by Sean Kennedy
“Happy?” Dec asked me, grinning at my expression.
“It’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be,” I said. “I guess because of the forced perspective. It had to be human-sized for the actors rather than Hobbit-sized.”
“Pretend you’re a Hobbit,” he said. “Then it will seem normal-sized.”
“You are so smart.” I leaned in and kissed him on the tip of his very cold nose. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
Dec laughed, wrapping his scarf even tighter around his neck.
I took off up the hill, Nyssa’s kids following me, babbling in their own baby language, seemingly understanding each other.
Nyssa followed them and caught up with me. Tayn and Ari were running havoc through the long grass, tumbling over one another, laying in punches where they could, grinding faces into the dirt.
“Boys, huh?” I said. “Do they take after Paddy?”
“God no, his mother said he was very quiet and serious as a kid. They take after me. The amount of times my sister and I almost put each other in hospital!” She laughed at the memory. “I threw her through a screen door once, and when she cried, I told her it was lucky I didn’t put her through the glass one. Good times.”
I inched away from Nyssa, eager to put distance between us.
She caught me. “She was just as bad! She stuck a knitting needle through my leg. I had to go to the doctor for that one. I told him I accidentally sat on it.”
“Oh, how nice that you were loyal.” You had to look for the silver linings in these kinds of situations.
“He told me to cut the crap, that the pointy end had gone in through the top of my thigh, so my story was bogus.”
“You know, you’re kind of scaring me off now,” I told her.
“Don’t be!” She gave me a sideways hug while watching her children. “It’s all part of the spontaneity and beauty of parenthood.”
Ari threw a clod of mud at his brother, and when it smacked him in the face, Tayn started to cry. I quickly turned on my heel and started making my way back up the hill.
I stood outside Bilbo’s door, wishing I could go in but not wanting to shatter the illusion. I turned back, and the others were still down the bottom of the hill. The kids had now realised how far they had strayed from their parents and were running back down to them. I trekked around to the other side and found myself a resting spot amongst the roots of a tree. I felt cradled by nature, serene and—
A child’s shriek cut through the air, and I instantly jumped up. Tayn ran around the corner and straight up to me.
“Hey,” I said, sitting him down in my lap. “You’ve come back.”
I thought he would instantly squirm away, but he didn’t, sitting there quite peaceably with the fingers of one hand in his mouth.
“This place was in a movie about a magical ring,” I told him. “It’s actually quite deep, more about human nature and friendship and sacrifice and doing what is right rather than hoping for the best. And about how appearances can be deceiving, that heroes can come in the most unlikely of people.”
Tayn gurgled, just happy somebody was paying attention to him, I guess.
I turned him around to face me. He was rather cute, in a bit of a snotty and clammy way. “You know, you’re kind of like a Hobbit yourself. I bet your feet aren’t as hairy, though.”
A twig snapped to our left, and I swivelled around on my branch, expecting to see a Ringwraith.
It was Dec. And he was looking at me with something like… I couldn’t really tell. Pride? But at what? The fact that I could talk to a child without them screaming and trying to get away from me? Did he see me as some sort of Miss Hannigan, drinking gin and terrorising orphans?
“I like the look of you with a kid,” he said.
“That sounds a little bit wrong.”
He swung his legs over the root and sat next to us. Tayn automatically reached out for him. Figures. Dec lifted him with ease, and the kid clapped his hands enthusiastically.
“I meant seeing you as a dad.”
“But I’m not his dad.”
“Nobody would have been able to tell that from the way you looked together.” He nudged me with his knee.
“Hopefully I’ll be able to fool people with yours.”
It was out before I even knew I was saying it, and Dec stood as silent as the Mines of Moria—before the troll arrived.
“I didn’t mean that,” I said immediately.
“It sure sounded like it.” Frosty waves were rolling off him.
“Look, it’s just a flippant remark.”
“Then why does it fucking sting so much?”
Declan in swear mode. I was in trouble.
“Look, I’m just… feeling things, okay?”
He snorted. “Feeling things. Way to properly describe it, Simon. Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking?”
“I’m scared you will hate me if I do.”
“Do you wish we had never started this?” he asked.
“No, I’m not saying that.”
“Really? You’ve been feeling that way from the very start! You were never as committed to this.”
“If you knew that, why did you force me?”
“Force you?” Dec froze, and then something came out of his mouth I never thought I’d hear him say. “Fuck you, Simon.”
I let him walk away, Tayn staring out over his shoulder, glad to get away from the nasty man.
The nasty man was me, by the way.
Just in case you were confused.
Chapter Twenty
NYSSA AND Paddy pretended to be unaware of the atmosphere within the car being so thick you needed a cleaver for carving as we drove back to their house. The kids took up the middle row of the minivan, and Dec and I shared the very back seats, with a sizeable gap between us. We couldn’t have been more obviously fighting if we tried. Dec put up more of a front than me, talking to Nyssa and Paddy and making faces at the kids to entertain them. I stared out the window at the glorious scenery, thinking that at this very moment I would rather have been fighting off Orcs and the Eye of Sauron. I bet it would have been easier than getting back in Dec’s good graces.
