Chapter Text
“Thank you, sir. You have a good afternoon, now,” I handed the old man his change and watched him walk out with his little granddaughter. They were regulars here. The next customer shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
He was a tall, handsome boy, maybe around fourteen, but his clothes were torn and faded, and his blond hair looked like it could use a trim. “Could I try a little of the strawberry and a little of the fudge?” I handed him a generous spoonful of each. He quickly licked one, then the other, and for just a moment, his face lit up. Immediately, he forced it into a look of disgust. “Not really a fan, sorry. Maybe next time.”
Now, I knew he was fibbing. First of all, everyone likes Gran’s ChocoFudge Sundaes. That recipe and a crocheted blanket was all I got from Gran before she passed on when I was little, and man, it was worth more than all the money in the world. Second, he was hurrying out with both spoons in his hand, wary not to spill any ice cream on the floor. As I was scooping the next lady’s Low-Cal Summer Lemon Sorbet, I could see the boy giving the half-full ice cream tasting spoons to a little girl, who looked like his sister. She was small and probably didn’t weigh fifty pounds soaking wet, but they both had blond hair and a kinda glow, despite their raggedy state.
An older, black-clad girl was trying to calm the kid down before she dropped the ice cream. The way they were acting, it was like they’d never had ice cream before in their lives. But taking another look at the state of them, it might have been true. Their clothes were faded, old, and dirty, and they had so many holes and rips, those kids might’ve spent their days fighting monsters. They all had scrapes and bruises here and there, and the punk girl’s arm was in a makeshift sling. They probably hadn’t bathed in the last month. Yeah, I knew the type. Street kids. Probably didn’t have any kind of real parents, got their clothes from dumpsters and lost-and-founds when they could, ate what they found or were given.
Heck, I’d been one myself for a year or two, until my brother had gotten old enough to take care of me as best he could. I’d gotten lucky. He’d kept me out of trouble, I’d graduated high school, and eventually ended up owning my own ice cream shop. Maybe not such a lucrative career, but Candice’s Creamery sure caused more smiles than any lawyer’s firm in town.
As they started to walk off, the little one with the curly blond hair still licking the plastic spoons, I made a quick decision. I scooped three Vanilla Bean Delights before the next guy could order, and handed them to the man I’d just served. I pointed out the three kids just outside the big glass window, and luckily, the man understood. The guy walked out, carefully juggling the three ice creams and his own Blueberry Hurricane Shake, and delivered each kid a cone. The smaller girl looked like she might pee herself in excitement, and even the street-toughened punk managed a bit of a smile. Then, as they walked off, the boy casually slipped his free arm around the spiky-haired girl’s shoulders, and the little smile slowly grew until it had transformed her pale face.
It was clear, though, looking at them. The black-clothed girl had never had any real family, and she’d been on her own her whole life, until she’d found her own little family. Yet she took the good things life threw at her with grace, and just enjoyed the sunny day, the ice cream, her friends.
The other girl, the little one who couldn’t have been older than six or seven, was skipping ecstatically along with her ice cream, her curly hair bouncing as she hopped. But I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t run ahead like the other, chittery kids on the sidewalk. She never strayed more than an arm’s length from the older two, and kept looking back at them as if to make sure everything was really okay. She seemed innocent and cute, but there was a cautious, watchful light in her eyes. Wisdom like that don’t come easy to seven-year-olds.
The boy was the one that worried me the most. He smiled, and looked at his two friends with an almost fatherly eye, but there was resentment boiling away inside him. Sooner or later, he would have to deal with it or it would turn sour, just like it did for my cousins.
The punk teen had clearly raised herself since the day she was born. The angry young man used to have some kind of mom or dad, but he’d evidently been on his own for a while now. But most plain was that wherever the little girl had come from, those two were her parents now.