Chapter 55

Johanna’s turn:

I have become the musical mommy. I’m not complaining, mind you. Dad and Mom smile at me and tell me that their prayers are answered, that I’m married, my husband loves me, we’re successful, and ... my life is as filled with wonder as I told them.

Little Randall is a good baby. That’s good. I’ve heard horror stories about crying all night and teething issues and ear problems and serious diseases. Randall is none of these. The community crèche is devoid of that. There’s a flock of babies within a six-week period, Susan’s little JW, Tina’s Kathy, my Stoney, Cindy’s half-sister Elise. At least once a week we’re all at somebody’s house, the thundering herd crawling around the floor, interacting with each other.

The ones to watch, though, are JW, Kathy and Randall. I think they talk. I KNOW they talk. We adults just can’t understand them. And they know that they’re putting one over on us.

Music, though. We still play with it. Our community loves its music. Several, no, make that ‘lots’ of people have heard parts of us and said we ought to have a producer.

That’s me. I guess I’m the ‘executive’ producer, though, because sitting right next to the university we have access to some interesting talents in several areas, music production being one of them.

Having an electrical engineer for a husband, especially one with music interests himself, means that we commandeer a corner of a warehouse (3Sigma has a warehouse now!) and frame up and build a little studio. We record.

One of the things we record was Cindy’s idea. “Mom does Simple Gifts. It is a song of redemption to her, and she does it beautifully. I’m thinking you on the flute, Stoney on the banjo, and Mom...”

“And you. It’s YOUR mom. And I’ve heard you two...”

“I heard Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss do it. I’ve heard instrumentals. I thought that your flute, Stoney’s banjo ... And Mom.”

“Rehearse it with your Mom, Cindy. We can try it both ways.”

A week later, Cindy takes little Stoney from my arms, bouncing him. My son does not LOOK at Cindy with that silly vacuous look that babies sometimes have. It’s almost like ‘One day you and I are going to work on things together.’ But he’s smiling and happy. Cindy however...

“You made me a crying mess, you know...”

“Me? How?”

“Oh, I went to Mom’s and told her what you said. She says “Let’s try that” and then she sings that song to little Elise like a lullaby and I almost lost it. My mom. Lullabyes, for gosh sake.”

“Did you practice?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

“Record it both ways.”

“Saturday,” I said.

That’s one track. I think it’s beautiful. Yes, there are thirteen others. We ran a lot of them through that live sound recording system that Stoney helped design. We’re liable to set that up any time we determine our Friday or Saturday evening sessions are going to be more serious.

We got another track of Cindy’s mom, too. She has a soft, plaintive voice that just cries for folksy ballads, so we gave her a CD of Blackmore’s Night and Cindy showed her The Ashgrove.

There’s Cindy and Nikki and a Dan with an accordion and a Dan with a guitar and my dear Kara on fiddle and Kim’s other aunt, Laci, on the drums for a Cajun tune, and there’s bluegrass, a bunch, and there’s me and Stoney and Bert and Kara for our adaptation of Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp.

A lot of videos of us were on FaceBook already. We put together a decent CD, got one of the artsy students to do us a cover. I refused to be on it. Needed a redheaded female, though. Or a blonde.

Cindy giggled when we were discussing.

“What’s so funny?” Stoney asked.

“Mom. Let’s put Mom on it. One of those Celtic dresses. Hair tied back. Forest scene.”

“And that’s funny, why?” Stoney questioned.

“Oh, Stoney, I grew up with ‘er. Before she came back I always thought that if she posed commercially, you’d have to find it at one of those sticky adult stores. This is my thanking God and poking a finger in the eye of entropy.”

Well, the CD’s out there. I doubt that we’ll go platinum or anything like that, but it’s nice for when we do a concert or one of those contests or have a show, to have a table with OUR CD.

Stoney rolled me onto my back one evening. “You know, redhead, I was a perfectly safe, stable engineer when I met you.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. Kissed him.

“Now I’ve played music on two continents and in eight states and NOW there’s a CD with our music.”

“Yeah,” I said breathily.

“And still, NOBODY says ‘there goes Stoney Jackson, the engineer’. No, it’s ‘that guy that plays banjo with that redhead flute player.’” He kissed me.

“So what part do you want to change?”

Loooong kiss. “Not a single bit.”

It’s even more magical now than the first time, making love with Stoney. We’ve done things right, you know. Proof is sleeping in the bedroom up the hall. Proof is the ring on my finger and on his. Proof is that I love him with all my heart and there is every indication that he feels the same way about me and being wife of Stoney and mommy to our child is all the rockstar I ever need.

We’ve done the international travel thing with little Stoney already. Dear Uncle Jan is getting on in years and I adore the old man. Presenting him with a great-great nephew is a privilege we didn’t want to miss. It’s a long flight there, but proudly we did not add to the ‘I flew all the way to Oslo with a crying baby in the seat next to me’ stories.

Like I said – Proud mommy with a GOOD baby. By now Stoney’s got Norway down pat on his ‘international traveler’ repertoire. We rent a car and drive like – almost – natives. Our meager Norwegian gets smiles. We get points for trying, and help comes a lot faster if you don’t play ‘Ugly American’ to people.

