“DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO WANTS A LITTLE GIRL?” ONE SMALL VOICE MADE THE MOST NOTORIOUS CRIME BOSS IN PANIC!

While Sarah sat quietly with her on a velvet couch I stepped back into the shadows and made several phone calls.

The generic name Brenda was absolutely not much to go on. The full name of the girl when I finally got it from her was Mia Jenkins. The specific address she recited from perfect memory was an old apartment building in the bad part of the city exactly forty minutes east. She recited it carefully like she had been forcefully made to practice it over and over again.

I sent two of my best enforcers to the address.

What they quickly found there took twenty minutes to report back to me in two brutal sentences to summarize entirely.

The cheap apartment had been completely emptied. It was not cleaned out nicely. It was aggressively emptied. The cheap furniture was still there. The dirty dishes were still in the sink. But absolutely all the clothes, hidden cash, and anything vaguely personal was entirely gone.

Brenda Jenkins whoever the hell she was had hurriedly packed exactly what mattered most to her and violently left before the sun went down. She had absolutely not taken the child.

The child fell fast asleep on the lobby velvet couch at exactly nine forty seven at night. The stuffed elephant was tucked tightly under her small chin. One shoe was on and one shoe was off.

She had eaten a large bowl of hot chicken soup and exactly half a grilled cheese sandwich. She had answered every single question Sarah asked her in that exact same careful measured way. She acted exactly like someone who had learned incredibly early in life that simple words could easily get you in massive trouble if you accidentally used them wrong.

I stood in the far dark corner of the lobby and watched her sleep peacefully.

My head of personal security appeared silently at my shoulder. His name was Marcus. Marcus had been with me for eleven bloody years. He communicated mostly in incredibly short sentences and raised thick eyebrows.

“Social services,” Marcus grunted deeply.

“I absolutely know,” I said.

Marcus was quiet for a long moment. “She completely asked me earlier if I was the scary one here.”

I looked at him. Marcus was six feet four inches tall and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle. He was completely bald with a massive dark neck tattoo. He had a brutal face that had literally stopped traffic in three different countries.

“What exactly did you say to her?” I asked Marcus.

“I said absolutely not,” Marcus grunted. “I told her you were the scary one.”

A long heavy pause.

“She specifically said that made total sense,” Marcus added softly.

“Because you completely looked like you were trying incredibly hard not to be scary.”

I did not say anything back to him.

“She is incredibly smart boss,” Marcus noted.

“Yeah,” I said staring at her. “She really is.”

The county social worker who finally came at midnight was incredibly tired. She was tired in the specific way that good people get tired when the job is way too big and the state resources are way too small. She was very polite and highly efficient. She explained to Sarah that Mia would strongly need to go into an emergency foster placement tonight. She explained that the county had a long list of available families.

Mia woke up instantly when the tired woman sat down next to her on the couch.

Mia looked at the strange woman. Then she looked directly across the room at me. I was standing a careful safe distance away with my hands shoved deep in my pockets saying absolutely nothing.

“Are you going to actively come with me?” Mia asked me loudly across the quiet lobby.

“I absolutely cannot,” I said softly.

She looked at me intensely for a very long time. Kids her young age were absolutely not supposed to fully understand the crushing weight of terrible things. But she had clearly been practicing at aggressively understanding things she was never supposed to.

“Okay,” Mia said quietly.

She picked up her stuffed elephant tightly. She stood up very straight. It was the exact way small people bravely stand when they are desperately trying not to take up even less space than they already naturally do.

She walked bravely out the revolving glass doors with the social worker without ever looking back at me once.

I stood in my massive luxury lobby and said absolutely nothing. Around me the Sterling Grand continued its quiet incredibly expensive operation. The polished marble floors were very clean. The crystal chandelier lights were very warm.

I went upstairs to my massive penthouse. I absolutely did not sleep a single wink.

Her official state file came securely to my encrypted phone at exactly six in the morning. I absolutely had not asked for it at all. Sarah had illegally pulled it through our contacts anyway. That was a serious breach of protocol that I would severely address with her later. The frustrating fact that she had boldly known I would desperately want it. The terrifying fact that she had been absolutely right.

Mia Jenkins. Six years old. Biological mother violently deceased two long years prior. Biological father completely unknown. She had been strictly in the legal care of her aunt Brenda since then. There was absolutely no physical abuse formally reported. There was no state intervention on record. Just a cruel woman who had apparently selfishly decided one sunny morning that the burden of a child was not working for her anymore and had made ruthless plans accordingly.

