Chapter 29: Parenting

October 4, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

"I hate having to go back to Indianapolis today!" Jessica said.

"It's only for four weeks, Babe. And Kara and I will come down on Friday evening."

"I know! But I've become accustomed to sleeping in the bed with you two! I don't want to sleep alone!"

"You could look at it from the original perspective we had — being apart most of the next six years."

Jessica sighed, "There is that. I'm glad we took Sofia out for that really nice meal to thank her for the idea."

"For sure! You're moving back on the 31st?" Kara asked.

"Yes. I have my anesthesiology rotation at Loyola. That's going to be nice, because it's a regular schedule. I have to be there at 5:00am, but then I'm done by 3:00pm unless the surgery goes way longer than scheduled. I'm assigned to a scheduled surgery service, so that means it's Monday to Friday."

"The Halloween Party is going to be on Saturday, instead of Friday," Kara said. "Elyse decided it was better for most everyone to have it on Saturday night. We need to come up with some costumes."

"Well, we'll be on our way to Atlanta on Friday night, so we won't have to worry about which Harrison Ford character Jamie is going to win with! I didn't have a costume idea, anyway."

"What about that Addams family idea that Kara had in Stockholm?" Jessica asked.

"No, I think Steve could have come as James Bond. He has the tux. And we could have come as Bond Girls!" Kara said with a smirk.

"Which one of you would have been Pussy Galore?" I teased.

I was immediately smacked hard by my wives, each one hitting a shoulder.

"Jess would have come as Tracey," Kara said.

"Oh sure, the wife who was killed off!" Jessica laughed. "Should I worry, Kara?"

"Only if she were to come as Rosa Klebb!" I chuckled, then teased, "Come to think of it, there might be some resemblance."

I got hit again, this time by Kara.

"Maybe you should just call Tanya and arrange for her to come as Tatiana Romanova!" Kara said.

"Oooh, I like it!" I grinned. "She could wear that black choker I gave her and nothing else!"

Kara laughed, "I can't imagine her doing that except for you, in private!"

"And not anymore," I said. "Jess, do you want me to come down with you for the week? I could work from your place."

"No, Friday is OK. I'm on an on-call surgical service, so I won't keep a regular schedule most days. It's what I wanted, because that gets me on more trauma cases and fewer routine cases. I'll have plenty of routine stuff when I'm doing my surgical Residency. Just remember, I might be paged while you're there."

"Given that Doctor Barton has his electronic leash with him all the time, I think that's going to be true for the rest of our lives."

"Speaking of which, should we head over there for lunch?" Jessica asked. "It's about time."

We made sure all of her things were packed and moved her bags by the back door to the house, then walked over to Doctor Barton's house to have lunch with him and his family. We ate almost as soon as we arrived, and as usual, Gerry peppered me with computer questions and Fawn flirted, though she was careful to not be too obvious when either of her parents were around. Jessica and Doctor Barton talked about her experience in the ER, and I listened carefully, trying to understand as much as possible about my wife's future.

"How did your evaluation go yesterday?" he asked Jessica.

"I received 9s and 10s across the board on my evaluation sheet. And positive comments from the Charge Nurse and the Attending."

"Whatever you do, remember, you need the nurses on your side. If you don't remember that, you'll end up having to work three or four times as hard."

"They bailed me out quite a few times," Jessica said. "I'll remember. Especially for those tricky IVs."

"You won't do many of those in the long run, but knowing how to do it is important. And the nurses are the best ones to show you, not a doctor who rarely does it."

"I got along fine with all the nurses and most of the doctors. It was just a couple of male medical students who I wanted to castrate."

Doctor Barton chuckled, "That doesn't surprise me. You didn't have much respect for most of your peers in Indianapolis."

"Because they wanted the prestige of being a surgeon more than they wanted to help people!"

He nodded, "And once you move into Emergency Medicine full time, you won't see too many of them. They'll be happy taking out an appendix or gall bladder and collecting their fee, then going home to drink a martini and play golf. But they could never do trauma. Either you want it for the challenge, or because you really want to help people. You don't do this to get rich and take it easy."

"It's not as if you're a pauper," I chuckled.

"No, of course not. But the cosmetic plastic surgery guys? The ones who do elective procedures? Now there's a bunch of prima donnas if I ever saw any."

"You're a prima donna, Al!" Belinda teased.

