Chapter 30

Alan's turn:

Susan won the race to deliver. Blanket message from her. Jason is loading my bag into the car right now. I've been cramping and the doctor says go straight to the hospital.

Bingo. You just KNOW that this news puts Tina to waddling (I'm going to Hell for that one, but she's sooooo pregnant) to me.

"We need to go wait with her."

"Yes, dear. What about Terri?"

"Terri knows the drill. Beck and Sim's."

"You know Susan's gonna have a cheering section. You will, too. Nothing good ever happens here that everybody doesn't celebrate."

Yes, we know the best route to the hospital. We know where to go in the hospital. After all, Tina's going to be tracing that route with me and Terri very soon. This time I drive to the front entrance and drop her at the door, then go park.

When I get back to her, she's anxious to see what's happening with Susan. We almost get passed up by Cindy and her Dan. They're here, too.

Waiting room at the maternity unit. Looks like our Monday morning staff meeting, except no Susan or Jason – me, Tina, Dan, Cindy, other Dan (he hates when we call him that) and Nikki, Stoney and Jo. Tim 'n' Kim. Donna and Bill are home. It's a wonder that Bill doesn't have Donna carried about on an eiderdown-filled red velvet palliasse. You can bet, though, that they're waiting on the news.

"Jason's in with Susan and the doctor," somebody said. "That's all we know."

"That's our Susan in there," Cindy said.

We tried to keep conversation upbeat. Nervous. Worried. I know, I know ... Childbirth is a completely natural phenomenon that has gone on for millennia in conditions much worse than this, but still ... Tina was squeezing my hand. One of her hands, anyway. The other was resting on her beautifully pregnant belly.

I looked across the room. Stoney was holding Jo's hand in almost a mirror image. Jo's somewhere around a month behind my princess.

Conversations started and died and restarted again.

The double doors opened and Jason stepped out.

We mobbed him, hitting him with several versions of 'What's happening?', etc.

"I'm a daddy! Susan's okay. Little JW's okay."

Another flurry of questions.

"Okay ... here's the deal," he said. "Susan was feeling, in her words, 'woogity'. Since I lack the skills to properly assess 'woogity' in full-term females, we came to the hospital. The doctors looked at a few things, said the baby might be stressed, and we just finished a caesarian. Everybody's FINE! I need something to drink..."

Nikki knew that Jason was a good Baptist boy and didn't mean alcohol so she shoved a coke into his hand. "Thanks," he said. He held it in his left hand. His right hand was busy shaking congratulatory conventions.

"One down..." Tina said. "I'm next. Susan's okay. I'm next."

We waited for the earliest opportunity to squeal when the baby was moved to the nursery, then we left.

Circle of life. Got home, texted Terri, got my Terri-dactyl and my wife and had a good cuddle before bedtime.

"We're gonna help," Terri said. "We all talked about it. New babies all over. We're too young to babysit, but we can be helpful." She giggled. "Know what I figured out for a nickname?"

"Go ahead," Tina said. She knows to expect something off the wall.

"Well," Terri said, "my new sister is going to be Katherine Genevieve, right?"

"Right," Tina said.

"Well, I'm thinking she's gonna be KathyGen. Rhymes with 'pathogen'."

Tina. "SQUEAK! We are not calling your little sister 'Pathogen'!"

Terri. "Certainly not." But those eyes ... and the giggle. Don't discount the giggle. She carefully wrapped herself around Tina. I know there's a genuine bond there.

Nikki's turn:

So Dan is working this project. I just turned eighteen. That's a significant number. How significant? Well, let me tell you. The Federal Government says that you have to be at least eighteen to work in hazardous occupations. Some of our clients consider their entire facilities to fall under that classification, so my few forays inside the fences, real or virtual, have had to be escorted and I was not allowed to touch anything.

I've actually had clients jump through hoops to get me inside to work with them. But now I'm eighteen and I no longer have to be so restricted.

So back to Dan's project. He's upgrading a lot of old power equipment at one of his old clients back home and I've begged out of a week at school to go with him. I'm not a spectator, either. I am Nikki Granger, MSEE and I have some certain amount of standing when it comes to system protection communications.

I won't bore you with the nuts and bolts of the project. We got paid a stinkin' good bunch of money for the project, intermeshed our part with the company Dan was working for when we met, and the biggest hurdle so far was planning it so that we did not interrupt the huge amounts of power needed to keep the facility on line while we did the work.

"Like doing heart surgery by going in through the rectum and doing the stitching between beats," Dan said in a progress meeting.

But we are doing it. I showed up to hash out the intricacies.

"This is Ed Allen," the senior engineer said. "Ed's got the whole digital communications system in this place."

The guy's a bit young, younger than my Dan. Looks like a geek. Like I should talk, okay?

"Digital's the only kind of communications you have now, Ryan," Ed said.

