"Hey you all, could we talk in the kitchen?" Mike yelled up to the guys, who were upstairs in their bedroom. It was a Saturday morning a week after their return from New York. Angie was at Kurt's softball game so it was just Mike and them at home.
Marty, like Peter, was immediately on his guard. "What's happening?" he quickly responded. Mike then heard the thunder of two pairs of college feet bounding down the stairs.
"Did something happen with Laura?" Peter asked as they both took yanked the stools out and quickly took seats on the dining room side of the countertop pass-through. Mike had put out some drinks, but neither paid any attention to them.
"Yes, there is, and it's good stuff. Bik called and said that she's doing better. In fact, they think she's going to be OK, but she'll need to be in the hospital for another couple days or so. And then a lot of bed rest at home to recover, which isn't surprising."
Peter wiped is hands across his face. "Oh god...I'm so glad..." Marty was equally relieved, his hand now rubbing Peter's back.
"That's great!" Marty said "We've both been really worried. Bik texted us this morning, but he didn't say too much, except not to worry. So, trying to be optimistic, we took that has a good sign. But we didn't know any more than that, at least until now."
"Well, it's great news of course, especially for the long term. But I think there are now some logistical issues that you guys might be able to help with.
Both of their heads raised straight up and Peter's hands went quickly back on the stone surface of the countertop.
"What can we do?" he asked, a crusade ready in his voice.
"Your Dad had suggested it, and Bik and Laura like the idea. But they aren't sure if they would be imposing on you or not. It's kind of a lot to ask."
"No way, Pop. We'll do whatever they need. But what is it?"
His Pop wiped his hands on the towel that hung from the nearby oven and then sat down on the opposite side of the counter. "Well, as you know, your Dad has been with Bik and the kids since they came home from the hospital a couple days ago. But his case is heating up again and he needs to go into the office for negotiations or maybe even court next week."
"I was wondering what he was going to do. I know they're counting on him for this big case, and he's doing what he can while he's there." Peter said.
"And he's been making it work, at least for the past week or so. But there's some kind deadline coming up soon and they really need him there."
"He's torn. There's no doubt where he'd rather be, but he's gotten himself into this case real deep and people are counting on him. And I can't get out of here either, at least right now, though I think I'm going to play hooky as soon as no one is looking," he joked, "But I can only do it for a few days if I do it at all. So that's where you guys come in.
"You want us to go there?" Peter asked as he looked at Marty, who nodded in the affirmative.
His Pop smiled. "We'll yes, that's the idea, And not for just a couple days. For the rest of the summer."
"Like I said Pop, we'll do whatever we can for them."
"I know that, but we also need to deal with the money issue for school, not to mention other plans that you all may have had for the summer."
"I guess we're more worried about Bik now than about the money for school. I can always do more work study," Marty replied.
"And I could, too, or do some modeling while I'm in school, or who knows, maybe something else. I know I might sound irresponsible, but I think we need to help Bik and worry about the money later."
"I somewhat agree, and your Dad and I have thought about this. I think that we projected that you guys could make your money goal if you, Peter, did two more New York trips and Marty finished his model"
"You know," Marty interjected, "they've asked for all of that extra work. I think we figured it would take another two weeks. But if I really jam on it, I bet I could finish it in a week. Maybe less."
"Well, even if you do finish it, which I think you could, there would be a big shortfall from Peter's side. Not that you all can blow that off. It needs to be dealt with. But I think we need to just put that aside for right now and do what we need to do for Laura and Bik and the kids. And your Dad and I can help you more, too. you know. And that goes for doing something for Angie, also."
"You know my attitude on that, Pop, You all have done more than enough for me my whole life. You don't need to sacrifice more." Peter said.
"But thanks so much for the offer," Marty said. "It's really...nice. Luckily, Angie has enough scholarships coming up this year that she doesn't need much help from me," he said, then interjected, "In fact, if anything, maybe she helps me if it comes to that. But I don't think it will, it looks like we can sort of handle it all ourselves."
"I know, guys," his Pop replied, somewhat skeptically. "But sometimes, you need to temper your..." he was going to say pride, then switched to "ambitions."
Peter got the message, but didn't reply directly and just went back to what he really thought needed to be done. "So what's the plan?"
"Well, if we can get this all to work, the idea is that you both would spend the rest of your summer vacation, that's basically July, August and early September, in Chicago. Laura is going to be pretty much assigned to bed for at least a month after she gets home, and Bik needs to return to work in the next few weeks. So you guys would do whatever they need, but most of all take care of the kids."