As we got out in their carport, Nyssa and Paddy said they were going to put the kids down, perhaps thinking it would give us some time to patch things up. I wondered if they knew what the fight was about; I had seen Nyssa and Dec talking at the Hobbit Town car park as I made my way back down the hill. Real Mummy and Real Daddy conspiring against the evil Fake Dad.
Fuck knows what Nyssa thought of me right now, and I didn’t want to find out. I told everybody I was going for a walk, that declaration being the equivalent of the bat signal going up in the sky if they hadn’t thought anything was wrong before. I could feel Dec’s eyes boring into my back as I set off across the fields, searching for a dam to drown myself in.
With approximately ten minutes left in my tank, I plonked myself down on the grass. Almost immediately my mobile rang. I was expecting it to be Dec, but Roger’s photo was appearing instead.
“Rog?” I asked in a panic. “Is everything okay? Is Maggie okay?”
Poor sweet, aging Maggie. Each sigh from her and each stretch that seemed to take longer than usual invoked a panic in me. She could still have a few good years left in her, and I was dreading the day she would no longer be with us.
“Maggie’s fine,” he said. “And so are Fran and the kids.”
Of course, that was going to be my next question. Roger could be surprisingly sarcastic when he wanted to be. “Good, good, what’s up?”
His background sounded busy but muffled, as if he was in his car. Roger wouldn’t be driving while talking, however. Bluetooth was the devil to him and he wouldn’t even install a hands-free device. It pissed Fran off no end, especially when she was trying to reach him while he was on the road.
“I just left your place. By the way, I moved the last boxes out of the nursery.”
Dec and I had meant to do
that before leaving so when we returned we could start fitting it out with the furniture we were planning to buy. “You didn’t have to do that but thank you.”
“It wasn’t a problem. Anyway, it gave me the chance to hang out with Maggie and spend some time with her. After all that I popped into Piedimonte’s for some food to take home, and I saw your old woman, you know, the psychic.”
“Margaret?”
“Yeah, her.” As if I had a number of old psychic women I saw on a regular basis.
“And what did she have to say for herself this time?”
Roger paused for dramatic conflict.
“Come on, Dalton.”
“Okay, try not to freak out, but she said you were having multiple babies.”
“What, like all together, or throughout life? Or did she think I would actually be giving birth to them?”
Roger sounded puzzled. “I thought you were on board with all the stuff she was saying before?”
“I don’t know.” I knew enough not to discount her entirely.
“Anyway, she said to have a good trip.”
“Well, that was nice of her.”
“She also told me Fran and I would have a beautiful fiftieth anniversary party.” He sounded a bit freaked.
“Wait, isn’t that a good thing?”
“I’ll be seventy-six, Simon!”
“We’ll all be seventy-six by then.” A thought occurred to me. “Hang on, did she say I was going to be there?”
“She didn’t mention you.”
“Oh god, do you think that’s because I’m dead before then?”
“Maybe not everything is about you. Maybe you’re on holiday then.”
I scoffed. “Like I would miss your fiftieth anniversary!”
He sounded chuffed. “Aww, thanks, mate.” A pause. “Maybe you are dead. I really hope not!”
“Thanks, Roger.”
“No worries. Anyway, I better go.”
“Okay.” I was just about to say my farewells when he yelped.
“Oh my god!”
“What?”
“She’s next to the car, and she’s staring right in the window at me.”
“Who?”
“Margaret.”
“She’s not a ghost, Rog. She’s probably—”
“Oh shit!” I heard him cry, and the line went dead.
I panicked a little. A thousand rational explanations went through my head in the seconds it took me to call him back, and a thousand supernatural ones to refute them.
“Sorry,” Roger said. “I dropped my phone. Anyway, it was Margaret. I left my wallet in the store and she brought it out, as she could still see me in the car.”
I found myself breathing normally again. “You idiot.”
“I know, I know. I should always check. Wallet, phone, keys.”
Fuck, I loved him. And I told him so.
“Um, Simon, are you okay?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You just told me you loved me. You haven’t found out you are dying, have you?”
“Fuck off, Roger.”
Those three words convinced him I was fine. “Okay. I love you too.”
I grinned and we said our goodbyes.
And then I began to panic about Margaret’s latest revelation.
I didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though, as I looked up to see Dec tearing across the grass towards me, his fists pumping at his waist. He was going to reach me in less than a minute, and not for the first time in my life, I cursed myself for falling in love with a professional athlete.
So I stood up and waited for him to reach me. He was bent over and panting, and put an arm on my shoulder to steady himself.
“I have a stitch,” he announced.
I didn’t say anything.
“I haven’t been able to do my normal exercise since we left Melbourne.”
I wanted to lay him down in the grass and curl up with him until he gained his breath. “I thought you’d be packing to be on your way back home.”
He stood up and stretched, wincing. “Oh, accusing me of running away?”
