“She doesn’t want to adopt, Dad,” she had said to her father when he called to tell her that Rosemary wouldn’t let the kids come for Easter and he had inquired how Allyssa was doing. His suggestion that she adopt had annoyed Fiona, and this was before she found out she was pregnant.
“There’s nothing wrong with adoption,” he pointed out.
“She wants a child of her own body.” She was still annoyed with him for not sticking up for her wife to that bitch he was married to.
Their conversation deteriorated from there, and she hadn’t spoken to him much since then. Part of it was her anger over his cowardice and part of it was her schedule; she was simply too busy with her patients.
She’d let another two months go by, and her father called her to say he was sending the kids for Easter after all and wanted to know if Allyssa could pick them up at the midway point.
“Oh, she’s letting them out of the prison?” she asked sarcastically, not feeling sorry for her father that day.
“Don’t start,” he admonished her, immediately feeling defensive. It hadn’t been an easy spring for any of them.
“How long do they get to come?”
“Two weeks.”
“Really?” she asked, surprised. “Two whole weeks? How’d you manage that?” Rosemary never let them out of her sight for long.
“She’s going on a trip with some friends, and I finagled that they could stay with you for the duration.”
“Wow, they should enjoy themselves. I’ll tell Allyssa and have her work out the details with you.”
“I have a box for you. I think you and Allyssa should read the contents.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“It’s my great-grandparents’ journals during their travels out from Ohio.”
“I thought everything was lost in the fire?”
“Which one?”
“The one that took grandma and grandpa,” she sighed, already exasperated with her father. “There were others?”
“Well, my great-grandparents had several fires and my parents as well,” he said, sounding ashamed. “My dad gave me this box years ago, and I thought you and Allyssa could benefit from reading its contents and then pass it on to your children.”
“What’s in it?”
“The journals and some family pictures, but I want you to promise you will never throw the journals out. They’re very important to this family, and I’d like Sean and Traci to read them when they are older too.”
“Okaaay,” she said reluctantly, wondering why her father was being so insistent about this. She’d heard about the journals years ago but hadn’t thought about them since. He’d mentioned them from time to time, but why was it so important he give them to her now?
Allyssa was thrilled to pick up the children. She felt a bit car sick but thought perhaps it was because the air conditioning wasn’t working well in the Jeep and the heat was a bit much. She kept the windows open a crack to let in some air as she drove to pick them up. She was so thrilled to see the two kids that she almost forgot to give Keith a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She hadn’t known about the trunk that he and Fiona had spoken about but Keith told her.
“I want you to read these as well,” he said meaningfully. “I just recently re-read them, and I think it’s important that you two know the family stories.”
“Okay,” she answered, frowning at the cryptic message he was giving her.
“Dad, can we read them?” Traci asked eagerly. She knew what that trunk was.
“Sure, when you are older,” he told her, smiling as he gave her a kiss goodbye. “Be good,” he said to Sean, cuffing him alongside the head affectionately. “Have fun,” he said as he waved to them and watched them drive off in the Jeep.
“Everything okay with your dad?” Allyssa asked as she drove away. He’d been a little weird and that trunk was heavy in the back of the Jeep.
“Yeah, he and Mom have been fighting like normal,” Traci told her from the back seat.
“Traci, you aren’t supposed to talk about that,” Sean admonished her.
“Well, you can tell me anything,” Allyssa told them both. “After all, I am family.” She quickly changed the subject, so no one would feel uncomfortable. The two-hour drive to the farm was filled with laughter and questions about the horses and the rescue as well as Fiona and her practice. Allyssa didn’t tell them about their sister’s pregnancy. It wasn’t her news to share, and she knew once the kids knew, Rosemary and Keith would soon hear about it.
Allyssa didn’t know who was more excited about the children being at the ranch: the children, Fiona, or the dogs. She laughed as she told them to take their luggage in before they went out to explore. Rex was already trailing them, game for anything they wanted to do.
“Be careful of the ducks and geese,” Fiona warned them. She had gotten them in the spring, and they were cleaning up the grass in the creek.
“Can I feed them?” Traci asked as she arrived at the kitchen where Allyssa was making a sandwich for Fiona, certain she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“Are you hungry?” Allyssa asked, offering to make one.
The little girl shook her head. “Could I give the ducks and geese bread?”
“Not too much. It really isn’t good for them. They have plenty of food with the bugs and grasses they eat along the creek,” Fiona explained. People had been feeding ducks and geese bread for years, not realizing it wasn’t good for them. Processed bread is extremely bad for poultry.
“We give the ducks and the chickens cracked corn. That’s good for them,” Allyssa put in, making another sandwich for herself as Sean came into the kitchen. “Want one?”
“You bet,” the growing boy agreed, and she slid her own across on a plate and pointed with the butter knife to the chips, so he could help himself.
“Did you wash your hands?” his older sister asked him, grinning when he pulled his hand back from the chip bowl to go wash his hands at the sink.
