Family Reads Novels & Stories

About how Alexander and I are brothers even though we have different fathers. About how Mom loves us both even though she almost lost both of us. About how Jeffrey is my dad even though he's not my biological father. Family isn't about blood. It's about who shows up. Who stays. Who loves you even when it's hard.And right now, my family is showing up. All of them even when everything is falling apart.

He thinks for a moment, swinging his legs with more intensity. “Friend family is like Declan and Evie. They care about us but have their own house.” Deliberate pause. “Real family lives together. Shares things. Stays when things get hard.” My heart tightens at the precision of that definition. A twelve-year-old child who spent years watching adults come and go has developed his own taxonomy of permanence. “Then real family,” I say. He absorbs that for a moment but doesn’t seem satisfied.

Ajax never knew my family, mainly because I was so fucked up that I never wanted to tell anyone what I had saw through my young innocent eyes, nor did I really want to talk about family life when I had just been placed in a care home. My mother, Nia, had three siblings, Parker, Pamela and Shay. Shay married when I was 10, into a big rich family and had two children with her husband, the last time I saw her was when I was 12, Parker had a wife, but decided to murder her one night after he caught her cheating on him with their next door neighbour, Andrea, no wonder why, she was beautiful, but still no excuse to cheat.

It didn't take more than a couple hours for the rest of the town to know what had happened to the Carrigan's family. It wasn't nothing new, but it seemed that rumours flew like trees in a storm. Richard had heard people mumbling about the disappearance of his daughter, about how it had been a terrible accident and how it was hard for them to look at their son.

What is family? What is trust?

"What do you mean, tesoro?" "Mamma seems sometimes sad and I seen you sleeping sometimes in the wrong room….And the other daddy keeps visiting." She looked up at him with those grey-blue eyes—Mikal's eyes. "Are we still a family?" Massimo pulled her into his lap. "Yes. Always. No matter what happens, we're a family." "Even with the other daddy?" "Even then. Family isn't just people who live together, Isabella. It's people who love each other. Who are there for each other. Who choose each other every day."

"I just never realized it would cause such serious consequences for you!" Tears streamed down Chelsea's face as she continued, "Wyatt, I'm sorry. Won't you give me another chance? I've already gotten back at Patrick for you. "His family has been in a financial crisis these few years and only barely survived because of me. I pulled all the funds, so his family has gone bankrupt. They ended up much worse than I ever was. "Besides, Callie can't be without you either. She's been waking up crying in the middle of the night, asking for her dad. She's not doing well, and I couldn't take care of her properly, so my family sent her to boarding school—"

"And Mr. Kingsley. Is that okay?" "Of course it's okay. Anyone you consider family belongs on your poster." Colt picked up a red marker and began drawing. "Mommy, what does family mean?" Clara thought about it for a moment. "Family means the people who love you and take care of you. The people who are there for you no matter what. Sometimes family is the people you're born with. Sometimes it's the people you find along the way." "Like Auntie Imogen?" "Exactly like Auntie Imogen. We weren't born into the same family, but we chose each other. And now she's your aunt in every way that matters."

Created a family that shouldn't exist but does. And now we get to live it. Raise our daughter. Build our future. Together. All of us. Forever. Unbreakable. Exactly as it was always meant to be.