gave him caught him mid-step and redirected his gaze straight to the tile floor. Whatever curiosity had tempted him vanished under that stare. He muttered something too quiet to hear, cast Gideon one bewildered look, and hurried down the hallway. A bedroom door clicked shut several seconds later.
Silence settled over the room again.
No one reached for a notebook. No one resumed the conversation about the morning sermon. Even the old grandfather clock in the corner seemed unusually loud, each tick stretching across the stillness.
You felt guilty—just a little.
This was supposed to have been funny. You'd imagined Gideon quietly realizing his hiding place had been discovered, maybe sweating for a day or two while you enjoyed the secret. Instead, the situation had escalated with astonishing speed, and now everyone in the room looked trapped inside a family meeting no one had volunteered to attend. Your mother's fingers tightened around the magazine just enough to crinkle the edge of the cover.
“Someone better start talking now,” she said, her gaze sweeping across the room before settling squarely on Gideon, “because I am not in the mood right now.”
Pontius stared at his shoes. Your father folded his hands and waited. You stood near the doorway clutching your reclaimed gym shirt, wishing very suddenly that you'd simply borrowed something from the communal bin instead.
“There’s a Muhammad Ali article,” Gideon said meekly.
The words landed in the silence with all the grace of a brick through stained glass.
For one bewildered second, nobody reacted.
Then Pontius slowly raised his head, blinking at his brother as if to confirm he'd heard correctly. “A what?”
“A Muhammad Ali article,” Gideon repeated, finding just enough courage to point weakly toward the magazine still pinched between your mother's fingers. “I was reading it.”
Your father rubbed a hand across his mouth, an expression that looked suspiciously like he was trying not to smile at the absurdity of the defense. Your mother's face, on the other hand, remained perfectly still.
“The article,” she echoed.
“Yes, ma'am.”
“In the magazine hidden under your mattress.”
Gideon’s face reddened. “I-I was res-”
“Researching what?” Your mother snapped. “The Diamond Heiress? The labia of Kristen Nicole?”
Gideon’s eyes flicked toward the gray shirt in your hands before dropping back to the floor. A snort escaped before you could stop it, bouncing around the room in the otherwise oppressive silence. Your mother’s head turned with astonishing speed, and one sharp look from her wiped the grin clean off your face. You pressed your lips together and stared very intently at your sneakers, though your shoulders still threatened to shake.
Then your mother cracked the magazine open with deliberate care and flipped through several pages. The rustle of the glossy paper sounded deafening. Gideon stood rigid with his hands clasped behind his back, shoulders squared in the posture of someone hoping impeccable manners might somehow compensate for catastrophically poor judgment.
She stopped on a random spread and looked up. “So where is the Muhammad Ali article?”
Gideon hesitated.
“I… don’t remember the page.”
“No,” she replied dryly, tapping a folded-over corner of one page, “but you certainly remembered enough to dog-ear the centerfold.”
The room seemed to contract around him. Even your father remained silent, allowing Gideon every opportunity to explain himself. Pontius looked trapped between sympathy and secondhand embarrassment, repeatedly opening his mouth only to think better of it.
Finally Gideon’s composure cracked.
He looked straight at you.
“Why the fuck were you snooping in my room?”
“My gym shirt, asswipe,” you shot back, holding up the recovered gray T-shirt like evidence before a jury. “Little thief.”
“I didn’t steal it.”
“You borrowed it without asking.”
“I was going to wash it.”
“You shoved it under your bed.”
“I forgot!”
“That part I believe.”
Pontius let out a tiny, involuntary laugh that sounded more like air escaping a balloon than an actual chuckle. He immediately covered his mouth. Your father cleared his throat.
“Can we get back to what actually matters?” Your mother sighed. “Gideon, do you know what this magazine means?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s for guys to… y’know.”
She sucked her teeth in quiet disappointment.
“They make magazines like this for women, too!” Gideon said quickly. “Very progressive.”
Your mother’s voice lowered, losing some of its sharpness and taking on the measured cadence she used whenever she wanted to make sure every word landed.
“Does this magazine make you feel better about yourself?” she asked. “Does it make you feel more manly?”
Gideon looked uncertain, caught between honesty and self-preservation. “I guess?”
“Do you know how the people in publications like these are be treated?” she continued. “How often they’re reduced to appearances, judged almost entirely by how they look? Do you know what message that sends, that a person’s value can be boiled down to whether someone else finds them attractive?”
Gideon shifted his weight but said nothing.
“What if,” she asked, gesturing vaguely in your direction without taking her eyes off him, “this was your sister on the cover?”
The answer came out before he seemed to think it through. “I’d probably vomit.”
For several long seconds, nobody spoke. The grandfather clock ticked steadily in the corner while your mother stood perfectly still, looking as though she were deciding whether to address Gideon’s answer or simply pretend she hadn’t heard it. Finally, your father opened his eyes again and exhaled.
“I think,” he said carefully, “what your mama is trying to say is that it’s important to remember there are real people behind images like these. They deserve to be treated with dignity, not as objects or trophies.”
“I know,” he mumbled.
“Apologize.”
He rolled his eyes so subtly that only someone who had grown up with him would have noticed. Then he turned toward you with all the enthusiasm of a man being marched to his own execution.
“I’m sorry that I, and probably most men in America, find you absolutely repulsive and would hate to see you on the cover of a Playboy.”
You blinked while Pontius barked out a laugh before immediately clamping both hands over his mouth. Your father pinched the bridge of his nose. Your mother didn't even look at you.
“To women,” she said flatly.
Gideon visibly deflated. Another long silence stretched across the room while he searched for words that wouldn't immediately get him into more trouble.
“I’m sorry,” he tried again, slower this time. “To women. For… reducing them to their appearance, I guess. And for acting like they only exist for men to look at.”
Your mother watched him for a moment, measuring whether he'd actually thought about what he was saying or was merely repeating what sounded acceptable.
“And?”
“And…” He glanced helplessly toward your father, found no rescue there, and sighed. “And I should treat people with respect regardless.”
She gave the tiniest nod. “That’s a better answer.”
You shifted your gym shirt from one arm to the other and raised a hand. “Do I still get an apology for him stealing my clothes?”
Gideon groaned.
“Yes,” your mother replied before he could protest.
He looked at you with the weary expression of someone who had already apologized twice and was now being asked for a third encore. “I’m sorry for taking your gym shirt.”
“And hiding it under your bed.”
“And hiding it under my bed.”
You smirked. “And making me crawl around on your dusty floor to find it.”
He squinted at you. “That part feels unnecessary.”
“It happened!”
“It was collateral damage.”
“Your face is collateral damage, jerk-off,” you spat before you could stop yourself. You jabbed a finger in Gideon’s direction, the reclaimed gym shirt still balled up in your other hand. “And I can call you that now, since that’s what you are.”
Your mother said your name, warning you. You scoffed anyway, folding your arms. “What? If he can reduce women to nothing but objects of lust, I should be able to call him a pervert jerk-off, right?”
For a fleeting second, your mother’s carefully composed expression betrayed her. The corners of her mouth twitched upward, threatening a smile she was determined not to let exist. “Where,” she asked with painstaking calm, “did you even learn that phrase?”
You shrugged. “Jersey Shore.”
Your father finally let out a small chuckle despite himself, shaking his head as though he’d accepted that the evening had permanently escaped his control.
“All right,” he said, holding up a hand. “That's enough. The shirt has been returned, the magazine has been confiscated, and I believe everyone has learned something tonight.”
Pontius muttered under his breath, “Mostly about not hiding things under mattresses.”
Gideon shot him a glare. You couldn't help smiling. The entire ordeal had begun because someone borrowed a gym shirt without asking. Somehow, by the end of the evening, it had evolved into an impromptu lecture, three separate apologies, and a family argument that nobody would ever let Gideon forget.
Ruthie is all ready for the family trip to the beach! She packed and put her stuff in the car at 6 am and has been sleeping in the car ever since so she didn’t have to help the family pack the rest of the stuff
Except she fell asleep, and in the family’s chaos they didn’t realize she got in the wrong car in the garage. Halfway to the beach they realize she’s not in the car with them
To say Ruthie had been excited for vacation was an understatement.
Her whole life had been filled with travel, but almost all of it revolved around church. Conferences, speaking engagements, retreats, and charity events so there was always somewhere to go and always a reason behind it. It also meant there was almost always someone missing.
Like the trip to New York.
Ruthie had been seven then, practically vibrating with excitement over seeing her very first Broadway show. For weeks she'd imagined herself in her prettiest dress, hair pinned neatly back, walking through glittering streets beneath towering lights. You had gone with her, as had Finn, Amber, Jesse, and Gideon.
Unfortunately, church schedules never really stopped. Gideon had an early morning speaking engagement the next day and turned in before the city had even settled for the night. Jesse had followed not long after, exhausted from the day's travel. Amber stayed behind at the hotel with Finn so he could sleep, leaving only you and Ruthie to venture out together. Ruthie had tried very hard not to let her disappointment show. She still smiled through the evening, still loved the show, but she'd quietly mourned the version she'd imagined with everyone there.
Most trips followed that same pattern.
The lone exception was Zion's Landing.