"You know, the money and all that other stuff seems easy, in a certain way. The real problem I see now is...um...we need to learn how to actually take care of them."
His Pop smiled at him. "You know, Peter, there really isn't a school for something like that. We took a few local classes and talked to other new parents and all, but it's kind of on-the-job-training of the most fundamental kind. You feed them, rock them, listen to them cry, and clean up their poop. You don't need a B.A. to do that."
"I know," Marty said, "but, like, we want to do it right. I mean, I think that we'd both really to go there and do what we can to help, but we don't want to be in the way or be a burden if we don't know what we're doing."
"I'm not worried about that, and neither are they. As long as you want to do it right, are willing to listen to the kids, and use common sense, you will do great. Both of you. I'm convinced of that. Besides, it will be good training for you all in the future," he said, a presumption that neither of them challenged him on.
"We're up for it Pop, you know we are. We just want to make sure that we do more good than harm, that's all."
Laura and Bik lived in a townhouse-style condominium in a newly gentrified neighborhood north of downtown, the property bought partially for its convenience to their jobs but mostly as an investment. The modern style building had an entry foyer and two-car garage on the lower level, with three bedrooms, a large open living/dining area, the kitchen and several bathrooms upstairs.
So far they were relatively successful financially, at least compared to most young couples. Bik was a budding investment advisor and Laura was teaching school, at least she was up until the middle of her pregnancy. But they were saving for bigger things, so items like home furnishings were decidedly modest, with Laura snagging some of the furniture, like the sofa bed that the guys were using, off of Craigslist.
It didn't make any difference to the guys, who settled into the bedroom-cum-office at the front of the house. They were at the other end from the other two bedrooms, one of which had become the nursery, but they did have their own bathroom and were close to the living room where another crib was being set up.
They had already been in Chicago a week and were slowly learning the fundamentals of not only taking care of two infants, but of a whole family, as Laura was still weak from the ordeal that she had been through and Bik had returned to work.
"Hey Peter, can you help me over here?" he heard Bik call from the back of the house. One of the kids had been crying for what seemed forever, and it was the first sound that he had been able to hear over the racket.
"Sure, be right there," he answered.
When he got to the back bedroom, he saw a beleaguered Bik, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with wildly disheveled hair "I don't know what's the matter, but I just can't get her to stop crying. This happened before you all came and we had her checked out and tested. The doctor just said that she could maybe have some problem that they couldn't figure out, but most likely she's just colic."
"Colic? What does that mean."
"You know, Peter, I'm not exactly sure, but it think it just basically means that they're cranky . Something is bothering them, it may not be serious, but they want to just cry and cry and cry..."
"Yea, we heard it in our room, but I wasn't sure what was happening. Is there anything we can do?"
"Can we give her to you guys to see if she quiets down? Laura and I have both tried, but nothing we do seems to help. She's eaten and so it's not that she's hungry." he said. "And Laura, she needs to get some sleep herself. She's still pretty weak."
"Not to mention yourself, Bik. You don't look too good."
He looked back at Peter and gave him a weak smile as he tried to bounce his little girl into a better mood. It was a very uncharacteristic response from the normally ebullient brother. "I know, Peter, Laura tells me that I'm kind of burning the candle at both ends. And I think she's right."
"But I want to do the best I can to take care of my family, which at this point in my life means getting good experience and making as much money as I possibly can in this rat-race job for the next year or so, then chuck it all and moving back to Ohio to be near Dad and Pop."
"You're really thinking that?" He wasn't necessarily surprised by the decision, but he was by the quickness – and the passion in his voice.
"Yea, Laura and I have talked about it a lot. I'd much rather spend my time with these kids and the rest of our family, including you guys. But I seem to have a knack for helping rich people get richer, so if I can get good experience here in the big city I can leverage it into a good job back home. Then Laura won't have to work and we can have a real life. But until then, I've got to stay on the hamster wheel, even with these kids needing so much and my wife still recovering."
It was a subject that Peter wanted to talk a lot more about, but there was a screaming little girl awaiting him in his brother's arms, seemingly anxious to now test her uncle's resolve.
"Let's talk about this more later, Bro. In the meantime, give her to me and we'll see what we can do."
"Thanks, Peter; you guys are saving us here. I hope we can repay you someday."
"No worries, Bik. Robert says you're just prepping us for his kids, so he says we'd better get good at this," he replied as he put a towel over his shoulder and took the baby from Bik's arms. "Go in your bedroom, shut the door, and get some sleep so you can fatten up your already fat clients. We'll take care of things out here."