There were tiny brutal details in the file that I read once and absolutely could not bear to read again. They were the exact kind of devastating details that perfectly explained the incredibly careful way she softly talked. The practiced fearful stillness. The heartbreaking way she had quickly cataloged her own positive qualities for the concierge like she was desperately making a legal case for her own existence.

“I can be incredibly quiet. I absolutely do not eat very much.”

I set the secure phone face down on the glass table. I looked out the massive floor to ceiling window at the sprawling Chicago skyline.

This was absolutely not my business. I was completely not equipped for this. I was a highly dangerous man who violently dealt in stolen property and massive illegal leverage. And when necessary I dealt in the specific kind of brutal enforcement that absolutely never made it into public court records.

I had a twenty million dollar penthouse and an armored driver. I had a massive network of violent people who deeply feared and heavily respected me in roughly equal measure. I was absolutely not a guardian. I was not even completely human some days.

I aggressively called the county social office exactly at eight in the morning when they officially opened.

I demanded to ask about the specific emergency placement. I aggressively asked about the formal adoption process. I was rudely transferred three different times by lazy bureaucrats.

I aggressively called my personal lawyer exactly at eight forty.

His name was Liam Cross. Liam was a brilliant ruthless man who had successfully kept me completely out of federal prison on two massive RICO occasions. He charged me millions of dollars accordingly.

Liam listened silently to everything I excitedly said and then he took a very long deep breath.

“Donovan,” Liam said slowly. “Do you fully understand exactly what you are currently describing?”

“Yes,” I answered firmly.

“You completely understand your violent criminal background will massively complicate this?”

“Yes.”

“And your highly illegal business interests?”

“Yes.”

Liam sighed heavily into the phone. “I will make some highly discreet calls.”

The emergency placement home was located in a boring suburb called Oakwood. It was forty five minutes away from the city. It was on a quiet street where all the cheap houses looked like they had been built by the exact same person in the exact same year and painted slightly different ugly shades of beige.

The foster family was named Davis. They already aggressively had two other temporary foster children living there. Their cramped living room smelled terribly like artificial vanilla spray.

I was absolutely not supposed to be there. I had no legal standing whatsoever. I had absolutely no legal right to physically visit. I had no official reason that Liam had been able to successfully manufacture fast enough.

I aggressively drove my armored SUV there anyway and sat quietly in my parked car across the dark street for a long while.

I saw her exactly once through the glowing front window. I just saw the back of her tiny head. Her dark curls were sitting still at a cheap plastic table. She had a single broken crayon tightly in her small hand.

I drove aggressively back to the city.

Liam finally called me back on a rainy Thursday afternoon.

“Your extensive criminal background check is obviously going to be a massive issue Donovan,” Liam said bluntly. “You have a lot of dark bloody history. I know we can creatively work around some of it legally. Your massive legal property holdings. The millions in anonymous charity donations. Your technically clean record on official paper. There is a creative version of this application that looks significantly better than it actually is.”

A long heavy pause.

“But it is absolutely going to take a lot of time,” Liam warned. “And they are going to look incredibly hard at you.”

“Let them look aggressively,” I said coldly.

Total silence on the line. Then Liam spoke softly.

“This is really exactly what you deeply want to actively do?”

It was absolutely not a question exactly. It was much more like Liam carefully checking the emotional temperature of something. It was the exact way he acted when he desperately needed to definitively know whether I was making a calculated rational decision or having a highly violent emotional reaction.

“Yes,” I said with absolute certainty.

Liam exhaled a massive breath. “Give me exactly three weeks.”

In the busy meantime Sarah began to aggressively make massive changes to the luxury penthouse that I absolutely did not authorize and absolutely did not try to stop.

A large beautiful wooden bookshelf magically appeared in what had previously been an empty spare room. Then a small beautiful desk arrived. Then extremely bright yellow curtains were hung. Yellow was absolutely not a color that had ever once existed inside my dark brutal home before.

Sarah said absolutely nothing about any of it to me. She just confidently left the expensive receipts exactly on my desk where she completely knew I could easily see them.

Marcus aggressively sourced a high end expensive child booster seat. He violently installed it in the back of my armored SUV with the intense sweaty focus of a dangerous man carefully defusing a live explosive bomb.

