Follow Focus
15
Invitation
IT WOULD BE two weeks before I got the staple out of my stomach and I was ordered to rest and not to travel. Right. I got home on Friday after Anna picked me up at the hospital.
“Do you think maybe you’ve been working too hard and stressing too much?” she asked.
“I don’t really think appendicitis is stress related,” I sighed. “And the work isn’t difficult. It’s all the travel and time away from the family. And it’s not like I’ve been shipped out for twelve months in a war zone. Can you imagine what those guys and their families go through?”
“I think we know firsthand,” Anna said.
“Yeah. At least Ronda and I are fairly safe. Getting sick is a hazard no matter what your job is.”
“I wish there was a way we could talk to you every day. It would go a long way toward smoothing things out—especially with Patricia and Toni. Nate, you can’t possibly imagine how she misses you when you are gone.”
“Patricia or Toni?”
“Yes. I really didn’t think I was going to be the daddy-substitute when I became your girlfriend. Don’t get me wrong. I love both of them and would do anything needed to love and protect them. Just like you. I just didn’t know what that would mean in the long run.”
“Are you going to be okay when the baby gets here?” I asked.
“Mmm. Yeah. I’m not emotionally unstable. Poor Patricia is going through so many hormonal cycles, it’s really hard on her. When she’s calm and reasonable, she admits she had the same thing happening when she was pregnant with Toni. Only in Tenbrook, she had her parents, your parents, Tony’s parents, the three of us girlfriends who went to school with her, Judy and Janice, and the routine of school to hold her together. This time, when you and Ronda are gone, she only has me.”
“Do you think she should go back to Tenbrook for the duration?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“I think she would be devastated to think you or any of us want her to go away. We all chose this pregnancy. We talked about it and we promised to support her. We just need to remember to support each other, too.”
We pulled up at the train station in Antioch and shortly, Ronda’s train arrived from downtown. We got home to celebrate the weekend. I was supposed to rest, but it really looked like I should shovel some snow.
Of course, Anna put an immediate end to that idea, with a threat of more hospitalization if I attempted anything so strenuous. Possibly not as a result of the shoveling.
Patricia had dinner ready for us and Toni rushed to me to dance.
“Honey, Daddy can’t dance right now. When I sit down, I can hold you in my lap, but I can’t pick you up.”
“Why?” That had become a favorite question ever since she learned the word. I credit the Head Start Program.
“Daddy has an owie on his tummy and can’t pick up a big girl.”
Of course, Toni wanted to see the owie and kiss it all better. I showed her that it was covered with a bandage but would take a few days to heal. We finally managed to all get settled for dinner and I was surprised that Patricia led us in the prayer.
“Lord, thank you for bringing our family back together after Nate’s surgery. Thank you for seeing us safely through our family trip. Please forgive us—me—for not being nice to my loving wives and husband and daughter. I love them all so much. Please don’t take them away from me.”
It was not a usual prayer before a meal. I reached over to put an arm around Patricia and pull her to me. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tightly. I winced just a little as I stretched the incision.
“Mommy, careful. Daddy has an owie.”
“Oh, I know, sweetie. Mommy’s going to take care of Daddy and try to make it all better.” Then she looked up at me. “Everything,” she whispered.
We ate dinner, catching up on what had happened since we got home from the Caribbean. Mostly, that fell to Ronda as Anna hadn’t returned to work yet and Toni hadn’t returned to school.
“I cancelled our trips for the next two weeks and I’m getting them rescheduled for the end of the tour instead of the beginning. Mr. Martin and I talked and we decided that would be much better than rescheduling everyone so the trip was just pushed out,” Ronda said. “He was very sympathetic.”
“I should be able to go back to work next week,” I said. “Just not to travel.”
“He wants you to take a few days off before you return.”
“Did you have to go to Washington this week?” I asked.
“No. I handed my pouch off to a courier and it arrived on the Assistant Deputy Secretary’s desk this morning. I don’t think we were handling anything that was particularly time sensitive, but he called this morning to thank me for picking everything up and for delivering the film. We may be traveling with other State Department employees on our trips to South America, but we won’t be going into the office at all until after our baby is born.”
