Chapter 53

• Noah slammed the truck into park and hopped out of it. He hadn’t meant to be gone this long but had gotten lost in working. The familiar rhythm of the shop had been what he needed to settle down. He was halfway to the door when he saw the lights were on in the little house. He hadn’t even realized the power was hooked up for it.
• Going over, he opened the door and then blinked. The carpet was gone, and the place smelled of a lot of different cleaners. “Hello?” He waited. No one answered. Looking beside the door, he found the switch and turned it off. Had they run out of areas of the main house to clean? He didn’t think that would ever be possible, not with all the kids.
• He took one step inside and then stopped and looked down at his boots. He cringed, too many months in the bunkhouse. Bending down, he took them off and then looked for a space on the mats beside the door. So many shoes in many sizes were lined up on them. Seeing them all together reminded him how many were living here. Shifting a few pairs of small child-sized shoes, he set his on the matt and then looked down at them. It was an odd thing to see his boots sitting beside such small ones. It was something he’d never thought he’d experience again—living with children. These ones though, he was going to make sure they were allowed to be children and not timid shadows of children.