Chapter 22

Dana's turn:

After the math guys, I needed relief. I got it in stages, first, just holding my husband's hand, admiring the simple gold band that said we belonged together. Second, I have fallen in with something I never really experienced before – a community of my peers. I don't mean to be rude or condescending, but I never spent time around so many people who GET IT!

Education. Teachers, some of 'em, anyway, they get it, that is if too many years in classrooms full of kids who didn't want to learn hadn't killed the fire. Gramma. Okay, Gramma gets included twice. First, as a teacher, she managed to care all the way through her career. I cannot imagine Gramma just going through the motions. And as my only REAL parent, Gramma was pro-learning.

Ed gets it. He's like me. Knows what it is to be the wizard in a world full of muggles.

But I'm HERE. Even the Munchkins GET IT. I'm sitting here making faces at Tina and Alan's baby and I personally think she's re-arranging multiplication tables in hexadecimal. Cute smile. She's just finished nursing. Happy baby. That nursing thing? First time I ever saw it up close and, according to any of the new mommies, seriously pursued.

I'm not sure about that whole 'baby' thing. I mentioned that to Ed one time. "You're not even fifteen."

"I know a lot of teen mommies," I said.

"How many of them were pregnant because they were totally in love with the male, looking to build a family, and were able to provide for the new addition without parental and government largesse?"

"Good point."

"I mean, we could, you and I, no doubt. But is it what you want?"

I shook my head. Two reasons – first, I wanted to answer an emphatic 'no'. Second, and I can't figure out why, but my hair has a very welcome effect on Ed. I LIKE affecting Ed.

All that doesn't stop me from dandling (Yes, it's a real word – vocabulary is genetic. Gramma's an English teacher!) various babies on my knees or my lap or cuddled to my chest. We have plenty of opportunities, too. Susan, Tina, Johanna, Mizz Donna ... And hushed tones tell me that Mizz Beck and Sim...

Rachel's a doll. Put the Mafia in line, you have Terri, the tallest, and oh so wonderfully blonde, Vicki, with that honey-blonde thing that is oddly close to mine, and there's Rachel with thick dark brown hair, some curl to it, enough hair for TWO normal heads, usually in a ponytail.

"My signature look," she giggled the first time I commented. "You can touch it."

Says Rachel in a one on one conversation – well, there was a third party, little JW dozing across my lap when we talked – "Mom and Dad watch Alan and Tina and Terri really close to see how bringing little Kathy into the family is working. I told them that it is working well, that it's not a bad thing, that I have a little tinge of jealousy." Smile. "I think that maybe ... Dad would like to try for a son to carry forth the Weismann name."

I have no idea how many people are privy to that possibility, but I'm thinking that Rachel is not the most secretive of children. Still, cute.

The weekend at the Community was a blast. Saturday morning we went kayaking with Nikki and her Dan. Me and Ed in a two-seat kayak. The water in the river is still kind of cold, but that doesn't stop me from whacking him with a wet paddle.

"You're not studying for your dissertation defense?" Ed asked Nikki as we paddled beside her and Dan 2.0.

"If I don't have it by now, killing myself over it this weekend isn't going to help," Nikki replied.

"Where have I heard that one before," Dan said.

Nikki and I both said "Cindy!" in unison, then laughed.

"It's true, though," Nikki said. "And a day where I can relax and commune with nature – pause – 'n' stuff, that's good for me."

She's right. We'd left Dan's pickup truck at the upstream end of the river journey, Nikki's SUV at the downstream end. When we finished the all too short jaunt, we loaded kayaks onto the roof rack and drove up to retrieve the truck. Neat idea. I like the kayaks, too. I'm thinking about 'em as an acquisition for the future.

Back at the houses, we shower and change and there's a Saturday bash.

"It's our thing," Tina said. She was holding little Kathy. I had little Stoney this time as Johanna was walking to the little raised stage at our new community center. She had her flute. Music would soon ensue.

All this. Cindy says 'family'. She, like me and Tina and Kim and Kara, did not have benefit of a real, live, nurturing mother. In my analytical mode, I see this as a possible reason that I gravitated to Ed so strongly. Hey, I didn't say it was a BAD thing. I actually want to discuss this with my new sisters.

In the meantime, Ed and I enjoy being part of this.

Music. I recognize some of the classical pieces that Johanna and Stoney and Kara and Bert play. The rest, though? It's just FUN! Folk, bluegrass, Celtic, klezmer, Cajun ... None of it is canned and we don't have an amplified instrument in the place.

I find myself sitting between my Ed and Tina and I'm singing along softly to one I've heard before, You Are My Sunshine. Ed's used to me humming along to the odd tune. Tina, though...

"Cindy, Dana's singing!"

"Shhhh!" I squeaked.

Too late. Here comes Cindy.

"You can join us."

I shook my head. "Nooooo. I've never..."

"Neither did I until the first time."

"I'm not any good."

"You're probably wrong. C'mon! One time, okay?"

I shook my head again.

"Oh, c'mon. It's your 'coming out' as part of the Community," Tina urged.

"Oh, okay. But if I miss words..."

"Just smile and hum along," Cindy giggled. "Smiling counts for a lot." She turned to Dan. "Okay. Let's do it again."

So I did it. We did it, Cindy and me. It's the only one of the songs I know enough words to make a difference, but I DID it.