Her friends always begged to tag along, imagining luxury and endless fun, but Ruthie had never understood the appeal. She'd been visiting since she was an infant, recognized by staff before she could even remember their names, treated less like a guest and more like tiny royalty. If she wandered more than a few feet out of your sight, someone politely, but unmistakably, kept watch until she returned. The family occupied a private suite hidden behind a button in the elevator, inaccessible to ordinary guests, which unfortunately eliminated all the classic vacation mischief. There was no racing down hallways, no knocking on strangers' doors before dissolving into giggles and sprinting away, no exploring places she wasn't supposed to.
Everything was comfortable. Predictable. Boring.
For years she'd begged for what she called a real vacation. The kind her classmates talked about after summer break, where families piled into overstuffed cars, bought suspicious-looking gas station snacks, got sunburned by accident, and discovered entirely new places every year. Every time she asked, the answer was the same: there simply wasn't enough time. Gideon needed to be home by Saturday evenings to prepare for Sunday services, and coordinating everyone's schedules was nearly impossible. Besides, none of her friends had a toddler like Lucas.
Back then, taking Lucas anywhere meant spending the entire trip preventing him from disappearing. He seemed to view every crowded parking lot, airport terminal, and hotel lobby as an invitation to sprint in the opposite direction at full speed. Vacationing with him often felt less like relaxing and more like participating in an endurance sport.
Thankfully, he'd grown out of that phase.
After weeks of conversations about calendars, church responsibilities, and who could cover what on Sundays, the impossible somehow became possible.
A real family vacation, Gideon announced over dinner three weeks ago.
Two whole weeks in a rented beach house in St. Augustine, complete with a road trip there and back.
Ruthie had been out of her chair before anyone else had even reacted, bolting downstairs to the basement storage room and emerging moments later dragging her suitcase behind her with both hands. She hauled it into her bedroom and immediately began packing, tossing in shorts, T-shirts, pajamas, books she'd probably never read, and enough outfits for a month. The only thing she insisted she still needed was a new bathing suit.
That confidence lasted until the impromptu fashion show.
One by one, she modeled last summer's clothes while you tried very hard not to laugh. Every pair of shorts had become noticeably shorter, every T-shirt now fit like a cropped baby tee, and several outfits that had seemed perfectly fine the year before suddenly looked like she'd borrowed them from her younger self. A shopping trip became unavoidable.
Rather than disappointing her, it only made the trip feel more real.
Now she had an excuse for new clothes.
For the next three weeks, vacation became her favorite topic of conversation. She counted down the days at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, planned beach activities before bed, debated ice cream flavors she'd try, and proudly informed anyone willing to listen that it had taken her family fifteen whole years to finally go on an actual vacation and she intended to enjoy every single second of it.
The night before the trip, Ruthie was practically vibrating with excitement. Sleep felt like an inconvenience, one final obstacle standing between her and two glorious weeks at the beach. Every few minutes she checked the clock, mentally calculating how many hours remained until the five o'clock departure. She'd already memorized the route, looked up restaurants along the interstate, and watched videos about driving on highways in anticipation of getting behind the wheel.
With her learner's permit tucked safely in her wallet, she was especially thrilled about the drive. You and Gideon had promised she'd get some practice on the interstate before one of you took over, though everyone in the family knew exactly how that would go. Gideon would insist he wasn't tired after four straight hours behind the wheel, wave away every offer to switch drivers, and only relinquish the keys after gentle nagging from everyone else in the car.
He'd gone to bed early in preparation for the morning, hoping to leave by 5:00 a.m. and make it to St. Augustine around ten, traffic permitting. Ruthie privately entertained a much grander plan. Maybe, if she was especially helpful and exceptionally well-behaved, she could convince everyone to scrap the second week's itinerary and head farther south. Orlando wasn't that much farther. Universal would be even better. She wasn't above strategic good behavior.
You put Finn and Lucas to bed later than usual, hoping the boys would sleep through most of the first leg of the drive. Before turning in yourself, you stopped by Ruthie's room, kissed her forehead, tucked the blankets around her shoulders, and promised she'd be the very first person you woke in the morning.
Outside her bedroom, the house looked ready for deployment. Suitcases stood neatly by the front door, each tagged and zipped. Road trip bags waited on the kitchen island, empty except for napkins and a deck of cards, ready to be filled with snacks, drinks, and whatever last-minute necessities inevitably arose before sunrise.
For your anniversary, Gideon had surprised you with a new SUV.
There had been nothing wrong with the faithful minivan that had carried your family for years, but with Ruthie learning to drive, he'd decided she could practice in the older vehicle until she earned her license before eventually trading it in. The SUV still had three rows, enough room for everyone, but Ruthie had immediately laid claim to the back row.
She called it her "vacation apartment."
Long after the rest of the house had quieted, excitement kept her awake. Finally giving up on sleep in her own bed, she quietly lifted her packed suitcase and tiptoed downstairs. She eased open the door to the garage, slid into the SUV through the rear passenger door, and arranged her little nest with surprising care.
Her pillow went against the window.
A blanket across the seat.
Phone charger plugged in.
Water bottle in the cup holder.
Satisfied, she curled up across the third row, surrounded by the comforting smell of new upholstery and faint traces of sunscreen that had leaked from someone's beach bag during shopping. Just as she settled in, she remembered her phone was still sitting on the kitchen counter beside your purse. She considered going back inside but ultimately shrugged it off. You'd see it and grab it before leaving. And if somehow you didn't, spending two weeks at the beach without a phone wasn't exactly a tragedy.
Within minutes, lulled by the quiet darkness of the garage and the anticipation of morning, she drifted off to sleep.
What she hadn't anticipated was the chaos of an early departure.
The alarm didn't go off quite when Gideon expected. By the time everyone was awake, the carefully orchestrated plan had dissolved into sleepy urgency. Finn and Lucas were lifted, still half-asleep, straight from their beds into the minivan, their heads falling against their car seats before either fully opened his eyes.
You hurried through the house gathering forgotten coffee mugs and breakfast bars, calling over your shoulder as you pushed Ruthie's bedroom door open.
"Come on, sweetheart. Time to get in the car."
Seeing the empty bed, you assumed she'd already beaten you downstairs.
At fifteen, after all, she was more than capable of climbing into the car herself.
Meanwhile, Gideon loaded the remaining luggage. Somewhere between stacking coolers and checking the tire pressure, he noticed Ruthie's suitcase was no longer where it had been left. He smiled to himself. By the time he climbed into the driver's seat, there wasn't much reason to question it.
You locked the front door and glanced around the driveway one last time. "Ruthie?"
Gideon patted his pockets until he found his phone, opening the navigation app as he answered without looking up. "In the back, I think," he said casually. "Her suitcase is gone, so I assumed she already took it with her."
Neither of you noticed the quiet figure sleeping peacefully in the third row of the brand-new SUV still sitting in the closed garage.
By the time Ruthie woke up, she was uncomfortably warm.
The morning sun had crept through the garage windows, turning the car into a slow-moving oven. Her shirt clung to her back, her skin felt sticky, and the decorative stitching from her pillowcase had left neat little impressions across one side of her face. She blinked against the light, disoriented for a moment before remembering exactly where she was.
She shot upright as her excitement returned all at once. She scrambled over the second-row seats and hopped out of the SUV, expecting to find everyone bustling around the garage with coffee cups and duffel bags. Instead, there was silence.
She frowned and hurried through the door into the house, her pace quickening with every empty room she passed. Behind her came the familiar jingle of a collar. Toast trotted after her with complete confidence, weaving around her ankles as though this frantic sprint through the kitchen was a perfectly ordinary part of his morning routine.
"Not now, Toast," Ruthie muttered breathlessly.
The cat ignored her. She reached the foyer and stopped cold. The neatly stacked suitcases were gone. Her stomach dropped. She spun toward the kitchen. Her phone, which she'd intentionally left beside your purse the night before, was no longer on the counter. Then she looked out the front window at the empty driveway.
For one long moment, the world seemed to stand perfectly still.
She swallowed hard, blinking rapidly as tears threatened to spill over. Surely there was an explanation. Maybe everyone was outside. Maybe they'd gone to grab breakfast. But somewhere deep down, a terrible realization settled in.
"Did they…" she whispered into the quiet house, "...did they leave me?"
Toast answered with another soft meow before leaping gracefully onto the entry bench. When Ruthie scooped him into her arms, he settled immediately against her chest, purring as though trying to drown out the awful silence around them. His tail flicked lazily while one paw reached up to pat at her cheek. She buried her face in his fur. For the first time since Gideon had announced the trip, Ruthie cried.
+++
Several hours down the interstate, the mood inside the minivan couldn't have been more different.
"Finn, here," you said, passing an open bag of potato chips over your shoulder.
Finn accepted it with the solemn responsibility of an older brother, immediately selecting the biggest chip and offering it to Lucas. Lucas accepted it with both hands.
"Thank you."
"You share so nicely," you said with a smile.
Lucas crunched happily before looking up again. "Mama, can I have some juice?"
"Of course." You reached into the snack bag wedged between your feet, fished out a juice pouch, carefully pierced the foil with a straw, and handed it back. As Lucas settled in contentedly, an absent thought crossed your mind. "Does Ruthie want anything?"
Finn looked genuinely puzzled. "Ruthie's not here."
"We know, buddy," Gideon replied automatically, eyes fixed on the road. "She's all the way in the back row, isn't she?"
Finn twisted around in his seat for barely a second before facing forward again. "No."