My private chef was a very taciturn man named Carlos. Carlos had aggressively cooked for me for six long years and communicated his thoughts primarily through cooking amazing food. He silently produced a beautiful handwritten list of very simple child meals and left it confidently on the marble kitchen island.

Scrambled eggs. Grilled cheese sandwiches. Macaroni and cheese. Homemade chicken noodle soup.

Carlos had carefully added small bright stars exactly next to the specific ones he deeply considered most reliably popular with small children. This was apparently based entirely on his own four rowdy kids and whatever extensive research he had aggressively conducted independently on the internet.

I looked at the simple handwritten list for a very long time.

I had brutally built a massive criminal organization completely out of absolutely nothing. I started violently at twenty two years old with a tiny dangerous territory in South Chicago. I built a terrifying reputation for aggressively keeping my word even when it cost me millions of dollars in blood.

I had violently expanded. I had aggressively consolidated. I had made myself completely indispensable to terrifying people who absolutely did not like needing anyone. I had violently done terrible things in my dark life that I could absolutely never ever undo. I had brutally done things that I was still some dark lonely nights heavily paying for in ways that absolutely did not show on any clean financial balance sheet.

I had absolutely never had anything totally innocent depend entirely on me exactly like this before.

The bright yellow room was fully ready in exactly ten days. Sarah had thoughtfully added a glowing night lamp beautifully shaped exactly like a full moon.

The mandatory state home visit was strictly conducted by a stern woman named Mrs Higgins. She was the Lead County Assessor. She was in her mid forties and wore very sensible ugly shoes. She carried the specific kind of careful aggressive neutrality that only came from doing a very hard depressing job with incredibly real stakes.

She aggressively walked through every single massive room of the penthouse. She asked highly pointed questions. She noted things rapidly on a wooden clipboard in tiny handwriting that I absolutely could not read upside down no matter how hard I tried.

When we finally sat down at the large marble kitchen island she took a deep breath.

“I have to be completely brutally honest with you Mr Ree,” Mrs Higgins said sternly. “Your massive file raises extreme red flags and serious concerns. I deeply know the luxury property is your legal history. I know you have absolutely nothing formally prosecuted on record. But your extreme pattern of dangerous association is incredibly concerning.”

I said absolutely nothing.

“I completely understand there are many other highly qualified applicants for Mia,” I said softly but firmly. “Perfect families. Two parent households with lovely white picket fences.”

Mrs Higgins looked at me skeptically.

“She actively asked a busy hotel lobby if absolutely anyone wanted her,” I said my voice cracking slightly. “She made a desperate list of reasons why she would be incredibly easy to cheaply take care of. She is exactly six years old.”

I stopped talking. I took a deep breath and started again much more carefully.

“I am absolutely not aggressively telling you I am the perfect choice Mrs Higgins. I am telling you explicitly that I will be the completely committed one. Those two things are absolutely not always the exact same thing. And I deeply know which one matters significantly more.”

Mrs Higgins looked directly at me for a very long time. The silence was deafening. Finally she made a small definitive note on her wooden clipboard.

The supervised home visits officially started the very following Tuesday.

The very first visit Mia arrived nervously at the massive penthouse with a young caseworker. She stood completely frozen in the grand marble entryway. She looked wildly at absolutely everything with the terrified expression of someone aggressively cataloging all possible escape exits.

She was swimming in a green winter jacket that was completely way too big for her. She was tightly carrying the crooked stuffed elephant.

“This is actually your place?” Mia asked staring up at the ceiling.

“Yes,” I said softly.

She looked way up. The custom ceilings were fourteen feet high and there was a massive glowing crystal chandelier.

“It is incredibly tall,” she noted seriously.

“Yes,” I agreed. “I really like it.”

She walked in incredibly carefully. It was the exact same way she had walked across the marble hotel lobby the very first night. She acted like she was absolutely not completely sure whether physically touching the clean floors was actually legally allowed.

I absolutely did not rush to tell her it was completely fine. I patiently waited to see exactly what she would confidently do.

She bravely made it exactly to the massive kitchen. She quickly found the handwritten menu list Carlos had left sitting on the island. It was still sitting exactly there completely unrevised with the bright stars and all.

She read it incredibly seriously. “Did you actually write this list?”

