Almost Twins

by Gail Sattler

  Dennis stood by her side at the window, but kept a respectable distance.

  “I wonder how deep it is out there. It’s been snowing non-stop for twenty-four hours now, with still no end in sight.”

  “That lump over there is my car. It looks like it’s almost half way up the door, but it’s hard to tell.”

  The sound of stirring behind them signified the end of their efforts to make the cabin more festive.

  Adelle checked the time. She didn’t know how mothers of twins did it, but she imagined that feedings must be staggered. Rachel usually wanted to be fed approximately every four hours, so she would have to try to feed them two hours apart. She also didn’t know how long it would take for her own body to increase the supply with the new demands.

  Since Rachel was awake and Raymond had been fed most recently, Adelle retired with Rachel into the bedroom, and shut the door. Whatever happened, she would do her best with whatever God put before her.

  ❧

  Dennis tried to relax, but he couldn’t. As little as he knew about babies in general, he knew less about this.

  One thing he did know was that Raymond wanted a bottle every four to six hours and Rachel would likely be just as demanding. That meant Adelle would have to alternate feedings, and using simple math, he figured that every two to three hours, she’d be at it again, as the babies took turns.

  His stomach clenched at the thought of what he was asking her to do, but there was no other way. He couldn’t see it lasting more than a few days, but at that rate, by the time they were either rescued or they could contact someone to deliver a case of formula out here in the middle of nowhere, Adelle would be exhausted. However, while he knew it was going to be hard on Adelle, it was life or death for Raymond.

  The knowledge gave him little comfort.

  Raymond woke while Adelle was still behind the closed door with Rachel, which gave Dennis the chance to change Raymond without her watching his every wrong move.

  He cradled Raymond and stroked his tiny back, but all of his attentions were fixed on the closed bedroom door. He wasn’t going to be of much use with the baby care beyond changing diapers and he still wasn’t much good at that. But, he had his roll of duct tape when all else failed.

  However, even If he couldn’t help much with the babies, there were other ways he could give Adelle a break. For starters, he could make today’s supper.

  Seven

  Dennis turned the burner down just as Adelle walked out of the bedroom.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she lowered Rachel to the quilt and began changing her. “I thought you already used the last bottle.”

  “I’m making supper for us. I don’t see a turkey here, so I guess we should save that nice little ham you brought for our Christmas dinner. Out of the choices I have left, I’m making my specialty, spaghetti, for supper.”

  “Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”

  He nodded in response. Usually his housekeeper left him dinner every day, hot and ready for when he got home from the office. Most weekends he went out with Joanna for supper. For the rare times he had to fend for himself, spaghetti was the only thing he could cook with any proficiency. He wondered what Adelle would say when he cooked spaghetti for supper again tomorrow.

  “I put Raymond in the car seat and left him in the middle of the counter so he could see me. As long as I kept talking, he didn’t cry. I just might make a spaghetti fan out of him. I wonder how long it will be before I can feed him spaghetti.”

  “A long time, I think. Don’t get your heart set on it anytime soon.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “This fatherhood thing is making me look at my life in a whole new way. I’ve always thought that one day I’d have kids of my own, but I’ve never really considered what I’d do once I got one.”

  She smiled, and Dennis nearly dropped the spoon into the pot. When she first picked him up after his accident he had thought her appearance rather ordinary, but he could see now that he’d been wrong. She wasn’t a classic beauty, but she had an honest charm that made her flaws unimportant. For starters, she had beautiful brown eyes that sparkled when she smiled.

  She lowered her head and continued the process of changing Rachel. “I didn’t expect to be a parent, either. But at least I had nine months to get ready for it.”

  He had thought about Adelle for a good portion of the night when he should have been sleeping. He didn’t think that most women would keep a baby to love and cherish when the baby had been the result of a rape, yet that was exactly what Adelle had done. It made him want to know more, but at the same time, he mentally kicked himself for being so morbid.

  He swallowed hard, then pretended to concentrate on stirring the spaghetti as it cooked. Finally, he could no longer hold back. “Did you know the father?”

  “Yes. Not well, but I did know him. I worked with him. Worst of all, I trusted him. He was giving me a ride home from work. Then, at the last minute, we decided to go out for dinner. The next thing I knew I was in bed with my mother beside me, worried to death because I had passed out. Shawn had taken me to my mother’s house and told her that I had an allergic reaction to something I ate and passed out. She managed to give me my allergy medication, and she was about to take me to the hospital because I wasn’t responding, when I woke up.”

  Dennis knew the answer, but he had to ask the question. “He gave you a date rape drug?” He’d heard of date rape drugs, but he’d never actually spoken to anyone who had experience with them, either to use them, or to use them on someone else. The very idea made him sick.

  She held Rachel close as she spoke, and wouldn’t look at him while she was speaking. “Yes. Looking back, he would have slipped it into my drink when I went to the washroom. I remember thinking it odd that he adamantly insisted on not leaving the drinks behind when we were ready to go. It happened so quickly I don’t even remember passing out, but I obviously did. I didn’t know I was pregnant for the longest time. It took even longer to figure out how it happened, but as soon as I did, I laid charges against him.”