The single syllable landed like a stone.
You froze. "What do you mean, no?"
You were already unbuckling your seatbelt before he answered, awkwardly climbing over bags and coolers until you could kneel between the middle seats. Your eyes darted to the alarmingly empty third row. Every ounce of color drained from your face.
"Gideon!" you screamed. "We left her!"
His head whipped toward the rearview mirror before instinct took over. Heart pounding, he signaled far too late and maneuvered across multiple lanes toward the nearest exit, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. For several seconds, neither of you spoke.
Then Gideon exhaled sharply. "She's going to be so pissed."
You stared at him in disbelief. "Pissed?" you echoed. "Gideon, she's been home alone for hours."
His expression fell immediately. "Oh," he muttered, pressing harder on the accelerator as the exit ramp curved ahead. "Right."
And somewhere back at the house, Ruthie sat in the foyer with Toast curled in her lap, still wondering how her family had managed to leave for the vacation she'd waited fifteen years for without her.
+++
Ruthie spent the first hour crying.
Toast complained about the arrangement with a series of increasingly pitiful meows, his breakfast delayed because she refused to loosen her grip. He stayed in her arms anyway, purring despite himself, occasionally butting his head against her chin as if trying to convince her that whatever had happened couldn't possibly be the end of the world. Eventually, guilt won out.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "You're probably starving."
The cat hopped down the moment she set him on the floor and trotted toward the kitchen, looking over his shoulder every few steps to make sure she was following. She filled his bowl with kibble and watched him eat for a minute, grateful for the distraction. The familiar crunching sounds made the cavernous house feel just a little less empty. When Toast finished, she wandered from room to room with no real destination.
At fifteen, she'd technically stayed home alone before, but only once or twice, and never for very long. Usually one of the boys was still around, or someone knew to check in, or you were only running errands. This was different. The silence stretched through every hallway, interrupted only by the hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room. She found herself peeking into bedrooms she already knew were empty, almost expecting someone to pop out and laugh at the elaborate prank.
Back in the kitchen, reality settled in. The refrigerator held mostly condiments, half a carton of eggs, some yogurt nearing its expiration date, and enough butter to supply a bakery. The pantry had been intentionally emptied before vacation: a sleeve of crackers, an almost-finished box of cereal, canned soup, peanut butter, and exactly three packets of instant oatmeal.
There was plenty to survive on for a day or two, but not nearly enough for two full weeks. Ruthie rested her elbows on the counter and tried to think logically through the lump still lodged in her throat.
They hadn't left her on purpose. Sure, sometimes she felt her entire family was out to get her between chores, Finn constantly reading her diary, and Lucas eating her lipgloss, but surely they didn’t hate her enough to trick her and leave her.
She looked toward the front window for what felt like the hundredth time that morning, half expecting the minivan to pull into the driveway, but when nothing came after fifteen minutes, she reached for Toast again.
Three hours later, the tears had finally stopped.
Ruthie had taken a shower less because she needed one and more because she wanted to wash away the sticky heat from sleeping in the SUV and the embarrassment of having cried so hard over something that, by now, had to be an accident. The warm water helped. By the time she stepped out, wrapped in a towel with damp hair clinging to her shoulders, she almost felt normal again.
Toast, however, had no interest in emotional recovery. The orange cat sat squarely in the middle of her bed, staring at her with theatrical disapproval. He blinked slowly at her, turning away.
"I know," Ruthie sighed. "You already had breakfast, fat ass.”
Toast meowed louder, obviously arguing that breakfast happened a lifetime ago.
She pulled on fresh clothes, padded downstairs, and retrieved a can of wet food from the pantry. Toast twined around her ankles so enthusiastically she nearly tripped over him before managing to pop the lid. Just as she tipped the food into his bowl, she heard the lick of the front door unlocking. It was followed by a slam and fast footsteps.
"Mommy!"
"Ruthie!"
You rushed through the foyer and into the kitchen, stopping only long enough to make sure she was really there before pulling her into the fiercest hug you'd given in years. Her hair was still damp from the shower, soaking through your shirt, but you couldn't have cared less. You buried your face against the top of her head.
"Oh, baby," you whispered, your voice trembling. "I'm so, so sorry."
For a long moment, neither of you moved. Ruthie clung to you just as tightly, equal parts relieved and indignant, while Toast looked up from his lunch with obvious annoyance that the humans had interrupted feeding time. You stroked the back of her wet hair.
"Your daddy told me you were already in the van, and then we got on the road and we just… we just assumed…" Your words dissolved into another apology. "I should've checked. I should've come upstairs. I should've counted heads."
Ruthie finally leaned back enough to look at you, eyebrows knitting together. "The van?" She blinked. "I wasn't in the van. I thought we were taking the new car so I was waiting there.”
You stared at her. “What were you doing in there?
"I couldn't sleep, so I took my suitcase out to the garage and climbed into the back row. I figured I'd already be ready when everyone came out."
For one suspended second, the entire morning replayed itself in your mind. Then, despite the panic, despite the guilt, despite spending the last several hours convinced your daughter was stranded and terrified, an almost hysterical laugh escaped you.
From the foyer came the sound of Gideon setting down the car keys. He appeared in the kitchen doorway, took one look at the two of you, and sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.
"So..." he ventured carefully. "I'm guessing she wasn't in the van after all."
Ruthie folded her arms. "No," she said flatly. "I was taking a nap in your wife's car while all of you left for the family vacation without me.”
The words landed with enough force that neither you nor Gideon had a good response. You let out a long, weary sigh instead. "Your brothers are waiting in the van," you said gently. "If you still want to go, we can leave as soon as we get your things."
Ruthie stared at you as though you'd suggested canceling Christmas.
"Want to go?" she repeated, incredulous. "Of course I want to go! I've been waiting for this my entire life." Her voice rose another octave. "I was this close to calling Uncle Kelvin to come get me and drive me there."
That finally coaxed a laugh out of Gideon.
"Really?" he asked, trying and failing to hide a grin. "Because it looks like you've mostly been crying."
Ruthie shot him a glare sharp enough to cut glass. "Only because my mommy and daddy abandoned me," she muttered dramatically.
You opened your mouth to protest, but she was already marching toward the foyer with all the wounded dignity a fifteen-year-old could muster. Toast followed at her heels as if escorting a tiny queen through her kingdom. Without turning around, Ruthie added, "My suitcase is still in Mom's car."
Without turning around, Ruthie added, "My suitcase is still in Mom's car."
Gideon pivoted automatically toward the garage. "Right. I'll grab it."
She paused at the front door and glanced over her shoulder, her expression perfectly deadpan. "Unless you want to leave that too."
You had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. Gideon, on the other hand, accepted the jab with a wince. "I think I've done enough leaving things behind for one day."
"You have," Ruthie replied. "In fact, if anyone gets a head count before we leave this time, I'd appreciate being included."
By then you were smiling despite yourself. You stepped over, tucked a damp strand of hair behind Ruthie's ear, and squeezed her shoulder. That finally cracked Ruthie's composure. The corner of her mouth twitched upward into a reluctant smile. You were smiling despite yourself. You stepped over, tucked a damp strand of hair behind Ruthie's ear, and squeezed her shoulder.
“We’ll talk about it when we get home,” Ruthie mumbled. “I think I deserve an apology dinner of my choosing.”
You kissed her cheek. “Your daddy would take you anywhere.”
Five minutes later, with Ruthie firmly buckled into the back row of the minivan this time, Gideon looked into the rearview mirror and cleared his throat.
“Everyone here?”
Ruthie grinned, leaning forward just enough for him to see her reflection. "Yes, Daddy. Two stinky booger boys and one princess."
Lucas immediately sniffed his own shirt. "I smell good."
"You smell like applesauce," Ruthie informed him.
Gideon nodded solemnly, as though receiving an official report. "Excellent. Roll call complete."
He tapped the steering wheel twice and announced with renewed enthusiasm, "next stop, St. Augustine!"
From the very back came Ruthie's suddenly concerned voice. "Dad… did you tell Grandma and Grandpa to keep an eye on Toast? Let him out daily and gets half a scoop of dry food, then wet food for lunch, and dry food overnight?"
Gideon's smile slowly faded. You covered your mouth, turning to stare out of the window in fear of bursting. Then, with a theatrical sigh, Gideon flicked on the turn signal.
Ruthie’s favorite bible passage is the story of Noah- she loves hearing it again and again. Everyone loves to tell it to her until one night there’s a big thunderstorm and she’s been running back and forth from her room all night- then they find her room full of 2 frogs and 2 squirrels and 2 cats and 2 dogs and 2 hamsters and 2 chickens and 2 ferrets and-
a flood would be easier than Ruthie’s adventures.
☔️
“Again, Daddy! Again!” Ruthie grinned, holding her little picture book high above her head with both hands.
For Christmas, Jesse had bought her a boxed set of illustrated Bible stories, and over the past few weeks she and Gideon had read through every last one. Twice. Unfortunately, like most four-year-olds, Ruthie had latched onto a single favorite and saw no reason to move on to anything else.
Suppressing a groan, Gideon accepted the well-worn book from her tiny hands and glanced at the cover.
“Noah’s Ark again?” he asked with exaggerated disbelief. “Are you sure you don’t want to hear about David, or Daniel, or anybody else?”
“No!” she declared without hesitation.
