Chapter 20

Consciousness returned to me with the light through the window. The cat sensed my transition to wakefulness and nudged my hand with his head, a signal that I needed to be petting him.

The action of petting the cat woke up the kitten curled up next to me, her butt against my thigh. "G'mornin', baby," she said as she rolled toward me, propping up on an elbow. "Poor Tommi! We neglected him yesterday."

Darned cat pulled away from my hand and climbed his sixteen pound butt over me to get into range of Nikki. While I was petting him, he just stared at me. When Nikki started petting him, the purrs sounded like a lawn mower. "Pooooooor kitty," she purred, right along with him.

"Shoulda left him by that dumpster," I said.

"No you certainly should NOT have," she giggled. "When I saw you had a cat, I knew you were a good person. Cats know."

"Cats know what? That YOU are as big a kitten as any of them?"

By this time, the cat had moved close enough so Nikki could nuzzle his head. I marveled. I like cats, that's why I had Tommi, but he never had the affection for me that he had for Nikki, and she noticed that early in our relationship. It was the subject of many giggles, mostly hers.

As she got out of bed, she told the cat, "C'mon, Tommi! Treat time! You get a can of the good stuff!"

"What about me?" I whined.

"I AM your good stuff," she giggled.

While she was busy fending off an excited cat's reaction to the sound of a can opener, I grabbed bacon and eggs and got started on a little breakfast. "All I ask is that you do the toast," I said. "I'll get over being second to the cat."

"Oh, you poor pitiful thing. The cat gets nuzzles and purrs. You get nibbles and kisses." She grinned. "In due time."

After breakfast, we stripped the linens off the bed and tossed them into the washer and made the bed with a fresh set. I was admiring the tightly stretched bedspread when it was enhanced by this cutie sprawling on her back in the middle of the bed. As I crawled over her, she giggled. "This is why we had to change the sheets in the first place." And she kissed me.

Her smile broadened. "Housework. We spent yesterday playing with our friends. We need to get some things done. So we can go play again today."

We split the chores, making short work of spiffing up a house that the two of us kept quite neat on the worst of days. That was the way we'd always done it, from the first days when we were just a couple of people isolated in the footprint of hurricane devastation. Now it was just the way we shared our little house.

Little? Yes, compared with some of my acquaintances, mine was a tiny hovel. I knew another engineer with four thousand square feet of McMansion, a mortgage that both he and his wife had to work to pay, utility bills four times mine, and while it was impressive to look at, inside and out, mine was HOME and a real shelter. The young cutie pushing the vacuum cleaner was what nailed down that 'home' thing.

I thought about my friend Alan and his unlikely bride living in a travel trailer. I had that travel trailer out there in its shelter and had planned on tying it to our pickup truck and taking off for a vacation this summer. Now I was looking at an entirely different set of plans.

I had gotten used to knowing that Nikki was graduating THIS year, and that college was in the cards. After all, why not? Discovering that this girl of mine, this GIFT, was as intelligent as she was, that was more than a pleasant surprise. I knew she wasn't ready to stop learning, and she and I had talked at length about career paths and what college would look like to achieve them. In retrospect, I should've noticed that sometimes she had pointedly questioned me about what I did, and what business looked like surrounding it.

Then we had this 'sister' thing, and here I am, cleaning house with a girl who wants to be an engineer. The vacuum cleaner went silent, there was a period of thumping as she stowed it in the hall closet, and she came around the corner as I was wiping down the kitchen cabinets.

"You're doing it again aren't you, baby?" she asked.

"Doing what?" I asked.

"Thinking. Deep thinking."

"Guilty," I replied. I looked at that open, cute, soft face, those blue eyes, pert nose. She leaned back against the fridge.

"Bad thoughts?"

"Oh, no, little one," I answered. "Just a lot of different things."

"Like your life has been this avalanche racing downhill and it comes up against a boulder and snow shoots way up in the air and comes down and it's still part of the avalanche..."

"You watch too much National Geographic channel," I laughed. "But yeah, sort of like that."

The eyes softened. "You DO like the avalanche, don't you, guy?"

I detected a hint of apprehension. "What? About US? I LOVE it."

"You absolutely sure, Dan Granger? A year ago you weren't signed on to this trip. Now you're looking at quitting a job..."

"For ANOTHER job, with people who are as capable as I am, just in different ways."

"You're putting a kid through college..."

"I am giving my wife a shot at her dream."

"And now I have this crazy bunch..."

"Like I didn't marry YOU into a crazy bunch."

She laced her fingers behind my head, tugging me down. "Are SURE, baby?"

"I've been sure since we admitted we loved each other."

She kissed me. "Let's see where all this stuff takes us, then."

I kissed her back. "As long as we go together."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," she smiled. "Of course, there's gonna be Tina 'n' Alan, and Cindy 'n' her Dan, an' Jason 'n' Susan."

"Whadda crew," I laughed. "It's a wonder that the other Dan isn't in jail. Cindy's something, but she's so obviously YOUNG!"

"Uh, Dan, you listened to her last night. She might BE young, but did you actually listen?"

"Yeah. Kinda like Minnie Mouse reading the Constitution. The look, the voice, that's one thing. The ideas, the words, that's another. And that guy adores her, like I adore you. That's..."

"There is ONE YEAR difference in my age and Cindy's. If we can love each other, then so can they."

"I know, Sweetie," I said. "And I definitely love you."

"And we're gonna meet the whole gang at Tina's house for lunch, and I'm gonna ask more questions about flying." She looked at me with those darned twinkly eyes.

"You didn't forget about that?" I asked.

