"You can't keep doing the night time feeding - you've got to go to work tomorrow!" Drew declared, looking at his partner sternly. "Maybe the next night, if you can work from home. But you're not going to start burning the candle at both ends. Get some sleep tonight!" he continued, his voice firm but quiet as he gently rocked their son, who had just finished his bottle and was lying contented in his arms.
Mickey was still feeding Ellen, her nearly-empty bottle supported by one hand while the other cradled her head. "These guys are too much for one person, Drew. You need help," Mickey protested, but in an equally soft voice, likewise trying to shield the children. "You'll never get any sleep yourself."
"If I need help, I'll wake you up, I promise. But you've got to get all of your work behind you or you'll crash," Drew countered. "You spent half of the last week getting their insurance coverage worked out, which wasn't easy considering that they're not yet actually adopted. And that's besides doing your regular job and then helping with everything else."
Mickey sighed.
"Well, I think that insurance beast is behind us now," he answered, "but I guess that I really am getting pulled in a lot of directions right now. They've worked out a plan for me to get on Parental Leave ASAP, but a company usually has at least, you know, six months or so to prepare for something like this, not a couple days."
He slightly adjusted Ellen's head to get the last drops out of the bottle, as he was already starting to learn that even a little bit of food will extend her nap that much longer.
"I can't just walk out on everyone. Brad has been really great. The whole place is rushing to divide up my work, but some things just can't be quickly sloughed off."
"I know it's not easy, Mickey, especially because you have a real sense of duty. But as my Dad used to say, `No one is indispensable'," he quoted. It was a rare time that Drew would reference his father, which didn't go unnoticed by Mickey. "But you've made yourself about as essential as a junior associate can be. Which is good for your career, of course, but kind of bad timing right now," Drew added as he looked up and gave Mickey a smirk and raised eyebrows while Carl just gurgled.
"I guess that's true. I mean, I like to think that I'm fitting in there pretty well. But if I can just last through the next couple weeks, I can get the office days down to once a week and take some of the load off of you."
"There's enough help now to bridge over until you're ready. If it wasn't for your mom, and Laura and Bik and everyone else, wow! - I guess that I don't know what we would do. These two are nonstop," he said as he lifted Carl in the air and gently shook him.
"You are nonstop, aren't you?" he asked, before he gently shook him again. Carl at first just gurgled, then spit up on him.
"Ugh! I should have quit while I was ahead," Drew said as he slowly lowered Carl back down as the two new parents chuckled.
"Damn, I left that thing off my shoulder again!" he said, groaning, as he grabbed the blue and white striped drool cloth from the edge of Carl's crib. "I need to have it permanently attached to my body," he added before wiping Carl's face and then his own shoulder.
"Ellen would have laughed at that, too," Mickey remarked as he looked at the only piece of permanent nursery furniture that they were absolutely sure of – a picture of her that hung above the cribs They planned on one wall of photos that they would constantly update, but that picture would always be the focus. Neither of them knew yet how they would tell the kids about their mom, but they wanted to make sure that she always had a presence in their lives. Even if it was just a picture.
"One of my big tasks is to get most of this furniture replaced as soon as we can," Drew said. "No one is in a rush to get their stuff back, except Peter and Marty, of course. But we've got more kids ahead and may as well get started on the permanent collection."
"Too bad we can't buy another one of Mike and Brad's dressers. Do you know that Mike made that thing?" he asked, eying the white, five-drawer chest with bright, linear chrome handles.
"Really, he built that?" Mickey responded. "It's cool - very slick and modern. I was wondering if we could get something like that style. I mean, it looks pretty cool."
"Me, too," Drew answered. "According to Peter, his Pop made a lot of their baby furniture in his woodshop, and also a lot of their toys. All of it made from wood, all of it indestructible, designed for rowdy kids."
"On our budget right now, I think that we'll be at Ikea, if that, but if we strike gold, maybe we could commission some pieces," he added. He paused for a moment, looking down at Carl.
"Brad and Mike did a whole lot for their kids. It really meant a lot to them to have a family of their own, especially back then as a gay couple," he added. "And the three boys are the same way with theirs."
All the while, Charlie was seated next to him, lightly panting, waiting for either the next morsel of food to drop or a bit of attention - it was hard to tell which. Drew looked down at the hopeful mug.
"You know, this guy seems to be adjusting pretty well. He isn't at all aggressive or jealous around them, and actually seems a bit protective. A couple times I've found him by their door, kind of half in and half out of the room. But maybe I just imagine him as a sentry."