She scrambled onto the couch and wedged herself between you and Gideon, bouncing excitedly on her bottom until the cushions croaked beneath her. Then she leaned over and gave your seven-month baby bump an enthusiastic pat, far rougher than necessary, though every bit as affectionate.
“Me and baby,” she chirped proudly, patting your stomach once more, “want to hear it again, and again, and again!”
You rested a protective hand over the spot she’d just smacked, unable to hide your smile.
Gideon chuckled and shook his head in defeat before leaning forward to open the book. “Well,” he sighed dramatically, “I suppose if I’m outnumbered…”
Ruthie beamed.
“Alright then,” he said, settling back against the couch. “Hop up close. It’s bedtime for little girls who insist on hearing about Noah for the hundredth time.”
She immediately snuggled into his side, eyes bright with anticipation as he turned to the first page and began once again.
“In the days before the great flood…”
It took three full readings before Ruthie’s eyelids finally grew too heavy to stay open. By the end of the third telling, she was sprawled across Gideon’s lap, one fist still clutching the corner of the book while her breathing settled into the slow, even rhythm of sleep.
You looked over from your spot on the couch, one hand resting on your seven-month belly. He offered you a hand instead, patiently pulling you to your feet before carrying Ruthie down the hall. Sure enough, after tucking her into bed, she had somehow curled onto her knees with her backside sticking straight up beneath the blankets, exactly as he’d described. You both had to bite back your laughter.
The routine repeated itself over the next several days. Every morning, Ruthie begged for someone to read Noah’s Ark over breakfast. At lunch, she insisted on listening to the audiobook while she ate. And every night without fail, Gideon sat beside her with the illustrated copy, dutifully naming every animal as they climbed aboard two by two.
You found the obsession more adorable than exhausting, at least until this morning.
You’d settled into a chair in the kitchen, absently watching the morning news while trying to wake up. At seven months pregnant, your energy was in short supply, and all you wanted was something that required less brainpower than your favorite dramas and involved fewer interruptions about colors, shapes, or why toast was square.
Across the island, Ruthie sat swiveling on her stool, kicking her feet and employing every distraction she could think of to avoid eating her eggs and sausage. She kept glancing toward the phone, clearly hoping she could call her grandma and dramatically announce that she was “soooo hungry” until homemade muffins magically appeared. The meteorologist’s voice drifted from the television.
“…a large storm rolling in, Dan. We’re seeing a cold front develop today, and by tonight we’ll have thunderstorms moving through the area. We’re expecting some downpours, too, so we may see some flooding in some areas… ”
“Thunder?” Ruthie perked up instantly, a little milk dribbling down her chin.
You handed her a napkin. “Yes,” you said with a nod. “Looks like it’ll last all night. You can sleep with Daddy and me if it gets too loud.”
For a split second, Ruthie froze, then her eyes widened.
“I have to go,” she blurted, stumbling over the words as she hopped off the stool and narrowly avoided smacking her chin against the countertop. “Love you, Mommy!”
Before you could ask where she was headed, the back door banged open. You watched through the window as she tore across the yard, little legs pumping as fast as they could carry her toward the familiar path leading to her grandparents’ house.
“Love you too, baby!” you called after her, smiling despite yourself and wondering what in the world could be so urgent.
All day long, you heard Ruthie running in and out of the house.
Ordinarily, you might have noticed the pattern sooner. But at seven months pregnant, surviving on decaf coffee and dwindling energy, your attention span had been stretched thin. Every time she darted past, you assumed she was chasing another imaginary adventure.
When Gideon came home from work, he found her dragging a cardboard box across the dining room floor with all the determination her four-year-old body could muster.
“Whatcha doin’ there?” he asked, smiling as he loosened his tie.
“Workin’,” she replied matter-of-factly, stopping only long enough to pat the side of the box. “Just workin’.”
Nothing about it struck Gideon as unusual. Ruthie regularly invented elaborate games where she was a mover, a construction worker, a drive-thru employee, or whatever blue-collar profession had recently caught her attention on television.
“Well,” he said solemnly, bending to kiss the top of her head, “I’ll put in a good word with your boss.”
“Thank you,” she answered with equal seriousness before resuming her slow journey toward the staircase, inch by inch.
The second clue that something strange was happening came at dinner. Ruthie only ate about half of the creamy pasta on her plate before looking up with suspicious innocence.
“Can I take the rest to my room and finish it there?”
You shook your head immediately. “No, baby. We eat at the table.”
Her shoulders drooped into an exaggerated pout. “Just today only,” she pleaded. “Mama, please.”
You sighed but stayed firm. “No.”
With a dramatic huff worthy of someone three times her age, she pushed her plate away. “May I be excused?”
Gideon looked at her over his fork, one eyebrow raised. “Not hungry anymore, Ruth?”
She shook her head a little too quickly.
“How about a few more bites,” he suggested gently, “and then you can go?”
For a brief moment, she stared at the remaining pasta as if calculating something very important. Then, without another word, she picked up her fork and dutifully took another bite, her gaze repeatedly drifting toward the hallway with barely concealed impatience. Neither of you realized she was trying to get back to a project she considered far more important than dinner.
By the time dessert rolled around, the wind had picked up enough to make the windows rattle softly in their frames. You and Gideon sat at the kitchen table over slices of apple pie while Ruthie had mysteriously declared herself “all done” and vanished upstairs again.
Halfway through your second bite, you frowned.
“What?” Gideon asked, going in for another slice.
“…Did you hear that?”
Gideon looked up. “Hear what?”
You tilted your head toward the back of the house. “I don’t know.”
For a beat, the only sound was the ticking of the kitchen clock and the breeze scraping branches against the siding. Then, vary faintly, you heard a cluck.
“There!” you said, pointing triumphantly. “It sounded like a chicken.”
He snorted into his forkful of pie. “I think you’re hearing things, baby.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. “Just for that, no sex for a week.”
Gideon’s jaw dropped. “I’m serious. It’s probably just one of Ruthie’s old books with the sounds.”
A flash of lightning briefly lit the windows, followed a few seconds later by a long, rumbling roll of thunder that seemed to shake the house. You instinctively expected tiny footsteps racing toward the kitchen. Ruthie had never loved thunderstorms, and more than once she’d squeezed herself between you and Gideon until they passed.
Sure enough, footsteps echoed from upstairs, but when Ruthie rounded the corner, she wasn’t clutching a stuffed animal or rubbing sleepy eyes. She was fully dressed in her bright yellow raincoat that reached nearly to her knees, with matching rain boots stomping determinedly across the hardwood floor. Her hood was already pulled over her head. You and Gideon exchanged a look.
“Sweetheart,” you asked carefully, “where are you going?”
“The barn,” she answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Another peal of thunder rolled overhead and you pushed your chair back. “Oh, no, baby. Not tonight. It’s getting dark, and it’s about to pour.
Ruthie’s face immediately fell. “But I hafta go.”
“You can go tomorrow.”
“It has to be now.”
Gideon crouched until he was eye level with her. “What’s waiting in the barn that can’t wait until morning?”
For the first time all day, she hesitated. Her little mouth puckered into a worried line as she glanced toward the back door, then toward the hallway, as though mentally measuring the distance. Finally she crossed her arms with all the indignation a four-year-old could summon.
“My friends need food,” she admitted.
Gideon shook his head. “Ernesto and Joey already fed all the animals, Ruthie. They’ll be fine.”
“What if they get hungry in the middle of the night?”
You reached for her hand. “They have their food right next to their bed.”
“They’re in my room,” she admitted, her hands clasped in front of her.
You and Gideon shared a look. Very slowly, he smiled the way one smiled when a child says something so absurd that it has to be their imagination.
“In your room?” he repeated.
Ruthie nodded earnestly as snother clap of thunder rolled across the sky.
Without a word, Gideon pushed back his chair and started for the stairs. You followed as quickly as your seven-month-pregnant body would allow, one hand braced against your lower back while Ruthie hurried ahead in her little rain boots. She reached her bedroom first.
“Don’t scare them,” she whispered before pushing the door open.
Gideon flicked on the light.
For one long, impossible second, nobody spoke until two chickens clucked indignantly from beneath Ruthie’s tiny craft table. Two piglets, nestled together in a nest of stolen blankets, looked up from chewing on what appeared to be one of her socks. A pair of small wild snakes lay coiled contentedly inside an open cardboard box lined with towels, barely acknowledging the newcomers. Overhead, two frantic little birds circled the room near the ceiling fan, thankfully switched off, fluttering from curtain rod to bookshelf to dresser in increasingly panicked loops as they searched for a way back outside. On Ruthie’s bed, as if this were perfectly ordinary, two cats blinked sleepily from atop her quilt. And in the middle of the floor sat a five-gallon bucket full of pond water, two trout stuck uncomfortably inside. The room smelled unmistakably of damp feathers, wet dirt, and livestock.
You slowly closed your eyes. Beside you, Gideon stood frozen with one hand still on the doorknob. A chicken chose that moment to flap onto Ruthie’s toy chest and announce its displeasure to the household.
“How,” he asked in a voice barely above a whisper, “did you get all of these upstairs?”
“With my wagon,” Ruthie answered proudly. “The piggies walked most of the way.”
“Ruthie…” he said slowly, “…why?”
