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lights are better.” Alya then began skipping around them.
                  Joseph snuggled in closer to Alec. “Don’t you miss watching TV?”
                  Alya quit skipping. “Maybe a little.”
                  The back door opened and Grant peeked out. “Everyone doing ok out here?” Alya and Joseph answered, Alec kept his attention elsewhere. “Don’t you all stay up too late.”
                  “We won’t dad. Hey dad, aren’t the sky lights prettier without the ground lights?” Alya asked.
                  Grant gave her the same confused look that Joseph had given her earlier. “Uh, yes they are honey.” Alya began skipping around them again. “Hey Alec, I’m thinking about heading into town tomorrow to see how things are there, you think you can come along?”
                  “Who will watch the kids?”
                  “I’ll watch us.” Alya suggested. Alec could feel Joseph shaking his head intensely at his side.
                  Grant smiled. “No, Jack is coming over to watch them.”
                  Alec didn’t like how nosey the old man was but he seemed trustworthy. “Yeah that’s fine.”
                  “Good, we’ll head out later in the afternoon.” They shared a couple beats of silence. “Alright you all get some sleep and I’ll talk to you in the morning.” With that said he went back inside.
                  Alya skipped around for a few more seconds then stopped suddenly. “Alec are you mad at daddy?”
    Joseph pulled himself out of Alec’s side and looked up at him. For a few seconds Alec didn’t know what to say. He tried to hide his anger at his father but he was certain the rest of the family was able to pick up on the coldness between the two of them.
    “Is it because daddy wasn’t there when mommy got sick?”
    Alec pushed those feelings down. “I…..I’m not mad at him.”
    “But you don’t talk to him a lot.” Joseph added.
    “I don’t have a lot to talk to dad about.”
    Alya sat down next to Alec and laid her head back on this lap. “Sometimes I’m mad that daddy wasn’t there when mommy was sick.” Alec looked down at her surprised; he had not been expecting her to say that. “Mommy said that daddy wasn’t around because he was sick too.”
    “What was daddy sick with?” Joseph asked?
    Alya just shrugged her shoulders.
    Once again Alec sat in silence. He didn’t believe his father was sick, that was an excuse. His father was weak. His father chose to bury his feelings in a bottle instead of dealing with them, so when his family needed him the most he could only hurt them.
    For a brief second he saw her again. Lying in bed, only a shell of her former self, trying to hide the moments of pain but failing miserably, and then she asked about him. Alec had been holding her hand, fighting desperately to keep it together, and she wanted to know where he was. She, of all people, should have already known that answer.
    “Alec do you know what daddy was sick with?” Joseph asked.
    Alec shook his head no. “I think that is something you should ask dad about.”
    Joseph shook his head in acknowledgement. “Do you think he’s all better?”
    Through the anger that filled every ounce of his being Alec also felt, though only for a moment, fear. It took him a second to realize where this fear was coming from. Once his father fell off again it would be all up to Alec, and the world was a much more dangerous place now. Both Alya and Joseph were watching him closely waiting for an answer. Alec pointed up at the dark starry sky. “Do you all know where the Big Dipper is?” They all answered no and Alec began to point it out and explain. He had taken care of them before, he was even stronger now, and he wouldn’t fail them.
                 
     

Alec
                 
    They rumbled along the