"Like I said, thanks so much. I'm sure that we're driving the neighbors crazy, too. Anyway, whatever! Thanks again! he said before he gave a quick strok to his brother's shoulder.
"By the way, you might want to take out your hearing aid. She can scream like like a banshee," he warned before retreating to the main bedroom, poking his head into to the nursery to check on her brother before shutting the door.
After taking the device out of his ear, Peter went through the usual ritual of parental strategies to try to calm her down. He put her over his shoulder (on his poor hearing side after taking out his hearing aid) and bounced her around as he circumnavigated the living room.
Then he stood next to the stone countertop that separated the kitchen from the dining and living rooms, much like the one in his parent's house, and tried to burp her. She did seem to burp in between screams, but it didn't stop the crying for very long.
He tried bouncing her, spinning her, talking to her, even stroking different parts of her little body. But In spite of all his efforts, Peter could not get her to quiet down.
"Hey babe," he called to Marty, who was trying to get a portable crib set up in a corner of the living room, "I'm not sure I'm doing any good here. Could you give it a try?"
Marty looked over at him, screwdriver in hand. "I' don't think I would do anything that you're not doing, it's all the right things as far as I know. But you need to go to bed soon, anyway, so maybe I should take over.
"I don't know how you can take all that noise, by the way," he asked as he got up from his workspace.
He came over and stood next to Peter, placing the screwdriver on the nearby countertop. taking a second look at him, then reached over and felt Peter's ear.
"I should have known. So this is your secret?"
"For once it did me some good, though not as much as you might think. I still have some high rang hearing, you know, and wow! she's can definitely get into the high range," he said after a particularly loud cry, his eyes wincing from the wail that at that moment was next to his good ear.
Marty scrunched his eyes up himself, the scream was so loud, then collected himself enough to look down at his watch. "Hey!," he remarked, then looked up at Peter."It's past 11:00. You really do need to go to bed now!"
"I can sleep in and all, so I'll be OK staying up. This sort of a vacation, remember?"
Marty smiled. "We've never called this a vacation, Peter. We're free of classes of course, and of the nine-to-five stuff. But that doesn't mean you can stay up all hours," he said as he reached out with both arms to take his agitated niece. "So hand her over. Maybe I'll go into the downstairs foyer with her. You all won't hear her as much from there and so maybe can get some sleep."
"Good luck, he said as he handed her over. "I can go and do guard duty for you. Maybe make you a sandwich or something, you think? Are you hungry?"
"Pete!" he heard back.
Finally accepting the unmistakable message, he gave Marty a kiss on the cheek and made his way down the short hallway to their room, the cries seeming to echo and reverberate on the hard sheetrock walls. Being a fairly new condominium and also somewhat sparsely furnished, it didn't have the kind of solid construction and decorative features like carpets and wall hangings that served to muffle noise in a lot of older homes.
And even for someone not so sensitive to noise, it made this place a marked contrast to his parent's place. There, with nearly 30 years of collecting of objects, pictures and other paraphernalia, the atmosphere seemed tranquil by comparison. Here he could still hear the cries as if the door wasn't even there.
But in spite of it all, he knew he had to get some sleep. So he just pulled the covers up over himself, grabbed his book of the floor next to his side of the sofa-bed, and starting reading. And hoping that Marty would survive the onslaught.
After finishing a chapter and almost falling asleep, he reached for the light switch of the reading lamp that he had set on the edge of Bik's desk. The he noticed something, Or rather, nothing. It was quiet.
Even though Marty had admonished him to get to bed, he couldn't help sneaking out of the room to see what was happening. He was about to make a turn to look down the stairs to find Marty in the in the foyer when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a hand waving to him from the living room.
He looked over and Marty was sitting on couch. Chessie, as they were calling her, in his arms, fast asleep. He slowly tiptoed over and positioned his good ear practically next to Marty's mouth so he wouldn't have to talk very loud, especially since that put him right over the baby.
"You OK?" Peter mouthed, hardy making a sound.
Marty returned the pantomime and shook his head up and down. "I don't know for how long, but she's out right now," he said.
Peter pushed himself away and pointed at the kitchen, and said quietly, "Do you need a bottle for later?
Marty shook his head again, "Yes, good idea," knowing that she already seemed to always want to eat when she woke up, whenever that would be.
Without asking Marty, he returned with a warmed up bottle and stuffed it between Marty's leg and the couch. He wasn't sure when he'd need it, but that would keep it as warm as possible and also handy to grab when the time came for feeding.
