Ben watched as Anya danced. It was Wednesday, just four days after the funeral and Anya had thrown herself into dance, practicing every night for hours in her room. It amazed him that her room was completely clean and bare. Only the single bed shoved against a wall decorated the space. It made sense since she needed the room to dance but he didn’t know a teenage girl could be so neat.

She danced with such emotion that it stole Ben’s breath away. Her pain was clear for all to see in each movement she made. As much as he loved to watch her, Ben always came away feeling as if his soul had been ripped from his body leaving him emotionally drained.

Each day he told himself he wouldn’t watch but it was like a car wreck, he just couldn’t keep himself from looking. For an hour each day after school she went to the small dance studio. Fortunately, her dance instructor was a kind woman who let Anya have the solo studio, instead of forcing her to join the class. Anya was by far the best student there and could afford to miss a few classes while she worked on the anguish of losing her mother and the fear of losing her father.

Zoe wasn’t doing much better. Her preschool had been reporting that she was extremely withdrawn. When they went outside to play she would just sit down in the grass until they were called inside. Her teachers were becoming concerned as she refused to participate unless they specifically asked her to join in and even then, she only went through the motions.

Under silent protest he’d taken the girls to church last Sunday, the day after the funeral. Since being kicked out of the house because being gay went against the Bible, Ben had held a grudge against God. It had been the one point of contention between Ben and Stacy. He just couldn’t understand how she could believe in the God who had gotten him ostracized from his home town.

For years she had tried to talk to him about his hard line against God and any religious teachings, but Ben refused to talk about it. A part of him hated the fact that she continued to go to church after everything that had happened to him. Based on some of the stories he’d heard from others in the LGBTQ community, Ben knew he’d been lucky.  Just being kicked out of town was easy compared to the what had happened to so many. Those stories only reaffirmed his conviction that God doesn’t exist.

As he’d sat in the pew listening to Darius talk about All Hallows Eve, All Saint’s Day, and even Samhain, it didn’t make a lot of sense to him. He’d always thought a church practiced one type of religion, not many different ones. How Darius was able to keep up with all the differences was amazing and Ben found himself completely engrossed in Darius’ sermon.

At first Ben had tried to figure out how he’d ended up in church two days in a row. Only his love for his nieces got him there. Their need for some sort of normalcy after losing their mother, worrying about their father and having to witness their crazy grandmother’s rantings was enough for him to put aside his feelings and step foot inside a church once more.

Yet, as he sat there listening to Darius deep voice flowing out into the room, Ben wasn’t turned off by this church. In fact, to his horror he found himself enjoying it. Of course, that could be because it was Darius doing the talking. Ben would happily listen to that man read the phone book. Still it was a little disconcerting that he may need to rethink his objections to church. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was this niggling feeling that he may need to rethink his feelings about God and Ben just wasn’t ready to do that.

At the beginning of the service the girls were supposed to join their youth groups. They insisted in staying by his side, which Ben figured was normal.  After losing so much, it seemed natural they wouldn’t want to leave the one person still in their lives.

But it had been four days since Stacy’s funeral and other than school, they still refused to leave his side. Each morning he’d woken up to them curled in their sleeping bags on the floor next to his bed.

He had to admit he was concerned and wondered if he should ask Darius for a counselor in the area. Just the thought of Darius had Ben smiling. Even if he was a pastor, Darius had a way of making Ben go weak in the knees whenever he was around

Every afternoon just before Anya’s dance class, Darius showed up to take care of Zoe while Ben took Anya. Darius didn’t even bat an eye when Zoe refused to stay home, demanding to go with Ben and Anya. When they returned home later, Darius would have dinner ready. He also had brought in groceries, cleaned, done laundry and helped Anya with her history homework.  The man was a saint.

Tonight, they were all going to meet for dinner before going shopping for a Halloween costume for Zoe. Anya refused to do something as lame as trick or treating. Ben just hoped she didn’t put the idea down so much that Zoe refused to do it either. Ideally, it would have been nice if they’d another week before Halloween in order to give Zoe a little more time since her mom’s funeral, but that wasn’t in the cards.

Halloween was in two days whether they were ready or not and Ben was determined to bring some sort of fun back into the girls’ lives even if no one was ready for it.

As Ben continued to watch Anya dance, he knew, without a doubt, he needed to find a way to get out of the funk they were all in.  He just wished he knew how.

Turning to Zoe, who sat next to him by the door of the small studio, he decided to start with her.  She was young enough that it wasn’t as difficult to distract her.  “So, do you know what you want to be for Halloween this year Zoe?” he whispered so not to interrupt Anya.

Zoe shrugged.

“How about a princess? You have the blond hair, you could be that girl from Frozen,” he suggested.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “Elsa, Uncle Benji,” she informed him.

Pressing his lips together, trying not laugh at the exasperation in her voice. “Sorry, I forgot. How about you dress as Elsa?”

Her lips pursed together as she put her finger on her chin and tilted her head in thought. Ben’s breath caught at how much she looked like Stacy at that moment. Finally, she shook her head. “There are at least three girls in my preschool class that are going to be Elsa. I don’t wanna be like them.”

“Okay. So, what do you want to be?” At least she was engaging in the conversation. It had been like pulling teeth to get either girl to say more than monosyllables.

“Dunno.”

Great, now he was back to monosyllables. Sighing he took out his phone hoping an hour had magically passed. Fifteen minutes, yeah this was going to be a long night.

Not willing to give up, he started making silly suggestions. “Okay if you want something different, how about a cupcake?”

He laughed at the look she gave him at his crazy idea. “No? Then how about an armadillo?”

Zoe let out a loud sigh. “Uncle Benji, be serious.”

He gave her his best serious look. “I am. You said something unique.”

“What’s uninick?” She asked him.

“It means different,” he told her.

Her gaze fell back on Anya. She watched her sister with her legs crossed and her chin on her hand while her elbow rested on her knee. Zoe seemed to like to watch Anya most of the time. Maybe he should put Zoe in dance class. It might help her take her mind off everything going on.

“Do you want to be in dance, Zoe?” he asked his niece.

“No.”

More monosyllables.

“Is there something you would like to do? Maybe sports, gymnastics, music lessons?” All his suggestions seemed to fall on deaf ears.

When Anya’s hour was almost up, Zoe turned her beautiful blue eyes on him and asked, “Can I get a dog?”