I swear Imogen spent all of Friday afternoon running around like a headless chicken. She was determined to make sure there wasn't a dirty spot in the house and dinner was ready at six, when Charlie and his family were due to arrive.
"Nick, can you clean the rug from the hallway? I forgot to do it earlier." Se called from the bathroom and I rolled my eyes, putting down the dust brush I'd been using to clean the top of the bookcase in the study.
"Got it." I called back.
"Papa, where's Buggy?" Abby appeared as I rolled up the rug carefully to take it outside.
"Mummy probably put him in your room. Why don't you go and check?" She nodded and scurried off.
"Nick, they're going to be here soon. What are you doing?" Imogen appeared in the hallway just then, a towel wrapped around her and a confused look on her face.
"Cleaning the rug?"
"Why?"
"You just asked me to."
"No I-oh, yeah. Okay, keep going." She hurried off again and I shook my head. Maybe this whole evening was going to be too much.
"Papa, he's not there. Can you help me find him?" Abby appeared again, still looking for her stuffed toy ladybug.
"Not right now, sweetie. Can you go and get dressed into the dress I put on your bed? I'll come and zip it up in a second."
"Okay."
Ten minutes later, I was in Abby's room with her, zipping up the back of her dress and brushing her golden hair so it was smooth.
"You want a princess hairband?"
"Yes please." I reached for the shiny silver headband that sat on her dresser with one hand while I used my other hand to pull her hair away from her face. It didn't take me long to situate the headband properly, having learned several quick and easy ways to do Abby's hair from my mum when we adopted Abby. I was just finishing when the doorbell rang. I jumped up and headed for the door, realising I wasn't dressed myself yet.
"Imogen, can you get that? I'm just getting dressed." I called as I darted into our room. She yelled something from the kitchen that I assumed was affirmation and quickly changed out of the sweatpants I'd been wearing since I got home from work. I heard the door open and the sound of voices echoed down the hallway.
"Abby? What're you doing?" Imogen's panicked voice reached my ears after a moment and I hurriedly pulled on my shirt before rushing out to the front door where Abby was happily chatting to Charlie at the front door.
"Oh." I sighed in relief that it was only Charlie but my heart was still beating fast. Imogen and I always told Abby to never open the door without us so it scared us when she did. "Hi Charlie."
"Hey." Charlie smiled as I pulled the door all the way open with one hand, using my other arm to lift Abby up onto my hip.
"Good to see you made it. And you've met my little monster, here."
"Oh, she's not a monster." Charlie laughed, coming inside and shrugging off his jacket. "She was just telling us about her princess hairband."
"Right. Well, this is Abby. And this is Imogen." Beside me, Imogen reached over to shake his hand, a little more warmly than when they first met.
"Hi Charlie, it's nice to finally meet you after only hearing stories for so long."
"Nice to meet you too, Imogen. Um this is my husband; Ben." Ben stepped forward to shake my hand and I vaguely recognised him from the night I met Charlie. "And here's Nathaniel and Alexis." He gestured to the two kids standing behind him. I immediately recognised Nathaniel and my eyes were drawn to where a bandage was just peeking out under his jacket sleeve. Charlie hadn't mentioned anything but from the way the boy kept tugging at his sleeve, I figured it was probably to do with why Charlie was away for a few days.
