7 February 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3007: the avenue

Six-year-old Grayson Ludlow loved his time in the Lego pile, but he quietly kept an eye on everyone and everything around him, and he could tell that something was off after his grandfather's latest phone call.

“Usually,” he said to eight-year-old Gracie Trent later, “if folks call and say something weird to Papa, it's usually them that look like that after the call, but you know, everybody gotta take turns and stuff.”

“Ain't it the truth,” Gracie said. “Grandma Jubilee says all the time that you gotta be sure if you are going to be one of those that hands out hard medicine, because the Lord said He sho' is gonna measure it back to you.”

“Anyway, I went to check on Papa and it's all cool,” Grayson said, “but, we really do seem to be taking this adoption thing real serious. More Ludlows are coming home to Lofton County. They're going to be staying with us for a while. Not that this is a problem, though, because I love Glendella a lot and she's a great sister and I'm cool with adding some cousins and stuff. Papa says they love Legos, too, so, that's cool.”

Capt. R.E. Ludlow, Grayson's grandfather, had been in astonishment.

“Who would think that after all that has happened in the last thirty years,” he said to his wife Mrs. Thalia Ludlow, “that the thought of what a second hurricane all too near to southern Virginia would be the avenue to bring Edwin Jr. and Edgar's children home?”

“God knows Ludlows – sometimes it takes a bit,” Mrs. Ludlow said sweetly, and left her husband cracking up.

“All true!” he said. “I cannot deny it!”

Lofton County had disrespected Edwin Ludlow and his eldest son so bad in the architecture business toward the ends of their lives that the Ludlow grandchildren inclined to build had taken Ludlow Architecture and Engineering clear up out of the state of Virginia. This left the people who hated Edwin Ludlow and his son for their fame in modernizing Lofton County's buildings and infrastructure to do what they wanted to do without competition or interference – and so things like the washout of Bayard Heights had been set up.

The thing was, Grayson Ludlow, the Ludlow great-grandchild in Lofton County who clearly had the gift most strongly, took more pride in his work with Legos, clay, and papier mache than the people who had hated his great-grandfather and great-uncle. He wasn't building to try to make himself famous, just like they didn't: fame was the aftermath of consistent great work, and his older building cousins knew that Lofton County didn't get it and weren't going to waste time trying to convince it. They watched Edwin Jr. and also Edgar give up years of their lives because they loved the county and wanted the best for it – that bitterness drove the next generation not only away, but to become world famous in their spheres, building international and multi-national projects.

But, upon hearing about Bayard Heights due to Hurricane Justicia's water dumping on the Blue Ridge, and upon hearing that Hurricane Mneme was going to do pretty much the same, Edwin Ludlow III, his brothers and sisters, and Garlene Ludlow and her sisters had a change of heart – as much as Lofton County getting what was coming to it was satisfying, something about seeing their last surviving uncle Capt. R.E. Ludlow standing up for his father and their fathers' legacies in Lofton County was calling them home.

And then, there was Grayson.

“If we leave Little Cuz to be mentored by what passes for architects in Lofton County now, he's going to be wasted,” Garlene said to Edwin III. “But if we mentor him, he will carry what we are doing forward to the end of the century.”

“Well, let's at least get to Uncle Robert before Mneme gets here so we are in place to get the lay of the land and see what the county is going to need from on the ground … and sit in the Lego pile with Grayson for a while and watch Little Cuz at work. We owe our grandfather Edwin that much – we gotta try, and we gotta set Grayson up right.”