Forever Yours
63
Kind of Pregnant
LISA HADN’T HAD a menstrual period before they started screwing again, but none of them had even considered using protection because she was nursing and you can’t get pregnant while you’re breastfeeding, right? Oh, shit! Wrong. The babies would be less than a year apart.
Of course, the shock was simply that she was pregnant already. They’d intended to have another within a couple of years. They weren’t over the newness of having the first yet. And Grace and Paul were coming over almost every day, so there were already two in the house in diapers.
When they stopped to consider all the angles, they started laughing and loving each other. So, they’d start filling up the bedrooms in their house. Lisa put her foot down about telling anyone else. She wanted to wait a few weeks after the doctor confirmed the home pregnancy test and they had a due date before they told anyone else. Of course, Germaine was part of the family, so they knew.
“When you were conceived, we were planning to start a baby as soon as possible,” Henry said as he rocked Cassie. Of course, his singularity was recording. “We were so excited. It was still a surprise when we got the test result and realized you were growing in Mommy’s tummy. It took our breaths away.”
He held a bottle of Lisa’s milk and Cassie never took her eyes off him. It was too early to wean Cassie. But Lisa realized she would need to cut back a little in order to be ready for the next baby. She wasn’t vain about her breasts. At least she told herself that. There was no question in her mind, though, that they would not look or feel like the firm mounds she’d had when she met Henry and Chastity.
“Finding out we’re kind of pregnant with your little sister or brother is a surprise, too. But it wasn’t unplanned. We wanted you to have a sibling soon. We didn’t expect it to happen quite this soon, but we’re happy about it anyway. We want you and your sibling and Paul to all grow up together and be close to each other as brothers and sisters. Having children at just twenty-two years old gives one pause, though. It makes me think.”
He shifted Cassie to his shoulder so she could burp. He burped, too, and Cassie looked at him strangely.
“Yes, that’s something you never outgrow, I guess,” Henry laughed. “When I was born, people were in the midst of ‘waiting till they’re older’ to have children. I was a real surprise to Mom and Dad because they thought they’d be older when they had children. Things happen. When Solange and Beau got together, they just assumed a baby would come along soon. It’s what happened when people had sex without birth control. Bill and Jackie decided a family was the best way to get settled down from Jackie’s rather wild college life. Momma Lisa was a happy pregnancy.”
Cassie had completed her meal with a good burp and Henry could smell that she’d exploded from the other end as well. He took her to the changing table and cleaned up his baby girl, getting her a fresh diaper and clean onesie.
“I can just imagine what it will be like to have two little poopsters in this room. You make a completely grown-up stink.”
Cassie was sleepy and Henry continued rocking her and talking.
“I still want a lot of things in life. I want the business to be wildly successful. I want to invent new things. Did you know we’re going to license a completely self-charging desktop computer? Three companies are bidding on the rights! Cool, huh? Um… I love Momma Lisa and Mommy Chas and baby Cassie and our yet-to-be-born second child. I want to watch you grow up and be with you when you succeed in your life. I’ll be there to help you up when you fail, too. And you can always talk to me when you need someone to listen. A hundred years wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me. Maybe a hundred centuries. I’m sure if I lived that long, I’d still have things I wanted to do.”
Henry carried his sleeping daughter to her bed and tucked her in. He bent to kiss her head.
“My life is so full of love! I don’t ever want to let go. I think I might have lied to myself about Forever Yours. I thought it would be so I could have my parents with me through their singularity. But then this little miracle came into my life—you. I realized what I really wanted was to leave a piece of myself that you could always talk to. Even if I’m not there, or I’m dead, I’ll still be with you. Good night sweet Cassie. I love you.”
Chastity’s twenty-fourth birthday was the day before Thanksgiving. She and Henry took the day off from work, but instead of going off someplace to celebrate alone, they went home. Lisa was working, but they slipped in and kissed her before picking up Cassie and having Germaine drive the three of them to a local mall where there was a photographer.