"We actually have three kids now if you include him," Mickey answered, reaching over with his foot to scratch Charlie's back while he balanced Ellen. Charlie looked up at him, anticipation in his eyes, thinking that a treat was on the way.
"Sorry, you already had a delicious dinner, and no dessert until bedtime," Mickey answered, nudging him with the toe of his leather house slipper.
"And speaking of three kids," he continued. "I spoke to Brad about the eggs that Ellen left us. He and Mike will come over anytime to walk us through the process and what needs to happen. It's going to take some time to find the right surrogate, not to mention a contract and all the legal stuff."
"I just hope that it's successful in the first place," Drew added, trying to temper their expectations. "I'd better have some swimmers in there so that you can have another sibling," he said, looking at Carl, who seemed to smile but was probably just saving up more drool.
"I know that they come out of cannon, so no one can say that they don't have head start," Mickey responded, smiling, as pulled the now-empty bottle out of Ellen's mouth. She gurgled for moment, than slumped back into his arm.
"If it all does work out, we're going from the frying pan into another frying pan, pretty quick," Mickey said, then paused. "The big question is, are you going to be OK? Is that too many to handle at once?" he asked, moving close to Drew and bumping his head into Drew's shoulder as he held Ellen.
"It's not perfect timing, but how could it ever be?" Drew quickly answered to the not unexpected question. "That's, you know, not how it's ever worked, at least up until the last few years when you could sort of create a pregnancy in a test tube. But even then, it's a risky process that doesn't always happen exactly as predicted." He continued, "I guess you could say we kind of have a `master plan' for the family, we know that we want four or five or six kids, and we just go from there. We can think of these two as kind of a head-start," he added, kissing Carl on the forehead, "and we give the rest a chance to happen."
Mickey nodded a `yes' at Drew as he tried to burp Ellen. It took a few moments, but with careful listening, he finally heard what was almost just a heavy breath. After swaddling her further with a thick white cotton blanket he placed her back down in the crib and stared down at the little squirming bundle.
Then he looked at the wall with an almost blank stare.
"You know, Drew, I can never hit these kids, right? I mean, they might deserve a spanking some time. I know that I did, but I can't do it. I know I can't," he said, bending over resting his wounded cheek against Ellen before kissing her.
Drew gave a gentle bite to Carl's nose. "I didn't think you could," he replied. "But I'm not sure that we have to, really. My dad was definitely the disciplinarian, but he never hit me or Casey. Ever."
"Really? I guess I'm surprised, but should I be? I mean, with all that's gone on, I guess that giving him the benefit of the doubt doesn't come easily to me," Mickey replied.
"I can see why you'd be a bit shocked, but it's really true," Drew replied as he put Carl back into his own crib, which was end-to-end with Ellen's. "That's not to say that he couldn't make his displeasure known. The glare was Stage One, but if he glared and then sat me down across from him, well...I knew that he was serious."
"Well, your old man turned out pretty well. So maybe we won't have to spend so much time down at Juvenile Hall with you, right?" Mickey asked, staring down at Ellen. "No stealing cars, right? Smoking behind the school? Hacking into the faculty website?"
She was already asleep, her little stomach barely moving with each breath.
Mickey looked back at Drew and sighed again. "She's not listening already. Could be trouble ahead," he said quietly as he pulled a fluffy, soft white crocheted blanket over her as she continued dozing.
Drew looked so natural as a parent, but Mickey couldn't help but to still see him in another way, too. He was wearing a short sleeve shirt, his prominently curved biceps tensed as he held their son. The past week had been such a whirlwind of activity that they hadn't even had time for sex, a record long period of celibacy since they had been married and even long before that. There was no doubt that, with the kids, their lives would not be the same. But there were a couple things, like Drew's hot body and virile smell, that could not be denied for long.
Moving behind him, Mickey reached around and lifted the front of Drew's t-shirt, gently stroking the taut, smooth ridges above his belt.
"Such a hot gay dad," he whispered in Drew's ear as he nibbled on it.
Reaching back with his hand as he leaned back into Mickey's lanky frame, Drew replied, "Jeeze, we've never gone this long without doing it, I've been so damn horny," he continued, running his fingers through Mickey's hair, "but the kids - they don't seem to care about that."
"No they don't. They just care about eating and pooping and peeing and all that other stuff. But when they are all done..."
Mickey laughed. "Yup, that's all they care about. I know that they have to be Number One for both of us, of course. But Number 2 isn't such a bad spot, if you know what I mean," he said as he nuzzled Drew's ear.
"So true, and I was thinking..." just then, Ellen started sneezing.
"Oh, just a sec, we should take a quick look" Mickey said as he suddenly released him and they both stepped over to the crib.