“Why’d you get ducks and geese?” Traci asked, helping herself to chips. “I washed my hands,” she confessed before Fiona could ask her.
“You know how every Easter people get ducks and chickens as pets and then have to give them up?” Fiona waited for the young girl to nod her head before continuing. “Well, we put out an announcement offering to take any of those Easter animals people needed to get rid of, so they wouldn’t end up in shelters with no one to adopt them. We got over a dozen, but I didn’t realize people got geese too,” Allyssa told her.
“That’s terrible,” the little girl said, her heart going out to the poor creatures.
“It is, but we are trying to help.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Well, for now, they are young adults and they are cleaning up the creek. We chase them into the barn at night, so hawks and owls don’t get them.”
“What happened to the owl you had in the barn?” Sean asked through a mouthful of food.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Allyssa admonished him as she finished making a sandwich for herself, saw Traci’s look, and slid the plate across the counter to her. The young girl looked up gratefully, and Allyssa smiled as she made yet another sandwich for herself. Before she got to eat it though, Fey teasingly took it from her.
“Glutton,” she teased as she quickly made another and started to take a bite.
“Could I have another?” Sean asked.
“Sure can,” she said as she swallowed that bite and quickly made up another sandwich for the growing boy.
“What happened to the owl?” he repeated his question.
“It flew away?” his sister quipped, laughing at him.
“Any good cases these days?” Traci asked importantly. She was eating a potato chip, then delicately taking a bite of her sandwich.
“There was this little boy, who was crying because I was going to take his dog and keep it for observation here at the clinic.”
“Why was he cryin
g?” Sean asked around his food, swallowing quickly when Allyssa shot him a look.
“Well, his parents had told him that sending a dog to live on the farm meant we were going to put it to sleep,” Fiona explained.
“That’s silly,” the little girl responded.
“Yes, it is, but that’s some of the nonsense parents tell little kids, so they don’t have to deal with the reality of a pet dying.”
“Have you ever done that?”
“What?”
“Lied to a kid.”
“Not that I know of,” she admitted, trying to think back.
“Would you?” Sean asked.
“Would I what?”
“Would you lie to your kid to protect it?”
“Well, no…however, I might not tell them complete details…for their own good, so they didn’t have nightmares,” she admitted, finishing her second sandwich and exchanging a look with her wife. She glanced down at her stomach as if asking if now was a good time to tell them. Allyssa shook her head. It would wait.
Afterward, the kids went off to explore and see the changes around the ranch. They checked out the fences Brock had put up to protect his fields with their white, fluttering cloth pieces keeping out the horses, who might not see the wires from a distance. Fiona asked her wife about their silent exchange. “Why didn’t you want me to tell them?”
“I think when Rosemary hears you are going to have a baby, she’ll make things worse for your dad, and despite being out of town, she might demand he remove the children from our unsavory influences.”
“True dat,” she answered, sounding all hip. “I just want them to have a nice vacation.”
“Well, we can almost guarantee that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The children did have a good time. They made friends with the new 4-Hers who came out to work with the horses. Some, they remembered from last year. They enjoyed helping the therapists: fetching things for them and watching them work with patients, both equine and human, as they helped form bonds between the animals and the people.
“When I grow up, I think I want to be an equine therapist,” Traci announced one night.
“You have a lot of time to decide that,” Allyssa told her as they ate at the dinner table. She’d cooked on the grill and brought the food inside to avoid the bugs. The citronella wasn’t working this year, and she wanted to see how much it would cost to enclose part of the porch with mosquito netting, so they could sit out on warm evenings like this one.
“I love what Woody and Rhonda are doing.”
“Did you see that one kid with no legs?” Sean asked her. “And he’s a pretty good rider too!”
“I hope you didn’t say anything to him about his missing legs?” Allyssa asked, wondering what Fey would say if she heard this conversation.
“I asked him about it, and he didn’t mind telling me.”
“Some people are sensitive about such things. You have to be careful,” she admonished him.
“Yeah, he told me some things. He can still play baseball and basketball though.”
Knowing those things were important to teenagers, she let it go. She only hoped he understood he had to be sensitive when asking questions of the people coming out to the ranch for therapy.
Sean’s lack of diplomacy was obvious the following week when he said to Fey, “You’re getting fat!”
Fey was surprised at first. She wanted to laugh, but Allyssa had told her what he said to one of the clients. “Sean, you never tell a woman she’s fat. You can hurt her feelings. Were you trying to hurt my feelings?” Seeing him uncomfortably aware of his faux pas, she wanted to let him off the hook, but something told her to wait until he answered.
“Nooo,” he began slowly, fidgeting and looking embarrassed at her admonishment. He realized it had been a stupid thing to say. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just don’t say things like that to anyone else. You’re right though, I am getting fat, and I’m going to get a whole lot fatter. I’m pregnant.”
“You are?” he asked, his eyes going round.
