My Unexpected Family by Harlow James
Prologue
Silas
Age Sixteen
I rub my eyes as what sounds like a soft knock wakes me up in the middle of the night. With a glance at the clock on the microwave that is visible from the recliner where I’m sleeping in the living room, I can see it’s just after one in the morning. That’s weird. I’m pretty sure people aren’t supposed to come over when we’re all sleeping.
Another knock, this one louder than the last, has me sitting up in the chair, my heart racing now. Do I answer it? It’s late and dark outside and I know Nonna wouldn’t let me answer it if there’s a stranger on the other side, although I know I could protect her and my sisters if I needed to.
A light comes on in the hallway just before I see my grandmother trot down the tile floor, tying her robe around her waist as she walks. Her long, dark hair is pulled to one side of her neck and her glasses are perched on her nose.
“Go back to sleep, Silas,” she whispers, stepping over my sisters sleeping on the floor just beneath the recliner and between the two sofas in the living room on her way to the front door. We fell asleep out here while watching a movie last night and none of us bothered to move into the bedrooms.
We’ve been staying at Nonna’s house for the past two nights so our parents could go out of town on a trip for their anniversary. Nonna said it’s important for parents to be alone sometimes, even though mine seem to fight more than necessary. But I kinda miss them and can’t wait to sleep back in my bed when they get home. Still, staying at Nonna’s house is good, although it was more fun when Nonno was alive and we would go out in his shop, just us boys, and he would teach me how to build things with him, instilling the craft of woodworking in me. But he died two years ago and my dad is always too busy to do stuff with me, like Nonno did.
I hear my grandmother softly open the door and whisper. “Good evening, officer. How can I help you?”
“Are you Isabela De Luca?”
“Yes. Is something wrong?” The worry in her voice has my heart racing even faster.
“I’m so sorry to wake you in the middle of the night like this, but… there’s been an accident.”