Ryan gave him a look. "Ed, this is Nikki Granger. She's an engineer. That's her husband, Dan Granger. He's the lead contract engineer. Nikki's going to work with you on what they need."

The guy looked at me. Looked at Dan. Looked back at me. "Engineer? You look kinda young..."

Okay. I've had this conversation so many times I should have it recorded. "I turned eighteen a week ago. I have a master's in electrical engineering and I'm a few months away from a doctorate in physics." And I smiled as sweetly as I could.

"And Dan is your husband."

"You've met Dan?"

"Oh, yeah. He told me he was bringing help. So let's talk."

We dove headfirst into digital communications. "Your part is pretty easy. We need access to your network. Gotta be supersecure, though. And we need the highest levels of reliability as well."

"I have a very secure and reliable network," he said. "Especially after the fire in our data room a few weeks back."

"Central location?"

"Yep. Just sort of grew that way."

"And you're diversifying now?"

"Oh, yeah."

We had a pretty good day, he and I. I saw physical installations, talked about how we needed to get the network into places where it hadn't been before. Towards the end of the day he brought me back to where Dan was working.

"Y'all new to the area?" he asked Dan.

"Oh, heavens, no," Dan said. "I own a house forty-five minutes away. I'm like the seventh generation here in this corner of Louisiana."

"Oh, okay," he said. "I was gonna tell you where the good restaurants are."

"Why don't you meet us at one?" I popped. I looked at Dan. I know my Dan. He's not going to mind a bit.

"D'ya mind if I bring my friend?" Ed asked.

"Not at all."

We made arrangements for a six PM rendezvous at a seafood joint that we've enjoyed before.

In the truck with Dan. "He said 'friend'. I didn't ask. You don't imagine it's a GUY?"

"We have gay friends," Dan said. "Doesn't squick either of us out. Why're you worried?"

"Just that HE didn't elaborate."

We made a quick run home, had an after-action 'action' followed by a shower, then got back on the road. The schedule was a bit tight, but doable.

We pulled into the parking lot. Dan called Ed's cellphone.

"We're sitting in here at a table, waiting," Ed said.

We walked inside. The 'friend' wasn't a guy. The 'friend' was a teen girl, dressed in a sweatshirt with the local university logo on it. She was an inch shorter than me, had honey-blonde hair, grey eyes, and from the way she was standing next to Ed, she had a possession. I know the look very well. I saw a certain little redhead do the same look before.

They both stood up. "Folks, this is Dana. Dana, this is Dan Granger and his wife Nikki."

Dan extended a hand to shake. We sat. She looked right at me. "Ed says you're married and you've got a master's in engineering? You gotta tell me about this!"

"It all started with a hurricane..."

Dan KNOWS the story. It's OUR story, after all. Ed listened with some level of amusement and a LOT of interest, and Dana hung on every word.

"So the school gave you these tests, right?" She turned to Ed. "Gramma's having me tested next week."

"Really?" I squeaked.

"Yes, really. Classes, eighth-grade stuff, it's so ... easy. I'm bored."

"She's bored, Ed," Dan said.

"We try to do things that stimulate her learning."

I'm looking at the way they look at each other and I personally suspect that learning is only ONE thing that's being stimulated there, but I don't let on that I'm thinking it. She's fourteen, after all. That's felony territory here, and she lacks that 'exploited' look to her. The fact that Ed brought her with him to a social event says a lot.

She got my business card and I messaged her my contact information. "You might want to talk to us about your path forward. We sort of have some experience..."

"What kind of experience?"

"Cindy, that's the redhead in the picture, graduated high school at fourteen. I was fifteen. Tina was seventeen. Kara was seventeen. Tina and Susan and Cindy and I graduated from college in two years. We are doctoral candidates right now. I think we can help."

Ed looked at Dan.

"She's serious," Dan said. "You should see our bunch."

"I'd love to," Dana squealed.

"You're based in Alabama," Ed said.

"Three-hour flight. You ever been in a light plane?" Dan asked him.

"Had the urge. Does that count?"

Dan laughed. "Yeah ... It counts. Dana?"

"I'd love it!"

"We need to schedule a weekend. We can swap our plane for one of the others. That way we can carry more. Ours is fast but with four passengers, there's not much room for luggage."

"Wait. One of the others? How many..."

"Let's see," I said. "We have our Mooney. Cindy and Dan Richards have a Cessna 180. Tina and Alan have a Cessna 182. Susan and Jason just bought a 182. Stoney and Johanna have a Micco. We'd borrow a 180 or 182. Like a flying pickup truck."

"Interesting," Dana said. "We just started talking about buying a sailboat."

I noted the way 'we' rolled right off her tongue. "Stoney and Jo have a sailboat. Nonsuch 36, I believe."

Dana punched at her iPhone for a few seconds. "Oh ... niiiiiccccce!" She passed the phone to Ed. He nodded approvingly.

It was a GOOD dinner, both from the standpoint of the food we ate AND from the acquisition of a new prospective sister.