They had already exhausted the memory on their phones with pictures of Cassie and of each other with the child. They’d come to the mall photographer a week earlier and had a family portrait of the four of them. They’d also had mother-daughter pictures of Lisa and Cassie.
When they left, Henry realized that they had made a big mistake and was determined to take Cassie and Chastity back to the photographer for a mother-daughter photo. Chastity thought they were just going to pick up the photos they’d had taken the week before.
“Right this way into Studio Two,” the photographer said, leading them into the room set up with a simple backdrop and a chair. Germaine carried Cassie’s diaper bag and a blanket.
“What are we doing back here?” Chastity asked. “Do they show us the pictures here?”
“No, honey. They take pictures here. We were so confused last week, trying to get everything done, that we didn’t get a mommy-daughter photo of you and Cassie,” Henry explained.
“Me? But I’m…”
“You’re Cassie’s other mommy,” Henry completed. “This photographer is going to be getting a lot of business from us over the coming years. We got photos with all four of us together and with Lisa and Cassie, but we didn’t get all the combinations. We’re taking one of the two of you and one of you and me. And next week, you’re coming in for a photo of just you and Lisa together. Then there will be photos of the pregnancy and we’ll be back here for pictures of our happy family of five with pictures of the mommies with their two children instead of just one.”
“I’m going to cry,” Chastity said. “Are you sure? Is this okay?”
“We bought a house together. We have children together. We have a life together,” Henry said. “Now dry your tears and touch up your makeup. Then it’s time to pose you.”
“I don’t think the photographer knew what to make of it,” Chastity laughed when they got home and Lisa greeted them. “He was, like, ‘I know I took a mother daughter picture last week. And we’re going to have how many more?’ Henry laid it on thick and bought a package for pictures every month for the next year.”
“I told him to,” Lisa said. “The only reason I wasn’t with you for this one was because you have a special tradition with Henry of celebrating your birthday and I have my special celebrations, too. Besides, I had to talk to grandma to make sure I was making the jambalaya right.”
“Jambalaya?” Chastity asked.
Germaine took Cassie to the nursery to change and play.
“You loved it when we had it at Gram’s. I wanted to make it for your birthday.”
“This is the best birthday ever!”
“Oh, it will get better later,” Henry chuckled. He and Lisa both winked at Chastity.
“You get to find out first this time,” Henry said when his parents joined the family for Thanksgiving Dinner. “We are kind of pregnant.”
“Kind of?” Sylvia asked.
“Well, I guess the doctor confirmed it last week,” Henry continued. “We’re going to have another one in May.”
“Irish twins,” Ryan snickered.
“Dad! That’s kind of racist, you know,” Henry shot at his father.
“I know. It’s your fault,” Ryan said.
“What? Why?”
“You got me recording my life and it started me digging into my ancestry. You know I never met my grandparents, just like you. Or maybe I did when I was a kid. I ran the family name through genealogy sites and even submitted DNA samples. Turns out, my grandparents immigrated from Ireland, not France. We aren’t really related to the famous mathematician at all. We’re related to a potato farmer near Dublin,” Ryan said.
“I wondered where the name Ryan came from,” Henry said. “Your father was named Henry.”
“Henry Kenneth,” his father said. “Or in the immigration records, Henry Cináed. My father was Irish and I’m half-Irish. That makes you a quarter.”
“Well, that still doesn’t excuse making a racist comment,” Henry griped.
“You’re right, son. Sometimes we don’t make good distinctions between what is funny and what is nasty,” Ryan said.
“It was funny,” Lisa said. “We might as well call them Cajun twins since siblings less than a year apart were once as common among them.”
“None of that is helping us celebrate the announcement of a new grandchild on the way,” Sylvia said. “Congratulations! I’m personally very excited.”
“We are, too,” Lisa said.
“I can’t believe I’m going to be a mommy again!” Chastity exclaimed. There was a split-second of silence and then a cheer from all the adults present.
It was impossible to hold the news from Lisa’s parents until the family visited at Christmas. They called Thursday night and there was just as much celebrating from Bill, Jackie, Beau, and Solange. The weekend vanished and the march toward the winter holiday moved on.