She hurried over to the piglets and knelt beside them, scratching one behind the ears until it gave a happy little grunt. Then she looked back at the two of you with complete sincerity, her big eyes full of concern. “When the storm comes, Noah put all the animals somewhere safe.” She stood and swept her arms around the room. “My room is safe.”
Outside, another rumble of thunder rolled across the sky, close enough to make the windows tremble. Gideon let out a patient sigh and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Baby,” he began gently, “we can’t keep them in here. I’m going to call Ern—”
“No!” The word burst out of Ruthie so loudly that both chickens exploded into startled clucks, one of the birds darted across the ceiling again, and even the cats lifted their heads in annoyance. She planted herself squarely between Gideon and the nearest piglet, tiny hands balled into determined fists. “They can’t go outside!”
“Sweetheart,” Gideon said, lowering himself to one knee so he could meet her eyes, “they can’t stay here either. They belong in the barn. They could get you sick, and they’re definitely going to make a mess.”
As if on cue, one of the chickens left a very convincing argument for Gideon’s point in the middle of the carpet. He glanced down. “…See?”
“I don’t care,” she snapped, her lower lip beginning to wobble. “The man on the TV said it would flood.” She pointed emphatically toward the window, where rain had just started tapping against the glass. “I’m taking care of them.”
The conviction in her little voice caught you off guard. There was no mischief in it, no expectation that she was about to be praised for a clever prank. She truly believed she was protecting them. You exchanged a glance with Gideon, and in that instant the pieces clicked together. In Ruthie’s four-year-old mind, the weather report and her favorite Bible story had fused into one unavoidable conclusion: a great flood was coming, and someone had to save the animals.
It took nearly twenty minutes of gentle coaxing before Ruthie was willing to listen.
Gideon stayed kneeling on the carpet while the animals wandered around them as though this were perfectly normal. One of the piglets had claimed Ruthie’s stuffed bear, the cats had returned to her bed, and the trout continued to circle lazily in the bucket.
“Can we make a deal?” he asked softly.
Ruthie sniffled, wiping at her cheeks with the sleeve of her yellow raincoat. “A deal?”
He nodded. “Your friends can stay here tonight. Just tonight.” Her face brightened a fraction. “But,” he continued before she could celebrate, “tomorrow morning, when the storm is over, we take every single one of them back where they belong. Ernesto and Joey will make sure they’re warm, fed, and safe.”
She looked uncertain. “They won’t drown?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“They won’t be lonely?”
“No.”
Ruthie’s shoulders finally relaxed. She looked around at her makeshift ark one last time before giving a solemn nod. “Okay.”
With that settled, Gideon carried her to the bathroom to wash up while you quietly gathered towels beneath the bucket and coaxed one particularly curious chicken away from the dresser. By the time bedtime rolled around, Ruthie insisted on saying goodnight to every animal individually.
The cats received forehead kisses while the trout received a wave. The birds, still fluttering anxiously around the ceiling, received an earnest apology. Only after every creature had been acknowledged did she crawl beneath her blankets.
Gideon sat beside her bed and stroked her curls until her breathing evened out. He waited another few minutes just to be certain she was truly asleep. Then, moving with exaggerated care, he crossed the room and unlatched both bedroom windows. Nothing happened at first as cool night air drifted in, rain dotting her windowsill. Then one of the birds spotted the way out and darted past him. The second followed an instant later, vanishing into the stormy evening with a final flutter of wings. Gideon smiled to himself and quietly pulled the windows nearly shut before slipping out and easing the bedroom door closed behind him.
Downstairs, he found you exactly where he’d left you. You were sitting on the living room sofa, one hand absently stroking the back of one of the confiscated chickens, which had settled surprisingly contentedly in your lap. The little bird made a pleased, rumbling cluck as you ran your fingers through its feathers.
Gideon approached carefully. “What’s wrong, baby?” he asked.
The moment his hand brushed your shoulder, you flinched away.
You looked up at him with suspiciously glossy eyes. “You were going to leave them all in the rain,” you whispered. Your voice cracked on the last word.
Gideon stared for a second before realization dawned. “Oh…”
He glanced from you to the chicken, then toward the ceiling as thunder rolled overhead again.
“You believed her, didn’t you?”
You sniffed. “She thought she was saving them.”
“She did.”
“And if she hadn’t…” You looked down at the bird nestled comfortably against your maternity shirt and stroked it again. “…they’d have been outside.”
“They also would’ve been in their proper coops,” Gideon said gently, sitting beside you. “With roofs. And walls. And people who take care of them every day.”
“Can the chicken stay on the couch for just a little longer?”
Gideon looked at the remarkably peaceful bird in your lap, then at his very pregnant wife blinking back tears over livestock.
A slow smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll get a towel.”
An hour later, after relocating the piglets, returning the snakes to secure containers for the night, carrying the bucket of trout back toward the mudroom, and making plans to restore everyone to their proper homes at first light, he wandered back through the living room.
The stack of illustrated Bible books still sat on the coffee table. He picked them up one by one, tucked them under his arm, and shook his head.
“No more Bible stories,” he muttered to himself, followed by a few mocking words as his father insisted he always gave Ruthie the best gifts.
Ruthie wants to know why her parents named her Ruth- it’s such a grandma name! Why can’t she have something cool and modern like Kelvin or Brooklyn or Apple?
Then Reader sits her down and explains how her own mother, the grandma she’s never seen, was so awful when she was younger and turned her away when she got together with Gideon saying she wasn’t their daughter anymore. And how grandma Amber was more of a mother to her than her own, showing her such love and always being there for her that when she knew she was having a girl, she prayed and knew she wanted to name her daughter after the story of Ruth, who devoted herself to her mother in law to the ends of the earth.
Bonus points if Amber never knew why they picked the name and is passing by and eavesdrops
“You know what Ruthie rhymes with?” Lucas grinned, four years old and the most mischievous of your babies by far. “Poopy.”
Gideon and Finn snorted, sharing an amused look over the Lego set strewn across the table. Across from them, Ruthie had been sitting quietly, completely absorbed in her cooking game on the iPad balanced against her cereal bowl. Her fingers froze mid-tap.
“Ruthie Poopy,” Lucas sang again, clearly pleased with himself.
You sighed and reached over, scooping him into your lap despite his protests. He wriggled like a fish, giggling the whole time until you caught his eye.
“Be nice.”
“Mama,” he whined, throwing his hands up dramatically, “it’s true!”
“That doesn’t make it kind,” you corrected, softening your voice as you loosened your hold. “We don’t tease people about their names.”
Ruthie finally looked up from the screen, her expression pinched. “It’s a stupid name anyway.”
“It is not,” you said. “Your daddy and I put a lot of thought into your name.”
“It is,” she insisted, crossing her arms. “I should’ve been a Victoria. Or an Isabella. Or even a Tina or something.”
“A Tina?” Gideon echoed with a grin. “We can call you that if you’d like.” Finn looked thoughtful for all of two seconds. “Tina… weena?”
“How about Hannah banana?” Gideon added.
Ruthie groaned and buried her face in her hands.
“Boys,” you warned.
“You gave me an old lady name,” she muttered through her fingers. “It sounds like I should be knitting sweaters and feeding pigeons in the park.”
You bit back a smile. “For the record, I happen to think Ruth is a beautiful name.”
“I still think Victoria would’ve been better,” she declared.
Lucas, still perched beside you, piped up, “I like Ruthie.”
She shot him a flat look. “That’s because you’re four.”
“I’m almost five.”
A laugh escaped Finn before he ducked his head, pretending to be deeply interested in snapping Lego bricks together. Ruthie rolled her eyes and looked back at you. “You only named me Ruth because of the stupid Bible.”
Across the table, Gideon’s gaze found yours. It wasn’t angry or surprised, just the brief, knowing look of two parents realizing a conversation had arrived before either of them had planned for it. Finn suddenly became very focused on his Lego instructions. Lucas started humming to himself, blissfully unaware of the shift in the room.
You took a slow breath.
“What?” she muttered. “It’s true.”
You set your mug down carefully. “I’d like to talk to you about that.”
She folded her arms tighter. “I already know what you’re going to say.”
“Maybe you do,” you replied evenly. “Maybe you don’t.” Then you glanced at the boys. “Finn, can you help Lucas finish that spaceship? And Gideon, would you mind keeping an eye on them?”
Gideon nodded without hesitation. “We’ll be fine.”
You turned back to your daughter. “I want to talk to you in your room. Go on upstairs, and I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”
Ruthie’s jaw worked like she wanted to argue, but something in your expression changed her mind. She stood up slowly and muttered, “Fine,” and trudged toward the stairs.
The moment she disappeared around the corner, Lucas looked up.
“Is Ruthie in trouble?”
You smoothed a hand over his hair. “No,” you said softly. “She’s just at the age where questions deserve a little bit more attention.”
Gideon reached for your hand and gave it a gentle squeeze before you headed upstairs.
“Baby?” You tapped lightly on her door before easing it open.
Ruthie was perched at her vanity, absentmindedly running a makeup brush across the back of her hand as she watched herself in the mirror. She glanced at your reflection when you came in but didn’t say anything.
You closed the door behind you and walked over, reaching to twist her ponytail around your fingers.
“Will you brush it, Mama?” she asked quietly.
You smiled. “Will you listen?”
She huffed the ghost of a laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s all I ask.”
