A Wall Between

Chapter 55

It was the morning of the Christmas party, and Sasha and Abra were in the kitchen, busily preparing treats to bring with them. Cooper had puttered around and tried to help for a while, but mostly he'd just gotten in the way. Eventually Abra started redirecting his energy towards small errands, like fetching herbs from the garden or picking up some mangos someone down the street had ended up with more than they needed.

When it was time to go and they all piled into the car, Cooper noticed that Mason wasn't nearly as anxious as he was. Just unenthusiastically resigned. He had already given up hope of this being anything but awful, so the worries couldn't get to him in the same way they did Cooper.

Maybe that was how Cooper should be, too. He had so many good people in his life. Maybe it was a mistake to invest any part of his heart in someone who had burnt him so many times in the past.

Or maybe he and Mason were just different people with different approaches to things, and maybe that was fine. Maybe that was what the world needed. Maybe that was what their family needed. A little bit of hope and someone who was quick to put their foot down when it didn't pay off.

Logan might have been the biggest optimist of them all, or maybe his relationship with their mom was just on a different wavelength. There was a time when Cooper found himself envying Logan for that connection, but now envy just didn't feel like it made sense. It had only ever brought them pain and torn them apart.

They made their way down a quiet street, each house uniquely its own and surrounded by nature. One of them had goats in its yard. The GPS announced their arrival, and they pulled up in front of a charming wooden house with a second story deck that seemed to wrap around the entire thing. Abra dismissed Cooper's attempts to help unload, so he took Sasha by the hand and led him toward the house.

Logan's welcoming wave from the deck guided them through a lush pathway and up the stairs to where the holiday spirit was in full swing, the deck sparkling with tinsel and fairy lights. The only decorations Cooper's household had invested in were a rather sad looking tree and some tinsel they'd wrapped around the mailbox, but Abra had been in festive baking mode for weeks, so it about evened out.

Cooper witnessed a moment of hesitation from Logan where he clearly wanted to greet Sasha but was worried about coming at it with the wrong energy, but Sasha immediately solved the dilemma for him by completely ignoring all of the adults and making a beeline for Abigail, who was sitting on a blanket on the deck.

Sasha sat down across from her at the edge of the blanket, and she immediately grasped her hand out towards a toy that was beyond her reach. When Sasha handed it to her, she gave him a big smile that included a lot of drooly tongue in a way only babies could pull off.

Bianca, who was sitting at a table on the deck, gave Cooper a smile and then waved Logan over to join her.

Cooper knelt and gave Abigail a kiss on her head as she pumped her arms in excitement, then he turned and did the same to Sasha. "I'm going to go help the others, okay? I'll be back in a sec."

Sasha nodded. He'd found a plush, jingly ball that he was having fun shaking around and Abigail immediately badly wanted it. He gave it to her, but the moment he picked up something else, her attention was on that instead.

Cooper headed back down to the car and found Ellie and Abra getting the last of the things together while Mason remained in the car, sprawled across the backseat with his phone held up above his face.

"What are you looking at?" Cooper asked as he peeked in at Mason.

"Trying to look up how long it takes an adult to die if they're shut in a hot car," Mason said as he tapped on his phone. "There aren't many sources for that data on adults because they just assume you'd get out, and the sources I can find aren't exactly anywhere you should trust. Though, maybe I should trust them more than the legitimate sites because those ones all have an agenda."