Heaven’s Gate
81 Permanent Change of Station
Saturday night, Courtney and Jenny Lynn were my date on the season finale of Date Night In. What comes around goes around. She’d been my first date and announced she was pregnant. It was only fair that she be the last date of the season with our daughter. We had a lot of fun. I teased her about not coming on the show in the middle of the season and she said a good cook knows to never open the oven before the cake is baked. She was beautiful. Jenny was beautiful. We watched a silly movie that came out while we were still in high school called Look Who’s Talking.
Jenny was sound asleep by the time the show was over. We took her to the nursery in the big house and found Jennifer asleep in the Mommy room. She stirred enough to kiss us each goodnight and assure us that she had the baby. I took my lovely little courtesan into the master suite and she took me around the world.
Monday morning, my ten faithful apprentice bakers joined me at five-thirty in the bakery. Of course, by that time, I’d been in the bakery for two hours and the first batch of bread was already in the ovens. But I had a small batch mixed up for them and they each got to make their own loaf as I put cinnamon rolls in the convection oven. Academy classes were officially over, so I planned to spend more time with the kids this summer. After the bread was finished, we were going to make cookies.
At six o’clock, I carried two dozen hot frosted cinnamon rolls next door to Dani and she started serving them to the farmers who had already come in for morning coffee. Everything was free today. When I got back to the bakery after giving Dani a sound kiss, I found the kids welcoming customers into the shop already. Of course, they were all residents of the village, but it was nice to have our grand opening so well attended.
C-Rae and Xan were handing out numbers to people and inviting them to sit at the café tables while they waited for the hot bread to come out of the oven. Matthew was on the little step I had made and was cutting cookies out of the dough he’d rolled out on the big stone counter. I had another batch of loaves rising and as I used the peel—a big wooden spatula—to remove loaves from the oven, I put another batch in and closed the door. Sarah was supervising the little ones. Ellie was on a stool behind the cash register. I bagged the hot loaves and handed them to her and she called out the numbers. Pretty smart little girl for eight. Of course, we weren’t taking any money today, but I was pretty sure that even Sarah, Xan, or C-Rae could do that if asked.
Matthew and I worked well together in the kitchen. We’d talked about him staying away from the hot ovens and pans for a while and I’d explained that it wasn’t because I didn’t trust him to handle them, but that we needed to get used to working together before we both started handling hot things. He actually came up with the tasks that he could do.
I had an egg, potato, and cheese casserole in the oven and served the little ones their breakfasts as the adults cleared away from the café tables. I saw that Cassie, Mary, and Liz all joined their children for breakfast.
“Papa needs a breakfast assistant to feed the children while he bakes,” Cassie said. Of course, Ruth and Robert were only two and didn’t come with the older children to bake. I had a feeling, though, that they and Raven would all be joining us before the summer was through.
“I think that could be arranged,” Liz said. “It’s a cinch we aren’t going to get breakfast from him in the big house now. We’ll have to take turns coming to the bakery so we can be with our man.” Sharon, who had come in with Liz when the three moms entered, was busy mimicking what the older children were doing. She was determined not to be left behind. I supposed she would be here earlier tomorrow morning if she could escape. Céleste was already whispering in her ear.
“What is the name of this little business?” Mary asked. She was shifting to leave since there was still a week of broadcasts in the Young Cooking season.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I never really thought of this as a business, so I didn’t really choose a name. How about The Brick Oven?”
“I thought it was Matthew’s Bakery,” C-Rae said. Matt quickly shushed her. “But Matthew, you said it was your bakery.” We all got a laugh out of that. In a couple of years I could well imagine Matthew being in the bakery as much as I was.
“How about The Baker’s Dozen,” Liz suggested. I counted the kids in the room. Yep. That’s what it would be.
I pulled the last dozen loaves out of the oven at seven o’clock and took six to Maribelle at the little store and took the other six home. All my cónyuge were up by then and most were ready to go to work. Rose sat and smeared butter on a slice that was still hot and moaned as she bit into it.
“I’m going to weigh two hundred pounds by the time the summer is over,” she sighed. “There is something about this bread that is just too good to resist. It’s even better than when you were baking it here.”
