Everlong - Let Me Call You Sweetheart Part 2

Next To You

Since moving into the basement of Mr Harrington's house, security had been pretty tight. It was only in the last week or so it had let up a little. They had to be careful to not freak out the Harrington kids. Luckily the two eldest were living elsewhere, leaving a little bit of space, but it was still quite a squeeze with eight kids to contend with ranging from the age of two to eighteen.

Sebastian, the youngest boy at seven years old, had sat next to you one night, with stacks of photo albums to explain everything to you, just as it seemed, someone had explained it all to him.

In 1995 Steve had met Meredith, who, when observing her photos, looked extremely familiar. Her big brown eyes, long tendrils of almost jet black hair. Ripped super baggy jeans, t-shirt and long cardigan, the sleeves pulled over her hands, as she posed outside of a concert. To be specific, she looked like a female Eddie, but older.

So it was no surprise at all that the hair and alternative style passed on to their two kids, the eldest of the Harrington brood, Charlotte (Cas) and Oliver (Olly) both with those deep dark eyes both with voluminous curly hair. Cas's cropped short to her neck. Olly's trailing down to his lower back.

Next a wedding picture but not with Meredith, this was Cassandra. She had a sleek chic french Bob of naturally light blonde hair, her gown of pure white satin, no embellishments and her bouquet a simple wreath of green leaves. Their kids were the eldest that remained in the house, Ava, 18, James, 17 and Evelyn 14.

Mr Harrington had always wanted 6 children, but had seemingly tired of trying to find his perfect partner. So he elected to go through quite a process to find the perfect surrogate. He waited patiently for his next beautiful babe, except for when the scan showed them, there were actually three of them all snuggled up together in there. The identical triplets were 11 now, Philomena, Lucy and Jo.

Then there was Sebastian, who advised that though he did have a mommy once, he didn't anymore, and that's why Mr Harrington became his Dad.

And last but not least, two year old Edina, who according to Sebastian, just turned up one day. She was so small, a newborn. She had screamed the roof off for a few days, and seeing his Dad was so tired, Sebastian wanted to help.

He read about babies and sounds, music and different types of noise too. So he'd sat beside her crib one weekend and played her all different genres. The only combination that worked for the baby was a mixture of Metal and white noise. When Sebastian had shown his Dad his discovery, he was so pleased he "picked me up and squeezed and I thought I might die".

Mr Harrington had knelt down to Sebastian and told him, "That's your little sister in there, she's gonna look up to you. So just like today, even though she's gonna be annoying sometimes, you gotta be kind, ok? We all look out for one another here, don't we?"

Sebastian had nodded "It's the Harrington House number one rule."

And then Steve had asked if Sebastian had any idea for a name for the baby, as they both got up to gaze down into the crib at the sweet little baby, finally sleeping soundly.

Sebastian looked down at the playlist he'd crafted, "Adema?"

"Yeah, Edina. That's a good name." Mr Harrington had misheard, but the name stuck.

Whilst flipping through the photos one thing was abundantly clear: Mr Harrington loved his kids. His face when he was in pictures with any of his children, whether that was individually, birthday parties, Christmas card photos or family portraits he always had the biggest genuine smile.

The same could not be said for his love interests. Whilst he looked happy enough, it wasn't the same. After his marriage ended it was just person after person, a lot of whom Sebastian didn't know so he just moved past them. It was interesting though that Mr Harrington had kept pictures of each of them.