“How will we handle the uncertainty of that date?” I asked.
“All the staff are being informed that their training could be delayed by the birth of our little one,” Ronda said. “It will be the same as the interruption for your unexpected surgery.”
“We can do that?” I asked.
“It seems that we have a lot more power over our schedule than I originally thought,” Ronda said. “There may be times when we are asked to go somewhere specific at a specific time, and there will certainly be times when we are advised regarding routing to make sure we are not flying into conflict. It appears, however, that when we are given the order of priority by region, it is then our business to schedule and conduct the installations. By the way, Josie has been permanently assigned as our secretary, which I gather is a promotion and she is delighted.”
“I wonder how she’ll handle our time off in the summer,” I mused. Ronda just shrugged.
After dinner, I settled into a chair and Toni crawled into my lap, careful to sit on the left side so she wouldn’t hurt me. We read and then Anna picked her up to get ready for bed. Both Patricia and I went with her, but neither of us could pick Toni up now. The little girl weighed more than forty pounds. We finally got her into bed and everyone came by for nighttime kisses, including Toni kissing baby sister in Patricia’s tummy.
“We should pick a name for the unborn,” Ronda laughed as we all gathered on our bed. “Have you thought about what to call her and what happens if she happens to be a he?”
“I’ve been toying with some names,” Patricia said. “I called Miss Ludwig and she recommended a book of baby names that I was able to request from the library up here. I’ve been looking at names that could be either boy or girl.”
“Oh, what do we have?” I asked. “This is exciting.”
Patricia got a pad of paper from the bedside table and began reading the names she’d written down.
“There’s Jessie. It can be spelled differently for boy or girl. And since the Beatles hit, Jude has become popular. Taylor is pretty good and so is Sidney. Drew. Cameron. Alex, for either Alexander or Alexandra. Robin is another possibility. What do you guys think?”
“Some great choices,” Ronda said. “How about Ronnie for either Ronda or Ronald?”
“No fair,” Anna said. “There’s no male equivalent for Anna.”
“Honey, you’re still going to be baby’s Mom Anna. There’s nothing better than being Mom,” Patricia said.
“Speaking of which, there’s Pat for either Patrick or Patricia,” I said.
“No. Let’s not saddle the poor kid with a parent’s name,” Patricia said. “I considered Adrian or Adrienne, too, but our pet might consider that too much pressure.”
“She’s made that pretty clear, and I feel the same way about Nat for Natalie or Nate. No parental names,” I said.
We cuddled together on the bed. I was being pretty careful about how I was moving. I’d taken one of the mild pain pills that we discovered was really just a big dose of Tylenol. Patricia cuddled up on one side of me and Anna on the other, with Ronda holding Anna. I hadn’t done a thing all day, but I was still exhausted. I guess the stress of the past couple of days was catching up with all of us and I could feel the breathing of my lovers even out into sleep patterns. I was tired, but sleep didn’t seem to be on the horizon for me. I kept thinking of all the names we’d brainstormed.
“I’m so sorry, Nate,” Patricia whispered into the darkness. I wasn’t sure she knew I was awake, so I kissed the top of her head. “I was a terrible snark in Nassau. You were sick and I told you to just get on the plane and you’d feel better by the time we got home. But it was serious. If your appendix had ruptured on the plane, you could have died. I was treating you like you’d said to Toni. She was sick and didn’t want to fly and you insisted we go anyway. It all worked out, but I was thinking, ‘Have a taste of your own medicine.’ It was stupid and I’m sorry.”
“Hey now,” I whispered back. “You were right. And we should have waited a day before we took off. Nothing would have been a problem and Toni would have enjoyed the flight as much as she did on the way home. If anyone was being stupid, it was me. My thoughts were of a ruined vacation and not of our sweet little girl. I’ll never respond that way again.”
“I have so much to learn about being a good mother and a good wife,” Patricia said. “My own mother would have reacted the same way. She’d have felt my head and said, ‘You’ll feel better once we’re on our way.’ But we should have known the hotel doctor was full of bull. You were running a fever. I could feel it, just sitting beside you.”