“It’s the stone ovens,” I said. “There’s nothing like loaves of peasant bread baked on the stone. Here. I packaged up a couple dozen cookies for you to take to the office. Feed them to the accounting office and maybe they won’t grumble as much about getting the month-end reports out this week.”
“I can’t believe they always delivered month-end reports in the middle of the next month,” Rose said. “How am I supposed to run a business if my data is already two weeks out of date?”
“And here’s a dozen for you to take for your production team, La Madrina,” I said, handing the little package to Hannah as she headed for the studio.
“I might eat them all on the way,” she laughed. “If I can get any of them away from the pregnant mommy.” Sam was right beside Hannah making a big production out of sniffing to find out what kind of cookies were in the bag.
“Are you always going to be back home by seven?” Jennifer asked. “What a nice business.”
“I won’t be giving all the bread away starting next week,” I laughed. “I expect we’ll close the shop at about nine most days. But right now, I have to go join my little munchkins in the silo.”
“Oh! Where are they now?”
“Xan is leading the babies in a set of forms and is being assisted by Matthew and C-Rae,” I said. “Our little babies are growing up.”
I was taking a full vacation this week, even though I knew I would have to go in for a meeting Thursday with Rose and the staff. But until then, I was spending as much time with the kids as I could. That included getting them all dressed in their jeans and boots and meeting Larry at the corral to saddle the horses and take all we could mount for a trail ride.
Only Larry wasn’t there.
Theresa helped me get the little ones mounted and said she had to go be with her cónyuge because Dawn was in labor. Jennifer and Courtney came out with Cassie to help lead the horses for the littlest riders. The two- and three-year-olds were all being led on their horses. I rode Toby, who was beginning to show his age as well, but his brother Tyler was treating Xan like a princess on his back. When you are dealing with riders that age, it takes more time to get them mounted and to get them dismounted and the horses taken care of than you can actually ride. Liz was there when we circled back and said she’d take care of the horses so I could take the oldest eight of the kids out on a trail ride through the woods. Sharon was about to throw a fit, but when she saw the twins, Claudia and Brian, were being lifted off their horses as well, she settled down. She just didn’t want to be the oldest one left behind. What a little competitor!
As we journeyed through the woods, I talked to the kids some more about what we were seeing and how important the trees were to our property. That was why Del had used goats to clean a large part of the understory out. They all wanted to know if we could have a campout this summer and I didn’t see any reason not to. It would be fun.
By noon, after we’d all had another run through the outdoor showers and dressed in summer-weight gis, I was ready for a nap. Most of the kids and their moms were, as well.
Whitney came home for four days over Independence Day. Her car was packed full.
“You look like you’re moving,” I said as I greeted her Saturday.
“I am. I’m leaving almost everything here. I’m being PCSed to Fort Leavenworth in Lawrence, Kansas.”
“I thought you were stable at Leonard Wood. What’s PCS?”
“Permanent Change of Station. While we’re waiting to go chasing off around the world, my commander ‘suggested’ in no uncertain terms that I get my training in at the Army’s Command and General Staff School. That’s the gateway for promotion and is also a requirement for me to lead a cross-service team. It’s nine months and at the end, I’ll join my unit. Wherever the hell they are at the time.”
“Army? Are you changing services?” I said.
“I’m leading a cross-service expeditionary team. I could attend command school at any branch. The Marines mostly train at Quantico in the Expeditionary War School. It’s the path for promotion. Officers of my date of commissioning are taking 8-9 years to make major right now, but my ‘rabbi’—the G-15 who’s been watching over my career at BuPers—says I’m being eyed for a ‘below the zone’ promotion. One of the best pieces of advice I got from Coach when I entered the Corps was to cultivate somebody in Washington who would keep an eye on my career and give me a heads up about things, good or bad, that I need to know. Remember Captain Reynolds at Quantico? After our little demonstration, he introduced me to Lieutenant Colonel Silvers. Now Colonel Silvers. Colonel Silvers was influential in getting me this command assignment. Service slang is to call that sort of person your ‘rabbi’. Nothing to do with actual religion, of course.”
“Holy crap, Whitney! I thought you’d just go to something like an advanced police academy.”