“Well, it should be me, I guess. You told me to fuck off.” I wiped away a furious tear, hoping he hadn’t seen it.
But I was surprised when he drew me in and hugged me tight. “I’m so sorry I said that. I can’t even believe I did that.”
“You were perfectly justified,” I said, muffled against the soft fleece of his jacket. “I was terrible. I was certifiable.”
“No, there’s something going on with you. And as usual, you’re keeping me in the dark. Why do you do this?”
“Because I suck at communicating?”
He gave a soft laugh. “Well, so do I. Quite frankly, sometimes I’m shocked we’ve lasted this long.”
Now I understood how he felt earlier. I pulled back and stared at him.
Dec took one look at me and was instantly contrite. “Oh my god, I didn’t mean it like that!”
I often thought we worked well together in spite of our atrocious communication skills.
“You know I love you more than anything, right?” he asked.
That was the only thing I believed sometimes, and what kept me—relatively—sane in this world.
“And you know I love you more than anything,” I said.
“Well,” he said with a bashful grin. “Now that that’s out in the open, like we’ve never said it at all in the past eight years.”
“I’m shocked, quite frankly.”
He grew serious again. “So tell me what’s going on in your head.”
“Now you’re asking for trouble.”
Dec shrugged. “I’m in it for the long haul.”
“Lucky me,” I said.
He brought me down to the ground with him, and we stayed wrapped up in each other against the cold. “Do you regret us starting this?”
I leaned my cheek against his. “No,” I said honestly. “I mean, I had fears. I still have fears.”
“Like what?”
“Have you ever wondered if we’re doing the right thing?”
“What?”
“Well, the world’s gone mad, hasn’t it? Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are threatening to explode the world over the size of their dicks, conservative governments are in power and stripping back rights—”
“If people stopped having families in times of crisis, the human race would have died out thousands of years ago, from the Ice Age onwards. There never would have been babies born during World War II!”
I nodded. “I know that, logically. It’s still a genuine fear.”
“And believe me, I’m not trying to discredit it. I think that sometimes as well, but humans prevail.”
“I think that’s the tagline of Deep Impact.”
“Seriously, Simon?” But he laughed. And I knew that everything would be fine if I could make him laugh.
“I guess our parents did have us during the Cold War,” I said. “And their parents had them during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And likewise, their parents would have had our grandparents during the Second World War. Man, humanity is fucked.”
“Wow, you’re really going to give our children ‘teachable’ moments.”
“No, no, it’s cool. I’ve talked myself around now. This has been going on since man first crawled out of the cesspool of creation as a slug. Not much has changed, especially the slug part.”
“You’re going to be a great dad.”
“I’m going to try.”
He traced his fingers along my wrist. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“What, that I’m going to try to achieve the bare minimum?”
He pinched the skin of my wrist lightly. “Since when did you do anything at the barest minimum?”
I snuggled in closer to him. “It’s hard when I have to live up to you, though.”
“That’s crap.”
“Dec, you’re the star. The rest of us are merely smoke trying to reach your stratosphere.” I frowned. “At
mosphere? Fuck, I’d be bad on a quiz show.”
“I’m just as much in the dark here as you. And like I’ve said before, we can’t be any worse than most people.”
“I’ll take that as a positive.”
ON THE way back to the house, I let loose another fear, shrieking into the twilight. “I worry about the biological thing.”
He glanced over at me.
“You know, you hear about the automatic biological bond between parents and kids. I won’t have that.”
“I think that’s a myth. Do you think adoptive parents don’t feel that when they get a kid? No matter what, this baby is going to be our kid. From day one. You’ll be their father too.”
“Yeah, and you’ll be their biological father.”
He genuinely looked perplexed. “And what difference does that make?”
“I’m going to smell funny to them.”
“I don’t even know what you’re going on about.”
“There’s, like, some kind of hormone that parents secrete to their baby. It lets the kid know, hey, baby, I’m your dad. It stops them from being scared of you. They’re going to think I smell weird.”
“Okay. I’ll rub myself all over you before we go in there. Does that sound good?”
“So I’m like the orphaned lamb wrapped in the skin of a dead lamb so the mother will accept it? Great analogy there, Dec.”
He sighed. “I’m just trying to let you know that it’s going to be okay. You’re going to love the kids, and they’re going to love you.”
I still felt unsettled. “Do you know this whole time we’ve never talked about the legalities of this? The way the laws are at the moment, you’ll be the only father on the birth certificate. I really have no rights or say in the matter.”
“That’s not true.”
“Dec, we can’t even get married, so can we stop pretending things are different than they really are? You know it’s true! If we break up—”
“We’re not going to break up!”
“How do you know?”
He looked so wounded. But instead of upsetting me, it made me angrier. He was just being so obtuse. He knew the world we lived in. We weren’t normal. Not in the eyes of our government. Probably not in the eyes of a lot of the general public. If the actual paternity of our children became certified public knowledge rather than rumour, Dec would be seen as their father. Not me. “I can’t believe you’re saying that.”