Quadruplets on the Doorstep

by Tina Leonard

  “YOU DIDN’T HAVE a boyfriend before I left,” Jenny said when April came out of her bedroom. She’d waited to leave her room until she heard the closing of the front door. She hadn’t wanted to watch Caleb leave. One day she’d have to watch him go out the front door, and know he’d never come in it again. “Much less a fiancé. As I recall, you didn’t even mention a significant other.”

  “No, I suppose I didn’t,” April said.

  “That was sure fast.”

  April looked at Jenny, who was perching on the sofa at an odd angle, as if she was trying to avoid looking at the bassinets that contained sleeping babies. Jenny had a soap opera running on television, a soft hum of voices punctuated every once in a while by a dramatic shriek. A tissue box lay propped against a pillow. “Some things happen quickly sometimes.”

  “You said once that you wanted children of your own someday, but that you hadn’t met the right man. You met him in the space of a couple of months.”

  “Guess I was lucky. He’s actually the brother of my best friend, so it wasn’t all that far-fetched.”

  “Still.”

  April held her breath, hoping Jenny wouldn’t ask any more questions.

  “Did you marry him because I asked you to take care of my babies?”

  How much truth and details could Jenny handle? Was any of it important?

  “I’m not certain what the relevance of your question pertains to,” April said honestly. “If you’re asking me if I married Caleb because I needed help with your children, then the answer is no.”

  “Are you in love with him?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because people fall in love and get married. I don’t know why, but I don’t feel like that’s what happened. Maybe you got married and are hoping to fall in love.”

  April tried to give a nonchalant shrug. “Maybe.”

  “Then if that’s what happened, you did it after I left, because you didn’t mention it beforehand. That means you did it because of me, because of the children.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” April said, uncomfortable.

  “I know you’re trying to spare me, April. I know I haven’t handled some things as well as I could, but this is something I can handle. I need to know because it affects everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Yes. If you’re married to someone you don’t love because of me, that’s not fair.”

  April shook her head. “I can’t answer your question.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “Sincerely cannot.”

  Jenny drew in a deep breath. “Caleb says Social Services is going to ask me a lot of questions. He says that they’re going to want me to be with my…with them. My babies.”

  “I think that’s what we all want, Jenny. After you’ve had time to grieve, and some time to come to grips with everything, it might be what you want, too.”

  Caleb came back inside the house, startling both of them. He was windblown, and his ears were red, as were his cheeks.

  “I thought you’d gone to get a cot,” April said.

  “I was leaving, when your neighbor’s dog escaped,” he said before going into the kitchen to warm up his hands with tepid water. “Little-bitty poodle thing, running for all it was worth across the street, and enjoying its freedom to the max. Unfortunately, the little boy who went running after it was extremely unhappy, and he knew better than to go into the street to get it.” Caleb shrugged. “So I chased the damn dog to the next block before I finally tackled it.”

  “You tackled his puppy?” Jenny asked.

  “I had to catch him. If he’d gotten run over, and I had to go tell that kid what had happened, I don’t think I could have taken it. Damn it, but it’s cold outside!”

  He wasn’t wearing a coat. April said, “What happened to your coat?”

  “That’s what I tackled the dog with. I threw my coat over it like a net, then sort of leaped to make certain the pooch didn’t wiggle out and take off. Unfortunately, when I picked it up using the coat as a blanket—and a shield, I’m not too embarrassed to say—the damn dog peed on it.”

  April shook her head, trying very hard not to laugh. “I have never heard you say damn so many times in one conversation.”

  “I wish I’d seen it,” Jenny said, the first smile she’d shown touching her lips. “I’ll bet you were mad when it peed on your coat.”

  “It was a reflex action to wrap the dog in the coat after all the bundling I’ve been doing lately with these babies,” he said sternly. “And I was no more mad at that dog than I am when the babies wet as soon as I get them diapered. Sometimes, the boys do it before I get the diaper on. I just vow to be a little quicker next time with them, but I told the little boy he’d have to find someone who was in better shape to chase his dog next time.” He sank into a chair. “Forget the cot. I’ll get it later. After I’ve recovered.”

  April laughed, but Jenny’s face turned serious again. “Actually, Caleb,” she said, “you don’t have to get the cot. I called Mrs. Fox, and she said I was welcome to stay with her until I get back on my feet. For as long as I need to.”

  CALEB TOOK JENNY to Mrs. Fox’s, promising to pick her up again the next day. He found himself driving to April’s as fast as the speed limit would allow, knowing that they had to talk, and they had to talk a lot. There were some decisions that had to be made, and he wasn’t certain either of them had the answers.

  The aroma of something cooking greeted him at the door. April popped her head around the kitchen frame. “Your coat’s clean now. It wasn’t all that bad.”

  She’d washed his coat and cooked a meal. He liked it; he liked it very much. “Why aren’t they yelling or squirming or crying?” he asked.

  April came out of the kitchen. “All I can think of is that they’re comforted by the sound of the TV. Jenny had it on this afternoon, and I left it on after she left. I guess it soothes them somewhat to hear quiet noise.”

