Once Sophia had talked to the doctor about the twins and her concerns about their growth, she felt much better. Her children were healthy, and according to the doctor, very normal. It allowed her to focus on setting up things in the house that would make it easier to navigate.
She and Greg also made friends with the neighbors. All Beta parents with Alpha children. It took Greg a while for him to get to a point where he could relax enough around the Alpha children.
Their parents couldn’t understand how Greg could be talking, but once a child entered the room, he would freeze in panic. It took Sophia to explain the incident with Izzy from a couple of years before. Their new friends were stunned that someone of Greg’s size could be physically manhandled by a 9 year old Alpha girl. But once they knew the story, they were more understanding of Greg’s reluctance to be more open.
In fact, because all the families in the development were in the same situation, Beta parents and Alpha children, they became their own close knit support group. They would experience everything together, and could rely on one another if a problem arose.
As Greg and the twins birthday was getting closer, two things were very obvious. The first was that Greg was becoming more outgoing by the day. Moving into the development, with neighbors that were dealing with the same issues raising their children as he was, he was finally starting to find peace, and come to terms with the injuries suffered at the hands of Izzy. He truly liked his new friends, even he wasn’t always talkative. But his mood improved tremendously.
The second was that the twins were really growing. They were almost 9, but both stood over 10’. Sophia couldn’t believe that just two months earlier they were around 8’. She was having to make clothes for her children, clothes that could be hemmed and let out to accommodate longer limbs, because whatever outfits she tried to buy at a store would be too small within weeks. But the money she saved on clothes went straight to food.
Greg was able to help out. He would be able to collect disability for the rest of his life, but he also started a small accounting firm. He was still great with financial issues, and found a way to help people with their taxes, investments, and retirement savings. His small 4 person firm had two Betas, men, and two Alphas, women. The two Alphas were the parents of Jacob and Tiffany’s friends from school. Greg interviewed both, and it took all the courage he could muster to conduct the sessions himself. But they were knowledgeable, and seemed down to earth.
So he converted his garage into an office, complete with two sized desks and phones and printers. Pens, paper, staplers, computers. Two sizes of every piece of equipment. He wanted the office to work as a team, and hoped that his employees' personalities would mesh.
Greg’s business took off. He never realized that people didn’t want to go to those large financial firms, the ones that treated people as commodities instead of people. Once Greg’s firm helped its first customer, word of mouth spread, and soon the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. He asked his neighbor, Carol, a stay at home mom, if she wanted a job. Carol had no idea how to be a receptionist, but Greg assured her that she would only have to answer the phones and direct calls to the five of them. Since everything could be done on a computer, a simple financial program would automatically enter and save all customer information and automatically print it out. There was no time spent on unnecessary typing. And she could choose when she wanted to work, and would be well compensated as the business grew. Carol agreed, which freed Greg up in order to work with clients. And on the days Carol wasn’t there, Sophia handled the phones.
And before Sophia and Greg knew it, it was birthday time. Greg was turning 32, and Jacob and Tiffany were turning 9. Greg couldn’t believe that time flew so quickly. To him, it literally seemed like yesterday that the twins were born. For all those years they were his little angels. Now, because of their size, he and Sophia were their little angels.
The twins invited their friends over, and their parents, and so Sophia had a catering company serve the food. She realized that with the size of her kids, plus their friends, plus the fact that some of their parents were Alphas, there was no way she could ever make enough food for everyone there and still enjoy the party.
Suddenly, and without reason, Greg became overwhelmed emotionally, and excused himself, and went outside to get some air. He sat down on the large steps in front of his house. He was lost in thought when he suddenly realized that Tiffany sat next to him on his left, while Jacob was on the right. The twins sensed the sadness in their father, so Tiffany gently grabbed his small hand, compared to hers, and Jacob put his large arm around him, and both told Greg that they loved him, and that he was the greatest dad that anyone could ever ask for, and that they would never let anything happen to him again. He would be safe with them around.
Greg looked from one to other and started to cry. His kids may have dwarfed him, but they made him feel like the biggest, most important dad in the world. He loved them and Sophia, and realized that nothing would ever come between the four of them.
Greg calmed down, and snuck back into the house and into the bathroom to wash the tears out of his eyes. He waited for the puffiness to subside, then joined the rest of the people celebrating the twins’ birthday. He took Sophia’s right hand and held it firm, and smiled a smile that let her know that he was alright.