Lying on her back, her eyes closed, then open, then closed, she was curling her hands and feet, rolling her head, smiling, or appearing to smile, up at them. Beneath the blankets one could see that she was wearing a white flannel onesie with little pink stars, a gift from Casey.
"I guess this is how it's going to be," Drew said, wrapping his arm around Mickey's waist before bending over and blowing on her skin. "Edged forever."
Drew shook his head, half sighing and half smiling, and looked at Carl. He was way past the point of merely making eye contact and one could definitely have a conversation with him. You just couldn't use words, as Mickey would say.
For the past six months, the routine of feeding and cleaning and general tending-to was relentless and exhausting, but when they got a smile or a reaction or even crying it seemed like a pretty fair trade. Unlike socialized adults, the kids had no inhibitions at all, only reactions, raw and unedited, and watching the two personalities emerge was the best part of fatherhood for both Drew and Mickey.
After returning from his sabbatical, Mickey tried to compartmentalize his work life, like he had done before the kids, where he never brought work home but would stay late so that he didn't mix business with family. That lasted about a week. Drew converted one of the spare bedrooms into an office, which Mickey tried to quarantine for work only. That also ended up also lasting about a week, as he couldn't tolerate a cloistered work environment when Drew and the kids were only a few steps away.
Even though `work was work,' it was more bearable with the playpen that was now planted next to his makeshift desk, which was actually just a white painted solid core door placed on its side with some fancy chrome legs. It was an idea from Mike, and didn't look half bad, especially with a bit of glint from the chrome.
The top was like a miniature version of his office, with two screens, a keyboard, and lots of manila folders in neat piles flanking the screen on all sides except for the far left, which had pictures of Drew, his mom and the kids, along with another picture of Ellen while she was just showing her pregnancy.
After dinner one evening, he had arranged it so that the kids were hanging out in the playpen next to his desk while he reviewed a routine contract. They would playfully flail around until they were tired or hungry or pooped or peed. But after reviewing the first section of the draft, he caught something out the right corner of his eye that was a bit strange.
It wasn't Charlie, who was typically sprawled out in his usual place underneath the desk, next to the crib. What was odd was that he thought he had put the babies in the center of the crib, but now Carl was at the edge. `How did he get there?' Mickey asked himself.
Putting down the papers and then rotating the used office chair that Drew had picked up off of Craigslist, he stared at the two of them. Carl looked up at him, seemed to smile, then, slowly but surely, crawled back to the center of the crib.
Mickey turned toward the door, "Drew, Mom, Come here! You have to see this!" he called out.
He heard rapid footsteps on the nearby staircase before Drew appeared in the room. "What?" he asked, half out of breath.
"He crawled, I saw him!" Mickey responded. "He's in the middle now, but he went to the gate and back, at least I saw the `back' part. It was a struggle, but he shuffled along."
They both stared down at their two kids, waiting for movement. Carl was again flailing around, it wasn't clear if he was trying to move or just playing. They both had their eyes on him. But then, Ellen started to move, shuffling toward her brother, reaching out for him, or at least moving her hand in that direction.
"Oh Jeez! Is this her first crawl?" Drew asked.
"I don't know, maybe she taught him and we just didn't catch it."
Mickey's mom entered the room and saw the two of them fixated on the action, Mickey's formerly engrossing document haphazardly spread across the desktop.
"So they're moving, huh?" she asked as she approached and bent over the adjacent side of the wooden playpen, it's rails painted in the primary colors of red, blue and yellow.
"Yeah! Now I've seen them both move. It was so cool, kind of like little turtles. But they're learning."
"You know what this means, don't you?" she asked them both.
"Um," not exactly, but I think I know what you're going to say," Drew responded.
"Once they start to move around, you'll then need to always follow them. Pretty soon they will be walking, then running, then they'll be asking for the keys to the car," she added, smiling. "So don't push too hard - it will happen faster than you could believe."
Having the opportunity to watch the kids crawl for the first time was just an extra bonus he got from a cancelled client dinner. While he tried to be a good citizen of the firm, and was always there for a birthday or other personal celebrations, he had to admit that he had a difficult time being first one to step up and offer to take a client out to dinner or a ball game or some cultural event. He did try to share the load if it helped the project team. But, like him, many of his co-workers had also picked the firm because it promised a balanced life.
When there was an emergency though, they all pitched in, just as he had hoped. That was the only way that the firm could survive the periodic family sabbatical, and he vowed that that was the one area that he would step up and help others if the opportunity arose.
Which wasn't to say that it was easy. Every day was new lesson in figuring out how to solve problems and get answers as quickly as possible so that he could help the firm and his compatriots, while protecting his own home life, too.
