Mrs Masters looked up. Their eyes met for a moment.
"Rita?"
The two women closed the distance between them and held each other in a hug. Then Mrs Masters pulled away, tears glistening in her eyes.
"Oh, Rita. I'm so sorry." She said. "I missed you so much."
"I missed you too Mum."
"You must be Taylor." Mr Masters said, holding out his hand. "I hope you've been looking after my daughter."
"Like I'd do anything else." Taylor replied.
"I, I'm afraid we may have misjudged you." Mrs Masters admitted. "I'm glad we were wrong."
Taylor just smiled.
"And, and are these, our grandchildren?" Mrs Masters continued.
Rita nodded.
"Yes, these are the triplets, Morgan, Mike, Sam. And these are Adam, Duane, Rose, Charlotte and, uhh, our adopted son Kyle. He's deaf."
"Oh, oh, really? The poor thing."
"So, where's Barbara?" Mr Masters asked.
Rita's father was the only one who didn't call Babsie 'Babsie'.
"She's at her house with everyone else." Taylor answered. "Well, everyone else in our families that are touring with us. The rest of our entourage are staying at a hotel."
Mr Masters nodded.
"Rita?" a male voice said suddenly.
"Kevin!" Rita exclaimed.
He brother walked over.
"Wow, I nearly didn't believe the person who said you were here. Now I'm gonna have to apologise for calling him a liar."
Rita smiled.
"Where's Mary? Is she here too?"
"No. She's gone off to Uni." Mrs Masters replied with a small wince. "I, I'm afraid she didn't leave on very good terms. I guess we're not very good at letting our kids go."
"Bah!" Mr Masters scoffed. "Do you see Kevin threatening to leave every five seconds? Do you see him running off with some girl? It's only the girls in this family."
"Honey, there is nothing wrong with wanting to go to Uni." Mrs Masters said, as if they had had this argument a million times already. "I do wish you two hadn't fought. It was completely unnecessary."
"Unnecessary!" he exploded.
Kevin rolled his eyes at Rita and Taylor as if this sort of thing happened all the time (which it probably did).
"Are you our uncle?" Duane piped up.
"Yep." Kevin replied. "Uncle Kevin."