“If it’s any comfort, if I’d been in Nassau alone when it came time to leave and I was feeling crappy, I would have done the same thing. I’d have gone to the airport and gotten on the plane. I’d feel like if anything was really wrong with me, at least I’d be home. Let’s not talk about that anymore.”
“I love you, Nate. I love you as your lover and as the mother of your children. I just love you so much.”
Her hand had found its way to my cock and I was definitely responding to the pregnant beauty beside me.
“I can’t really roll over on you,” I said. “I’d love to make love to you, but you’ll have to do all the work.”
“Believe me, lover, it isn’t work,” she said.
She threw a leg over me and began sliding her vulva up and down the erection she’d just induced. I was soon slippery with her juices. She moved forward and caught the tip of my cock at her entrance and slowly engulfed me. I played with her breasts and petted her rounded tummy. Our baby. There was nothing I could do to help. Thrusting up to meet her meant engaging abdominal muscles that had recently been severed or something. All I could do was lie back and enjoy and pet my children’s mommy.
“I love you so much, Nate. I had a hole in my heart and you were there to fill it. I lost everything and then I discovered new life was there to care for. You were there to give me strength to carry my little girl,” Patricia said as she continued to rub and thrust against me. “I didn’t need to learn to love you. I simply discovered that I did. When you and Anna stood with me at Toni’s baptism, you became her mommy and daddy as much as I was. You became my husband and wife that day and I will never ever forget how much I love you. And before long, I discovered I loved Ronda, too. We were and are a family and I would do anything for my husband and wives.”
Her movements became erratic and I could feel her internal muscles clenching and releasing on my cock as she built to her orgasm. Held motionless by my surgery, all I could do was ride the wave with her and let my semen crash on the shores of her vagina as she clamped down and moaned her pleasure loudly enough to wake Ronda and Anna beside us.
She couldn’t stay upright on me and couldn’t lie on her stomach, so she slid off to the side and gripped me tightly.
“I know I’m a burden here. I’ll go back to Tenbrook until the baby is born so I don’t create problems,” she whispered. I could feel Ronda and Anna vigorously shaking their heads as they gripped my arm.
“Patricia, my love, if you want to return home to your parents and mine for a while, we won’t stop you,” I said. “But you need to know that none of us want you to go. We want you right here where we can share the growth and birth of our baby. Patricia, you are our wife. We love you and want you with us. Please, lover. Please don’t go.”
“I don’t want to go!” she cried. “I don’t want to be away from any of you! Anna and Ronda, please forgive me for being difficult. I feel like I’ve been on a hormonal rollercoaster and I can’t control where it’s going.”
“You know what we do for that?” Ronda asked, crawling over Anna and me to lie next to Patricia and hold her.
“What?” Patricia asked.
“We just throw our hands up in the air and yell ‘Whee!’ and then we catch our breath as the car climbs to the top of the next hill. You are carrying our child. Not just yours and Nate’s. Anna’s and mine, too. We’re here for the duration of the ride.”
“What would I do without you? I’d be so lost,” Patricia said.
“Then don’t run away from us,” Anna said. “We’ll be part of everything with you. Everything, my little love.”
I stayed home for the next week, gradually moving more and more freely. By Friday, I was able to pick up Toni, and more importantly, to take an active part in our lovemaking—though all three girls had enjoyed a ride while I was unable to contribute.
Monday, I was back at work with Ronda. Of course, that meant the first thing Josie put on my desk was a meeting notice with our boss. Ronda and I carried coffee cups to his office at ten.
“Come in and sit down,” Martin said. We settled ourselves and he looked straight at me. “I really had no idea what I was getting myself into when I hired you.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I really didn’t plan on being out with my appendix. Do you want to see the stitch?” Okay, maybe that was a little snarky, but not what I expected from my boss on my first day back.
“Oh, everyone gets sick. That’s a normal part of being employed. I’m glad you got back before it turned serious. No, I really thought this was a simple job and I was kind of doing a favor for a couple of recent grads and then you got drafted and I was really pleased I could help. But all this other stuff has been added to your schedules. You’re functioning as couriers. You’re asked to do portraits of all our ambassadors and consul generals. You get roped into a breakfast meeting to help establish relations with an emerging nation. And now… I guess you are going to be an official State Department photographer on loan to the British monarch.”
