← Chapter 4: First Steps in Millhaven | 📖 Series Index | Chapter 6: A Choice to be Made →
The kitchen smells like heaven wrapped in warm bread and honey. Mildred bustles around the large wooden table that Father had built specifically to accommodate our family’s mixed sizes. Tommy immediately launches himself from my shoulders toward his chair, which had been raised with extra cushions so he could reach the table properly.
My two stepsisters are already seated and eating. Lily, who is ten, looks up from her porridge with sleepy brown eyes that matched her mother’s. “Morning, Val,” she mumbles around a mouthful of food.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” scolds Rose, who at fourteen had appointed herself the family’s second mother. Her dark hair is already neatly braided, and she sits with the perfect posture Mildred had drilled into all her daughters. She glances at me with concern. “You look tired.”
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