Settling Down

1

July 20, 1990

Lindsey peered into the back seat and he sighed. His older child, Emily, was twelve born on February 19, 1978. She looked like her mother with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She had her walkman plugged into her ears and she was playing on a Sega gaming council. The youngest one, Stella was eight almost nine, born on August 10, 1981. She was sleeping peacefully with her head against the window. Her brown curls mused up from sleep and her brown eyes hidden by her eyelashes fluttering lightly against her cheek.

Lindsey sighed and looked over to his left. She should've been there with him. Carol Ann, his wife however had died. She had a heart problem and at the young age of thirty-one just a few months ago, on February 20th, the day after her daughter's twelfth birthday. She had a heart attack and they couldn't save her. She was ten years younger than Lindsey having gotten pregnant with Emily when she was 19. They met because he was working campus security and he broke up a college party at San Jose State. She wasn't under the influence at all. She was just simply crying. She didn't want to be at the party but it was her roommate who was throwing it so when Lindsey got there she was crying on the front steps. He comforted her and hung around with her until the party cleared out and he gave her his number incase anything were to happen he'd come to her rescue. Because he was that cop...the good cop...he'd shot people, of course he had, but it was only if he absolutely HAD too. They hung out for a while and then the next thing they knew she was pregnant.

After she died, in early March, literally right after his mother-Ruth died on January 31st, and Carol Succumbed on February 20th-he put in for a transfer. He was apart of the San Francisco Police Department, but he just didn't like being there without her. He wanted a change so he put in for a transfer and now he was due to start in Santa Monica at the Santa Monica Police Department.

He looked back at the girls and then he took his exit. He didn't know how to raise his daughters. He loved them to death but they were girls and he certainly was not. He was not looking forward to the teenage years, he knew for a fact that Emily hadn't had her period yet and he certainly didn't know how to explain that one.

He drove for another hour before he pulled into their house. It was small, a lot smaller than the house he was living with Carol in San Francisco in. The new house had blue siding and white windows and doors. The front doors were double doors and it opened up into the living room. He had spent a great deal of time getting everything moved and settled while the girls stayed with his brother and sister in-law. The living room was painted white and he had a blue L Shaped couch in there. There was a wooden coffee table and one single blue arm chair. A TV on the wall in the dead center of the couch. If you turned left you got to the spiral staircase leading downstairs, if you went straight you headed into the kitchen. The cupboards were a light brown color and the cabinets were a black quartz counter top. He had a peninsula with three black barstools on it and there was a door leading to the back yard. It wasn't a horribly huge back yard but it was a back yard and it had a pool so Lindsey thought it was a bonus. He also had a small little dining area for a brown circle table with four chairs. If you walked further down the hall you got to the main floor bathroom. It was small with a tub shower combination a toilet and a sink but it got the job done. Across from the bathroom was the room he had put together for Emily.

The girls weren't too thrilled about the move, and still aren't too thrilled about it-Emily mostly-but he had taken them shopping for their rooms and Emily chose a light purple wall color. She had a white bed set and her twin bed was adorned with a light purple with pink flowers on it bedspread. Downstairs was the master and the second bedroom. The smaller room was going to Stella and she had picked out a lemon color for the walls, a brown bedroom set and her twin bed was completed by a navy blue bedspread with yellow daisies on it. Stella had her own bathroom and Lindsey knew for a fact he'd never hear the end of it, but he just felt safer having Emily in the upstairs bedroom instead of Stella. His master was pure white almost identical to his master in his other house. His master bathroom had a soaker tub and shower combination and a walk out to the backyard.

It wasn't much but it was theirs and it fit their needs. Once her parked the car, he turned around in his seat. He smiled at his girls, Emily had fallen asleep listening to her walkman that last hour of the drive. He placed his hand on Emily's knee and she jerked before looking at him.

"We're here." He tells her.

She just rolls her eyes and she climbed out of the car. She wasn't happy about the situation because she simply didn't want to move out of San Francisco. She had way more friends than Stella did and she was involved in Dance and Girl Scouts and she had to give it all up to follow her father out to Santa Monica. As soon as school started though he would be looking into dance schools for her. She was okay with the Girl Scout thing she didn't really like her troop much anyway, and the only perk to the whole thing was the cookies. But she had come so far in Ballet, Tap, and Lyrical. She was supposed to be starting pointe that fall.