My mouth dropped open and I looked at Ronda, who was equally surprised.
“What does… To the Queen?” I gasped.
“Well, yes and no. Oh, I should have started with this, I guess.”
He handed me an envelope with my name and the names of all my wives and Toni elegantly written on the front. I looked at the wax seal and thought it looked familiar, but couldn’t place it. When I broke it open, I found a beautifully engraved invitation.
Lady Madeline Monroe, Countess of Plympford, is pleased to invite you to the wedding of her daughter, Lady Jane Monroe of Plympford to Lord Peter Winkle of North Heddington. 12 May 1973. 11:30 a.m. Coventry Cathedral.
“Jane and Peter are getting married!” I said, handing the invitation to Ronda.
“You see? It’s that you know a Lord and Lady well enough to call them by their first names when you receive an invitation to their wedding that makes your situation so unique. The invitation came along with a request from the Ambassador that you come prepared to take photographs by request of the Queen.”
“So, we won’t just be attending a wedding,” I said. “I can’t believe they’re holding the wedding in Coventry Cathedral. I suppose there will be hundreds of people attending. And the Queen?”
“I doubt Her Majesty will attend herself, but it is likely that one of her sons, near the same age as the couple, will be there.”
“I’m just surprised that Jane wants me to be her wedding photographer,” I said.
“Not exactly. I understand a Sir Andrew Scott will be the official photographer of the event.”
“But…”
“This story has come to me via the circuitous route of the ambassador, the deputy chief of mission, the secretary of state, the undersecretary of management, and the assistant secretary of the consular bureau. It’s likely to have been enhanced, and it has brought you to the attention of several people in our department,” Martin said. “It seems Lord Winkle…”
“Lord Peter,” I corrected him automatically. “Lord Winkle is his older brother.”
“Yes. It seems Lord Peter has the ear of the Queen for some reason. When they were discussing the wedding, he mentioned that he would like to surprise his bride by having you come to do portraits of them, individually and together. The Ambassador talks with the Queen at least once a month, though it’s seen as being for appearance’s sake, but I understand they are actually good friends. The Queen wondered aloud how she might make contact with you to get you to take the photographs.”
“Um… Lord Peter is a very slight and effeminate gentleman,” I offered. “The Queen happened upon him when he was being beaten by bullies and sent her guards to the rescue. They have been very close since then, I’m told.”
“That explains that part of the mystery,” Martin said. “Well, the Ambassadorship in London is a largely ceremonial position and is a political appointee. But he took the hint from the Queen to the Deputy Chief of Mission. The Deputy Chief is a career diplomat and understands implications. He also monitors all activity in the embassy. He recognized your name from an announcement we made regarding the roll-out of the new ID stations. He called the Secretary of State and asked if something could be done to get you to London at the time of the wedding, as a personal favor to the Queen.”
“Wow!” Ronda said, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Understand, the primary diplomatic relations in London are between the Prime Minister or his Foreign Affairs Minister and the Deputy Chief of Mission at the embassy. The Queen is a figurehead, as is the notion of most nobility and royalty. But she still wields a great deal of weight when the US is trying to hold together the coalition of nations voting with it in the UN and trying to prosecute the war. That began the trickle-down of the Queen’s request, along with the official invitation to the wedding in your hand.”
“May 12. That’s before our proposed break for the summer. Is there a way to trade out some time so my family and I can be there for Jane’s wedding?”
“You don’t get it, Nate. You don’t need to trade out time. You are being sent as an official representative of the State Department. Prepare your family for two weeks in Great Britain. You will, by the way, need to train the staff at the embassy in London, and at the Consulates in Edinburgh and Belfast. Most of your time, however, will be at the disposal of your friends at Plympford and wherever they want to travel with you.”
“We’ll do our best, sir.”
“I’ve no doubt of that. Considering the expanded scope of your responsibilities, we are re-evaluating the grade level of your position. Private planes are not usually at the disposal of anyone below a GS12. Now, let’s talk about your trips to the southern continent.”
As big as the news was regarding the wedding, the expanded details of our South American stint were even more mind-blowing.
