Chapter 18

The outside of the house looked the same, when we walked in the front door though, the inside was a whole different thing. Music was playing and the place seemed brighter and there was a familiar smell of lilacs. I’d found my mother’s home. As soon as I closed the door Jean yelled out, “We’re home!”

I joined in, “Who’s in charge of this chicken outfit?”

“PAUL!”

My mother screamed from the back of the house and sound of feet running was joined by a laughter I hadn’t heard in a long time. She barely came to a stop when she took me up in a welcoming hug.

“Hi Mom.”

“Let me look at you,” she said pushing me to her arm’s length. “You look harder, less soft.”

“I would hope so. I’ve had several very large men beating on me over the past months.”

“How long are you here?”

“Do you mean here in the house or here in town?”

“In town, you goof.”

“I have to be back on base by Sunday night. So, I’ll leave on Sunday morning.”

“Do you have any plans...”

“Hello son!” Leo Carlesetti said striding into the room.

He offered a hand, which I took and then pulled me in for a quick hug.

“My goodness, that is a strong grip. How are you?”

“I was just telling Mom that I’m doing well and will have to leave on Sunday morning.”

“Are you going to be staying here?” Mom asked.

“No, I think I’ll stay at my home with my wife,” I said with a smile towards Jean.

“Oh my. Oh, I’m sorry. Of course, you will.”

“Hi Mom! Remember me? Mrs. O’Dell?”

“I’m sorry, Jean. Hello Ingrid.”

“Hi, Mrs. Carlesetti,” Ingrid answered.

“Come on to the living room. LOIS!” Mr. C called out.

“What do you want? Oh! Hello Paul!” Lois said happily.

“Hi Lois,” I answered.

“Lois would you please get us something to drink?”

“Not until you tell me what you want.”

Mr. C gave her his patented smart-ass look and said, “I’d like an unsweetened iced tea, please.”

“OK, Boss.”

“I hate that!”

I chuckled and hugged Jean to me and whispered, “Some things never change.”

“Lois, I’ll have a big orange juice, please,” I said.

“Me too, please,” Jean said.

“And what would you like, young lady?”

“Oh, I’m Ingrid.”

“Oh, you’re Jean’s roommate,” Lois said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Would you like anything to drink?”

“Coffee?”

“Cream or sugar?”

“Both, please.”

We all gathered around the table in the breakfast nook and the conversation went back and forth, most of it with me telling about the joys of Basic Training. After a long time, I had to change the subject.

“So how are James and Barbara. When James picked me up at the airport, we didn’t talk about him and Barbara.”

“Barbara isn’t big as a house yet but she is sure working on it! Let me have James and Barbara come to the house,” Leo said. He rose and stepped to the intercom on the wall and called the Security office. A few minutes later James opened the door from the backyard and Barbara came in followed by her husband.

“Hello Paul!”

For the first time in my life, I hugged a pregnant woman. It felt amazingly awkward.

“How are you, Barbara? Has your wound healed completely? When are you due?” My questions flew out before I could stop them.

“I’m great. We’re great,” Barbara said hugging James and rubbing her belly. “The wound acts up before it rains and I’m due in early December.”

“It’s a boy!” James bragged.

“A boy? How’d you pull that off?” I prodded him.

The two security guards sat at the table with us and joined in the conversation. Ingrid sat quietly taking it all in until James mentioned the gamblers and how they’d been driven out of the area.

“That’s not right!” Ingrid injected correcting James’s opinion.

“What?”

“Before we broke up, Trent was bragging to me that the gamblers who’d caused all the trouble were coming back. They made too much money to give the area up. They were just going to lay low until they were ready to make a big move.”

“Really?” Leo asked. “Are you sure, Ingrid?”

“Yes, sir. Trent was bragging that he was going to be making a ton of money. They were also going to do something that would make it look legal to hide the money.”

Leo’s expression changed to the one with the furrowed brow as the possible options the gamblers could take, were examined in his mind. What legal business options would be available to these men? With the advent of online wagering, he wondered which way they could turn their business to make it legal.

My Mom placed a hand onto Leo’s arm, pulling him back into the conversation. We continued to talk about life in general and then my mom dropped a bomb.

“I was going to tell Leo tonight at dinner, but now is a wonderful time. Leo ... I’m pregnant.”

