Chapter 20

I went back to school, and wrote a lot of emails. Phee called me fairly regularly, and the other girls called too. To be honest, they talked to Jake as much as they talked to me. That was a lot, in both cases, but it was fair to say he had actually entered their circle of friends. In an odd sort of way, he really was one of the girls. I was not to find out until years later that every time Frankie called him, the first thing she asked was, "How's your soft parts?"

We worked on the house as the money was available. Jake ran an ad in the paper and we got four horses to board. He took care of them and we put the pasture to use.

The time flew by, because we couldn't afford to hire anybody to do the work that needed to be done to get the property back into prime condition. Several times I asked myself why it needed to be in prime condition, but the answer was obvious. I probably wouldn't teach Chinese at Marsden forever ... and someday I'd have to sell the property. It needed to be as valuable as possible when that day arrived.

It wasn't that I was already thinking of moving on. I wasn't. But the military had taught me that nothing is permanent, and to keep a duffle packed and ready to go, because you never knew when you might have to move out.

I was therefore both surprised, and unprepared one Saturday morning, when a heavily gravid Frankie Sykes drove up the road and parked in the yard. She had not called ahead. Well ... let me put it this way. She had not called me to tell me she was coming. She got out, with a hand in her back, and waddled towards Jake and me. We'd had come out onto the porch when we heard Tucker barking and her car coming up the drive.

"You made it in record time," said Jake, stepping down to awkwardly hug her.

"Somebody want to let me in on the surprise?" I said.

Frankie looked at me and frowned.

"Aren't you glad to see me, Tut?"

"Of course I am," I said.

She was blunt about it ... quite possibly because I wasn't as enthusiastic about her arrival as I should have been. I blame that on the surprise.

"It's twins, Tut," she said, holding her swollen belly. "My blood pressure is up and the doctor isn't happy. He says I need to be in bed as much as possible until my due date. And I wanted you to be there when they're born."

"I didn't want you to worry," said Jake, helping her up the steps. "So I just told her to come on and stay with us."

I finally hugged her. It was awkward for me too. She was huge!

"I'm exhausted," she sighed, hanging on me. "It seems like I have to pee every half hour. In fact, I have to pee right now."

I took her inside and aimed her at the bathroom. Then I went back out and helped Jake unload pretty much everything Frankie owned from her car.

"I hope I done all right," said Jake.

"Of course," I said.

"I told her she could stay as long as she wanted," he added.

"Well, you told her the same thing I would have," I said.

"I knew that," he said, still sounding nervous.

I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"I love her, Jake. I suspect you do too. She belongs here, and so do those babies."

He relaxed and grinned.

"I wasn't too sure."

"Well, we'll see what you think when there's all that crying and squalling and diapers to change."

"I raised three kids," he said proudly. "I bet you didn't know that, did you?"

"I did not. Why haven't I seen any of them?"

He looked sad.

"We lost two of them in a car crash. It just about killed Emma too. She was never the same again. She died three years later, and I always thought was a broken heart that took her. The other one is living in Israel with his wife. Met her in college and converted to Judaism. They used to write more'n they do now. They're busy with their life. Point is I ain't no stranger to yammerin' brats."

We carried boxes into the house and went looking for Frankie. We found her in the room next to mine, already asleep on the bed. Even lying there on her side, with the pillow under her head, she looked immense.

"Twins!" sighed Jake.

We got everything in, but stacked it in the living room so she could sleep.

The number of phone calls increased, because now the girls were calling Frankie for updates. I didn't notice all that much, because I was at school a lot of the time.

Frankie said she felt better after a few days. Lots of rest will do that. Jake had built her a desk on wheels, that tilted and which she could attach her laptop to. That let her work in bed. After giving her a few days to relax and regain her strength, I sat down with her one night and asked all the questions I had neglected to ask before. When was her due date? What did she need for after the birth? What kind of delivery did she have in mind? Did she want me to be part of that?

Her due date turned out to be the twenty-fourth of June, exactly nine months to the day after I had donated my fourth or fifth serving of my DNA to her reproductive system. My extremely active DNA, I might point out. Tests had already determined the twins were fraternal, rather than identical. Leave it to a Marine to assault two eggs, instead of the usual one.

She hadn't planned the delivery. She was just going to see what happened. If I wanted to go to Lamaze classes with her, she'd be happy to do that. If she ended up needing drugs to survive, then that wasn't the end of the world, from her perspective.

