Chapter 1
She couldn't help but wonder where this turn of her life would lead as she sat across the table from the brown-headed boy with dark eyes who was munching on the dinner she had prepared.

Her 11-year-old nephew was a kindred spirit.

She was in her young 30s and had seen her life turned upside down. She married her college sweetheart, had a beautful daughter. She passed up a promising career as a college professor to become a stay at home mom.

Then a little more than five years ago, her husband's car skidding off an icy highway during a snow storm. The car hit a tree. He was killed instantly.

She barely had time to grieve when she found out her daughter had a terminal form of cancer. She passed away a little more than two years later.

She slowly began to pick her life back together, She moved to the family's summer home on the lake after accepting a professor's position at State University.

But just as things were beginning to come together in her life again, it fell apart in her sister's life. A victim of abuse for most of her married life, her sister finally divorced her husband. But she turned to drugs and alcohol, neglecting her young son.

"I need you to take care of Brandon for a little while, Karen," her sister told her before voluntarily entering a mental hospital after being diagnosed with a severe case of depression.

"How long, Dianne?" she asked her sister the night she got the frantic phone call.

Months? Years? Forever, perhaps?

She never got a straight answer.

All she got was a young refuge who needed her help.

Her heart melted as soon as her nephew walked in the door. She showed him around the farm. She showed him the horses she promised to teach him to ride. She showed him the trampoline, the swing set, and the faithful family dog, Spike, a lab mix.

As she cooked supper that night, she thought how wonderful it felt to have another child in the house, another child in her life. As much as she loved her career, she'd forgotten how much she enjoyed being a mother.

"I don't know how long he'll be with me, Bob," she told her boss, the dean of the English department. She asked for a summer sabbatical, which was granted. "If he's with me in the fall, I'll enroll in the middle school right off campus. It shouldn't be a problem."

"This room was Caroline's," she said of her daughter when she led Brandon to the room where he would be staying. "But it's your room now. We'll decorate it any way you want. It still has a lot of her stuff. I haven't been in a hurry to put it away."

"That's okay," Brandon said. "She sure has pretty dolls," he said, pointing out a row of American Girl Dolls on the dresser.

"That she did," his aunt said. "But I'm sure you can replace them with action figures and video games if you want."

He didn't say a word.

After dinner, she popped Toy Story 3 into the DVD player, and they both shared laughs, along with some ice cream before Brandon went upstairs to take a bath.

"Is that all you're wearing," she asked her nephew as he returned from his bath wearing a t-shirt and a pair of briefs.

"It's all I wore at home," he said on the way to his room.

"Maybe I need to get you some PJs," she said as she pulled the bed covers for him.

"That's ok," Brandon replied. "I'm good."

Just as she was about to turn out the light and walk out, her young nephew stopped her.

"Aunt Karen?"

"What is it, sweetie?" she replied.

"Well, I don't know, you might think I'm too big," he said.

"What is it?" she said.

"Everyonce in a while, mom would read me a bedtime story, even though I'm probably too big," he said.

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "You don't look too big to me."

She walked over to the book shelf. Most of the stories were girls stories.

"Let me see," she said as she browsed the shelf. There were the American Girl stories, Little House books, Charlotte's Web. She picked out Charlotte's Web.

"You know, when I read to Caroline, she would always grab Janice Libby," she said of a doll sitting in a chair on the corner of the dresser.

"Can I hold her?" he asked.

"Sure, you can," his aunt replied.

He kissed the doll on the forehead before tucking her under his arm.

"You're a sweet baby," he said.

It brought a smile to his aunt's face before she started into reading the book.

Brandon hung on every word as she went through quite a few chapters.

"I think you're a lot like Charlotte," he said with a yawn as began to tire.

"Why thank you," she said. "Anybody in the book remind you of you?"

She expected to perhaps hear Wilbur.

"Fern," he said.

"Really?" she asked. "How come?"

"Because she seems really nice," he said. "She loves Wilbur. She's really cool."

"What an amazing kid you are," Karen said.

It didn't take long for him to doze off to sleep.

