“OK, so Upgrade Papa, I got a question for you – I mean, I have a question, but when you really have something, you've got it.”
Capt. R.E. Ludlow looked up from the new job offer he had gotten from the Veteran's Lodge with a smile at his little cousin and newest adoptee, ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow.
“Ask, daughter,” he said his huge, deep voice, and just hearing that from him caused her to run into his embrace.
“OK, so, most normal people in Lofton County used to be pretty scared of my biological grandfather, but Andrew was telling me you just laughed him clear off the piano when he called and threatened the Ludlow Bubbly. How?”
“Oh, that's easy; I'm not normal!” Capt. Ludlow said with a laugh. “I am 58 years old, and I have adopted my seven grandchildren and now you when most men are working toward trying to secure a retirement – in what universe is that normal?”
“Well, yeah,” Glendella said, and she went away with a kiss on her forehead and satisfied with the answer as Capt. Ludlow recalled both family history and his 33-year military career. Her biological grandfather, Astor Ludlow, had quite a normal spoiled rich man who forgot not to EVER bluff his cousin Robert … and had lost his bet in such a spectacular manner that his spiral into a mental facility had been documented by Uppity Foolery Watch!
But Glendella, coming from that house, did not need all those adult details. She needed to heal, and there were still incidents happening with Astor and “Big” Glendella Ludlow that she did not need to know about. She already knew too much of what had been going on at that house, and that is why she had run to her Cousin Robert.
“Now you are my daughter, Glendella,” he murmured as he saw her running and playing merrily with her fellow Ludlows. “I must protect your mind and your spirit. You don't need to know your biological grandfather's reaction to how my pulling off the sale of the Ludlow Bubbly. Not yet. Maybe never.”