"You know better, guy! Something we can do together, once you get your license. Then I can get mine."

She was right. She never forgets anything. I need to remember that.

"Like Cindy and Dan." She looked at me with a wry grin. "Go sit in your chair. We have a little time to kill before we can be fashionably early at Tina's."

I knew what 'go sit in your chair' meant. Thirty seconds later, I was in my chair with this indescribably wonderful girl in my lap, and I was setting up some good music to listen to while we cuddled.

When he determined that activity level was low enough for his personal safety, the cat jumped up and insinuated himself into our cuddle. Nikki smiled. "Our fuzzy little child." When SHE petted him, his purr was as loud as a chainsaw.

Let's see how this inventories: Sunday morning, healthy, reclining with this cutie in my lap, along with a purring cat, the sounds of the Mozart clarinet concerto ... pretty darned good, if you wanna know what I think.

We had to break our reverie when the washing machine ended its cycle, though, and by the time we had things shifted around, it was time to head up the road to Alan and Tina's for lunch. I watched with some amusement as Nikki cuddled the cat and kissed him on his head.

In the truck, we headed up the road, our conversation now focused on the group we'd wandered into. I enjoyed her commentary about the other girls and guys.

"D'ya think when people see me an' you and find out we're married, they think we're a match? I look at Dan 'n' Cindy and Tina an' Alan and Susan 'n' Jason, and I see they're matched."

"You're just a little bit biased, my little one," I said. "Most people that see Dan and Cindy DON'T see a marriage or a match, they see exploitation. Just like you and me. I look forty. You look like a teenaged girl, a conservatively-dressed one, but a teen, still."

"I guess I understand that, baby," she admitted. "I know I've had that conversation with some of my school friends." She let out a little sigh. "School friends. You know, last year I didn't have any school friends, not after Tina left. Now I have some pretty good friends. Even a couple who wouldn't've given me the time of day last year."

"Some of that is probably, you, my dear. You're different than when you crawled out of the ruins," I said.

"You really think I'm different?"

"Uh-huh," I said. "You're more confident, more assertive, more poised. You walk into a room with your head high and with a smile on your face. Like yesterday."

"I knew those people, baby," she said.

"You knew Tina and Susan. You'd never met their husbands."

She smiled. "You may be right." Her hand dallied at my neck. "Oh, you KNOW you're right," she admitted. "But us girls, we just sort of FIT together. That's what it feels like: We fit!"

"Y'all look dangerously cute," I said. "And stairstepped."

"Stairstepped?" she asked.

"Yah," I answered. "Line you up, side by side, there's blonde, red, auburn, and you, wonderfully, deliciously, darkly, richly brunette..."

"The fault of my Cajun heritage," she said.

"And I love it!" I countered. "And height," I continued, "Tina, you, Susan and Cindy."

"And intelligence," she said. "There, I think Cindy might be an outlier. The rest of us were in a real dead heat with ACT scores. Cindy is in the middle of us, but she's younger ... If she..."

"Wait a minute, dearie," I said. "Don't cut yourself short. You're in the middle of the Tina-Susan cluster, and YOU are two years younger..."

She giggled. "You know, you're right. It's just that Cindy's so obviously younger..."

She was right. Pixyish Cindy was the outlier in more than one way.

"And we're sisters. D'ya understand how wonderful all this is, baby? In less than a year I went from a disaster of a life to having a husband that I adore, and real friends, and now I've got sisters of my own." She smiled. "And your family. My in-laws."

"And they adore you, too," I said. I thought back to conversations I'd had with my brother over Nikki's entry into my life and the fact that we'd actually gotten married. His initial grudging approval had morphed into happy acceptance. My sister was only slightly easier, propelled by what I imagined was the combination of her mothering instincts, having her own daughter the same age as my Nikki, and her desire that her brother have a good life, and Nikki being such a gem of a find, regardless of age.

"I think so, honey," she said. "You know, I talked to your nieces."

"I know y'all talk." I knew they had conversations about school.

"No, we REALLY talk. About love and marriage and stuff."

"You didn't tell me y'all talked about that."

"Girl talk," she said. "Everybody's interested in how I knew you were The One."

"That's all?" I asked. I knew my nieces. I suspected more.

Giggle. "Other stuff, too."

"Other stuff," I said. "What 'other stuff'?"

"Apparently there's a lot of misconceptions out there about the ability of 'old guys', you know, like FORTY..."

"I am afraid to ask..." I said.

"Well, I'll just tell you anyway, but if you EVER say a word about this..."

"I'll never say a word..."

"Oh, the normal stuff, you know, like was a virgin or had I been with guys. I told them the truth, that you were my very first. And they asked if we, you, were normal, and I told them that I thought we were perfectly normal if a bit enthusiastic at times. That's when they came up with that 'old guy' thing."

"What do you think about that?"

"I think that we've pretty much worn each other out on several occasions. Dan, that first week after we admitted we were together, how many times did we? I mean, it was all a blur. I can't imagine two people doing more..." she looked away, thinking. Another giggle. "I've been asking the wrong people."

"That giggle sounds troublesome." That's what I said. I was thinking different. The giggle sounded delightful, and I trusted my Nikki wouldn't create a problem.

"Guy," she said, "I happen to know a couple of young girls who married older guys, and just maybe notes should be compared."

I sighed. "Please tell you DON'T intend for this conversation to take place at lunch today."

She feigned exasperation. "Dan Granger! I am a person of taste and decorum! I would never have that talk in mixed company!" She paused. "Besides, it wouldn't be nice to Susan. She and Jason are waiting until they're married."