Chapter 8

My ears popped as the plane took off.

Maureen was ten and McKayla had survived her first bout with cancer. We had just sold our business as were basically retired. How about that? I was thirty-four years old, McKayla was almost forty, and neither of us had to work another day in our lives if we didn't want to.

As always, our daughter pressed her face against the window watching the ground recede as the small jet climbed to a low cruising altitude. McKayla and I sat in the plush captain's chairs side by side, holding hands. We were on our way to pick up some of our dearest friends, McKayla's old college roommate Kevin, and his wife Melanie. Our children got along famously and had grown up as best friends.

We were on our way out to San Diego for Comic-Con, our annual pilgrimage to the heart of nerd-dom. My parents were into SCA (the Society for Creative Anachronism), so I grew up around dorks (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). McKayla was also into SCA, but she and Kevin took things to a whole new level.

Where my folks used to just play dress-up, the two of them spent literally thousands of dollars on clothing, gear and toys that were "authentic". When we got together, Melanie and I could only roll our eyes at how goofy our spouses were. That year, McKayla was dressed up as someone named "Darth Talon". Her outfit ... excuse me ... her "costume" ... was essentially a black leather bikini, a bunch of red and black body paint and some head-dress with two tails on it (called "lekku"), plus some custom-made red glowing lightsaber she had paid a fortune for at some site on the internet.

McKayla may have been old enough to have baby grandchildren at the convention, but her body made her one of the most rockin' Darth Talons in the place. And she was mine, much to the chagrin of all the fanboys there. In private, I called her "MILF Talon". Take that, nerds!

Kevin had invested a small fortune into a set of "hero" quality stormtrooper armour, which he wore at every event the two of them attended as part of the 501^st Legion ("Vader's Fist"). Melanie and I also had costumes which we wore to placate our spouses; she was someone named "Barriss Ofee" and I would be dressing up as my namesake, Amberle Elessedil from the Shannara books. The kids also had costumes, although theirs weren't nearly as elaborate or expensive; they'd outgrow them before next year's trip anyway.

"I love you," she whispered and squeezed my hand.

I leaned over and gave her a kiss. We had the cabin to ourselves, the crew was inside the cockpit and we didn't need an attendant. We would pick up our friends and then be on our way for the cross-country trip to San Diego.

Her hands had just started to shake a little bit every now and then from the Huntington's Disease, but other than that, she had a clean bill of health.

"Do you know what I wish we could do more than anything?" McKayla asked softly. Her eyes had fallen on our daughter, who was still staring wide-eyed out the window. Although Maureen had grown up flying around the world, she still had a profound sense of wonder, something I hope she never lost. I didn't answer. Instead, I just ran my fingertips across the back of her hand.

"I wish we could make another baby." There was sadness in McKayla's voice.

"We can always adopt another one," I said softly. This was a discussion we had a couple of times over the years, but McKayla was hesitant to bring another child into our lives given the uncertainties surrounding her disease.

"I know. But that's not what I want." She turned so she was facing me. Our eyes met and my heart broke. "I want to come home one day and have you tell me again that you're pregnant. I want another surprise baby. I want to 'accidentally' knock you up and raise another wonderful child with you."

McKayla smiled wistfully. Both the options for adoption and in-vitro fertilization had been on the table at one point, but we decided against having another child when McKayla got colon cancer and it never seriously came up again.

"I want to spontaneously find out that I made you pregnant," she continued. Her eyes began to well up. She rested her head on my shoulder and we watched our daughter. "That's the only reason why I wish I we were a hetero couple."

All I could do was smile and hold her as the plane began its descent before landing at Raleigh-Durham. Our lives were full of "what ifs", but because we knew that we didn't have forever, it only made every moment that much more precious. We took Maureen out of school all the time to travel and spend as much time together as we could. For one, we could afford it. Secondly, we'd rather our daughter stand at the foot on the Lincoln Memorial or gaze up at the Sistine Chapel or walk a length of the Great Wall of China than read about them in a book.