  “Quiet noise. Now that’s something to ponder.” His stomach growled, and he decided to be very male about it. “Is that dinner I smell cooking? And am I invited?”

  “It’s dinner, and it’s for the man who chases neighborhood puppies.” April went back into the kitchen and Caleb followed, intrigued by her attempt to please him.

  “I have no offering of my own. No bottle of wine, no box of candy.”

  “Baked chicken and rice isn’t romantic, Caleb. It’s just an easy dinner.”

  “I could run up to the store and get a bottle of wine.”

  “Sit down and watch TV. I’m going to tear some lettuce for a salad.”

  “I can do that.” He further encroached upon her kitchen. “Mmm. And a cake.”

  “That was for Jenny. Yet, it didn’t seem that a homecoming cake was warranted, considering how she feels about everything.”

  “Time is supposed to be the great healer.” He stuck a fork into the chocolate cake, sighing with happiness. “My favorite. I could sit here and eat just this.”

  “Dinner’s not for an hour. You want to?” April got herself a fork out of the drawer and sat across the dinette.

  “Maybe it’ll make the conversation we need to have a little sweeter.”

  “I don’t think so. No matter what, we have to admit that our plan didn’t work out the way we hoped.”

  “No. It didn’t.” He stabbed a forkful of cake and enjoyed it, his eyelids closing for a moment. “Have any suggestions?”

  “Don’t fill up on cake? Don’t use your coat as a net?”

  “That’s about all I can come up with, too.”

  He put his fork down and looked at her. “Remember when I told you that running through the trails of the teenage mind was challenging?”

  April raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”

  “Jenny told me in the car that there’s no way she’ll ever be able to see these newborns without feeling pain. She loves them, and she wants them to have what she cannot give them, but
to her they represent a painful loss she wants to forget. She said those aren’t the feelings a mother should have for her children.”

  “She told you that?”

  He nodded. “She left because she was frightened, she was out of her mind, but she was also too desperate to face the future alone, and she feels that she’ll never be a good mother. She and David were too young to get pregnant, but with him, she could have done it. All those babies do is remind her of him. And it’s not something she can face. Ever.”

  “Oh my God. Poor Jenny. Poor babies.”

  “Exactly. She wants to sign them over to you and me for adoption. On two conditions. One, that we want them, and two, that we plan on staying married.”

  April felt her heart drop straight into her stomach. She wondered what Caleb thought when he’d heard that pronouncement. “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her I thought she needed to take some time to make such a drastic decision. She said it was only drastic to me, that she’s been thinking about it ever since she left. She didn’t want to come home with me, but she knew she had to face what she’d left behind, and do whatever legal work needed to be done for her children. When she found out you and I were married—that you actually had a spouse—it seemed like a gift from God.” He spread his hands on the table. “That’s what she called our marriage, our family. A gift from God. An answer to her prayers.”

  “Well.” April sighed. “We are certainly perpetuating a successful fraud then.”

  “Her conditions beg an interesting question we certainly hadn’t foreseen.” He reached across the table, gently taking her fingers between his. “First, April, you have to decide if raising these children is what you really want to do, for a long time. We had planned on a somewhat less extended situation.”

  “True,” she murmured, her heart hammering.

  “We talked a lot about our own personal baggage a long time ago. Can you make a commitment to her children?”

  “I can,” April whispered, wondering if he meant a commitment without him.

  “Then if you know that’s what you can do and want to do, we have to move on to the second condition. Part of Jenny’s motivation is that she wants the children to have what she never did, and what she cannot give them now—a stable, loving home with two married parents.”

  April stared at him. He rubbed her fingers between his before touching the lovely engagement ring he’d given her.

  “Do we want to be married to each other, all or nothing? Do or die? The real deal, the whole enchilada, close-the-escape-hatch type of married?”

  The half smile on his face belied the seriousness of what was in his question. “I can’t answer for both of us. But…” The secret she was keeping floated inside her consciousness, pressing her guilt buttons. “I don’t know, Caleb. I know I’m not unhappy with what we have.”

  It seemed his features shifted in an expression she didn’t have time to analyze, almost as if he was disguising his own feelings. “I’m not unhappy, either.”

  “But it’s a lot for two people who don’t know each other very well to decide on overnight.”

  “Exactly.”

  She thought he looked relieved. April wasn’t sure what she was. “You know what, I think I’ll go lie down for a while. If you don’t mind eating alone, that is.”

  He wouldn’t let her pull her fingers from his. “April.”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you upset with me, or upset about the situation?”

  “Both, I think,” she said quietly. “But mostly with myself.”

  “Commitment-phobia?”

  “I think so. I’ve never liked depending upon anyone, and I find myself needing you more and more.”

  “Because of the babies.”

  “Yes.” Her head drooped. “I do like you, though, Caleb. Like Jenny, maybe all we need is time.”

  “What if time isn’t the healer in this instance?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve just about run out of answers, while the questions just keep piling up.”