The silence was profound. Leo’s jaw dropped open and was instantly joined by mine and Jean’s.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, crazy huh?”

“Joyce? Really?” Mr. C managed to say softly.

“Yeah, really. Looks like it’s going to be a Valentine baby,” she added while looking around at the shocked faces.

“Mom?” I said.

“I know! Do you think your father...?”

“Would be proud?” I said, “I think he would be really glad that you’re happy and that you’ve found a new love and that you’ve given Leo the same gift you gave to my father.” I stopped talking and took a deep breath. “Wow! I’m going to be a brother!”

“And I’m going to be a sister!” Jean added, with way more tears that I had.

Jean stood and gave her stepmom a hug and a kiss on the cheek and then did the same to her father. I followed my wife but didn’t give my father-in-law a kiss.

Suddenly there was a flurry of movement as the women in the room all clung to one another and laughed and cried and jumped around. Even Ingrid got into the spirit. James and I stood and slung our arms over Leo’s shoulders from each side and silently watched the dance.

“You know this might be a good time to sneak away and have a congratulatory glass of a fine single malt.”

“Good idea. I’m not sure I want to be here when the ‘baby gene’ kicks in on Jean,” I said quietly.

“It is a powerful thing,” James offered. “Joyce has been fussing over Barbara and KABOOM!”

“Let’s get that drink before Lois goes KABOOM as well.”

“Really?” I said.

“I’ll tell you later,” was Leo’s reply.

We quietly walked out of the breakfast area and then ran to Leo’s den. He locked the door before opening the cabinet that held his favorite adult beverages.

“Paul, have you been doing much drinking while you were away?”

“Not much. Mostly beer and the occasional shot of Jack or Jameson.”

“Well, this is my favorite,” he said as he took a dark green bottle off the top shelf of the cabinet. He also took down three glasses and pressed each one down in turn onto a pad on the bar. There was a loud hiss and a blast of CO2 flew up and chilled each glass.

“I like a cold glass but I don’t like ice. Some people think a small splash of water or a small ice cube is needed to ‘activate’ the scotch. I’m not one of them but a glass that is cool to the touch is nice.”

Mr. C then poured about an inch of the brown liquid into each glass. He offered one to James and then to me.

“Son, I thank you every day for supporting your mother’s decision to marry me. You know that if you had objected, she wouldn’t have done it. Hell, I can say the same thing about my daughter. If she had thought I was disrespecting Sandra, Joyce and I would never have happened.”

“I kind of figured that you and Jean had the same conversation. Mom asked me what my dad would have thought. She said that he and I had the same thought process. I’m happy that she married you and I’m still working on being a brother.” Then just as seriously as I could, I said, “I mean that means that my mother does it.”

Leo and James almost blew their fine, single-malts out their individual noses at that one. We all laughed as my father-in-law and my friend cleaned themselves up. Then we touched glasses.

“To family.”

“To family now and in the future.”

“I’ll agree to that amendment,” Leo said touching my glass.

“So, dads to be, I know James has already peeked and is having a son. How about you Leo? Are you and mom going to find out the sex of the baby? James, why did you and Barbara peek?”

“This is our first so we wanted to know, you know, so we could start stocking up on clothes and stuff. Barbara’s folks are passed and mine are way over on the other side of the world in Israel. We’ve done the nursery in boy stuff. You know, cowboys and horses and stuff like that.”

“I’ll talk to your mother, Paul, but I’m sure at this stage of our lives we’ll want to know. But over the past few months she has surprised me several times. We’ll see. If we peek, I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

We sipped our drinks and Leo talked about scotch. I was enjoying the smell and the various tastes of smoke and oak and what Leo said was peat. Then the subject changed to children and how he and Sandra wanted to have three or four.

“I was just thinking, Paul, what do you think about naming the baby after Sandra or Michael?”

“I think it would be wonderful.”

“James, have you two decided on a name for the boy yet?”

“Nope. Barbara says that since it’s a boy I get to name him. I haven’t even begun to think about it. I’ll probably wait until he pops out and then say the first name that comes to my mind.”

“So, there’s a good chance he’ll be named “Holy Shit!”,” I joked.

“Paul, you’re assuming that James will still be on his feet and not passed out.”