"See?!?" Tina said when I reclaimed my seat between her and Ed.

"It's not my safe space, Tina."

"Little sister," Tina retorted, "Forget that safe space crap. Spread your wings and soar. This is the place where we'll be there to watch you."

"Ed?"

"I thought you did well, punkin," he said.

"But next to Cindy..."

"Cindy was probably YOU three years ago, baby."

I will further explore this line of conversation with Ed later. In the meantime, like somebody was sticking the knife into my apprehensions and then twisting slowly, the Munchkins got up and sang, accompanied by Johanna and Stoney.

Jo's mom Bridgette held her grandbaby. I'm hoping that he gets Jo's hair. Well, maybe not. Red hair's a definite attractor for females. I dunno about males. Maybe not. My hand strays up to touch Ed's hair. Unconsciously, my fingertip touches his ear. A shiver courses through him. I squeeze close. Little soft giggle.

"Do I want to know what you're thinking, sweetness?" he says softly.

Not softly enough. Tina looks at the two of us and she smiles.

That's part of the magic here. Everybody's been where I am today. Well, maybe not everybody, but everybody's familiar with the paradigm and ascribes some normality to it.

I've talked with Cindy and Nikki and Tina, each of them, individually. They say the same thing. Tina though, just barely into her early twenties, she's more or less rolled off the top end of the list, especially with little Kathy.

"Most people who see me with Kathy and Terri at the same time assume that Terri's like my little sister or niece or something," Tina says. "But three years ago, there was no Terri, just me and Alan and you can imagine how many people thought of what they saw. And do an order of magnitude leap for Cindy or Nikki. Especially Cindy. She's got that redheaded pixie look going, and people automatically label Dan as a molester."

"Me 'n' Ed..."

"We know exactly what you two are, and at college, you're walking a path that we've already cleared. But you need to know that some situations can pop up. Ask Cindy about Tennessee last year."

I filed that one for further investigation.

I find it somewhat unusual that on Sunday morning several families go to church. Alan and Tina, Cindy and Dan, Susan and Jason...

"Community. Stability. Connection to something that exists outside all of us," Cindy says. "Those are all pop-psych explanations. Personal relationship with Jesus? That'll get you tagged as a cousin-humping snake-handler in some circles." She sighed. "Those would be the wrong circles to be in. Make your own circle. And Beck and Sim and Rachel? Jewish? The roots of our roots. And Grandma Desai? I dunno. The roots of the roots of our roots. Somebody had to hold The Big Bang in the palm of his hand."

"Golly, Cindy. You just ran past the edge of my universe and past the beginning of time."

Cindy giggled. "Sort of gives you a different perspective, doesn't it?"

So we got up Sunday morning and went to church with Tina and Alan and Terri and little Kathy. Met Cindy and Dan there.

Afterward I asked Tina why the pastor seems to focus on us.

"He knows about Cindy and Dan. Your appearance? Y'all have him questioning a lot of established conventions."

"I suppose it could be a shock."

"Probably more of a shock if all of a sudden he could see what's going on in some of those other families. We're pretty solid citizens here, you know."

"I know. But others may think otherwise."

"Others WILL think otherwise. Susan's mom still thinks Cindy's horribly abused."

Cindy had just bounced up beside us. "I am. There's a beautiful twin Cessna at the airport and I can't fly her."

"Yeah," Tina giggled. "But that's not anybody's fault but the federal government."

Alan came back to join us. "Beck's got dinner covered today. Chicken soup with kreplach. Kasha Varnishkes. Tzimmes. Bread."

"I know what bread is," I said.

"Don't worry. Jews haven't prospered for five thousand years by poisoning each other," Cindy giggled. "Trust me. You'll like it."

We did. It's surreal, though. Family meal. All the men put those little caps on their heads for the blessing that's delivered by Mister Sim in Hebrew first, then in English. And then we dive in.

"It's about who we are," Beck says. "Rachel, show Dana the mezuzah."

That's new, too, and the simple explanation is delivered by a very earnest-sounding young girl. And I totally understand.

Monday. Breakfast. Then back on campus. Same conference room, this time leading off with a pair of history professors.

"I wish to see if you've advanced past the expectations I have for a high school graduate in the fields of history and social studies. I may be wasting time, though. Those reports you sent us, you represented them as YOUR work." That was Doctor Samuelsen.

"They are MY work," I affirmed.

"Did your teacher specify a report on the factioning of the population during the American Revolution?"

"No, sir. She taught us in class that there were patriots and loyalists. I thought about it in the context of today's politics where we have a large amount of shading between the Left and the Right with excursions on different issues that aren't easily attributable to the Left-Right dichotomy."

"Huh?"

"You want me to repeat that? I can..."

"No," Doctor Samuelsen said. "I'm still digesting it."

"I don't think I'm wrong. It's easier to oppose something if you define it as 'otherness'. My paper simply says that the marks weren't necessarily so clear. Do you know the term 'Three Percenter'?"

"I've heard it. What do you know?"

"It's a modern movement that bases its foundation on the idea that during the Revolution only three percent of the population was truly active against the Crown."

"What about Loyalists?"

"Three percent at the other end," I said. "So there in the middle is ninety-four percent of the population just trying to go about business, hoping that whoever won, they wouldn't get too badly screwed."

"And you got that out of a..." he looked at the date on the paper, "Seventh grade history book?"