Page 5 of Kiss Across the Universe
“Warden. Yes.”
She nodded and went back to her computer.
Veris patted his shoulder. “They’re both already remotely studying at university. And neither of them are mine.”
“You don’t have to say it as though you resent it,” Taylor chided Veris. “Marit is brilliant in her own way.”
Kit had heard Marit’s name before. “Marit is here today, too?” he asked, for he was aware that there was tension between Marit and Veris.
Veris nodded.
“And this is Edgard,” Taylor said, waving toward a boy sitting on the floor on the other side of the room, wearing headphones. He was watching a TV monitor, which showed the hockey pre-game show. He wore an Oilers jersey, which was rare in this town, which mostly followed the Calgary Flames.
Next to him was a smaller girl, reading a large hardcover book that looked like it might be about gardening. She looked up at Veris, Taylor and Kit and smiled, then went back to her book.
“Edgard…that’s French, isn’t it?” Kit asked, for the boy was oblivious to their presence.
“Indeed. Edgard is as French as you can get, if you’re talking antecedents, but he’s grown up westernized,” Veris said. “His father despairs over it every few months or so. The girl next to him is his younger sister, Micheline. They’re both siblings ofAimée.”
Kit drew in a slow breath, sorting out the relationships.
“Don’t worry, no one expects you to remember all this,” Taylor told him. “There are fifteen children in the house, and eleven of them are under eighteen.”
“A big family…” Kit murmured. He could feel something relax in his middle. He had spent many hours in big houses holding multi-generational families, with kids running wild between adults who just smiled indulgently. But the last time had been years ago.
Taylor drew Kit forward toward the inner door of the room. Kit had never been beyond the doorway. “At the top of the stairs there’s another sitting room. The two younger ones, Jason and Adrijana, are up there, playing. They’re Aimée, Edgard and Micheline’s siblings, too. You can meet them later. Come through. Some of the adults are in here.”
Kit followed Taylor through the door into a large hall with stairs running up to the next floor. Beneath the stairs were several doors. One he suspected would be a half-bathroom. The others were probably closets of some kind.
Pegs on the walls on either side held a large collection of coats, hats and scarves, while boots all lined up neatly underneath the long benches beneath. The boots all sat on high lipped trays, which collected snow melt. Despite the length of the hall, the boots were all crowded in tightly. Kit could fully believe that there were thirty people in the house.
At the other end of the hall, a solid plank door with iron fittings said where the back entrance was. The runner between the benches showed darker spots where snow had been tramped in. It was a touch of the ordinary and reassuring.
“Here, let me take your coat,” Veris said.
Kit stripped off his coat and scarf and handed them to Veris, who hung them on a peg that held a small child’s coat already.
All around him, Kit could hear conversations and the movements of people. Murmurs drifted from upstairs, both childish and adult tones. More talk came from either side of the hall, through wide arches.
The cooking smells came from the left, and that was the direction Taylor moved in.
The arch led into a dining room that took up most of the width of the house. To the right, as he moved through the archway, Kit saw the kitchen—a big room with an island bench and copper pots overhead. But that was all the detail he could spot, for there were a number of people working busily at every counter and space, peeling and chopping or stirring. One of them was the red-headed Marit, whom Kit had met briefly, before.
Taylor moved into the dining room. Kit sized it up instantly. A long refectory style table had been pushed against one of the walls, and a cloth laid upon it. It was a huge table, but still not large enough to seat thirty people in one sitting. Clearly, it was to be a buffet style meal, for trays of cutlery and towers of plates had already been set up at one end, and a commercial-sized set of chafing dishes was beside them, already steaming gently, even though the serving dishes sitting inside the warmer were empty.
The rest of the room was filled with folding card tables covered in white tablecloths, and folding chairs. Normal dining chairs were distributed between them. Two of the tables had shortened legs and low chairs, clearly there for the smaller children.
A woman with dark curly hair was setting the short tables with stubby child-sized cutlery. She glanced up at them, then straightened and pressed her hands to her back.
“You should be taking it easy,” Taylor chided the woman, heading in her general direction.
The woman rolled her eyes and laughed. “The hoard finally fell asleep…all at the same time. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be useful.”
Taylor lifted her hand toward the woman. “Kit, this is Jesse, our daughter-in-law. Jesse, this is Kit McDonald.”
“The park warden,” Jesse said, holding out her hand. “Nice to finally meet you, Kit.”
Kit shook her hand, and felt the power in her grip. There was also something about the way she stood…. “Ex military?” he guessed.