“There really aren’t many officers above a captain in the MPs. At that level, we report to brigade and higher officers. If I want to advance any further, I have to have that kind of training. Command School is a nine-month course and needs to be completed before I can be promoted again or even officially have command of my special team. If I don’t move up to Major by the time I’ve been in ten or twelve years, I’ll be encouraged to move out. I’ll no longer be considered promotable. For now, though, my training could be interrupted if the team uncovers a hotspot. This kind of investigation takes time. Both of my NCOs served infantry duty before transferring to Military Police.”
“My love, I worry about you more every day.”
“You know what we need to worry about this week? Fireworks!”
I spent all morning the third of July baking hotdog and hamburger buns. I was sold out and people wanted to know if I’d have peasant bread the next day. I just shook my head.
“It’s a holiday!” I said. “I’m going to grill vast quantities of animal flesh.”
When I got into the swing of things, I planned to only be open five days a week. Saturday was a big shopping day, so I figured I’d take Sundays and Mondays off. On the Fourth, there were grills going all over the village. The whole place smelled like meat roasting. Josh and I set up near the ranch firepit. Geoff, Larry, and Brett came out to join us. The five of us started cooking burgers and brats about one o’clock and fed people all afternoon. We had an incredible time. Larry introduced us to his son—last chance out of four—Drake Lawrence Vargas Irving. What a mouthful to name a kid. Larry called him DL. I understand.
We lit the fire in the pit long before dark and the barbecue turned into a wiener roast for the kids. Of course, that’s when we started laying ribs, chicken, and a few steaks on the grills. I nudged Larry and pointed to our oldest kids. Ellie and Matthew were helping all the little ones with their roasting sticks and keeping them safe around the fire.
“It looks like we’re going to be in-laws,” Larry chuckled. “Ellie will be nine next month. Should we sign some kind of marriage contract?”
“I think we’d better sit down with our kids and have the talk before they start experimenting,” I said. “I really don’t want Theresa to kill me because my son acted inappropriately to your daughter. Or vice versa.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Theresa already had the talk with Ellie. You should have heard it. Everyone in our house could. Dawn and I were trying to keep Leslie occupied so she didn’t get too much detail.”
“What happened?”
“Ellie laid down the law to her mother as only an eight-year-old can. She calmly instructed Theresa that the agreement already covered the fact that there would be no skin-to-skin genital contact until they were both sixteen. Then she proceeded to describe exactly what the genitals were on both boys and girls. Finally, she told her mother to get used to having Matthew around because they would be cónyuge eventually but they were always going to abide by the agreement. How old were you when you signed the agreement?” he asked.
“Fourteen. Dang! I hope they really don’t get too far ahead. It was my fifteenth birthday when Hannah, Sam, Court, Jen, and I came to the Starbridge Dude Ranch, and we were already trying to see how far we could push the rules,” I said. That was some birthday weekend.
“Theresa’s been great. She and Ellie went over to the Swifts last week and had a discussion with Doreen and Matthew. I tried to tell her that she needed to include you and she said, ‘This is mothers’ business.’ But they negotiated an agreement regarding other milestones that shouldn’t be rushed. I think she pushed through ‘no kissing on the lips’ until puberty. The kids had no problem with that because neither of them had considered kissing. Fortunately, most things are still abstract to them and Theresa doesn’t want to give them ideas, so she kept it pretty general. She explained it in terms of them taking care of the little ones and setting a good example. I think the only other explicit rule they managed was no touching inside what clothes normally cover, even if they are naked, until they are fifteen, and never in front of others.”
“That might drive Matthew crazy when he stops to think about it. He and C-Rae are always naked at home with the little ones and they all cuddle together. Well, I’ll talk to Matthew while we’re baking bread.”
“Aren’t all the kids with you when you bake?”
“Would you believe that Matthew gets up at four to come to the bakery and help? The other kids don’t get there until five-thirty. His first words are always, ‘Papa talk.’ He says that he talks to Ellie every morning like I talk to Hannah,” I laughed.
As the sun sank and the mosquitoes emerged, we got everyone sprayed with bug dope. There was a lot of singing going on. Kids ran around trying to catch lightning bugs. Eventually Josh brought out some sparklers and there was a one-to-one ratio of parents to children as we guarded them against touching hot wires or swinging a lit sparkler too close to their siblings and cousins. It was about the most perfect Fourth of July I could imagine.
It got even better when I took Whitney to the master suite and we started our own fireworks.
Comments
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