Fiona watched as Marlin carefully began a new batch and this time the yeast foamed as it should. Marlin then added the other ingredients and kneaded the dough over and over and over on the small wooden kitchen table. By the time Marlin had it in a bowl covered in a dish towel to rise and the kitchen cleaned up again, Fiona had found part of the idea that had been germinating in her brain and she called the others to the porch.

“As I said before, we have money, some anyway,” she began. “And a house. We can go tomorrow and register in the schools. I like it here. I’m sure it’s better than Lansing, Michigan, would be or Kingsport, Tennessee. And we’re still together. Those are all pluses.”

“I like it too,” said Marlin.

“Yeah, me too,” said Natasha.

“I want Mommy and Daddy,” said Charlie.

They ignored this. They knew at some level Charlie still felt that if she repeated this enough she could somehow resurrect her parents with the force of sheer longing. They did not encourage this but they did not discourage it either. Fiona thought it was a sad thing to witness but it would be worse when Charlie finally stopped.

“We have everything we need. The only thing that other people think we need is a grown-up. But I think I can care for us. I don’t think we need a grown-up.”

“Doesn’t matter what you think,” said Marlin practically. “No one is going to let us live on our own once they find out that’s what we’re doing.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Fiona. “We can go on living here as long as no one knows we’re living on our own. Aunt Martha doesn’t seem to have talked to anyone. Except for that neighbor. And the lawyer, who didn’t even know we were on our way here until the neighbor told him. So maybe, just maybe, nobody else even knows about us.”

“They’ll know about us when we show up at school,” said Natasha.

“We could just not go to school,” said Charlie.

“We have to go to school,” said Fiona firmly. “Mom and Dad wanted us all to get a college education.”

“How are we going to afford that?” asked Marlin.

“I don’t know,” said Fiona. “We’ll figure that out, I hope. But in the meantime, we’re not becoming a bunch of dropouts.”

“Then the school will know about us,” repeated Natasha.

“Yes, but they won’t know we are on our own. Not if we don’t tell them,” Fiona went on. “And that’s the tricky part. We have to, and I mean all of us, Charlie, we have to keep our lips zipped about that. And it will be hard. It cannot slip out to anyone, not to any friends we make, not to this lawyer we will have to go see, not to teachers, not to anyone at all. Can we do that?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Natasha.