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Roan

Who knew a four-year-old could be such a terrorist?

Guilt envelops ht My niece Linnie runs up thesuit dotted with little yellow bananas, looking like a ghost When I told her I didn’t have time to take her to the pool for a swis and flour

“Linnie” I keep ers and acquisitions and killer negotiations, nothing has co me to step in and raise my niece “Please”

She stops on the top step as I look up, fisting her hands on her little hips Her youth and is The dark alls are lined with ornate gold-leaf fras that rival any museum collection This enerations Thirteen bedrooms and fourteen bathroouest quarters on the three-hundred-and-twenty-acre property

My great, great grandfather was Scottish and fought for the British arrandmother lived in Spain and that’s where they ift to her after he made his fortune

He started as a mill hand in a local luest lu up his own son, then my father, to exponentially expand the farandparents left their estate to me and my sister, but I had my life in New York and ed and here I am, back in the family monstrosity of a hoedy and a rebellious four-year-old

Linnie sits down on the top step and begins to rab my temples and squeeze

“Sweetheart, you know I don’t know sign language”

It doesn’t help that at four years old, she’s already reading at the level of a high-school student and her IQ has tested off the charts In the last teeks, she’s been watching YouTube videos of sign language and is now using it when it suits her

And frustrates me

Her hands ht as she continues signing Her usually silky waves of brunette hair are caked with the egg and flour and the thought of having to get her into a bath right now has

“Uncle Roan will be right back,” I say, taking a long breath and forcing a s you, just sit there for a minute” I hate the desperation inworks, then so be it because I’m the one that needs a time out