You slipped the elastic from her hair, letting the long strands tumble over her shoulders. Finding the brush on the vanity, you started at the ends the way you always had, careful not to tug. For a minute, the only sound in the room was the soft pull of bristles through hair.
“I didn’t have a very good relationship with my mom,” you started.
Ruthie’s eyes met yours in the mirror, already glossy.
“My brother and sister were fourteen and sixteen when I was born. By then, your grandma had already spent years raising babies. She’d done diapers and school lunches and bedtime stories. By the time I came along…” You shrugged gently. “I think she was tired. Ready for a different chapter.”
“So you just…” Ruthie frowned. “Raised yourself?”
“It felt that way sometimes.” You smiled, but it was a sad sort of smile. “I learned to make my own breakfasts pretty young. I got myself ready for school. I figured out problems before I knew it was okay to ask for help. I knew she loved me in her own way, but we never had the kind of closeness I wanted.”
The brush paused as you worked through a stubborn knot. “She wasn’t someone I ran to when I was hurting.”
Ruthie was quiet for a moment. “Is that why we’ve never met her?”
Your hand stilled.
“And…” She hesitated, watching your face carefully in the mirror. “Is that why you cry every Mother’s Day?”
Your eyes burned so suddenly it caught you off guard. You looked down at the brush in your hand, blinking hard before meeting her gaze again. “Sometimes.”
“Because you miss her?”
You shook your head. “No.”
She blinked, confused.
You drew a slow breath. “When I was in college, I met your daddy. He promised me the world, and he wanted me to move here after I finished the year.”
A smile tugged at her mouth. “Daddy promised you the world?”
You couldn’t help smiling back. “He promised me so many things. Not expensive things or impossible things. He promised that I’d never have to wonder if I was loved. That he’d choose me every day. That we’d build a family together. That wherever we ended up, we’d make it home.” You looked down at your hands. “My mama didn’t believe him. She told me if I left, I should never come home.”
Ruthie’s face fell, her expression suddenly so much like Gideon’s when he was trying to understand something unfair that it caught you off guard.
“She really said that?”
“She did.”
“So what did you do?”
“I had to make a choice.” You leaned back against the edge of her bed. “I could stay with people who were obligated to love me, or I could take a chance on someone who showed me what love freely given looked like. Someone who showed me what loyalty was supposed to be.”
Ruthie reached over and squeezed your hand. “I’m glad you picked Daddy.”
“So am I.”
Silence settled between you for a moment before you continued. “When I moved here, I was all alone. I only knew Gideon, and for a while my whole world was him. I spent hours locked up in his room thinking I made the wrong choice. Then one day, your Grandma Amber knocked on the door and asked if I wanted to help her make lunch.”
"Grandma?"
“The very one.” You smiled at the memory, warm and vivid even after all these years. “After that, she started inviting me everywhere. We’d get coffee, wander through little shops, grab lunch just because. Sometimes we’d get our nails done together. Sometimes we’d sit on her porch with iced tea and talk for hours. She never made me feel like an outsider.” Ruthie listened without interrupting. “She gave me a home before I realized how badly I needed one.”
Your voice softened, busying yourself with braiding Ruthie’s hair to keep from crying.
“She showed me what it meant to be a mom.. She paid attention. She noticed when people were struggling before they asked for help. She loved through the ordinary things.” You swallowed around the lump in your throat. “She showed me the kind of mother I wanted to become. The kind who raises her children to be kind like your daddy, strong like your Uncle Pontius, and fun like your Uncle Abraham.” A fond smile crossed your face. “When you were born, your daddy and I were completely overwhelmed. You cried for what felt like every waking minute, and we were convinced we were doing something terribly wrong.”
Ruthie looked scandalized. “I did not.”
“Oh, honey. You absolutely did.”
She hid a grin. “Your grandma would show up with casseroles and soup we hadn’t asked for. Sometimes she’d knock and simply take you out of my arms so I could shower or nap. She’d leave meals on the porch if she knew we were too exhausted to cook.” You shook your head in quiet amazement. “She never complained. She’d rock you for hours if she had to. She’d text me pictures of you sleeping on her shoulder so I wouldn’t worry. She loved you as if there had never been another option.”
Ruthie stared down at the vanity, tracing circles in the wood with one fingertip. “So… when you say she taught you how to be a mom…”
“I mean she loved me when she didn’t have to, and that’s part of why I named you Ruth.” Ruthie looked up.
“Not because of obligation. Not because of tradition. But because I wanted your name to remind me, and one day remind you, that the deepest kind of family is built by people who choose one another over and over again.”
You reached for the hairbrush again, smoothing a few flyaways. “That’s the part of the story of Ruth that people sometimes miss. Everyone remembers the romance at the end, but before Boaz, there was Naomi.”
Ruthie looked up at your reflection in the mirror.
“Ruth didn’t stay because she had to. She wasn’t obligated to. She could have gone home and started over somewhere easier. Instead, she looked at Naomi—a woman who had lost almost everything—and she said, Where you go, I’ll go. Your people will be my people. She chose loyalty. She chose love. She chose family.” You paused. “And Naomi chose Ruth right back.”
Ruthie was listening now with the same intensity she had as a little girl during bedtime stories. “When I left home, I understood Ruth better than I ever expected to. I left the only place I’d ever known because I believed your daddy was offering me something real. I arrived here with one suitcase and a lot of faith.” A smile spread across your face. “Jesus gave me your daddy, but he also gave me Amber when I needed her.
“She didn’t owe me anything. I wasn’t her daughter. I wasn’t even her daughter-in-law yet. But she took me shopping when I needed a friend. She called just to check on me. She taught me recipes, remembered my favorite coffee order, and made room for me at every holiday table without ever making me feel like a guest.” Your voice softened. “She chose me.”
Ruthie’s eyes flickered with understanding. “So you named me after someone who chooses people?”
“In a way.” You tucked another strand of hair behind her ear. “I named you Ruth because I wanted your name to remind you that faithfulness matters. That quiet kindness matters. That showing up for people matters. Beauty fades, trends change, and fashionable names come and go. But the kind of person who says, ‘You won’t have to face this alone,’ changes lives.”
You smiled to yourself. “When I think of Ruth, I don’t think of an old lady. I think of courage. I think of steadfastness. I think of someone who built a family not by blood alone, but by commitment.” You kissed her cheek. “When I named you Ruthie, I wanted you to learn to be loyal and to make choices because you want to make them, not because you feel like you need to.”
“So I’m named after a woman who crossed countries for love, stayed when it would’ve been easier to leave, and ended up becoming part of the family line that led to kings,” she said.
“And,” you added with a grin, “whose name unfortunately still rhymes with ‘poopy’ if your little brother is determined enough.”
Ruthie groaned. “Mama.”
“I’m just saying the Bible never claimed she had perfect branding.”
She rolled her eyes, but this time she was smiling. “I still think Isabella is pretty.”
“It is.”
“But…” She looked at herself in the mirror, then at you. “I guess Ruth’s a pretty good story.”
You leaned down and kissed the top of her head again. “That’s exactly what I hoped you’d inherit.”
Ruthie gets in trouble at school for punching a bully and when asked who taught her to solve her problems by fighting she says Jesse/Pontius/Judy
okay, so what I wrote wasn't exactly the request, but I hope you like it anyway!!
“Genuinely, what the fuck were you thinking, Ruthie Leigh Jessie Gemstone?” Gideon fumed.
Ruthie blinked up at her father, startled. In all nine years of her life, she had never heard him swear at her.You reached over and patted his arm, trying to coax him into lowering his voice before the rest of the school overheard.
“Gideon, calm down. It was just a little playground scuffle.”
“Then why,” he hissed, gesturing toward the hallway, “is there a little boy covered in bite marks while his mother tells me she’s going to press charges?”
The principal quietly pretended to reorganize paperwork. You pinched the bridge of your nose before crouching in front of Ruthie. She looked impossibly tiny perched on the oversized office chair, knees tucked together, sneakers swinging a few inches above the floor.
Ruthie stared at her lap. “I only bit him because he asked me to stop punching him,” she mumbled. “I was defending Finn.”
You and Gideon exchanged a look before both turning toward your son. Finn sat patiently in one of the little plastic chairs meant for children his size. Dust still clung to his jeans from the playground gravel, and his sandy hair stuck out in every direction where little hands had grabbed at it. His eyes were rimmed pink, his cheeks still swollen from crying, but he sat with both hands folded neatly in his lap. Gideon’s anger evaporated almost instantly.
“Is that true, buddy?” he asked, his voice noticeably softer.
Finn nodded once. “Roo's my hero.”
Your heart squeezed as you crouched in front of Ruthie. You let out a long sigh. “Okay. Start from the top.”
For Ruthie, elementary school had always come easily. She flew through reading assignments, devoured chapter books faster than the librarian could shelve them, and could recite random facts she'd learned weeks earlier without missing a beat. Math remained her one persistent enemy, usually ending with exaggerated groans over homework and declarations that numbers were conspiring against her. By fourth grade, she knew every hallway, every teacher, and every shortcut across the playground.
Finn, on the other hand, had only started kindergarten two weeks earlier and you’d worried about him far more than you ever had for Ruthie. He was still your Velcro baby, happiest when attached to one parent or the other. Until the beginning of summer, he'd refused to sleep anywhere except wedged between you and Gideon in your bed. Even now, he still reached for your hand in grocery stores and looked over his shoulder every few minutes just to make sure you were nearby. He was also smaller than most kids his age and painfully shy.