“Our own plane?” I asked Ronda when we finally got back to the office. We’d been with Mr. Martin all morning.
“He said we’d be picking up and delivering other State Department people, including couriers, but our trip is the priority,” Ronda said. “Do you know how big a pay grade jump it would be to be classified GS12? It would be over 50% pay increase, and Mr. Martin said it could be retroactive!”
“It’s you they should bump up the ladder. I really don’t do anything but take pictures.”
“And have contacts. Why didn’t I think of making friends in various nations while I was in college?”
“You do have friends from other places. That guy in France. The twins in Sweden. I’ll bet there are more. You just need to maintain contact and be sure we’ve listed them when we make trips.”
“The guy in France was a pervert who made a pass at me every time we met. I am not going to call him up and ask if he’d like to get together in Paris.”
“Well, when possible, keep your options open. I didn’t mean you need to make contact with someone like that. We aren’t James Bond. We don’t need to sleep with people to get information from them.”
“Speaking of which, I wonder if we should have told Mr. Martin about the kind of pictures you’ve taken of Lady Jane and that she called you her occasional lover,” Ronda mused.
“I think some things need to be left out of the conversation.”
“Probably right. Including that the stewardess Nancy wanted us to party with her in Mexico.”
“It’s the same plane, isn’t it? A flight crew of four just to ferry the two of us back and forth?”
“And whoever else is hitching a ride. And don’t forget our equipment.”
“It’s going to be an interesting month.”
“Interesting” was a mild way of describing what was to come. Jerry Wilson, our chief pilot, and Lon Jackson, the second pilot, came in to plot our routing. It was a little more difficult than we’d anticipated, staying out ten days at a time with four days off between trips. Josie and Ronda kept busy on the phones getting people convinced that they would need to come in to work on the weekend.
We would cover Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia on the first outing. The second outing would cover Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Guyana. Then we’d have a short week with only Brazil. Brasilia is centrally located in Brazil, but that puts it half a continent away from anyplace else in South America. If all went well, we’d be done before Patricia’s due date. Now if baby Alex would just not hurry things up too much, we’d be fine.
Jerry, Lon, and Nancy were being issued black passports so they wouldn’t run into the problems we’d had in Nicaragua. The plane was being assigned as an official embassy transport and I gathered the people we were transporting were actual diplomatic couriers who would fly into one of our destinations and then book other passage to wherever they were supposed to go next. Some would be assigned to specific missions.
“Are we not having a second stewardess on this trip?” I laughed. “Can Nancy handle our heavy needs?”
“With two pilots, we’ll be able to handle the cockpit,” Jerry said. “When it was just Nancy and me flying, she took the right seat up front during takeoff and landing. Then we were really short on sleep when we made the long turnaround, so needed a full second crew. I don’t think there will be any more than six or eight of you on any flight, so she should be able to serve you just fine. In fact, she practically begged to be your stew.”
“That’s fine with us,” Ronda said. “We like Nancy.”
“She’ll be over tomorrow to work with you on planning out meals. The first trip will be in the vicinity of 6,000 miles to get to Argentina. That’s close to twelve hours of flight time. We’ll stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico to refuel and in Brasilia. Then the southern tip of the continent is comparably short hops until we head back to Chicago. Plan on sleeping on the plane. Lon and I will both be in the cockpit for takeoff and landing, but then one will snooze in flight.”
“Just let us know if we need to take a break for you to get enough rest,” I said. “We wouldn’t want you flying in your sleep.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem.”
It was only the prospect of Great Britain for two weeks that kept Anna and Patricia sane when we told them the schedule. They’d been counting on having us home every weekend, but we told them that this way we could get finished before Patricia’s due date and she promised to keep her legs crossed until we got home.
“You know what Jane wants, don’t you?” Anna asked when we’d all gotten to bed.
“My brilliant photography with her new husband,” I laughed.
“Her new husband is gay. She wants someone to celebrate her wedding night with,” Anna laughed. “I’m betting she wants you to breed her and sire the next Earl.”
“Oh, my God! Do you think that’s what she has in mind?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Ronda said. “First of all, she invited all of us to the wedding and the request for you to take pictures came from her fiancé, as a surprise for her. I can’t imagine he wants you to cuckold him on his wedding night.”