#####

He was still well asleep, with Janice Libby in his arms. when she woke the next morning and started cooking breakfast. When the meal was almost done, peeked in the room and noticed him sitting up in bed, cradling the doll and holding a toy bottle to its mouth.

"Drink for momma," he said. "That's a good girl."

Then he started singing "hush little baby don't you cry, momma's going to buy you a diamond ring..."

She slowly shut the door, not wanting him to hear. But she was really curious.

She remembered her sister telling her that he liked dressing in girls clothes. Her sister allowed him to do so at one point, but soon, it became a reason for some of the physical abuse she and her son endured at the hands of her ex-husband.

"Well, did you enjoy playing with Janice Libby," she asked him when he entered the kitchen for breakfast.

"Yes ma'am, I did," he said.

She played ignorant. "I guess she was a good girl for her daddy?"

"No, not her daddy," he said. "I'm her momma."

"You're her momma?" she asked as she gave him a hug. "Well, I think she's lucky to have a good momma like you."

He quickly gobbled up the eggs, bacon and biscuit.

"Wow, you're really hungry," she said.

He nodded his head yes.

"Sweetie, I've got some planning to do on the computer for a couple of hours," she said. "What do you say we go to the pool after I'm done. I'll lay out and you can swim."

He smiled, nodded his head and went back into the room. She peeked on him again when she took a break from work. He didn't seem interested at all in playing with any of the toys he brought. He played with some of her daughter's Barbies.

"Time to put on your swim suit," she said when she completed her work.

Just then she had a thought.

"I don't know why I'm thinking this," she said as she accidently walked in on Brandon just as he was about to pull up his swim suit.

"Oops, excuse me," she said.

"It's OK," he said, covering his private parts with the shorts.

She opened a drawer and pulled out one of her daughter's pink bikinis.

"You could wear this," she said. "But it might leave you with a girl's bikini tan..."

Before she could finish, he quickly tossed his swim trunks in the floor and grabbed the bikini right out of her hands.

She reached into the drawer again and pulled out a head band.

"This might look good with that," she said as she put it in his hair.

She was amazed how much he looked like a girl.

"Am I pretty, Aunt Karen" he asked.

"Yes, sweetie, just like a pretty angel," she said.

Once they walked out to the pool, she pulled out some sun screen.

"I've got to spray some part of you that aren't used to seeing sun," she said, applying sun screen to the upper part of his legs and his rear end that was exposed.

She expected him to spend much of his time in the pool. But instead, he laid down beside her. He noticed her pink toenails.

"I wished mine were that color," he said.

She smiled, reached into her purse and pulled out nail polish. She applied them to his toes and then asked him if he wanted his finger nails painted, too.

He smiled and nodded.

They laid out at the pool for a couple of hours before going in for lunch. She was amazed how talkative her nephew was.

"I hear Janice Libby crying," he said after he finished his sandwich. "Momma's coming."

Karen walked into the room and found her nephew seated on the bed. Half of his bikini top was pulled up. He held doll up to his exposed nipple as if he was breast feeding her.

"She really is hungry," he said.

"Ok, I can see that," she said, not knowing what else to say.

But then she told her nephew they needed to get dressed and go to the store. Before he could reach into his drawer, she pulled out one of Caroline's tops and capris pants.

"These will probably fit you," she said. She also threw him a pair of sandals she thought would fit.

"Gives you a chance to show off those tootsies," she said.

Brandon smiled.

#####

She loaded up her basket with several household items when she passed the girls' clothing section.

"Look over there, pick you out a pack of panties," she told her nephew.

He eagerly went and picked out a pack. He returned just as his aunt was talking to a lady at checkout.

"What a pretty girl you are," the woman said. "Who is this with you. Karen?"

"She's my niece," she replied. "She's going to be staying with me for a few months."

"Well, what's your name, small one," the lady asked.

Karen paused for a second not knowing what to say.

"Chloe," her nephew said without hesitating.

"Chloe?" his aunt asked as they walked to the car.

"Mom used to call me that when she left me dress up," he said.

"It suits you," she said.