“I’ve seen blood before, both in combat and here when Barbara got shot. I think I’ll be OK. Were you, sir?”

“James, I think you’ve earned the right to call me Leo. I thought the same thing and when that bloody, gooey, little mess came out of my Sandra I got weak in the knees and saw stars for a few seconds.”

“Paul, when do you think that you and Jean will have your first?”

“James, I have no idea. After watching that display out there, I may be pushing buttons before I leave on Sunday. But that brings up a serious thought for me.”

“What’s that, son?”

“Mr. C, Jean told me that her mom danced until she was pregnant. How did you deal with that? And how pregnant was she before she quit?”

“Sandra danced until she was at about seven months. She told me that the tips doubled as her belly and her breasts grew. Sandra’s nipples got so big and dark; the men went nuts. She said the thing that really drove in the tips was when she pinched her nipples and her outie. They actually went nuts over her extended belly button!”

“I was just wondering about Jean. James dropped me off at the club last night and I saw Jean dance for the first time. It was great to watch.”

“Did anyone act up?” Leo asked.

“Yeah, at one point some drunk guy yanked out her foxtail butt plug. She screamed, I dove on top of the guy and one of the security guys lifted me off the drunk. I’m told the big guy took him for a walk around the block to sober him up.”

“That must have been Manny. Did you know that he was sixth a few years ago in the World’s Strongest Man show on TV?”

“The way he picked me up and moved me? Nope, not surprised. I just saw how the men looked at the women and I’m worried about Jean. She explained that what happened last night can’t normally happen, but I don’t know what I’d do if someone hurt her.”

“Paul, all I can tell you is that the owner and I go back a long way to the old days and he has promised to protect her. He’s not a man to be trifled with and he runs a clean club. No drugs. No fucking customers.”

He paused for a minute, seeming to recall his wife dancing, then took a breath and said, “And, just like her mother, Jean has this thing in her heart about dancing naked. I know Sandra changed when I tried to get her to stop against her will. She was moody and dour. I finally agreed to let her go back on week nights, like Jean is doing, and when she finally chose to quit on her own, she walked away happy.”

“So, if I want Jean to quit, I should get her pregnant as soon as possible?”

“That might not stop her. Sandra loved to dance when she was preggers. She finally stopped when she couldn’t make it through the skinny door behind the curtain from the stage to the back. Look, Paul, I don’t pretend to understand why Jean or Sandra felt the overpowering urge to be a stripper. All I know is that they love it. Sandra brought that love home to me every day. She was true to me in all ways until the day she died.”

Leo got quiet then and took another sip from his glass.

“Well Barbara has no urge to strip on stage, but she does hate wearing clothes around the house. And since the shooting, she has spent a lot more hours on the shooting range. I may have to get a raise to afford the ammo.”

“Speaking of which, did I mention that your ideas helped a lot in Basic and thanks to my dad’s teaching they are sending me to sniper school after Infantry Training?”

“Sniper school?” James said, nodding. “You know that it’s more than shooting, right?”

“I don’t know anything about it, really.”

“Paul, they are going to teach you the collection of battlefield information. You’ll learn fieldcraft skills, advanced camouflage techniques, concealed movement, target detection, range estimation, terrain utilization, intelligence preparation, reporting procedures, sniper tactics, and staff subjects like intelligence, mission, training, combat orders, command and control, and training management. Oh, and precision marksmanship.”

I nodded my head and smiled before I spoke.

“Looks like I won’t be bored.”

“Nope.”

“You been there?”

“I have but turned out I didn’t have the eyesight for it.”

Just then there came a knock on the door. Leo looked at James and me and raised his eyebrows. I was closest and unlocked the door. We nodded back and he called out.

“Come in!”

The door opened and my mom came in.

“Dear, are you and the boys coming out soon? I’d like to talk to my son.”

Another voice spoke from outside the door.

“And I’d like to get my husband to get us to the grocery store,” Barbara said.

“And I want to take my husband to the observatory.”

“Well, men, my wife sounds like she wants to get in the baby way,” I said, resigning myself to the inevitable frenzy Jean had waiting for me.

I looked at James and Mr. C and raised my glass. We drained the remainders of the scotch and headed for the door. We took our glasses to the breakfast nook and left them for Lois. Barbara took James out the door and my mother took Mr. C in her arms, kissing his cheek.