“Peter’s a good guy, but he is only nineteen. He could think this is the best thing he could offer her,” I sighed. “But we should have this discussion in the calm of daylight, not while my wives are stroking my cock and I’m sucking on tender young nipples. I’m not sure how I feel about putting a baby in Jane that I wouldn’t have any relationship with.”
“Okay. How about pretending I’m Jane and you’ve decided to put a baby in me,” Anna said. “How would we progress?”
“My Lady,” I said. Then I proceeded to show her exactly how a baby got put inside a young woman.
Our lovers took us to Midway Sunday evening. We decided we’d take the first long weekend when Ronda and I returned to visit our families back in Tenbrook and Sage. That did a lot to alleviate the stress for Patricia and Anna. We kissed and held each other for as long as we could, but eventually, I had to go out and check the cargo on our plane. I met the crew there and we went through the inventory. I had equipment and supplies for five embassies. I sealed each case and box with State Department Official tape and we decided to get going.
Six guys had assembled in the charter waiting room where Ronda and Nancy were waiting for us. We filed out to the tarmac and climbed the stairs. Nancy had put name cards on the front two table seats for Ronda and me. The other guys filed past and sat behind us. As soon as the door was closed, we taxied out and were airborne in what felt like seconds. About fifteen minutes into the flight, the seatbelt sign went off and Nancy came around to get us drinks and a snack. This first leg would be nearly five hours as we flew directly to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Seemed like we’d just been there.
Nancy brought us a sweet drink made with crème d’ cacao and cream. It certainly relaxed us and we settled back in our seats to try to get some sleep.
We didn’t really need to completely wake up in San Juan. We were a government airplane on state business. The pilots let one guy off the plane and two more got on. Then they refueled and we were off again a little after midnight. The next stop was Brasilia, a little more than four hours from San Juan. Four of our passengers got off and none got on. The customs agents didn’t even come onto the plane to check us after the pilot showed our credentials. We refueled and were back in the air before sunrise. The next stop was Buenos Aires at about ten in the morning.
We all disembarked and after showing the customs agents our black passports and the seals on our equipment, the cars sent to meet us were allowed up to the airplane to load. The doctor had told me not to lift anything over fifty pounds and a couple of these boxes were definitely pushing that limit. But we managed to make it to the embassy by noon and went straight to work.
By six o’clock in the evening, we were back on the plane with no other passengers and took the short hop across the bay to Montevideo, Uruguay. There, we got to our hotel and had a fairly decent rest for the night.
And that was the way our work week went. We’d fly in—hopefully in time to get training done in the afternoon, then fly out that night. The next destination got two nights before we continued on. After we got to Buenos Aires, it was only Nancy, Lon, and Jerry with us. And our flight crew was taking good care of us. We spent the weekend in Santiago, Chile, then flew to Bolivia and Paraguay the next week. Wednesday evening, we were on our way home. Stops again in Brasilia and San Juan where we were joined by a couple others for the long flight back to Chicago.
Anna, Patricia, and Toni met us at the airport and we just kept going to Tenbrook. I figured we could do laundry at a parent’s house and repack.
Toni kept me informed of everything that had happened in the past week and everything we could see as we drove across the state. It was a great opportunity to let our little girl catch up on her exciting life. We got to do everything but dance as we rode in the back seat with Ronda on the opposite side. Patricia, at 33 weeks, was anything but comfortable in the passenger seat as Anna drove.
Sometime along the line, I drowsed and Toni shook my arm when we pulled up in front of the Bergs’ house in Tenbrook. I managed to get myself awake enough to get her out of her seat so she could run to the door to meet her grandma on the steps. Then I helped Patricia out of the car and kissed her gently before releasing her to go meet her mother.
We were all made welcome and Elise let Ronda and me put a load of laundry into her washing machine. We looked at our dry clean only clothes and decided we needed to make a quick run into Huntertown and get them cleaned. Anna and Ronda went, intending to stop at their own family homes on the way back. I just sat with Patricia cuddled up to me as we talked to Elise and Toni told her grandma all about school and going on an airplane to Perico beach—and the music and booms in Nassau.