“No,” I answered honestly. “My private chef did.”

“You actually have a chef?”

“Yes.”

She looked directly at me in disbelief. “For just you?”

“Yes.”

She seemed to find this concept slightly ridiculous. I found her reaction completely reasonable.

“Can I please have mac and cheese?” Mia asked politely.

“Yes,” I smiled.

Carlos proudly produced the perfect bowl in exactly eleven minutes. Mia ate exactly three quarters of it. She carefully fed small imaginary bites of the remainder to the stuffed elephant. She explicitly informed me that the elephant was officially named Gerald Two. This was because there had apparently been a Gerald One at some dark point in her past which she absolutely did not elaborate on.

After the delicious lunch the state caseworker sat quietly in the massive living room filling out endless paperwork. Mia drifted slowly toward the bright spare room. The beautiful one with the bright yellow curtains.

She stood frozen in the open doorway for a very long moment without actually going inside.

“Is this perfectly beautiful room strictly for me?” she asked softly.

“If you truly want it to be Mia,” I answered gently.

She went in. She looked in awe at the small desk. She looked happily at the wooden bookshelf. She reached out and touched the glowing lamp shaped exactly like a moon very gently with one tiny finger.

She did not say absolutely anything. But she absolutely did not run out to leave either.

She sat right down on the soft rug on the floor perfectly in front of the new bookshelf. She pulled out a bright picture book and opened it happily in her lap.

I leaned quietly against the wooden door frame and proudly watched her happily read.

The scheduled visits became a wonderful routine over the next six exciting weeks. Every single Tuesday and Thursday for exactly three hours each.

Mia quickly learned exactly where absolutely everything was. She developed very strong culinary opinions about the cooking of Carlos. The grilled cheese was vastly superior to the mac and cheese. The fluffy scrambled eggs were and she proudly used this big word with total utter seriousness completely exemplary.

She aggressively taught Marcus a highly complicated card game that she proudly claimed to have completely invented entirely herself. It had insane rules that drastically changed every single hand in confusing ways she aggressively described as highly advanced strategy. Marcus lost every single game completely with the deep quiet dignity of a massive man proudly accepting a fair brutal outcome.

She absolutely did not in six entire weeks ask me a single highly personal question.

I quickly noticed she had been actively watching me incredibly carefully. That specific intense scrutiny came naturally with my dangerous territory in the underworld. But absolutely never like this before. She was studying me exactly the way you study something dangerous you are not completely sure you can trust quite yet.

Logging raw data. Making absolutely no firm conclusions. I completely understood it. I absolutely did not push her.

On the seventh amazing Tuesday she arrived proudly holding a crayon drawing she had made at the cheap foster house.

She had aggressively drawn a massive building that was recognizably extremely tall with a glowing chandelier visibly shining through the top window. There were two stick figures standing proudly out front. One was extremely large and one was incredibly small.

“The extremely large one has a specific scar right on its face,” she explained proudly pointing her tiny finger at the jagged zigzag line. “That is exactly you.”

“I successfully gathered that,” I smiled.

“And that is exactly me,” she proudly pointed at the small figure. Gerald Two was tucked perfectly under the small stick arm. “I specifically made your drawn eyes bright green because I was not completely sure exactly what color they actually were.”

“They are technically gray,” I corrected her gently.

She looked closely at my face checking my eye color. “Kind of,” she said highly diplomatically.

I kept the beautiful drawing. I absolutely did not make a massive emotional point of it in front of her. I simply set it proudly on the kitchen island exactly where she could see it when she was not actively looking. Sarah happily found it later that evening and said absolutely nothing. Which meant she happily filed it away in the mental category of beautiful things that confirmed exactly what she already knew.

A massive legal issue aggressively arrived in week eight.

A dangerous rival named Viktor aggressively decided that my sensitive foster situation was the exact kind of massive leverage that might be highly useful to exploit. Viktor ran a mid level legacy crime operation. He was someone I had violently edged out of a massive lucrative waterfront union contract three years prior.

He aggressively made dark contact through shady intermediaries. The violent message was incredibly simple. Back entirely out of the massive multi million dollar port deal or he would maliciously make absolutely sure the right state people looked incredibly carefully at the right dark criminal files concerning my past.

I listened to the entire threatening message exactly twice on the burner phone.

