“Oh? And what’s that?”
“For Birdy to be happy.”
“So you call her that now?”
“Sometimes. When it seems appropriate.”
We fell silent and simply studied each other, although I didn’t feel any hostility from him.
“She told me a little about you,” he said at last. “She says she loves you. She also threatened to stop speaking to me if I hurt you. Hurt you for real, I mean. Not a little shiner like last time.”
“I still owe you for that,” I said.
“Don’t count on paying me back.” He held up a hand to keep things from escalating. “Look, I know you’re a fighter. And I’ll be honest, your reactions are pretty good. But this is a fight we’d both lose. Agreed?”
“The only winning move is not to play.”
“Danny also said you’re a smart one. And that I should ignore the fact that you aren’t in the military.” He looked at me calmly and let his words hang in the air. “For the record, I don’t like Danny sometimes, but I trust him.”
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“And you probably won’t believe this, but I trust Birdy too. Sometimes she doesn’t use the brains God gave her, but most of the time she has good instincts. And… she isn’t a little girl anymore.”
He was talking through his feelings as much as anything, so I kept my comments to myself.
“She reminded me of that. Several times. She’s worse than our mom, I swear.” His expression sobered and he met my eyes. “You and I need to cool it with the macho bullshit. You said you want her to be happy, and I’m going to believe you.”
“I can live with that.”
“Okay. Then we’re good. I’ll find a way to… coexist… with you. I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“You know,” I said slowly, “this is the point in the after-school special where you figure out that we’re the same after all, right?”
He laughed in spite of himself. “Must’ve missed that one.”
The door to the house swung open and five-year-old Hal ran out.
“Aunt Birdy says I’m s’posed to make sure you haven’t killed each other.”
Rich’s attitude changed immediately. He smiled at Hal and picked him up.
“Were you really gonna kill him, Uncle Rich?”
“No, buddy. We were just talking about grown-up things. We worked it out.” Rich glanced at me and confirmed it with a nod that was so much like Christy and their father that I had to force myself not to smile. He caught it anyway. “Dad’s right,” he said mildly. “That smirk’d get you court-martialed.”
He nodded toward the kitchen, and I followed him inside. He shifted Hal to his hip and accepted hugs from his nieces.
“Did Grandma tell you I made cookies?” he asked them. “And cake! We need to save it till later, but I’m hungry now. Who wants to try the cookies?”
Christy slid under my arm as Rich and the girls went through the swinging door to the dining room. Anne caught my eye and smiled. She didn’t mean anything overt, but it was a powerful reminder that she was the heart of the family. Then again, maybe she’d meant to remind me. She was subtle, after all.
Brooke caught my eye next, and she did have an overt reminder. She made a slight gesture, and I saw a rolled-up slip of paper in her left hand.
I used Christy as a diversion. “What kind of cookies?”
“Oh my gosh, lemon tea cookies! They’re amazing.”
We joined the others in the dining room. Harry and Marianne were there with Harold. Brooke’s hand brushed mine. I released Christy and shifted the little roll of paper to my left so I could greet Harry with a handshake. Then I gave Marianne a hug and stepped into the background as she said hello to Brooke.
No one was paying attention to me, so I left the hubbub and headed to Harold’s office. I slid through the gap in the pocket doors and made a beeline for the desk. Brooke had written a phone number on the slip of paper. I dialed it and rehearsed what I wanted to say.
After several centuries—about three seconds in real time—a woman at the airline ticket office answered.
“Hi,” I said as calmly as I could. “Our plans have changed and I need to rebook our flights…”
* * *
Lunch was more of a picnic than a formal affair. The men set up folding tables in the back yard. The ladies loaded them with baked ham, potato salad, deviled eggs, and more. The food was delicious, the weather glorious, and the conversations interesting, as usual. Then Harry got our attention by clinking his fork against his glass.
“Dad, Mom, everyone…,” he began. “Marianne and I have an announcement. I know we said we’d stop at four, but we always wanted a big family. Now it’s going to be a little bigger.” He cleared his throat from unexpected emotion. Then he smiled at his wife and said, “Marianne’s pregnant.”
The family erupted with congratulations and questions. When was she due? In November. Had they been trying? No, it was a happy accident. Had they picked out names? After her father if it was a boy, after her favorite aunt if it was a girl. What did the other kids think? They were excited, especially Hal, who wanted a brother. The older girls were fine with that. The youngest, Rose, wanted a little sister or a puppy instead.
I sat back and smiled as the others talked around me. Then I started doing the math. While Marianne had been giving Christy advice about birth control, her own birth control had failed in the most predictable way possible.
What do they call people who practice the rhythm method? I thought with an awful sense of foreboding. Mommies and daddies.
Brooke must have been thinking the same thing. She glanced at me and then flicked her eyes toward Christy.
Yeah, I know, I replied silently. But what am I supposed to do?
I don’t know. But we have to do something.
We frowned in mutual frustration, although we’d just gained a powerful ally in the birth control argument. We didn’t know it at the time, but Christy’s world was about to turn upside down because of it.
* * *
The desserts came out once things settled down after the big announcement. Marianne’s daughters had baked a marble swirl pound cake, and Rich had made strawberry shortcake. Christy hogged a huge piece for herself and threatened me with a fork when I tried to steal a strawberry.
“No, stop, mine!” she snapped playfully. “Get your own.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Brooke said when I eyed hers.
Harry and Rich were camped out by the desserts.
“So the girls wouldn’t share?” Rich said as he picked up a dessert plate and the cake server. “You’re braver’n I am. How big of a piece do you want?”
My competitive streak reared its head. “Whatever you’d normally eat.”
“Be careful,” Harry said. “Rich could eat that whole cake and still empty the fridge.”
“Start with that,” Rich said as he cut a normal-sized piece.
“You learned to bake in Home Ec?” I said.
“Birdy told you about that?”
Harry thought back. “Was that when you said a woman’s place was in the kitchen?”
“Yeah, but Mom took it out of context.”
“You’re lucky that’s all she did,” Harry laughed. He added to me, “In case you hadn’t figured it out, our mom’s the commander in chief at home. Dad even calls her that, CINC, but only where she can’t hear.”
“Your dad’s a smart man.”
“You can say that again,” Harry agreed with another laugh. Then he politely dismissed me with a smile. “Enjoy the cake.”
“Thanks, I will.”
Christy and Brooke were talking about Marianne’s announcement when I rejoined them. Christy herself didn’t see the irony in the timing, but Brooke did, although she knew better than to mention it with family around. We chatted about babies and families instead.
“I want, like, six children,” Christy said.
Brooke glanced at me. “How many does Paul want?”