“How’s baby Alex doing?” I asked Patricia as I placed a hand on her tummy.
“I think you are about to have a son, like it or not. No little girl would use her mother as a punching bag all night long.”
“You know I will love her or him, whatever pops out. Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?”
“Yes, but I don’t want you to get up. Just hold me. I’m so tired!”
“You two stay put. I have some of that peppermint tea you liked so much when you were pregnant before. Toni and I will make tea and I think Granddad left a few of the cookies I baked.” Elise got up and Toni happily followed her into the kitchen to make tea and eat cookies.
“I think Anna and I did better this time than when you were in Central America. I haven’t had quite as many mood swings and the trip to the Caribbean really helped us. Not to mention having you home for two extra weeks.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I’m thinking we should find some help for you during the next round. I’ll bet there’s someone nearby who could come in once a day to visit and maybe make dinner for you and Anna and Toni. Maybe just having an extra pair of hands would help,” I suggested.
“Can we afford that?” she asked.
“Nonsense!” Elise said, returning to the room with tea and cookies. Toni was still at the table with a glass of milk and cookies. “There’s no need to hire someone. I’m free. I’ll come to help for a couple of weeks.”
“Mom! You’d do that?”
“Of course, lillan. Mothers have been helping their daughters with newborns for generations. It is what we do,” Elise said.
“What about Papa?”
“Oh, he’s actually a fully grown man who can make his own breakfast. He might even come to shovel your snow while your sweethearts are away,” Elise answered.
“Nate? Do you think it would be okay?”
“I think it would be wonderful. Anna and Ronda both love your mom and it would be a blessing to have her helping us through the process. None of the rest of us have any idea what we’re doing,” I laughed.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Nate,” Elise said. “You are a wonderful daddy to Toni and she jabbers on and on about Mom Anna and Mom Ronna. You might not know everything about caring for a newborn, but you learn very fast. Now, Toni said Baby Alex is coming soon. Have you chosen a name? And did you find out it’s a he?”
“The family chose Alex because it could be either Alexander or Alexandra,” Patricia said. “So, we don’t know yet which, but Alex it is.”
“And how will you handle the last name?”
“Hart,” Patricia said firmly. “This is Nate’s child and there is no reason not to have his last name.”
“Oh, I was just thinking about school and having children with different last names. I suppose that isn’t such a big deal these days.”
“We have an unusual family,” I said. “If I could, I would marry all three women, but we simply have to treat each other as if we’re married. Someday, maybe the world will change.”
Elise’s proposal was greeted with both joy and relief by Anna and Ronda. Tor grumped about leaving him without a wife, but was busy holding Toni and Patricia most of the evening. It was the first time that we all stayed at the Bergs’ house. In the morning, after Elise cooked a big breakfast for us, we made the rounds of Anna’s and Ronda’s families. They were all happy to have us stay for a while. We stayed with the Mays Friday night, the four of us in Ronda’s old room and Toni staying in Danny’s room. Danny was off at college now and Dr. May said he didn’t come home unless he had to.
We packed up on Saturday and drove down to Sage. It seemed that all our parents were dealing with some form of empty house syndrome. Even Anna’s little brother, Rick, was fifteen and involved at school most of the time. Mom and Dad’s house in Sage seemed quiet and empty when we got there Saturday afternoon. Kat had been home for the holiday, but she wouldn’t be back from Minneapolis again until spring break.
“There’s my girl!” Dad called when Toni got out of the car. She ran to him and he picked her up.
“Gampa!” she shouted gleefully.
The rest of us might almost as well not have existed as Dad agreed to take Toni to the neighbors to see the horses. Of course, as soon as he saw Patricia about to burst, he just hugged her and kissed her hair. The rest of us all got greeted by Mom first before Dad was finished doting on his grandchildren.
“Well, I’ve been told to prepare for a move this summer,” Mom said. “This is our fourth year here and we served our purpose as a transitional ministry. The two congregations are fully integrated now and the Pastor Parish Relations Committee is looking toward what will best serve their needs as they grow. They built this parsonage anticipating a ministerial family and now it is only your dad and me.”