I called Liam. I called Marcus. I aggressively made three other highly encrypted calls that I strictly made from my secure private office with the heavy door locked completely closed.

Then I sat in the quiet dark for a very long time at the marble kitchen island. I held a hot cup of black coffee and stared at the crayon drawing of the tall building and the two stick figures.

I absolutely did not touch the massive port deal at all.

I had Marcus aggressively deliver a very specific message directly to Viktor. It was absolutely not a violent threat technically because I had aggressively stopped making idle threats fifteen years ago when I realized that people who needed to threaten simply had not finished preparing to strike.

It was significantly more of a brutal financial accounting. I laid out exactly what Viktor aggressively stood to lose item by bleeding item. I did it with the particular cold patience of someone who had done this violently long enough to absolutely know the brutal math always mattered significantly more than the angry emotion.

Viktor completely withdrew the aggressive threat immediately. It took exactly four tense days and it cost me one massive political favor I had been carefully holding onto for something else entirely.

I did not tell Sarah about the severe incident. I did not tell Marcus exactly why I had made the massive financial choice I had because Marcus already fully knew. And I absolutely did not tell Mia because she was exactly six years old. Because some terrible things you fiercely protect innocent people from. Especially tiny innocent people who had already had entirely too much of the ugly world thrown aggressively at them before they were nearly old enough to carry it.

I just showed up happily the very following Tuesday.

Mia noticed immediately that I looked incredibly tired. She did not say so directly.

“You should really drink much more water Donovan,” Mia said pouring me a glass. “My school teacher says that is exactly why adults look extremely weird sometimes.”

“I will take that sound advice under advisement,” I smiled taking the cold glass.

She climbed eagerly up onto the tall kitchen stool and happily watched Carlos expertly make me a fresh coffee. She had recently proudly appointed herself the official supervisor of this exact daily process. As far as I could tell it was based on pure intense interest rather than any actual culinary expertise.

“Did something very bad happen to you today?” she asked softly looking at my face.

“Something bad got completely handled,” I answered honestly.

She thought about this deeply. “Is it successfully handled all the absolute way?”

“Yes,” I confirmed firmly.

“Okay,” she said happily and went right back to aggressively watching Carlos expertly steam the hot milk.

It was such an incredibly complete trusting response that it stopped my heart for a massive second. Absolutely no frantic follow up questions. No aggressive pressing for ugly details. Just a simple okay and a peaceful return to exactly what they were doing.

I had violently met dangerous men with thirty years in serious organized crime who absolutely could not manage that incredible kind of pure trust.

I thought about exactly what Marcus had said that very first terrifying night.

“She said that made total sense because you looked like you were trying incredibly hard not to be scary.”

Carlos poured the hot coffee perfectly. She aggressively told him he was doing the foam art completely wrong.

The massive permanency court hearing was scheduled on a rainy Wednesday morning in a huge federal courthouse on the east side of the city.

I wore a very expensive dark suit that Sarah had meticulously selected. I wore a perfect silk tie that Marcus had expertly knotted for me without even being asked.

Liam had spent eleven aggressive days preparing intensely for this moment. He had the exhausted look of a brilliant man who had aggressively done absolutely everything legally possible and was now quietly managing his massive expectations.

Mia was absolutely not there. Children her exact young age were generally kept entirely out of the formal legal proceedings. I had been both incredibly relieved about that and completely wrong about that. Mia had very strong opinions about important things being done completely on her behalf without her active physical presence. She had aggressively made those opinions incredibly clear.

“I absolutely should be there Donovan,” she had argued fiercely the previous Thursday.

“It is a massive lot of boring legal talking Mia,” I explained gently.

“I can sit perfectly still,” she argued. “And I am incredibly quiet.”

“I know you are sweetie,” I smiled.

She had looked at me for a very long tense moment with those steady brown eyes. “Are you absolutely going to win?”

“I honestly do not know Mia,” I answered truthfully. Which was absolutely true. I had never ever told her things were perfectly certain when they absolutely were not.

She considered my brutal honesty carefully. “Okay,” she sighed finally. “Tell me exactly what they say.”

The federal judge was a stern older man named Judge Roberts. He carried the considered heavy manner of someone who had spent decades aggressively deciding things that brutally mattered. He asked very pointed questions. He reviewed massive stacks of legal documents.