  Dennis was speechless. His thoughts and emotions bounced around inside him, from rage to sympathy to a flood of other feelings he couldn’t identify. He knew there was nothing he could do, but he wanted to help her in some way. Instead, she was the one helping him.

  “Is he going to be giving you some kind of child support?”

  “I don’t know. I have to think about what I’m going to do. He wants no part of me or the baby, but his parents desperately want to be included in their grandchild’s life. They’ve offered me support, but I don’t know yet if I’m going to take it. If I did, that would tie me to obligations I’m not sure I want. That’s the main reason I needed to come here, and why I said a little snow wasn’t going to stop me. I wanted to have some time away from everything to think about it.”

  “And now you’re stuck with me and my problems. I’m so sorry, Adelle.”

  Her sad smile nearly broke his heart. “It’s not your fault. I’m sure God can use this for our good somehow. We might not understand why it happened, but there is a reason for this.”

  Dennis already knew the reason. In fact, it was two reasons. First, it was a lesson to use his common sense, which had completely deserted him when he left Hinton. He’d wanted so much to go home, as if getting out of his brother’s house and back into familiar surroundings would somehow ease the pain of losing Harv and Katie. Instead, he’d ignored the forecast and the falling snow, and chosen to discount his inexperience in driving in it. By doing so, he had made a bad situation worse.

  The second lesson was a difficult one to learn. Although Joanna had given him the ultimatum to chose between herself and Raymond, he had hoped that when Joanna actually saw Raymond and held him, she would change her mind. He hoped if he hurried home, before she had too much time to think about it, if she spent Christmas Day with Raymond as an infant, she would fall in love with him and change her mind about being an instant stepmo
m as soon as they got married. Her selfish response to his phone call was a real eye-opener. She wasn’t concerned about his welfare, or even where he was. She only wanted his assurance that he was going to commence with adoption procedures. The only adoption procedure he would start was his own adoption of Raymond.

  His only regret was that because of him, Adelle’s first Christmas with her lovely daughter would be tainted by his presence and what he was forcing her to do for Raymond’s sake.

  “I think the spaghetti is ready. Time to eat.”

  After he dished out the food, she bowed her head, waiting for him to pray the blessing on the food. He had previously joked about food cooling while waiting for a prayer to be finished, but he truthfully had so much to pray for that their food would be stone cold by the time he was done. So once again, he prayed only for the meal before them.

  He cleared his throat. “Dear Heavenly Father, thank you the shelter and safety you’ve provided, this meal before us, and for new friends to share it with. Amen.”

  “Amen.” Her smile told him that she agreed with him.

  Despite the questions he wanted to ask, Dennis limited their conversation to pleasant small talk. When they had finished eating and cleared the table, they sat together on the couch and continued their conversation where they left off. He discovered they enjoyed the same books and found the same things funny. Both of them were actively involved in their churches, and they had a shared love for youth ministry.

  About an hour after they had finished with supper, Raymond started to get fussy, which could only mean one thing.

  Raymond was hungry.

  ❧

  As Raymond became increasingly fussy, Adelle’s stomach became increasingly queasy. She had lost count of the number of times she repeated in her head the fact that, throughout history, many women nursed babies who were not their own. Many women also nursed twins.

  When they were all acutely aware that nothing short of food in his tummy would quiet Raymond, Adelle sucked in a deep breath, laid Rachel in her car seat, and took Raymond from Dennis.

  Dennis’s face paled, and when she actually lifted Raymond from his arms, the paleness turned to a deep shade of red in his cheeks, extending to his ears.

  She knew from the heat in her own cheeks that she was blushing, too. Rather than making the situation any more awkward, Adelle turned and walked silently into the bedroom.

  Before opening her blouse, Adelle snuggled Raymond close, rocking him gently while she talked, keeping her voice low. She told him her name, and that she was from Blue River, and that Rachel was the same age as he was, and that his uncle Dennis loved him very much.

  For a while her voice calmed him, but when talking alone no longer soothed him, she opened her blouse and prayed that it would work, for both of them.

  He didn’t take long to catch on to the idea. He ate well, but she feared that he would be hungry again soon because she wasn’t yet producing the volume required for two babies.

  While he ate she ran her fingers over his soft cheeks. He was a darling baby, and her heart went out to him, losing his parents before he really could know or appreciate them. She burped him, but rather than leaving the sanctuary of the bedroom, she held him close and stroked his tiny back.

  Since Dennis had just broken up with his fiancée, that would mean Raymond would not have the love of a mother figure in his life beyond paid child care while Dennis was at work. Knowing this made Adelle want to do what she could for him in the short time she was a part of his young life.

  When she returned to the living room, Dennis was holding Rachel beside the window, staring out into the last of the daylight, watching the steady snowfall. He kept his gaze focused out the window as he spoke.

  “She started to get fussy, so I thought I’d pick her up. I think she missed you.”

  She wanted to tell him that Raymond had missed him, but she really didn’t know. Truthfully, she doubted that Raymond had proper time to bond to Dennis. She knew Dennis already loved Raymond, but it was more the connection to his brother than a personal one-on-one relationship with the child.

