Brother's Keeper

It was very quiet. 

I was busy, but I mentally snapped to when I realized that I couldn't hear my children.

I turned toward the window and called out.

"Josh??" 

"Yeah, Mom?"

His response elicited relief. But then...

"...Where's Leah?"

All the kids, strewn lazily about the trampoline's black top, shot up, backs straight, and began to call out to my lost little one. 

"LEAH!" Josh exclaimed.

 

"Leah, Leah, Leah..." echoed the girls.

There was no response, and Josh jumped from the trampoline's edge onto the grass, and rushed off in search of his little sister.

I waited by the window, just in case she wandered by without him seeing. 

Usually she turned up quickly, pushing the old, rusty, yellow dump truck with all her two-year-old might, tell-tale wheels squeaking as she went, but I heard nothing.

Panic began to threaten, when all of the sudden, a small, wispy-haired orphan wandered into the kitchen.

She held up a half-seeded dandelion for me to look at and chuckled deeply, which always struck me as odd. She then puffed up her cheeks and spat all over the thing in an attempt to send the seeds flying. Her efforts unproductive, she flung the weed away from her with a exclamation of repulsion, wiped her chubby hands on her shirt and then, little feet slapping, wandered back to where she'd come from.

"Josh, she's here!" I called out the window. 

Relief settled over us like warm summer sun, and the bodies on the black top melted back down in lazy satisfaction.

I went back to my work, happy knowing that when lost, my children would always go looking for each other, and that, though they might wander, they wouldn't go far.