Free Four Times the Trouble by Tara Taylor Quinn Page B

sought the gaze of his eldest daughter by nine minutes. “We’re a family, Allie, you and Meggie and Jessie and me, and nothing’s going to change that. You guys are stuck with me until you’re all grown-up and so sick of me you’ll be begging for your own apartments.”
    Jacob felt an extrahard squeeze around his middle. “I’m going to live with you forever, Daddy,” Jessie said.
    “You can’t, Jessie,” Meggie said. “Not when you get married and have babies.”
    “Then I won’t get married.”
    “Don’t you ever want to be a mommy, Jess?” Allie asked.
    “Not if I have to leave Daddy.”
    “That’s dumb.” Meggie scooted off the bed and sat on the floor by the bookcase.
    “It’s not dumb, is it, Daddy?” Jessie asked, climbing onto his lap.
    “It is kinda dumb, Jess,” Allie answered for him, playing with the fringe of his cutoff denim shorts.
    “Is not,” Jessie said, burrowing her head into his chest.
    “Is too,” Meggie said. She was leafing through Green Eggs and Ham.
    “Is n—”
    “Okay, girls. We’re kind of getting off the subject here. But for the record, whether Jessie’s feelings withstand the test of time or not, they aren’t dumb—not if Jessie’s feeling them. Now, back to Cinderella. What’s the problem? You don’t like acting anymore?”
    “I do,” Jessie said.
    “Me, too,” Meggie agreed, still thumbing through the book.
    “It’s the costumes, Daddy. Ms. Thomas—she’s the boss of the play—says they all have to be homemade and we don’t even have a sewing machine,” Allie said, frowning up at him.
    “And Cinderella has to have two costumes because of being a maid and going to the ball,” Jessie added.
    Jacob’s mind was spinning as he tried to find a way to reassure his daughters and find a solution to their problem at the same time. “So we’ll learn how to sew,” he said, knowing that was going to be a near impossibility. A sure impossibility considering the time he had to work with.
    “Even we know you can’t sew, Daddy,” Meghan informed him. She was no longer turning the pages of her book. Glancing down he read silently, Would you could you? He had a feeling Meggie hadn’t stopped there by coincidence.
    “So we’ll find someone who can,” he said, realizing he knew someone who both could and probably would. He remembered the homemade curtains at her windows, the throw pillows on her couch.
    “But we can’t just go take them to somebody, Daddy, ’cause we have to help,” Allie said.
    Jacob shifted Jessie more firmly onto his lap. “Then we’ll have to find someone to come here just like Nonnie does.”
    “We could ask Nonnie,” Jessie suggested.
    “Nonnie can’t sew, Jess,” Meggie said, clearly irritated with her sister’s naiveté. “Her fingers hurt her all the time and she has to look through those funny glasses just to read our papers.”
    “I’ll find someone, girls, I promise,” Jacob said before another argument flared up.
    “There’s more, Daddy,” Jessie said timidly.
    More? “Well, now’s the time to lay it on me.” Jacob injected an extra note of cheer into his voice. He wanted them to trust him with their troubles, which meant that one way or another he was going to have come through for them when they did.
    “Ms. Thomas said to tell you we need someone to help us change during the show,” Meggie said, closing her book with a snap.
    “Yeah, she said we couldn’t have another incibent like the one at the Christmas play where you came into the girls’ changing place. The other girls and mothers didn’t like it ’cause you’re a boy,” Jessie said.
    Jacob figured he’d been more embarrassed than anyone else present that night. “I’ll tell you what. When I ask someone to help with the costumes I’ll make sure she can be there on play night, too. How’s that sound?”
    Meggie’s smile transformed her usually serious face. “That sounds real good, Daddy.”
    “Yeah,” Jessie and Allie