Matthew sat on the floor by the fireplace, using his legs as a barrier to keep the baby on the play mat. Andrew was currently in love with the teddy bear that hung from the arches over his head, hands and feet taking turns reaching out to grasp the dangling toy.

Satisfied that the baby wasn’t going to turn over and scoot for freedom, he looked up toward the front door.

“Can you see her yet?”

Laura turned her head toward her shoulder and gave him a pointed look. “You know I can’t. If I did-”

“You’d be running outside without your coat and then we’d have to drag you both back inside. Right, Andy?”

The baby leaned his head back and looked at his father and drooled.

“See? Andy agrees!”

Laura’s laughter was still magical to his ears, and he drank it up every time. “He’s teething.”

“If he was agreeing with you,” Matthew pointed out, “you wouldn’t say that.”

The baby hiccuped a whine and they both turned to look at him.

Laura spoke first. “I’ll get his teething ring.”

He smiled at his wife as she looked at the kitchen and then the front door again, torn.

“I’ll get the ring. You should sit down. I’m sure we’ll hear the car doors and have plenty of time to get up-”

A wash of light came through the glass panels on the sides of the door.

“Maybe not.” Getting to his feet, Matthew bent down and managed to extract Andrew from the mat and made his way to the door just as Laura pulled it open.

Juliet rushed through the open door and wrapped her arms around her stepmother.

For a long moment, all she did was squeeze her and Laura squeezed right back.

Matthew tried to remain patient and calm, but it was Andrew who decided he’d had quiet enough of being left out of the hugging. Throwing his arms out wide he burst out in his two syllable call for his sister. “Ju-ee! Ju-ee hug!”

Laughing, Juliet disentangled herself from Laura and held out her hands for her baby brother. “Come here, big boy!”

Matthew had to shift his hold on the boy who merely dove toward his sister’s arms.

He smiled as he saw the back of Laura’s hair tangled behind her head from Juliet’s enthusiastic embrace. In the last five of six months Juliet has sprouted up, making several trips to the mall necessary. Every time her jeans and other pants came up a little ‘highwater’ they had to get a new longer style.

At sixteen, the top of Juliet’s head reached his chin. The height change made the handoff of the squirmy little boy easier. When he wrapped his arms around his sister’s neck, Matthew didn’t have crouch down anymore to keep his sturdy little body from crashing into his sister.

“Hey there, big guy!” Juliet placed a kiss on his rounded cheek ignoring the slobber he then dragged across her cheek as he placed a smacking kiss on her lips.

“Ju-ee!”

“And Juliet has something to tell us, doesn’t she?”

The two women in his life turned to stare at Matthew. Juliet grinning from ear to ear and Laura staring at him with widened eyes and parted lips. “You told me not to press for information.”

“Well,” he hedged, “I thought she’d come through the door and blurt it out.”

“Oh,” Laura shook her head, “so it’s okay if you ask, but I can’t.”

Juliet used Andrew’s hand and wagged it at their father. “Give yo and apologize, Dad. You’re not going to win this anymore than you win the rest.”

Laura waved it off. “Forget an apology, what did they say?”

Juliet cuddled Andrew close, pressing kisses on his cheek before she blew a raspberry on his neck. As his laughter began to fade she looked up over his shoulder at her parents.

“I’ve been offered a place at the Joffrey Summer Intensive training.”

She paused and waited.

It took a long moment for anything to happen.

But when it did, everyone was hugging and Andrew was happily slobbering on everyone.

Matthew was the first one to draw a normal breath. “We need to celebrate! Dinner’s on me.” He looked at his daughter with unabashed pride. “Anywhere you want to go tonight. Anywhere.”

She gave it a moment of thought. “What about Le Meridian? It was mom’s favorite place for celebrating.”

Matthew saw Laura step closer to Juliet and wrap an arm around her shoulders.

“That’s sounds like a great idea. It’ll be like she’s there with us.”

Matthew saw Juliet blink back a tear and he set a hand on her shoulder. “Something wrong, sweetheart?”

Andrew leaned his head against her cheek and rubbed back and forth, wiping at her tears with his now mussed hair.

Juliet burst out laughing and used a hand to try and tame his hair. “Nothing is wrong, Dad. And that’s the amazing thing, isn’t it? I have you and we always have mom’s memory with us. And we have Andy and Mom,” she gave Laura a smile.

“I can’t help feeling that I have the best family in the world and I know that even if they hadn’t offered me a place in the summer program that both of you would still be proud of me.”