He laughed, and so did Jessica and I.

"I suppose that might be true," he grinned. "Though I'm not the one who keeps stringing papers, titles, and awards after my name like a certain astrophysicist I know."

"Publish or die, Al. You know that. Now, if all of that would just translate into a ride on the Shuttle, I'd die a happy woman!"

"You want to be an astronaut?" Kara asked.

"Sure! They take scientists. Or they will, once they get back to regular launches. But that could be a few years after what happened with Challenger. But now that Doctor Feynman has figured out what happened with the O-rings, I think once they fix that problem, and put the new safety protocols in place, we'll go back to regular flights. And I want to go."

"I had that dream when I was younger, but the path I took through life won't ever lead there. I would have needed to either join the military or study a hard science. Neil Armstrong was, and is, one of my heroes."

"He was on the commission as well," Belinda said.

"I know. That's one of the things that gave me confidence that they'd get to the bottom of it. And Richard Feynman was another good choice; he's no shrinking violet!"

"At least we know what happened," she said. "The not knowing was horrible. Now they just have to figure out what caused the rocket explosions in April and May."

"The space program is a mess at the moment, but hopefully it'll get sorted out soon," I said.

We finished our lunch and then it was time to walk back home so that Jessica could leave for Indianapolis. The rest of our housemates came to say goodbye, and after lots of hugs and a few kisses, Kara and I walked Jessica to her Camaro, and after exchanging hugs and soft kisses, we watched her climb in and drive away.

"Do you think she'll be OK?" I asked.

"Yes," Kara said. "She and I talked a lot these past few weeks about coping with missing you. It's a lot harder than she thought it would be, but she'll do OK. It'll help that she's going to be busy for the next month."

"And you're doing OK?" I asked.

"Perfect! Honestly, things are working out exactly as I'd hoped they would! I'm happier than I've ever been thanks to you and Jess."

"Me too, Honey," I said, taking her hand so we could walk back to the house.

"No work today?" she asked.

"Nah, I needed the time with Jess, especially after I went to breakfast and we went to karate this morning."

"Is Tasha coming over after work?"

"I think so, but I'm not sure. She missed last weekend because of some family thing that they had going on. She's been a bit more reserved than usual since the sauna incident."

"Has she said anything about it?" Kara asked.

"Not to me. Maybe to Leila, but I don't know, and that's between them, anyway. The way we live our lives isn't for everyone. Heck, you know that crap we're going through because of that one customer in Cicero."

"But you said Father Basil was understanding."

I chuckled, "Yes, to a point. The end game for him still has to be me being married just to one of you and completely monogamous. The church doesn't have any other options. I actually checked into what they do if someone from an animist religion in Africa converts — you know, where they can have more than one wife. Basically, the primary wife is the wife, and the others are demoted in a sense. They don't require a divorce, but they can't all sleep with the husband, even though the rest of the relationship can stay the same. So, that means, at best, we'd only be able to loosely participate."

"I do want to go again for Pascha, and I'd be OK with going some other time if you wanted to."

"Not at this point," I said. "I'm having lunch with Father Basil once a month, but converting to Orthodoxy is out of the question. Do you think that I could go back on my commitment to you or Jess?"

"No."

"There's your answer, then," I said. "Are you going out with the girls?"

"They already left," Kara said. "I think your sister is home, and Bethany should be back from her lunch with Nick. Should we ask her to do something?"

"Sure," I said. "She's reintegrating to the group. I just hope Nick can deal with us!"

"When the time is right, have her invite him over for a sauna. We'll use the old weekday rules to get him acclimated. He's been OK with your guys' group, right?"

"He has. We need to make sure we invite Karl and Ginny over as well."

"For a sauna?" she smirked. "I know you're partial to redheads!"

"Oh stop! I can see Kathy any time I want, and you know there's no redhead for me but her!"

"True. Though you do have quite the collection of strawberry blondes around here!"

"And I'm only sleeping with one of them! Speaking of which, want to see if we can kidnap Jesse and go for a walk?"

"Sure!" she said.

We went to the coach house and found Stephanie with my son. His moms had gone shopping, and she was watching him.

"Dada!" Jesse squealed.

"Hi, Jesse!" I said.

"Hi, Jesse!" Kara said.

"Kar!" Jesse gurgled, giving her a big smile.

"Think you can keep him until his moms get home?" Stephanie asked.