His first day of school had been an emotional marathon. Mrs. Freed had assured you that he’d followed every instruction perfectly. He hung up his backpack without being reminded, completed his morning worksheet with neat little letters, and politely said “thank you” whenever another child handed him something. Though, he cried through most of it. According to her note, he cried during their morning meeting because he missed home already. He cried during snack because he instinctively turned to share his crackers with you before remembering you weren’t there. He cried during the afternoon reading circle because he loved the story so much that he worried he wouldn’t remember its title by Christmas when he wrote his wish list.
On the second morning, you expected a battle getting him out of the car. Instead, he adjusted the straps of his tiny backpack, wiped his own eyes before they could even fill properly, and announced that he was ready. When you asked if he was sure, he nodded solemnly.
“I’m gonna miss you,” he admitted. “But I will be brave today.”
When you picked him up that afternoon, he reported that he'd had a good day.
Ruthie’s relationship with her little brother had taken time. When Finn was born, she'd cried happy tears and declared him “my baby” before you woke up, but babies quickly became toddlers, and toddlers made terrible adventure partners. They can’t climb trees or sprint across the yard as fast as older kids. They certainly couldn’t keep up with the roughhousing Ruthie preferred. More often than not, she'd drag him halfway around the house before sighing dramatically, taking his hand, and marching him right back home because his “little toddler legs were too slow.”
When you told her Finn would be attending her school this year, she reacted with theatrical horror. You’d been in a shoe store helping Finn test new shoes by walking up and down the aisles.
“My reputation is ruined,” she groaned, her foot going limp in Gideon’s hand where he was trying to shove a sneaker on.
“You’re nine,” Gideon replied. “What reputation could you possibly have?”
“I’m going to be the only fourth grader with a kindergartener for a brother,” she huffed.
She complained all through August, but every single morning, without being asked, she’d walk around to the passenger side of the car, unbuckle Finn from his booster seat, sling his tiny backpack over one shoulder, and escort him all the way to Mrs. Freed’s classroom. She pretended not to notice when teachers smiled. She rolled her eyes whenever another parent commented on what a sweet big sister she was. But before leaving, she always knelt down, fixed Finn’s crooked collar or backpack straps, and reminded him, “If anything happens, you come find me at recess.”
Last week, Ruthie had started noticing Tyler hanging around the kindergarten playground more often than any fourth grader reasonably should. He was in the other fourth-grade class, a loud kid who seemed desperate to impress a handful of fifth graders by picking on children half his size. The younger kids scattered whenever they saw him coming, but Tyler always found someone slower to corner.
Their school was small enough that every grade shared the same recess after lunch. Teachers supervised from a distance while clusters of children spread across the blacktop and playground equipment. Ruthie had made a point of not hovering over Finn.
“You need your own friends,” she’d told him on his first week, trying very hard to sound like an experienced older sister instead of a worried one. “Go play with your kindergarten friends.”
Finn had listened. He spent nearly every recess with Joey and Lily, the three of them tucked away inside the castle-shaped play structure pretending to defend kingdoms from dragons or pirates or whichever imaginary threat they’d invented that day. Tyler discovered them soon after, terrorizing them all to make the older kids laugh. Near the end of recess, Ruthie found Finn in a miserable little huddle under the slide with Joey and Lily. Finn’s cheeks were blotchy from crying, Joey’s lip trembled as he insisted it was okay, and little Lily clutched her glasses that had been snapped in half by the older kids.
It took almost the entire ten minutes left of recess for Ruthie pieced together what had happened. Tyler and his friends had stormed the castle, shoved everyone around, snatched toys out of little hands, and broken Lily’s glasses when she threatened to go get a teacher.
Ruthie’s first instinct had been to march across the playground and flatten Tyler herself. Instead, she swallowed her anger and crouched beside Finn.
“Just stay away from him you guys,” she said quietly, brushing dirt off his sleeve. “He wants somebody to chase him. Don’t give him what he wants. It’s not worth it.”
Yesterday, Ruthie was playing basketball with some of her friends when she heard Tyler yell loud enough for half of the playground to hear.
“Hey! It’s Fishy Gemstone!”
She turned just in time to see Finn freeze. Earlier that afternoon, Finn had been telling Joey and Lily that his grandmother’s tuna salad was his favorite food in the entire world, inviting them over for a playdate and a serving of said tuna salad. Tyler must have overheard.
Now he and two other boys circled the kindergarteners, chanting “Fishy! Fishy! Fishy!” while bucking close enough to make Finn flinch.
“Back off,” she snapped, stepping between Tyler and her little brother.
Tyler barely looked at Finn anymore. He smirked at Ruthie instead. “Or what?”
“Or you’ll be sorry,” Ruthie sneered, gathering the kindergarteners and urging them to run along to a safer section of the playground.
Tyler threw his head back and laughed right in her face. “You? You’re just a girl.”
Ruthie’s jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. She debated it for half a second before turning away, deciding to take her own advice.
Today, recess had started quietly enough. Ruthie had claimed a patch of grass near the edge of the playground, absentmindedly practicing cartwheels while chatting with a couple of classmates. The late-summer sun was warm against her back, and for the first time all week she hadn't checked on Finn every five minutes.
“Ruthie!”
She popped up from the middle of a cartwheel, grass sticking to her palms, to see a younger student standing near the blacktop, pointing frantically toward the monkey bars. Ruthie followed the direction of the finger to where Tyler and three of the older boys had Finn cornered against one of the support poles beneath the monkey bars. There was nowhere for him to run. Joey hovered nearby looking helpless, while Lily cried openly for a teacher who was too far away to hear. Finn's little shoulders were pressed flat against the metal pole. Tears streamed down his face as he shook his head over and over.
“Please don't,” he was whimpering.
“We should hang him upside down!” One of the boys laughed.
“Yeah,” Tyler chimed in, pushing Finn's head. “Let's see if Fishy can swim from the monkey bars.”
Ruthie’s sneakers pounded across the gravel so hard that kids instinctively leaped out of her way. Rocks scattered behind her as she sprinted the length of the playground, eyes fixed entirely on Tyler. The others heard her coming first, turning at the thunder of her approaching footsteps and scattered, bolting in different directions.
Tyler was still facing Finn with that smug grin on his face when Ruthie reached him. She grabbed both of his shoulders with surprising force and yanked him backward before driving him down onto the ground. The impact knocked the breath out of him and sent a cloud of dust and loose stones into the air.
By then, all Ruthie could see was Finn's tear-streaked face, only fueling her anger. It drowned out the shouting from the other children, the whistle a teacher was blowing somewhere across the playground, even Tyler’s startled yelp as he hit the ground. Her fists flew before she had time to second-guess herself. She landed one punch, then another, fueled more by panic than technique. Tyler threw his arms up to shield his face and tried to roll away, but Ruthie stayed on him, swinging wildly as gravel scraped both of their knees.
“Having fun now?” She spat. “Am I just a girl now?”
The nearby children scattered in every direction, some screaming for a teacher, others frozen in place, and even a few cheering.
Tyler eventually managed to catch both of her wrists. For a moment they struggled in a stalemate, each trying to overpower the other. Ruthie twisted and kicked, trying to wrench herself free, while Tyler grimaced and tightened his grip. When that wasn’t enough to stop her, he reached up and grabbed a fistful of her hair.
Ruthie cried out and without thinking, she lunged forward and clamped her teeth onto his forearm. He jerked and thrashed, trying to pull away, but Ruthie refused to let go. He eventually got her off for a moment before she bit down on a different spot, much harder this time. Around them, children gasped and backed up even farther as teachers sprinted across the playground. Tyler began to openly sob.
By the time the first teacher reached them, Tyler was twisting in circles, desperately trying to free himself. The teacher wrapped both arms around Ruthie’s waist and hauled backward, lifting her slightly off the ground. A second teacher hurried in from the other side, placing a steady hand against Ruthie’s forehead and gently but firmly pushing her head back until her teeth finally released.
The instant she let go, the two children were separated by a few feet of distance. Ruthie was carried several steps away, still breathing hard, hair half out of its hairdo and face flushed with anger. Tyler stumbled backward into another teacher’s arms, clutching his arm and staring at the unmistakable bite marks in stunned disbelief. Across the playground, Finn remained huddled against the monkey bars. The moment Ruthie saw him, the fight seemed to leave her all at once.
“Well,” the principal said with a weary sigh, folding her hands on top of the stack of incident reports, “unfortunately, Tyler has been a bit of a problem. This isn’t the first complaint we’ve received about him picking on the kindergarteners.”
Beside you, Ruthie slowly lifted both hands in a tiny, silent I told you so. The look lasted all of half a second before you raised one eyebrow and fixed it. Her shoulders sank instantly. She lowered her hands and dropped her gaze back into her lap, studying the scuffed toes of her mary jane’s as if they’d suddenly become fascinating. Only then did you turn your attention back to the principal.
“So,” you asked, “what happens now?”
The principal exhaled slowly. “Our elementary students rarely get into physical altercations like this, and certainly not to this extent. But given the severity of what happened,” her eyes flicked briefly toward the paperwork documenting Tyler’s injuries before returning to Ruthie, “I think the most appropriate course is to follow the disciplinary guidelines we use for the older grades.”