“This will be a test of both the performance of the paving robot and of the paving materials,” Dale announced as the group gathered outside the office.
The new prototype of the paving machine had been moved out of the fabrication lab and onto the sidewalk at the edge of the parking lot. In addition to the thirty people directly engaged in the project, representatives of ARDC and Open Cloak were also there. Argos Venture Capital was very interested in the status of their sizable investment. Even Ray, the office park developer, was interested in what was going to happen.
“The first thing you should note is that the robot is already running,” Dale said. “The engine itself, powered by Agora Fuel Cells, is almost silent. There will be noise, however, as the old walk is ground up. We checked thoroughly with Ray and used magnetic sensors to determine there was no iron work under the sidewalk. But grinding up the pavement will make noise. And the expected high today is thirty degrees. That means we’ll be testing the setting of the aggregate in sub-freezing conditions. It’s important if we want to use the equipment year-round.”
“How was this machine fabricated?” the rep from Argos Capital asked.
“We did a full-scale model with a 3-D printer,” Dale answered, “but the stress factors on the materials wouldn’t allow for all the parts to be printed. So, we used them for patterns and fabricated them in the shop. Some parts had to be ordered for casting or larger scale machining. We’ve been testing potential vendors for quality and timely delivery.”
“This looks like a pretty substantial piece of equipment. I hope it’s not just a throw-away,” Henry said, walking around the device.
“If the tests are within our alignment and durability parameters, we can actually manufacture and sell this model,” Dale said. “I can see contractors doing any smaller scale paving projects, like sidewalks, driveways, and even parking areas.”
With that, the team input the sidewalk parameters. The machine would repave a sidewalk four feet wide and four inches thick. It would also prepare the substrate before pouring the fresh surface. Halfway through the project, there was a ninety-degree turn. The noise of concrete being ground up announced the start of the test. The machine did not move rapidly. In twenty minutes, it had moved forward only the length of the device. Then pavement was revealed behind the machine as it continued to move forward at about ten feet per hour.
“The speed may seem slow,” Dale spoke over the noise of the grinding. “This speed would be about what it would take for just the decomposition process if done by traditional means. Instead, it is preparing the substrate and laying the pavement at the same time.”
“What is the pavement made of?” asked the ARDC rep.
“Since we are devouring a concrete pavement, we are reusing the stone and gravel material mixed with the new binding material from our supplier. Every few feet, we need to add the binder and water to the hoppers. This is one of the areas we are not prepared to have fully automated. In a large-scale operation, trucks of material would need to pull up and reload the machine—which can be done from either side. If we were decomposing a tar-based pavement, we would need to remove the tar or asphalt and send it to be recycled. We can reuse that material, but it needs to be processed first.”
“There are no cracks in the sidewalk,” Ray pointed out. “Doesn’t that mean we’ll see buckling in the summer and cracks forming in the winter?”
“The new slurry is dimensionally stable,” Dale supplied. “We took a page from the development of movable type in the fifteenth century in creating the binder for the material. We’ll have proof positive in the spring, but we expect the unbroken smooth surface to remain unbroken, much like asphalt. In larger paving projects, this will also reduce road noise.”
The device moved along all day and by nightfall had nearly 200 feet of new pavement laid. The crew had chosen this stretch of sidewalk for its test run, however, because it was over 500 feet long and would allow the machine to run for a full twenty-four hours and make a turn before it was finished. Staff from the department monitored the device around the clock to check its performance and make sure it was supplied with the materials it needed to keep paving.
The company held its annual New Year’s Eve party on the thirty-first. With over a hundred employees, plus their spouses or significant others, the country club was no longer an adequate venue for the party. With the addition of the paving team and the fuel cell R&D team, the party required renting a ballroom at the same hotel where the partners had attended their prom.
Henry expected less adventure than had occurred five years previously.