"Sure, Squirt. Why?"

"Jorge called," she said.

"You're seeing a lot of him," I said. "I haven't seen you date anybody else for a couple of months."

She nodded, "We get along great. He's a super nice guy, not like some of those asshole frat boys I went out with last Spring."

"Careful. Dave will disagree with you about 'asshole frat boys'."

"Dave's a pussy cat, just like Jorge," Stephanie declared. "You know what I'm talking about. You would never have been friends with Dave if he was like that."

"True. Are you getting serious with Jorge?"

"Not like that," Stephanie said. "He sees other girls occasionally. He went out with Leila a few weeks ago, and there's another girl at IIT that he sees from time to time. I'm not ready to be tied down."

"Well, you could do a whole lot worse than Jorge González," I said.

"There are some Navy guys Nick and Karl have brought around who are really nice, but I can't do that. I'm not leaving Chicago as long as you're here, and all those guys are going to ship out somewhere."

"Joyce is managing," I said.

"Did she finally get a ring from Jake?"

"Yes. They'll get married sometime next year, I guess. I'm not sure when his tour on the boomer starts, but he'll be at sea for between three and five months at some point."

"Exactly what I meant about not dating Navy guys. Hey, have you heard anything more from Aimee?"

"Her last letter said that she's possibly coming to visit at Christmas. I actually talked to her dad a week ago."

"Oh? About what?"

"He was asking if I had any insight into how to convince Katya Sergeyevna to work for him."

"Would she do that?" Stephanie asked.

"At this point? I can't see her defecting. Maybe if something really bad happened in the Soviet Union. I think he'll keep trying."

"What about Lyudmila? How's school for her?"

"Great," I said. "She's going to New York for Christmas break and she'll stop in Chicago on her way back west. When I talked to her a couple of weeks ago, she told me that she had a suitably decadent capitalist boyfriend. He's from San Diego, drives a classic Corvette convertible, and surfs. Typical Californian, I guess. He's a CS major as well."

"Just one guy? I thought she'd cut a swath through Stanford a mile wide!"

"Just one. She met him on the first day of classes in her first CS class. They hit it off right away and started dating. She got her on-campus job, too, so she's paying me back for the computer."

"Cool. I'm going to go shower and then go meet Jorge. Later!" she said.

"Bye, Squirt! So, Jesse, where shall we go?"

"Pahk!" he demanded.

"Hmm, take him to the park and have him berate me because Francesca isn't there, or walk around the UofC campus and have him berate me for not going to the park. Great set of choices!"

"He's so funny about that little girl!" Kara observed. "Has he made other friends?"

"Beverly started taking him to the play group, and said he's friendly with the other kids, but he and Francesca are inseparable."

"Pahk! Fra Fra!" Jesse insisted.

"Well, we have our marching orders," I said.

We put Jesse in his stroller, which he liked because he could sit up and watch the world go by. We walked to the park and, as we neared the usual tree, I chuckled. Carol was there with Francesca and Frankie.

"OK, we lucked out," I said to Kara.

"Jesse!" Francesca yelled as we got closer.

She was just over a year old and could toddle several steps without help, though she was unsteady. She took about four steps towards us and then fell in the grass. She moved to a sitting position and looked expectantly to me to put Jesse down next to her, which I did.

"Fra!" Jesse said, and to my surprise, planted a kiss on Francesca's lips!

Carol and Kara both laughed.

"Well, he's your son for sure!" Kara said.

"And he's taking liberties with my daughter!" Carol teased.

"I don't see her objecting!" I chuckled.

Kara and I sat with Carol and watched the kids play. At one point, Francesca stood up and held her hands out and helped Jesse stand, only for both of them to topple over with him on top of her. They both gurgled and laughed and then hugged.

"Somebody get a bucket of water!" I teased.

"In about twelve years, we're actually going to have to keep a close eye on these two," Carol said.

"Why? If it happens between them naturally, then so what? As long as they both go into it willingly, what business is it of ours?"

"You seriously don't understand my concern? Maybe it's because you have a son."

Kara spoke quickly, cutting off my response.

"It wouldn't matter if Steve had girls, Carol. He's very much of the opinion that parents should only provide guidance and support and kids should make their own choices. You provide them with information about birth control and make sure they have good sex education before puberty. Other than that, he'd only step in if there was some real danger."