Between the Lines✔ [COMPLETED]

Epilogue

   The dinner table is quiet as everyone eats. Kyle and I observe our younger kids, Emyth and Lay, as they try desperately to ignore whatever's bothering their sixteen year old sister.

"I give it five seconds," Kyle whispers to me.

"Cait is quiet. She won't talk in as easily as five seconds," I remind him.

"She will if she's extremely pissed. She has your spirit."

Cait forks a piece of meat and bites down into it before slamming the utensil unto her plate.

"Oh my God! I can't take it anymore!" she yells.

I clear my throat, turning to Kyle. "I suppose I was wrong."

We turn to our eldest daughter.

"Honey," I say, calmly. "What's wrong?"

"Moooooom," she whines, "You would not believe what happened today."

"Do tell us," Kyle says, sipping at his juice.

"So you know that guy who I always say gets on my nerves?"

Kyle drops his fork and clears his throat, turning to me and stifling a laugh. "You mean that guy named Fisher?"

"Yea, the rotten kid with the bad attitude," Cait says.

"What about him? Did he bother you today?" I ask.

Kyle starts poking my leg under the table, and I'm dying inside while I'm trying not to laugh.

"Why did they have to do this to me? You wanna know what my music teacher said? I have to be in a band with him! We have this project to do where we write a song and perform it, and since I don't play instruments but he does, I got paired with him. I don't want to do it. I'd rather fail."

"Uh uh, Cait Davidson, what did we tell you about that attitude towards your grades," I ask my daughter. "There's no way you're failing a project because of some boy."

"But if I really have to do this, mom, it means I'm going to have to spend an entire month working with him. I can't stand seeing him for a second! He's such an idiot!" She groans and stamps her feet under the table.

Kyle and I turn to each other. "An... entire... month...?"

We burst out laughing.

Cait, puzzled by our reaction, frowns intensely. "Why are you guys laughing at me? You have no idea how miserable this is making me feel? I can't deal with that guy at all!"

"Oh honey," I say, wiping a tear from my eye. "No, you're right. We totally do not understand."

The cycle continues –except this time, Kyle and I are more mature, more experienced and more capable, and we won't allow our children to go through the same things we did. 

Time is not the problem. People are not the problem. Circumstances are the problem. And if there's anything we've learnt in our time, it's that any problem, no matter how big or how small, can be fixed with a little love, support, understanding, and the knowledge that one can rely on someone to be their family.