  When earlier she had said she didn’t know the reason for being stranded together at her family’s cabin, she now knew. Dennis and Raymond needed this time together with no distractions, and nothing to concentrate on except each other.

  With both babies being so young that she couldn’t risk not supporting their heads as she and Dennis traded babies, she walked to Rachel’s car seat, still on the floor between the couch and the woodstove. “If you put Rachel down, I’ll give Raymond back to you. I think he needs you.”

  Dennis turned. “Why? Is he wet?”

  Her breath caught at the sight of the way Dennis was holding Rachel. He had her leaning into his chest, using one hand to hold her up by her padded bottom, his other large hand splayed across her back, with two fingers supporting her head. Rachel was limp against him, on the verge of falling asleep. Despite his inexperience with babies, his touch was gentle, but firm. They were completely relaxed with each other, like it should have been if Dennis was Rachel’s father rather than a stranger.

  Watching Dennis with Rachel only magnified the absence of a man in her life. She had fully accepted that she would probably never marry, as there were plenty of single women in her small community without the added encumbrance of a baby. As much as she wished Rachel had a father who loved and appreciated her, Adelle missed the presence of a man to cherish her as a woman. She longed for a man she could love and who would love her back as a partner.

  What little social life she had drastically declined when she was pregnant, and in the past month, since Rachel’s birth, it had dropped to zero. With the added stigma of charging Shawn with rape and putting him in jail, she didn’t expect many men would risk going out with her, especially since she did not intend to explain what had happened.

  Counseling sessions had helped her to deal with the situation, but she still lacked the ability to trust except in rare instances. So far, Dennis was one of those rare men whom she felt she could trust. She believed that he was a Christian, as he claimed, and his honesty of his shortcomings made her want to trust him.

  “I think I’ll put her down in the playpen. She seems to have fallen asleep. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course I don’t mind. I just can’t let her sleep too long, or she will be up all night.”

  Dennis hesitated in the middle of lowering Rachel. “So far I’ve only heard what it’s like to be up all night with a crying baby. I don’t think it’s something I’m looking forward to. Maybe I shouldn’t let her sleep.”

  “It’s okay. Really.”

  He continued to lower Rachel until she was settled. She transferred Raymond to him, lit the candle on the coffee table, and sat beside him on the couch.

  “I couldn’t help noticing the way you were holding Rachel. You’re going to make a good father to Raymond. Really.”

  “I don’t know. I hope so, and of course I’ll do my best. I still really don’t know what I’m in for. I don’t even know what I should call myself. I know he won’t remember his father, so he wouldn’t know the difference if I had him call me, ‘Daddy.’ But, I’m not his daddy. I’m his Uncle Dennis. I want to figure out some way for him to think of his father in love and never forget Harv. I’m so confused. For awhile I thought of having him call me, ‘Uncle Daddy.’ Isn’t that ridiculous?”

  He smiled a very humorless smile, and her heart went out to him. She didn’t know how she would feel if anything ever happened to her brother, Andrew. Although they lived thousands of miles apart, she still loved him very much.

  “I don’t know. You still have lots of time to decide.”

  “I suppose. As time goes on, I expect that he’ll look a lot like me, because Harv and I looked a lot alike. Right now, though, I can’t say he looks like anybody, either Harv or Katie. At the funeral, lots of people, especially the older ladies would look at him and say how much he looked like his father, the
n burst out crying. At least we’re going to look related.”

  “I don’t think it really matters. Lots of adopted kids obviously don’t look like either parent, but no one cares. The important thing is that you love him. I think you’re going to do just fine with him.”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  Rachel started to wiggle, so Adelle picked her up, and they both sat on the couch with their babies, serving almost as chaperones, in their laps.

  “It’s still snowing so hard that your car is covered. It’s just a white lump. I’ve never seen snow like this in my entire life. It makes me wish I could take some home and spread it on my lawn for my neighbors to enjoy.”

  Dennis gritted his teeth. He was starting to babble, but he had to change the subject. He knew Adelle was sincere in her support. Again, he was comparing her to Joanna. Every time he’d spoken to Joanna, including when he phoned her for help, all she did was remind him that he didn’t know what he was doing, and it was a big mistake if he thought he would be able to handle a baby.

  Adelle, on the other hand, did everything she could to encourage him and help him to learn.

  He couldn’t figure out now why he’d thought he and Joanna would have been suitable marriage partners. Like him, Joanna had been raised in a Christian home, she attended church regularly with him every Sunday, but other than that, he couldn’t see much that reflected the fruits of the Spirit. She was pleasant on the surface and did all the right things, but below the surface, she was self-centered and shallow.

  He shook his head and stared at the glow of the woodstove. His relationship with Joanna was over. When the day came for him to get married, he would choose someone with a warm heart, someone who could put her own needs aside for others, a woman who laughed not to stroke his ego, but when she really thought something was genuinely funny. A woman with whom he shared common interests and goals for ministry. Someone who would do what was right in the eyes of God, no matter what.

  He turned to watch Adelle play with Rachel, wiggling her tiny hands and feet and humming a Christmas carol.