My Favourite Part

07: goldilocks

If the sun's out, my heart's happy – that's just how it's always been. Mum says it's because I'm a "sweet summer child", or something. Now that the sun's streaming through the tulle curtains, things just feel right. The girls are still asleep – Caz is dreaming by my side, and Babe's sprawled out above us on the top bunk. Eric, too. Is asleep, I mean. As of now, 08:32, my wakey wakey, handsome text has no response, but that doesn't stop clarity from surging through the large windows with the morning light. I'm so grateful.

The laughter from downstairs explodes, in little bursts, through the spaces in my floorboard. When I lie back and open Tik Tok, I have every intention of relishing every lazy moment I can until the girls wake up... but once Young Hearts Run Free starts to play, with a little eye roll, I have to stretch and manoeuvre and creep my way out of the room to join the early morning fun.

I start on the steps, and continue my way into the kitchen, with a questionable disco step to the music. August's sitting on the table with her hands swinging about in the air, Mum and Walt are two-stepping with the widest grins I've ever seen before 11am; she's doing that thing where she purses her lips when she's giving a dance her all, and Walt's hyping her up, and making her smile, like he always does. When August looks over at me, she starts to beam and wiggle a little as the chorus comes up and we belt it together – young hearts, run free, never be hung up, hung up like my man and me. We start a kind of synchronised hip bump, Mum and Walt start cheering, and if this isn't the picture-perfect Saturday morning, I don't know what is.

The music's coming from Walt's little stereo, and I'm grateful for him too. He's a happiness we can rely on. He'll always pick August up in the middle of the day when she feels a little off. And he's wise – he always has something poignant to say when I'm stressing. Always. As if he's seen it all already; as if his 40 years are enough to have seen and understood everything there is to see and understand. August and I call him Mr. Rogers, partly because it's his name, Walt Rogers, but mostly because of his smile, his heart. We laugh and mimic his buoyant outlook and accent when we come home from school to scone spreads and 70s music, but Walt Rogers fits right into the gap.

People say a family is a family, whether it's made of 4, or 5, or 2. But when our 3 became 4, it felt hard to see the three of us as anything but incomplete. Then along he came, strolling over the Atlantic from Long Island somewhere with arms wider than his smile. He's part of us now, and I love my Dad in a way that needs elaboration, but Walt, with his humility and his warmth and his scones is here now because he's meant to be. He makes Mum feel loved, even though their names don't really fit, and nobody deserves that more than her. I wouldn't trade Walt Rogers for the world. Not even the nicest parts.

I appreciate Walt so much that I won't throw a fit about him kissing Mum's neck right now while she stirs. I share a wide-eyed it's-time-to-go glance with August, but apart from that I'll let them off. It's sort of making me miss Eric. Is that weird? I grab an apple from the fruit bowl before I try to turn on my heels, but that seems to have grabbed their attention.

"Um, excuse me!" Mum starts.

"Young lady," he drops his hands from around her waist so that they're free to chastise me, "if you're gonna eat that apple I better see it sliced up as a topping for these pancakes." He nods down at the breakfast bar full of, indeed, pancakes and berries and syrup, and I'm actually getting hungry. I roll my eyes with a small smile, getting out my plate and Auggie's,

"Fine, fine. I'll have your bloody pancakes."

"Um, girls what do you say to Walt?" August and I sing thank you, Walt nasally and smile back at my mum. Her eyes are twinkling, and when they meet mine whilst her hand's intertwined with his, I know for certain that she's found what she was supposed to.