“You are?” Traci asked at the same time, looking at her sister’s stomach to confirm.
Nodding, Fey laughed at her siblings, exchanging a twinkling look with Allyssa.
“How?” he asked, and then grabbed his mouth as he realized he had done it again.
Allyssa nearly laughed but let Fey handle it.
“You don’t really want to know the details, do you?” she asked her brother, who was blushing furiously. She wrinkled her nose at him. Shaking his head, he wrinkled his nose too.
“I want to know,” Traci announced.
“Well, you,” Fey rubbed her hair, messing it up, “aren’t going to.” She could imagine that conversation and the resulting fallout when she repeated it to Rosemary.
“What about you, Allyssa? Are you going to have a baby too?” she turned on her sister-in-law.
“Not this time,” she admitted.
“She’s pregnant with me, and she’s getting fat too,” Fey teased. She hadn’t gotten her period in months either, and they were already talking about a sympathetic pregnancy.
“Yeah, yeah. Really funny.” She laughed at her wife, not feeling the hurt she would have felt at that comment months ago. She was so excited for Fey to be pregnant this time.
The children, mostly Traci, talked excitedly and asked questions about the coming baby. “What are you going to name him or her? Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl? What are you going to do when you have to work?”
“No, we don’t have names picked out yet. We want to be surprised when we find out if we have a boy or a girl. There are two interns coming next week to help me on my rounds,” she explained about the students, who would be learning on the job with her. She looked up at Allyssa, grateful to her for arranging it.
“What’s this I hear? You two are having another baby?” Keith asked as he picked up the two children where Allyssa was dropping them off. Traci tried to look innocent, but she’d let the cat out of the bag rather quickly.
“Yes, Fiona is pregnant this time.”
“I thought you wanted…” he left off and then realized he was making an unnecessary statement that might hurt her feelings.
“I did,” she shrugged, “but it was Fey’s turn.”
“Well, I’ll be…” he said in wonderment. When Traci had told him on the phone, he wanted to call his older daughter immediately and talk to her about it. Instead, he had chickened out and waited to ask her wife.
“You should call her and straighten out whatever is wrong between you. She’s going to have your grandchild,” she reminded him gently.
“Yeah, I know,” he admitted. Living far apart, it was easier to just forget about it and not discuss things, but he had to admit she was right. “Have you two started reading the journals?”
“No, we didn’t get a chance with those two around,” she nodded to where the kids were fighting over who got to ride in the front seat of the car.
“I suppose not,” he laughed. “Thanks for dropping them off,” he gave her a hug and kiss. “You take care now, ya hear?”
She returned the hug and the kiss and then smiled as she waved to her brother- and sister-in-law as they drove away.
The heat was really getting to her. She turned on the air as soon as she got in the house and was leaning in front of one of the registers, feeling the cold air like a balm as Fey walked in. “Jeez, it’s like an ice box in here. You okay?”
“Early onset menopause, I swear,” she said, waving her hand at her flushed face. She was still hot despite the cooling air.
Fey laughed at her. She enjoyed the cool house but knew this would crank up their electric bill, and she knew how careful Allyssa normally was about such things.
“How are you feeling in this heat?”
“I’m good, and those interns are going to be a godsend. When are they due?”
They discussed the letters they had received from both
students. One, a young man named Buddy from California, who was studying large animal practices, and the other, a woman named Althea from back east, who was interested in equine research. They were putting Buddy up in the mobile home, and Allyssa wanted to clean it out even though she usually kept it nice. Woody and Rhonda had stayed in it a few times when the weather was bad and prevented them from making it to their own home or if they stayed particularly late for a client. They had decided to let Althea stay in their guest bedroom. They hoped that would be satisfactory for the students. If Buddy objected, they could put him in Sean’s room. It was only for a couple of months until another pair of students came in.
“You look really hot, babe,” Fey told her, putting her hand up to feel her forehead and see if she had a fever.
“Thanks, babe,” she answered, trying to sound flirty and failing.
“No, I mean it. You look ill.”
“Well, that’s not very flattering.”
“Sorry, but I think you should see the doctor next time I go in for a checkup.”
“That’s next week. No fair sneaking something like that up on me. You know I hate doctors,” she teased.
“Gee, thanx,” she said, smiling as she leaned in to kiss her. “I happen to know you love some doctors.”
“Only sexy veterinarians. Hey, we should do a calendar—sexy veterinarians and the animals who love them.”
Fey rolled her eyes at the idea. “Like we don’t have enough to worry about.”
“Actually, that might be a good idea for the rescue eventually. It could be a real moneymaker.”
“Okay but leave me out of it for now. Until I have this baby, this is not the sexy body I’d like to portray,” she said, caressing Allyssa and leaving no doubt that she found her sexy. As she entered her fourth month, she had become voracious in her appetites. Allyssa would have been concerned except she too felt a renewal of passion for her wife and welcomed her back after the third month when she hadn’t felt up to making love to her.
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