A well-behaved, strawberry-headed baby might not impress the twenty-somethings, but Randall gets coos and oohs from a lot of the older crowd.

I know my baby, so while we’re driving through the countryside on the way to Uncle Jan’s place, I make sure I explain to Randall who Uncle Lars is and how we’re related to him. Something in me makes me think that little Stoney is understanding what I’m telling him. His look is just a little bit past that ‘Mommy makes interesting noises’ stage.

“Stop calling him that,” Stoney says. “He’s gonna be confused.” I think little Stoney knows the difference and heaven help me, but the way he’s developing, I don’t think confusion is going to be something he deals with.

So we met Uncle Jan. I wasn’t planning on pushing Randall into his great-great uncle’s arms. You never know about how people are about babies and I didn’t want either of them uncomfortable.

Apparently, Randall had a plan.

“Randall, this is your Uncle Jan. Uncle Jan, your nephew.”

Uncle Jan’s face crinkled in a smile. “Ah, Johanna, this is the baby I should have had.” He smiled wider. “If YOU hadn’t been my daughter first.”

Little Randall, though, goes into his partially toothed, full-blown baby smile and waves his arms wide.

“May I hold him, Johanna?”

My poor Stoney, my love. He’s got that bemused expression I’ve seen so often since I latched onto him, like he’s thinking ‘How does it always end up this good?’ I hand Randall to Uncle Jan.

With some babies, that’s iffy. If the baby doesn’t WANT to be held by that person and tries to wriggle out of it, there’s a problem. Randall. No problem. Settles into Uncle Jan’s arms, looks into his face, and I guess some people would say he’s happily babbling some baby nonsense. I think he’s telling his uncle something that nobody understands but him. And Uncle Jan. Uncle Jan’s smile is epic.

We talked for a long time. He’s pleasantly surprised that Stoney is still working.

“Uncle Jan,” Stoney said, “my job is what it is because I chose the thing that I love to do.”

Uncle Jan smiled. “My niece has chosen well, I think. Many men would see that silly pile of numbers in a bank somewhere and choose to play for the rest of their lives.”

Stoney smiled. “I’m guilty of playing, Uncle Jan. I play with power systems and technology ... And that baby boy there...”

Little Randall turned his head at the mention of his name, extended a little hand and opened and closed it in a wave of recognition.

“You still have a boat here, Stoney,” Uncle Jan said. “I would be happy to see you and my niece and your son on it. Give the boy a taste of the sea.” He smiled. “Cool Norsk seas, not that warm soup you sail in. And of course I get to see my nephew.”

We went out for a day trip with Uncle Jan, too. He sat back, watching me and Stoney, his eye on our boat handling, watching his new nephew. He’d seen to it that Randall had a full set of hand-knit Norsk maritime woolens.

Sadly, the trip had to end. We bid farewell to Uncle Jan and a host of friends in Norway and made our way back to America.

We were back a week. FedEx dropped off an envelope at the office. I know because Stoney called me.

“You need to get yourself and our offspring up here, baby. This affects HIM.”

I entered the office through the front door. Our receptionist is a neat-looking but very efficient young lady, part-time student. “Hi, Laney,” I say.

“Hello, Jo. How’s the kiddo?”

Little Randall’s head turns to her. He understands he’s being talked about. He grins and raises his free arm, opening and closing his fingers at her.

“Oooooo, whadda doll! When I start bein’ a mom, I want two of those.”

“Lord, no you don’t. One’s plenty...” I retorted. Randall tilted his head against mine. I’d add ‘as if to say’, but by this stage of the game, I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s communicating with that head tilt, along with the stream of babble.

“He’s so god-awful CUTE!” Laney said.

Randall giggled for her.

“I’ll wait for you, Randall. When you turn eighteen, you’re MINE!”

“Laney!” I squeaked.

“Well,” Laney countered, “all these forty-something engineers with teenaged wives, I’m waiting on Little Stoney. I’m gonna be the forty year old administrator with the teenaged husband!”

Little Stoney grinned so hard his eyes squeezed shut.

I walked up the hall and up the stairs to my husband’s office. I wave through the open doors of some of the others, but when I enter MY husband’s office, he’s got that bemused smile again.

He pushes the FedEx packet across the desk towards me. I do a quick glance. From Norway. It’s open.

“Well,” I said. “Did you get a Norwegian traffic ticket?”

“You know better,” he laughed. “Why would Solheim Limited AS be sending me a traffic ticket? Look inside.”

“Here. Hold your son.”

“Put ‘im on the floor. He’s safe.”

I put Randall down. He immediately crawled to his dad and pulled up to standing. I pulled out the contents of the packet. On top was a hand-written letter. In Norsk. I tried reading it. I’m not that good. I did get “niesen min kjære“ – my dear niece.

The second page, neatly printed, was a translation in English.

My dear niece-

Allow this old uncle the pleasure of extending this small gift to my new nephew. I wish to see him a success in the world. I know you and your husband will provide well for him, so I do not worry that he will struggle in the future, so this gift is a mere token.

Of all my nieces and nephews, you alone have made regular visits to see me. These have brought me much pleasure and satisfaction. Meeting my new nephew, it is a greater joy than the first time I launched one of my biggest ships.