The Alice Project had set up a holographic greeter at the entrance and the spouses were as entertained by her as the employees who greeted her each day at the office. ‘Fifi’ was the next generation and had Beau’s required southern accent. The team had made advances enabling them to install different looks and accents. Three of the newer employees were working on making her multi-lingual. That feature was scheduled to go live with Gina, whose physical attributes and general personality would be based on Virginia.
Simon had taken to Virginia almost as soon as she arrived at the company. Even after the recording sessions had been completed, he kept her on his team and found she was quite adept at setting up recording sessions and putting the various actresses at ease through a process that sometimes took weeks to complete. She accompanied him to the party.
“Didn’t you have the baby already?” she exclaimed when she met Henry, Lisa, and Chastity. Her completely clueless personality started people laughing who were nearby.
“Oh, that was just vee one,” Lisa assured her. “This is a software company. Version one is never the final version. We’ll make a ton off the upgrade to vee two.”
Virginia was stunned.
“I didn’t know you kept that kind of schedule. Simon, I want to do a version two of my avatar. I’ll make her more glamorous or something,” Virginia said, turning to Simon.
“Oh, yes! I can imagine several versions of you we could have in the future,” Simon agreed, winking at Henry. Simon managed to get Virginia away from the founders before Henry burst out laughing.
“You couldn’t have chosen a better handler for her than Simon,” Chastity laughed.
“The thing is that he is actually able to tune her any way he wants to. Expect make-overs to start appearing on his expense report,” Henry said.
“I think she actually believed the vee-one and vee-two stuff,” Lisa said. “Anyone else at the party would have started laughing.”
“I’m glad she’s confined to Simon’s group,” Isobel said. “If I had to see her in the lobby every day, I’d do something terrible.”
“Well, she will be our next virtual receptionist,” Luke said. “Thankfully, she’ll be on the other side of the glass, so you can’t strangle her.”
“What a relief.”
“Is Grace okay with both kids for a while?” Chastity asked. “I don’t need to stay till midnight. I could go home early and help her.”
“She’ll be fine,” Luke said before Isobel could respond. “If there is anything she can’t handle, she has Germaine on speed-dial. I think Germaine has already been talking to her. They seem to share a lot in common.”
“Germaine isn’t fucking you,” Isobel growled under her breath.
“Honey, neither is Grace. No one fucks your husband but you,” Luke assured her.
“I wouldn’t blame you,” Izzy said, laying her head against Luke’s shoulder. “God knows I don’t take care of you enough.”
“You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” Luke said.
They turned to greet other employees who were just entering.
“This is our company’s fifth New Year’s Eve party,” Luke said when he called for people’s attention about a quarter till midnight. There had been a band and dancing, as well as various games. It really was similar to their high school prom. “When we met together the first time, it was just the partners. We had a big dream and had just formalized our partnership. We signed our first licensing agreement and it was enough to establish our corporation. We were a bunch of recent high school graduates with a technical genius and a big vision. Today, there are over a hundred employees of Open Cloak Design, plus our subsidiaries, Page Services and Agora Fuel Cells. Added to that, we have invited our joint venture company, American Intelligent Machines to the party. We are a billion-dollar company.”
There was applause and Luke let the party enjoy the implication of success. In truth, the coming year would be the one that actually proved their value and there were a lot of gating factors to that.
“We are excited to enter 2031 with this group of people as our fellow-adventurers. The coming year will be filled with challenges, but that is how we measure our successes. And, of course, we want each of you here with us next year. So, we ask that you please take advantage of the taxi services that have been hired tonight and don’t take a chance on drinking and driving. Now, I see by the hands on my Mickey Mouse watch, and the numbers displayed over Fifi’s head by the door, that it’s time to count down to the New Year. Here’s to success and family!”
Luke ended and raised his champagne glass. Izzy moved up close to him. Henry turned to his wives. The three raised glasses of sparkling juice as they counted down the last ten seconds. Then the three kissed all together and took a sip of their drinks. Then each of the pairs of them kissed and drank. Then they turned to find Germaine had already left.
Henry got a text message.
“Waiting with the car at the entrance.”
“I think we can go get our baby now,” Henry said.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
