Chapter 53

Jake pushes my shoulder again, watching his son trying to feed himself sand with a shudder. “Lucah… No sand in the mouth, baby. Daddy knows it tastes like yuck, and it’s nasty.” He motions for his son to lower the shovel and the little angelic face does as he is told, lifting a pacifier from beside him and sticking that in his mouth instead. Jake smiles proudly. Smug with the parental control he has exerted over his child.

“You know he buried that thing minutes ago, right?” I point out as Jake frowns and grimaces.

“Don’t tell Emma I let our son eat sand again. She will string me up. It’s worse than the Play-Doh thing.” He turns his head to check on his eldest child and shoots to his feet when he realizes she is streaking naked across the garden, her little pile of pink sparkly clothes and shoes neatly piled under the monkey bars where she’d been seconds before. I burst out laughing as I watch Jake tackle her into mid-air and haul her back to retrieve her clothes.

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