“Ju-ee!” Andrew swung his arms wide. “Ju-ee happy!”

“Yes!” She laughed at her little brother and gathered him closer to put a smacking kiss on his cheek. “Muah! I’m very happy.”

Later that night, when Andrew had finally gone to sleep, Laura went to Juliet’s room and softly knocked on the frame of the door even though the door was still partially open. “You still up?”

“Yeah,” she heard the soft laughter from inside the room, “I’m up. Come on in.”

Pushing open the door she saw Juliet sitting on her bed, her legs folded under her as she wrote in her journal. “You sure? You look busy.”

“Actually,” she looked down at her journal and signed her name at the bottom of the page, “I’m done.”

Juliet closed the book and set it aside before she moved forward on the bed until her legs dangled off the side. She gave the empty space beside her a gentle pat. “Sit down.”

Laura grinned down at the young woman who was a daughter to her in every way except biologically. When she sat beside her, she reached up and brushed Juliet’s hair back over her shoulder.

Juliet’s eyes closed on a sigh. “Do that again.”

Smiling, Laura lifted her hands and using her fingers, she combed through Juliet’s long, dark hair.

“You’re growing up so fast.” She tried to hide the sudden lump in her throat. “And you’re going to be the most amazing young woman and before we know it, you’ll be off to lead your own life.”

Juliet leaned her shoulder against hers and gave her a big cheesy grin. “You sound like I’m leaving tomorrow or something.”

Tears gathered on her lashes. “It feels like it.”

“Hey,” Juliet turned and wrapped her arms around Laura, hugging her tight. “You’ll be ready to kick me out when the time comes.”

Laura returned the gesture, hugging her as tight as she could without crushing her. “That will never happen.”

“I’m joking and you know it.” Juliet sat back and shook her head. “Wow, are you really so worried about this?”

“Worried? No.” And it was true. She wasn’t worried about Juliet going out into the world. She was smart and so talented, but more importantly she had a good heart. “Wherever you go, whatever you do, you’ll always have a home to come back to when you need us.”

Juliet’s smile softened and she reached out to take Laura’s hand in hers.

“When I lost my mom years ago, I felt like the whole world just stopped moving. Like I was trapped in place.” Juliet swallowed audibly. “It wasn’t a bad thing at first, being trapped. Staying in that place… that moment, I felt like my mom was still somewhere near me.

“Like if I turned really fast or looked up really quick then maybe I might see her standing there. With me.”

Laura drew in a shaking breath, but couldn’t seem to speak.

“And in my dance classes, I just stopped trying. I didn’t want to move on. Just in case everyone was wrong and my mom was going to come back one day. If I wasn’t doing the same things I was when she left, how was she going to find me?”

Laura squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, mourning the lost of Juliet’s mother over again with her.

“But one day, my teacher at the time, Mrs. Chappie, she asked me to stay behind so she could talk to me. We sat down on the rolls of flooring at the side of the room and she asked me why I didn’t try anymore. She wanted to know if I wanted to quit dance. And I didn’t.”

Juliet squeezed Laura’s hand a little tighter and when a tear rolled out into her cheek, Laura used her free hand to wipe it away with her thumb.

“She told me that I’d learned everything I could from her and the only way I could learn more… do more… was to move on to the next class.

“She said, ‘There’s a great adventure waiting for you. You just have to step through the door.”

“That’s true of so many things in life.”

Juliet nodded. “I went home and I crawled in bed and cried for what felt like forever. Dad was freaking out and wanted to take me to the hospital but I told him just to give me some time. He left the room but I saw how worried he was.

“So many people were worried about me, and I didn’t know what to do. But right before I fell asleep, I heard my mom whisper in my ear.

“You don’t have to worry about me, baby. I’ve got wings now… and I can find you anywhere you are. So go ahead,” she pressed a kiss on my cheek.”

Juliet raised her free hand and touched the area to the side of her eye, high on her cheekbone.

“Step through that door and don’t ever let anything stop you, ever again.”

Laura gathered Juliet in her arms and hugged her tight. “Your mother was a very very smart woman.”

Juliet’s chuckle of laughter was followed by a sniffle. “She married my dad. She had me.”

Laura placed a kiss on her head. “Absolutely.”

“And she did one more really smart thing.”

Juliet leaned back a little and looked up at Laura with her eyes shining through her tears. “She picked you as my first dance teacher.”