adopted by sandra bullock (and her gf cate blanchett)

chapter 23

by the time sandy and the twins returned to sandy's home, it was around 4pm.

they threw out their empty ice cream cups and unloaded the many, many shopping bags from the trunk of sandy's car.

dylan and dani immediately took their various bags upstairs to unpack, both glad to add some individuality to their rooms.

sandy called cate and confirmed that she would be coming over for dinner at 5pm.

the twins both changed once they knew cate would be coming for dinner, dani put on a loose white button down long sleeve shirt and some black jean shorts, and dylan wore white linen pants with a black vans tshirt.

sandy chose a white sundress with buttons going all down the front, meaning the whole family matched.

dylan was flipping through sandy's record collection in the kitchen as dani helped sandy make the salad for dinner.

he decided on a grateful dead album, the music filling the air softly as the lowering sun shone through the glass doors into the kitchen.

"do you think maybe we could eat outside?" dani asked sandy, the sun reflecting off of the patio furniture catching the young girls attention.

"absolutely sweetie, i think that's a lovely idea. dylan, do you think you could set the table?"

"sure m-sandy."

everyone in the kitchen stopped what they were doing as dylan gave sandy an absolutely mortified look.

he had almost called her mom.

it had rolled off of his tongue as easily as if he had been doing it all his life.

i mean he kind of had, at least for the past couple of years since they had discovered who their mother was, dylan and dani would refer to her as "our mom", but never outright "mom", and never to her face.

dani looked even more mortified than dylan if that was at all possible.

while dylan had always been quick to accept change and wholeheartedly believed that sandy was their future and they were here to stay, dani couldn't quite shake the insecurity that if they slipped up sandy was going to send them back.

when carly sent them back to the orphanage, it had made a huge impact on dani and dylan's self esteem, even before meeting max.

this was a woman who had said that she loved them, who they had called mama, who they learned to rely on, all of a sudden cursing them out and screaming that they were the reason for her fiancé's death, and sending them away.

dani hadn't wanted to rely on sandy and now that she did, she didn't want to do anything to make sandy hate her.

dylan was worried, but not to the extent that dani was.

sandy had made it pretty clear that she wanted to be their mom, she told them that outright, so dylan wasn't overly concerned about messing things up.

he just hated embarrassing himself, which is what he did by almost calling her "mom" out of the blue.

sandy was blinking rapidly, trying to keep tears out of her eyes.

she wanted to hear that word more than anything, but wasn't going to pry until the kids were ready.

she didn't expect it to happen so soon, it caught her off guard.

she wanted some way to reassure dylan that it was all okay, that he could call her whatever he wanted, but he had already rushed out the back door to set up the patio table.