Life Happens by Sandra Steffen

changed, young lady? And then a bottle?”
    Suddenly Mya and Dean were alone.
    Poor Dean. Clearly, his nose was out of joint, and Mya couldn’t even blame him.
    “Dean, I—”
    “Let’s keep this about Elle, shall we?” He jerked to his feet. “I think I’ll get some air.”
    Donning a jacket, she followed him onto her front porch. Dean stood near the top step, facing the street. The evening was quiet at dusk, crocuses and daffodils blooming along either side of the sidewalk, their colors muted in the fading twilight.
    Mya hugged her arms close and said, “It’s been an emotional day for Elle. It’s only natural that she wants, maybe even needs, to speak with her, er, other father.”
    Seeing his shoulders stiffen, she chastised herself, wondering how else she might rub salt in the wound. “I think keeping this about Elle is a good idea.” She reached out, instinctively finding his hand. “The important thing is she’s here. I know she’s glad you came tonight.”
    He looked at her, an emotion she couldn’t name hiding in the backs of his eyes. He almost smiled, until he remembered why he didn’t. He drew his hand away, and she knew that in her haste to reassure him, she’d gone too far. The animosity was back between them, and there was nothing she could do about it.
    So what else was new?
     
    “Trevor wet the bed again. And Bubbles died.”
    Elle dropped tiredly onto the bed in the room she shared with Kaylie. “The new Bubbles?” she asked her little sister.
    “Mama says he was just sleeping.” Lauren made a scoffing sound into the phone.
    The girl didn’t sound nine.
    “Goldfish don’t have long life spans, Lauren.”
    “’Specially not mine.” She sounded genuinely sad. “Elle? When are you coming home?”
    Home. The word resonated inside Elle. That house in Harrisburg hadn’t felt like home since the day Brunhilde moved in. Elle loved her dad, and Lauren and Trevor, too. She didn’t know where she fit in, though. She thought about Millie and Dean and Mya. She didn’t hear any voices coming from Mya’s living room, and wondered if her dad, she grimaced, her birth father—grimacing again, she finally decided to think of him as Dean—had left. Earlier, she’d told Mya she’d talked to her doctor back in Pennsylvania. But she hadn’t told her he’d given her the results of her last blood test. Elle was scared. She wanted her mom, her real mom, the mom that had raised her until she was a little older than Lauren was now.
    Lauren wanted to know when she was coming home. Feeling hollow inside, Elle had an important decision to make. She really needed to talk to her dad.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Elle said.
    And Lauren sighed on the other end of the line. There were almost ten years between them, and yet the sisters had always gotten along well. Much to Brunhilde’s chagrin. She was always saying Lauren was exactly like her.Fortunately for Lauren, it wasn’t true. Elle had always thought the girl was a lot like their father. Elle wondered who she was like, not outwardly, but deep inside where she kept everything private. Who did she take after there?
    “Did I tell you I have a cat?” Elle asked.
    “A cat! Lucky!”
    “Yeah, lucky me.” Her voice sounded odd suddenly in her own ears, for lucky wasn’t a word she would have used to describe herself or her life, her new cat notwithstanding. She still couldn’t believe she had a cat. It was hard to find fault with Jeffrey, that was for sure. She wondered if Mya was going to regret ending it with him. Then she thought about how tense things were between Mya and Dean.
    Maybe she shouldn’t have come to Maine. But what else could she have done?
    “Elle? Are you still there or what?”
    “I’m here. Actually, the cat’s name is Casper, you know, like the ghost, because of his white coat.”
    “I thought you liked dogs.”
    “It’s a long story, but Casper thinks he’s a dog.”
    “Mom says Trevor can have a