“Any idea where you’ll move?” I asked. The idea of a minister being moved and assigned elsewhere was still foreign to Anna, Ronda, and Patricia. The ministers and priest they’d grown up with were still serving the Lutheran and Catholic churches in Tenbrook.
“We’ve been given a list of names for possible consideration. It’s most likely we’ll be moved east, but I don’t think they’ll move us all the way back to Chicago. Joliet and Aurora have both been mentioned, but so have smaller communities like Ottawa and Kankakee.”
“Those would all be closer to us, but farther from Minneapolis. And you’d be moving farther away from Deborah as well,” I sighed.
“Oh, I don’t think we have to worry about Deborah. She and John are already in Japan. After John got himself reactivated, he was sent to an electronics installation in Japan. Someplace called Zama. I hope you’ll be able to visit them on one of your trips.”
“I’ll make sure it is on our list,” Ronda said. “Lately, we’ve been touching down and taking off in a single breath, it seems like. When we finish the next three weeks, we’ll have been in every country in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba.”
“Oh, my! How many is that?” Dad asked.
“I believe we’ve made twenty-seven, plus the US and India,” Ronda said. “But our boss has indicated that we will likely be spending more time in each country as we move into spring. We were just scheduled to take the whole family to the UK for two weeks in May.”
“Will you be okay traveling with the baby like that?” Dad asked Patricia.
“I think so. I have the most wonderful family. And Toni is a great traveler. She kept us all on our toes in the Caribbean.”
We spent the night in Sage and all went to church Sunday morning. Then we headed back to Chicago and Ronda and I kissed Anna, Toni, and Patricia goodbye at Midway. I had to check the loading for our next trip to be sure I had everything necessary for the rest of the South American embassies. It was nearly ten when another batch of six State Department travelers boarded with us and we took off for Puerto Rico once more.
The best part about this trip was that we knew Elise was in Antioch helping Patricia and Anna get ready for the baby. The worst part was knowing Patricia’s due date was drawing nearer and nearer and we were still 5,000 miles away.
We got into Ecuador about noon on Monday. It was one of the smaller nations of South America but had a high population density. There was both an embassy and a consulate. We delivered two sets of equipment to the embassy and trained staff both Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. We did the ambassador’s portrait, the consul general, and various photos of the chancery. We stayed in Quito Tuesday night and flew south to Lima, Peru early Wednesday morning. We spent the night there and on Thursday flew to Bogota, Colombia.
Each night we were calling home to check in on Patricia’s progress. She was much more relaxed with Elise there to help and Anna was holding together pretty well, too.
“We have an opportunity,” Ronda said cautiously.
“Why does that sound like a threat?” Anna asked.
“It’s not, really. We’re trying to figure out if it is to our advantage. Our boss suggested that we stay down here and do Brazil before we come home. That means we wouldn’t get home until next Saturday instead of Thursday, but we wouldn’t need to go out again for at least three weeks. We’re trying to be home for as much of the delivery window as possible.”
“Gone two full weeks instead of ten days?” Patricia said. “But you wouldn’t need to leave again the next week?”
“That’s right, honey. It seems like a good trade,” I said.
“I say do it,” she said. “I want you home right now and the next week, but this sounds like the best we can hope for. It’s easier with my mother here, but we miss you.”
“We miss you, too, love. We’ll be home as soon as we can get there.”
It wasn’t too difficult to get our flight crew on board with the extension. We just needed to keep plugging on. We trained in Venezuela and Guyana the following week, cognizant of the border tensions between the two countries and the political manipulating that was going on internally. Thursday morning, we flew from Georgetown all the way to Brasilia. We couldn’t get the training arranged for Thursday afternoon, but we were at the embassy first thing Friday morning to train their staff.
The crew had spent most of Friday sleeping and met us at the airport for the long trip home with dinner and five more passengers from Brasilia to the US. Nancy served us drinks and a decent meal, then we settled back to sleep most of the way to Puerto Rico.
The cost of our change was that the guys we picked up in Brazil had to be delivered to Washington, DC. So, we flew from San Juan to DC and delivered our pouch to a local courier. Then we finally got to head for Chicago.
We were home at last.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