She needed pretty much everything for after the birth, in terms of furniture. The girls had thrown her a baby shower and, being poor college girls, they had stuck to basics like clothes sets and sleeper sets. She had all the clothes they'd need, but pretty much nothing else.

Jake took his adoption seriously, which meant he was the grandfather, in his mind. When her parents did later show up to visit their grandchildren, he was rarely seen, but before and after that, he was as dedicated to serving her needs, and those of the twins, later, as any biological grandparent.

It was in that vein that Jake used his contacts, which were formidable in that area, and gathered in a crib, bassinet, two wind-up swings, and two mismatched highchairs, all of which he refinished out in the shop, using only finishes that were approved for baby furniture. He probably spent a week of labor on all that stuff.

Her room was also redone. Jake brought home little sheets of paint colors, and carpet swatches and so on. Frankie did stay down as much as she could stand it. When we painted her room, she slept with me. It was at once, one of the most beautiful and the most frustrating times of my life. It was beautiful, because I could spoon up behind her and lay my hand on our babies. I could feel them move and kick and wiggle. I could touch her breasts, already swollen with milk for the twins. And it was frustrating because, just as we got comfortable, she had to lever herself out of bed and go pee.

She had to eat pretty much constantly, because her abdomen was so packed that she could only eat a few bites at a time before she felt full.

We did that for two months. She had arrived in April, so between then and graduation, Jake was her nurse. After school was out, I was able to ease his burden.

Then, two weeks early, her water broke and we were off to the hospital. Being a smart girl, when she had decided to go to California and realize her dream of getting pregnant with Tut's baby, she had also gotten herself a health care policy that covered pregnancy and child birth. She said that was cheaper than paying the hospital directly for expenses related to giving birth.

So things went smoothly, once we got to the hospital. It being California, she had been offered a birthing room that had a warm water pool in it, so she could submerse herself in the water during her labor and the actual birth. Because there were twins, there were extra nurses, so it was crowded. I was there, but I wasn't really needed. Things went remarkably well. Frankie always swore it was the water that was responsible for that.

I admit I freaked out. Part of that was the pace of things. Once they told her to push, things started happening quickly. I heard "It's a boy!" and then looked at this little blue, wrinkled alien looking thing the doctor handed to a nurse, who took it in a towel, like she didn't want to be contaminated by it. Frankie told me to calm down. One of the nurses said, "He'll be fine. They all look like that at first."

The doctor said, "Don't give up now. One down, one to go. Give me a nice, big push, Frankie."

Being Frankie, she gave him three or four pushes, and pretty soon he called out, "It's a girl!" and handed another tiny blue alien to another nurse, who cooed, "She's beautiful!" I decided that nurse was probably from Venus herself, where everybody had blue skin.

Frankie lifted her head and looked at the wobbly, thick pile of skin lying limply where her swollen abdomen had been, and said, "It's a miracle! I can see my feet again! Now ... when can I see my babies?"

We had a serious discussion about naming them. I wasn't worried about future claims of child support. I couldn't fathom a situation in which I wouldn't want to support my children. Who but a jerk would think of that at a time like that? But some day they'd be asked who their daddy was. It might be in school, or wherever, but kids are always asked about their parents.

She had already said she wasn't going to marry me. That, she said, wasn't up for a vote. She had some names picked out, and from them we chose Johnnie Sue, for our daughter, and Bartholomew Grant for the boy. Johnnie Sue was a nod to her mother's unisex name, which was Johnnie, and her favorite aunt, who was named Suzanne. Bartholomew was named after her grandfather, whose name was Bartholomew, and my grandfather, whose name was Grant. We decided their last name should be Sykes, though I would be listed on the birth certificate as the father.

Adoption was discussed, but tabled.

That she would continue to live at the ranch ... and raise the babies there ... was agreed upon.

Jake had gone back home after the kids were born. Frankie had to stay two nights, and while she loved holding both babies at once, it was easier for me to hold one while she held the other. Both took to her breasts like I had, meaning they loved them, and as flat as she'd been as a kid, she produced plenty of milk for both babies now.

Basically, I just slept in the chair, instead of going home.

When Jake came to get us, he came in the SUV, which already had two car seats installed.

And my sister as well.

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