"Thanks," Marty said as he gave nudged Peter away with his foot, the hint to get some sleep clear once again. "See you in the morning."
"OK, but one more thing," Peter replied. He disappeared into the bedroom, then came back with Bik's iPad. "Here, you might want this for later if she ever stops screaming. I've turned the sound off so it won't make noise. Just in case you need some entertainment later."
Dawn was just arriving when Laura came out of the bedroom and looked at Marty and her daughter on the couch. She could tell from his bloodshot eyes that he didn't get any sleep at all, but Chessie seemed securely nuzzled in his arms.
Wearing a robe with an colorful abstract pattern that she humorously claimed hid baby spit, she bent down in front of them and put her hand on the baby's leg. Instinctively, Marty offered her up to her Mom to hold, but Laura waved him off. She just reached over and rubbed the child's chubby legs.
"That's OK, Marty, but thanks. How is she doing? She sounds a lot better than last night."
In spite of his fatigue, his voice seemed clear and strong. "She's been a real good girl, haven't you?" he said, giving her a kiss on the forehead. "She actually got to sleep only about a half hour after you handed her over. She woke up... um...probably around 4:00 and wanted something to eat, of course. But I had a bottle handy, so I was able to give her a snack. Then she just went back to sleep."
"And what about you? You look like you've been up all night, Marty. Are you OK?"
Like with Peter the evening before, he tried to convey most of the message by shaking his head, before whispering softly. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said before clearly stifling a yawn.
"Have you actually been awake all night?"
"Yes, pretty much. I thought I might drop her or something if I fell asleep. I tried a couple times to put her in the almost-finished crib after she quieted down, but as soon as I would put her in she would start to cry again."
"But Pete gave me Bik's IPad, so I was able to surf the web all night. I don't know what people did before the internet," he chuckled.
Laura continued to stroke her daughter's leg. "She's lucky she has such a good uncle. It looks like he's the only one that she likes to sleep with."
"I'm not so sure of that," he quickly replied. "I think that she was just so cried out that she couldn't stay awake anymore. I just had good timing," he said as he bent over and kissed her forehead. "By the way, how is her brother?
"He slept good, too, a very long time for him. Bik's getting him a bottle now."
"Any other problems besides the crying?"
He directed his head toward Chessie and sniffed the air. "I think she needs to be changed soon. But other than that, no."
As she spoke, Bik entered the room with Bradley Michael, or Brady as they were calling him, held against his shoulder. In his free hand were two warm bottles, one for each of the kids.
"Glad this did someone some good," he said as he slid the iPad over to make room on the couch next to Marty. "I better get a some parental apps on that thing pretty soon, huh? I hear they start on the web real early these days."
Bik laughed at his own joke as he gave the bottle to Brady and then looked over at the uncle and niece next to him.
"She looks like she's doing good there," he said as he adjusted the bottle in Brady's mouth. She looks, and sounds, a lot better than when I last saw her."
"Yea, she finally settled down. I think she was just tired of crying. Or maybe bored," he said with a smile as he took a deep breath, a conscious attempt to avoid another yawn.
Bik sniffed the air. "looks like she ate enough to poop. It's not this guy, I just changed him."
"She needs it all right. I'll change her in a second here."
"Here, I'll take care of her," Laura said. She was about to get up when Peter appeared right behind her.
"No worries, Laura, I'll change her. I just hope she likes me more than she did last night," he said as he stood next to her, his arms out to Marty.
"Are you sure, Peter? You just woke up."
"Of course, glad to. I've already got a slobber towel on my shoulder, and, besides, I need the smell to give me a good wake-up," he replied as he bent over and took her from Marty's arms. As much as Laura wanted to do for her kids, Peter knew that she still tired very easily and Bik was uneasy if she did anything even remotely strenuous.
As he started to lay her head on his shoulder, she suddenly stirred. "Oh no," Peter said, "here it comes! damn, I shouldn't have put in my hearing aid!"
She did move around and was rearing back and starting to open her mouth. Peter paused for a moment, expecting the worst. But she only yawned.
"Phew...saved!" Peter said, relieved, as he resumed his course to the dining room table.
As Peter was performing the now familiar ritual of changing a baby's diaper, Bik bumped Marty on the side with his elbow. "Hey, thanks again for taking her last night. You really saved us. I mean, both you guys have, this whole time."
"No, it's been fun for us, I mean..."
Laura smiled as she looked at him. "Well, you yawn a lot when you have fun, don't you?" she teased.
"Like Bik said, you both have really saved us here. We don't know what to say or how to thank you. We just hope we can return the favor some day."