  Does he want to stay with me? Does he feel the same way about me I feel about him? Should I tell him how I feel? Should I tell him there’s a chance we might be expecting more than quadruplets on our doorstep?

  The questions piled up; the answers ran faster than puppies and a young mother and little baby fists and feet flailing the air.

  In the morning, April awoke to two realizations: One, her brief lie-down had turned into seven hours of fitful sleep.

  Two, she’d slept alone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You’re here,” she said with some surprise—and a lot of gladness—as she walked into the den. An adorably whiskered and jeans-and-T-shirt-clad Caleb sat with two babies in his arms, rocking them in one of the rockers he’d dragged from the nursery.

  “These little darlings decided they’d party all night. They invited me, and I figured you needed the sleep.”

  She went to sit beside him on the sofa. “My turn. You go get some rest now.”

  “Now that Jenny’s been located, I have no place pressing to be. No reason to snooze. It’s probably best if you and I take a day to see how we feel about making a real marriage out of this.”

  “No ideas came to me in the night. You?”

  “Nah. I think we have to give ourselves an A for effort now, and not worry about flunking the course.”

  April smiled. “Your approach to school was relaxed.”

  “Confident.”

  “Ah. You’re confident about a lot of things.”

  “It’s either face a crisis situation with confidence, or fold because you don’t believe in yourself. If we stay married and look into adopting these children, April, I’m going to approach our marriage and our family with confidence.”

  He was so darn appealing when he looked stubborn about something. She wished Caleb wasn’t quite as appealing as he was—it made it hard to think about a time when he might not be her husband.

  On the other hand, if anyone was worth unpacking her baggage for, it was him. “How can you be so certain we’re not taking advantage of Jenny’s distress?”

  “Because she’s thought her dilemma through. She knows what she’s capable of right now. I’d worry if we’d have the children in another town, but we won’t. We’ll be right close by whenever she wants to see the babies. In a way, I think this would be better because she could adjust to them without being so frightened and so overwhelmed.”

  “Remember what you said about me projecting my needs onto her?”

  “Forget about it. I told you, I work through every angle of a case. What I know now about this case is that I think I understand Jenny very well.”

  “You do?”

  “Now that I’ve talked to her a couple of times, yes. It’s not wrong for Jenny not to want to be a mother if she knows she can’t do it without David, if she’d dread it horribly. We can’t judge or predict her grief cycle. Only she knows best.”

  “How do you know this so confidently?”

  “Because it took me nearly all my life to give up a chunk of what was bothering me.” He held up a hand to make a point. “And still, it remains a part of me I can’t forget. I don’t know when I will, either.”

  She thought about her elderly adoptive parents, and how much they had done for her. Without them, she might have never had a chance. “I guess we do get over some things in time.” Glancing at him shyly, she said, “Caleb, I never saw myself as the type of woman to be a good wife.”

  He shrugged, not waking the babies he held. “I sure never saw myself as dad material. Believe me, me and the old man have gone a round or two that would lead you to believe that I’m lacking some parental training. If we learn by example, anyway.”

  Her secret burned inside her. He was trying so hard to acclimate himself to the situation he’d had no part in making; only that he tried to make her happy. She couldn’t bear to upset him, especially if it was for no reason.


  “Let’s take a few more days to think about it,” she said.

  “Worried that Jenny will change her mind?”

  Worried that you will.

  But she only smiled and began making breakfast. “I know what’s wrong,” she said suddenly, coming back into the room. “I know what I’m afraid of.”

  He looked at her.

  “We’re making it work, not celebrating it,” she said. “Caleb, there’s nothing wrong with realizing that this isn’t what we started out thinking we were doing, and it’s not what we’ll celebrate. It should be the biggest moment of our lives.”

  “April,” he said kindly, “you need a day off. Away from the babies. A day of pampering should be on your to-do list.”

  She gave him an impatient glare. “You’re not listening to me.”

  “I am. I’ll watch the babies if you want to go get your nails done. Maybe a massage, but not by one of those guys who makes a woman want him to remove her towel.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” she told him.

  “I can’t help it. I’d be a little jealous to think of another man near your nude body.”

  That stopped her. She’d been talking about his assertion that she needed a break. Jealous? Caleb? “Would you really?” she asked, fascinated by this emerging side of his personality.

  “How did we get from you having cabin fever to me having a slight distrust of men who run their hands over women for a living?”

  “You’re sidestepping an issue you raised,” she pointed out, “as well as not being very politically correct, I might add.”

  “Since when is it politically incorrect to be slightly jealous? Very, very minutely, I might emphasize.”

  “Never mind,” she said with a sigh. “Can we get back to celebrating? My point is that we’ve sewn this little piecemeal family together with our love and our heartstrings. We’ve done something pretty good, Caleb.”

  “Do you want me to take you out to dinner? We could pop a bottle of bubbly?”

  She smiled at his tentative offer. “It’s more an emotional celebration I mean. But thank you. I’ll definitely take you up on some bubbly another time. I had a phone call from Bri yesterday, by the way.”