Gideon nodded once. “And those are?”
“Our high school students receive a four-day suspension for fighting. Middle school students receive three. Since Ruthie is in fourth grade, I’m recommending that she be suspended for the remainder of today, as well as Monday and Tuesday.”
Ruthie’s head snapped up. “Three days?”
She sounded less horrified by the punishment and more excited she’d miss school. Gideon crossed his arms, huffing a little bit at her smile. She wisely chose not to respond. You glanced sideways at your husband. The set of his jaw told you everything you needed to know that he’d make sure her punishment at home would make up the rest.
“For what it’s worth,” the principal said gently, “our investigation will also address Tyler’s behavior. Several students have already corroborated that he and his friends have been harassing younger children, including Finn, over the past week.”
You nodded. “Thank you.”
The principal offered a sympathetic smile before looking back at Ruthie. “I trust you’ve learned your lesson.”
Ruthie was silent for a moment, picking at a loose thread on the hem of her shirt. “Yes, ma’am,” she whispered. She slid off the oversized chair, her sneakers thumping softly against the floor, and crossed the few steps to Finn. Without a word, she held out her hand.
Across the room, Gideon watched the exchange with the expression of a man trying very hard to be stern while his heart insisted on doing something else entirely. Finally, he let out a long, exhausted sigh. “We’re going to have a much longer conversation about conflict resolution when we get home.”
Ruthie spent most of the afternoon stationed at the dining table. Gideon made sure she finished every assignment she’d been sent home with. The real lecture lasted over half an hour. He talked about self-control, about finding an adult, about how punching someone until teachers had to peel you off was not an acceptable strategy under any circumstances. Ruthie accepted every word in silence, her feet swinging beneath the chair and her eyes fixed on the wood grain of the table, silent tears streaming down her face. Only near the end did Gideon’s voice soften.
“For the record,” he said, “I’m proud that you stood up for your brother.”
Her head lifted slightly.
“I am,” he repeated. “Finn needed help, and you didn’t ignore him. You protected someone smaller than you.”
Hope flickered across her face.
“But,” he added before she could mistake his meaning, “you went too far.”
“I know,” she said.
If Gideon was determined to make sure Ruthie learned her lesson, he apparently intended to do it with rakes and hedge clippers. Together they spent most of Saturday pulling weeds, trimming bushes, hauling branches, and hauling them again when Gideon decided they should be stacked more neatly.
To her credit, Ruthie complained far less than usual. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her glove, accepted every new task with a muttered “okay,” and only sighed dramatically once when handed another bag half full of mulch. She usually helped Gideon, so she knew most of what to do, she just often quit after an hour. When she came inside to refill her water bottle, dusty and flushed from the heat, you nearly called the punishment off altogether.
She looked too exhausted, her skin a little pink from the sun and definitely needed a fresh layer of sunscreen, but before you could say anything, she wandered over to where Finn was sat on the couch with a sticker book in his lap. Without a word, she leaned down and kissed the top of his cheek. He shied away almost instantly, turning to look at her. Ruthie turned away, straightened her baseball cap, and wandered right back outside. You watched her through the window until she disappeared behind the shed.
That night, while Gideon grilled steaks for himself, you, and Finn and made roasted vegetables to go with them, you quietly slid a plate with a perfectly golden grilled cheese sandwich in front of Ruthie instead. She looked at it, then at you.
“You made this for me?” She asked, eyes twinkling.
“You worked hard today,” you said gently. “Eat up.”
Ruthie smiled for the first time that weekend on Sunday morning. Still feeling guilty, you let Ruthie claim the empty chair between you and Gideon at the adults’ table instead of sending her to sit with the younger kids from the other guests, further punishing herself from fun.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t regained much of her appetite. A cherry tomato rolled lazily around her plate as she pushed it in circles with the side of her fork, more interested in avoiding everyone’s eyes than eating. Jesse looked across the table at her with an easy smile.
“So,” he asked gently, “are you ready to go back to school tomorrow?”
Ruthie looked up from her plate. She glanced at you and Gideon for half a moment before she frowned, her shoulders slumping.
“I don’t get to go back until Wednesday,” she mumbled. “I’m suspended.”
The words landed on the table like a dropped serving dish. Kelvin froze mid-bite, eyes wide with a noodle hanging comically from his lips. Judy covered up her laugh with a cough, disappearing behind her napkin almost as quickly as the smile had appeared. Eli slowly lowered his fork onto his plate with a soft clink. Amber looked furious already, though Jesse’s mouth twitched into an amused smirk before he caught himself.
“We’ve got a real Mike Tyson in the family,” Gideon muttered, taking another quick bite of his mashed potatoes as though he hadn’t said anything remarkable at all. “Boxer and biter all in one.”
You set your silverware down. “To be fair, there’s context,” you began carefully. “She was defending Finn.”
“Defending him from what?” Eli asked, his expression immediately sharpening.
You exchanged a look with Gideon and patted Ruthie’s head before explaining the situation. Ruthie kept her eyes trained on her plate like she was afraid she’d look up to find everyone looking at her as disapprovingly as you and Gideon did in the principal’s office. By the time you finished, everyone seemed to deflate. Kelvin finally chewed the noodle he’d forgotten about. Judy’s smile had vanished completely. Amber’s anger shifted away from Ruthie and onto a little boy none of them had ever met.
Gideon gave a slow nod. “We’re just confused where she learned that violence is the answer.”
Almost automatically, Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin all lowered their heads, suddenly finding their plates far more interesting than the little girl sitting between you and your husband. Even Amber averted her gaze, studying the stained-glass window behind Eli with unusual concentration. Gideon leaned back in his chair and let his eyes drift across his family. Ruthie frowned, looking from one adult to the next, her hand slowly rising as she turned to look at you.
“Grandpa said it was okay,” she said meekly.
Every head at the table turned toward her except for Jesse’s.
“Did he now?” you asked gently, careful to keep your voice neutral.
Ruthie nodded. Across the table, Jesse suddenly became very interested in buttering a roll.
Eli looked at him over the rim of his glasses. “Jesse,” he said, his voice low and deliberate, “did you tell Ruthie to beat up the little boy?”
Jesse looked genuinely offended by the accusation. “Well, was I supposed to do it myself?” he scoffed, throwing his hands into the air. “He was teasing my grandson. Seems like Ruthie did better than I ever could.”
“That,” Gideon replied with remarkable patience, “is not the issue.”
Jesse rolled his eyes. “She mentioned it last week, but she said it was a hypothetical. Judy and Pontius were there, so it's not just all on me. I didn’t tell her to bite him.”
“No,” Judy chimed in through a grin she was trying desperately to suppress, “I didn’t either.”
“Yes, you did,” Ruthie accused, pointing across the table with complete confidence. “You said that Grandpa used to hold you down so you’d bite him.”
“Snitch!” she snapped before she could stop herself.
Ruthie looked genuinely puzzled, opening her mouth to argue more. You reached over and gently placed a hand over Ruthie’s mouth before she could say anything. She blinked up at you, whining out a muffled and annoyed ‘mom’, but otherwise unbothered. Across the table, Kelvin had abandoned all pretense of eating. He was openly shaking with laughter, one hand pressed to his forehead. Eli slowly closed his eyes, as if counting to ten.
Gideon looked from Judy to Jesse, then back to Ruthie.
“So, just to recap,” he said flatly, “our daughter’s understanding of conflict resolution has apparently been shaped by stories in which her grandfather wrestled his own children to the ground and her aunt’s solution was to bite him.”
“When you say it like that,” Judy muttered, “it sounds bad.”
“It is bad,” you said.
You removed your hand from Ruthie’s mouth only after she gave a solemn little nod indicating she was finished contributing. She waited exactly two seconds. “Aunt Judy also said she got extra dessert afterward because Gigi felt guilty.”
Jesse nodded. “I think that’s a great idea,” he grinned. “Ruthie got her shit together, put the little fucker in his place.”
A chorus of agreements rang out. Kelvin mumbled an enthusiastic “Mm-hmm” around another bite. Judy raised her hand in support. Even Eli, after a brief pause that suggested he was weighing the morality of rewarding vigilantism, gave a reluctant little nod. You looked from one face to the next in disbelief. You looked at Gideon, who looked back at you with the unmistakable expression of a man trying very hard not to undermine the lesson he'd spent the entire weekend teaching.
“Absolutely not,” you said.
“Oh, come on,” Gideon protested. “The kid’s suspended, she’s been doing yard work all weekend, and she was defending her brother.”
Ruthie let out a dramatic sigh that seemed much too large for her small body. “This family has so many rules.”
You laughed despite yourself and reached over to tickle the back of her neck. “Two rules,” you corrected. “Just two. No fighting and no biting the kids at school.”
“I understand.” Ruthie nodded solemnly. “Now can I get an ice cream?”
You smiled down at Ruthie, who was watching you with enormous hopeful eyes.
“One scoop,” you relented. “And only because you told the truth, accepted your punishment, and learned something from all of this.”
Ruthie beamed, wiggling out of her chair and calling for Finn’s attention. He stood up, completely unaware of where she was going, but ready to follow anyway. She reached for his hand, holding him tightly.
“What I learned is that we gotta teach Finn how to fight,” she giggled, running off before anyone could correct her.