His classmate, Maryam, worked in New York for a company that seemed to think that a personal life was superfluous. While her work with large corporate mergers and acquisition was interesting and important, she and Mickey stayed in touch, and she would tell him about life in a big, New York corporate firm with the hyper-competitive atmosphere and the rat race for more billable hours.
"It's very macho," she said to him one day on the phone. "Lots of bragging about 60 hour weeks and how late they stayed, not to mention that pre-meeting chatter about the Yankees or the Giants or the Knicks, and how they did the night before, who they just traded,' she recounted one day.
"Are you actually learning things there, Maryam?" he asked.
"Well, I do have to say this," she answered, "It's a really great experience. The projects are world-class and there are lots of smart people around. And, after a lot of often unnecessary pain, the product is really good and I'm learning a lot. But I think there's a way to do this a lot more efficiently and with less brain damage for everyone."
"Not to mention actually having a life and a family," she added. "But not the kind of family that some of these guys have. One senior partner has a fourth wife who might be younger than me!"
"Well, let's not go there," Mickey replied, chuckling.
"But I do hope that you get the chance someday to put that thought into action, because I know you can," Mickey continued. "You'll be a great boss and mentor. Your head is in the right place."
"Thanks, I hope so too - at least before I get married or my hair falls out," she replied, as Mickey smiled to himself. Her engagement to one of their classmates was one of the things that he felt kept her going, not to mention the steady stream of stuffed animals that she sent to the kids.
But it was not only the workload and the client schmoozing, but Maryam and other friends in the corporate seemed to have an endless stream of off-hours events that were supposed to be for team building and firm morale, which he understood to a point. But to his mind, with their sheer proliferation on evenings and practically every other weekend, they were not so subtle ways of making the firm more important than anything in their life, including their families. It was a relief that he didn't get dragged into any of that at his firm, but it was a good reminder that he was fortunate in having choices and that he couldn't take it for granted.
And he was trying to make the best of it. For Mickey and Drew, the biggest off-hours draw, besides the twins, was another baby on the way. It took them three months to find a surrogate who was located within a one hour drive but, as Mickey was fond of saying, it only took three minutes for Drew to produce the sperm. It turned out that there weren't many viable eggs, so it wasn't a guaranteed process by any means. But to everyone's relief, it worked on the fourth try and their surrogate was now just starting to show.
It was a Friday morning in the nursery, the lower autumn sun was streaming through the window as Drew was feeding a bottle to his son, which he seemed to take with ease, unlike his fussy and demanding sister who was particular about the angle of the bottle, how she was held, and anything else that she might be able to control.
"Are they both finished eating yet," Mickey's voice said from the phone, his regular quick morning call to check on the Drew and the kids." Even if he was in a meeting, he would at least send off one of his pre-made texts just to let Drew know that he was thinking of them.
"Oh, yeah. They both took it pretty well. I'm getting better at multitasking here, especially keeping the one busy so that they aren't jealous of each other. But now that they are crawling everywhere I anticipate the food envy will be coming soon."
"Well, I'm sure you'll handle it as well as can be done," Mickey said, "but back to the rock pile now. See you tonight. Love you."
"You, too," Drew replied as he pressed the red `call over' button.
It wasn't yet close to winter, but the hottest days of summer were clearly past, and the trees were just starting to turn color as he made his way through the regular routine of care, on top of continuing his gradually replacement of all of the borrowed furniture with permanent pieces for the future kids.
The best part of working in their room was that he got to play with them during his breaks. After assembling all of the drawers of a new dresser, he got up off his knees and stretched. Ellen, or Elllie, as they were starting to call her, was fixated on the colorful mobile over her crib, another gift of Casey. But it looked like Carl was interested in a going for a ride so he reached into the crib and gently pulled him out, gave him an airplane ride through the room before visiting his sister, ending in a hug and kiss from Dad.
Mrs. Deringer was picking up groceries, a task with seemed to grow exponentially with the kids when he heard the clang of the doorbell, which meant that he had to act fast, as a second ring might upset one of the kids, or even Charlie, a sure invitation to chaos. There wasn't time to put down Carl for what was probably some sales person or pollster, so cradling him in his arms, Drew approached the heavy oak door common in houses of this vintage.
He didn't even bother to look through the small leaded glass window - he just stuffed the bottle temporarily between Carl's little body and his own and grabbed the brass handle. As he opened the door, he saw a slightly disheveled man, his eyes drooping and hair slightly unkempt.
He looked and blinked and couldn't believe his eyes.
"Dad!?"