If I was, I'm afraid I have not been, yet. Though if a taxi turns out to be the means with which I have an oppotunity to carry you and your siblings away from all the troubles you've endured, I would gladly take the wheel. It ...

[a pause, as he composes the words properly in his mind, gets them to line up the way he's been trying to arrange them for days now. this is crucial]

... Finding you here and safe, no matter what events you've endured previously, was a bolt from the blue, Violet. And even if you are of age now, here, it would mean more than eighteen years' worth of eight days of gifts if you would let me be the guardian you should have had all along.