He asked Liam exactly three incredibly hard questions that Liam answered perfectly. And he asked me exactly two brutal questions directly. I answered them with absolute brutal honesty. It was the only strategy that had ever truly worked for me long term.

The second aggressive question the judge asked was incredibly direct. “What exactly is it you are actually offering this tiny child Mr Ree?”

“Absolute stability,” I said firmly looking directly into his eyes. “Fierce consistency. And someone who absolutely shows up every single day.”

Judge Roberts looked at me for a very long silent moment. “That is an incredibly simple answer Mr Ree.”

“It is the only true one Your Honor,” I replied softly.

The final ruling took exactly forty five agonizing minutes. Liam gripped my broad shoulder exactly once briefly in the quiet hallway afterward.

Marcus who had waited nervously outside the courtroom because he strongly thought the imposing presence of a massive man with a neck tattoo might negatively impact the optics was leaning anxiously against the armored SUV when I came out.

He looked closely at my face and nodded once in pure relief.

We drove incredibly fast to the cheap foster house in Oakwood. I had the massive stack of signed legal paperwork clutched tightly in my hand.

The state caseworker met us happily at the door. There was a tedious process. The final small boring formalities. The endless signatures and legal acknowledgements. And through all of it I stood completely quietly and waited patiently.

Mia suddenly appeared in the narrow hallway with her tiny bag. It was a bright green backpack stuffed incredibly full. Gerald Two was held tightly in the crook of her small arm.

She looked nervously at the smiling caseworker. Then she looked directly at me.

“Did you win?” she asked softly.

“Yes,” I smiled broadly fighting back massive tears.

She nodded happily. It was exactly like this had been a totally reasonable expectation she was deeply satisfied to have successfully confirmed.

She walked quickly to the front door. She stopped and turned back exactly once to look at the cheap foster house. It was absolutely not with sentiment exactly. It was significantly more the intense look of someone successfully completing a full accounting of a dark chapter before aggressively turning the page forever.

Then she walked out completely into the sunlight.

In the armored SUV halfway back to the bustling city she spoke softly from her fancy booster seat.

“Can I please call Carlos and explicitly tell him I desperately want the grilled cheese tonight?”

“Yes,” I smiled.

“And can Gerald Two please have his very own small plate?”

I looked at her happily in the rearview mirror. She was looking peacefully out the tinted window at the busy highway. She was perfectly calm. The stuffed elephant was sitting upright securely beside her exactly like a real passenger.

“Yes,” I promised her.

She smiled massively. It was absolutely not the careful practiced fake expression I had tragically seen in the very first terrified weeks. It was a completely real one. It was incredibly quick and a little perfectly crooked. It was the exact kind of beautiful smile that happily happens before someone has terrible time to aggressively decide whether to safely let it out.

I looked happily back at the road.

Sarah had thoughtfully left the glowing moon lamp turned on brightly in the yellow room. It was the very first wonderful thing Mia happily saw when we confidently walked into the massive penthouse. It was incredibly warm and perfectly round shining brightly through the open wooden door.

She walked straight happily to it. She carefully set Gerald Two directly on the wooden desk. She looked happily back at me standing in the open doorway.

“Okay,” she said perfectly and walked further in like she had absolutely always lived there.

I stood frozen in the hallway for a very long beautiful moment.

Through the massive window at the exact end of the long hall the sprawling city was slowly going dark and incredibly bright. In that particular beautiful way it perfectly did at the exact end of every busy day. All the massive glass windows were successfully catching the very last of the golden sunlight.

Somewhere directly below me Carlos was already excitedly cooking in the massive kitchen. Marcus had successfully parked the heavy car and was coming happily up the elevator.

Sarah would aggressively call first thing in the morning to make absolutely sure everything had gone perfectly smoothly. I would happily tell her it had. And she would say absolutely nothing because she had already confidently known it completely would.

A real family someone wise had once beautifully told me wasn’t just a simple thing you magically found. It was an incredibly hard thing you aggressively kept actively choosing.

One wonderful Tuesday at a time. One perfect grilled cheese sandwich at a time. One beautiful crayon drawing proudly left sitting on a marble kitchen counter.

I heard Mia in the bright yellow room happily talking to Gerald Two. She was excitedly telling the stuffed elephant exactly what amazing fun things they were going to absolutely do tomorrow.

I smiled a massive real smile. I went to happily call Carlos to make absolutely sure he aggressively prepared the second tiny plate.