At the front of the tree, heartbreaking, hung a Baby’s First Christmas ornament with Isla’s infant picture in the frame and last year’s date engraved in it. Next to it, an ornament celebrating the couple’s first Christmas together, dated several years earlier. And another, with the current year and a picture of Isla, for her second Christmas.
We’ll need to pack the ornaments. As he looked, he spotted several ornaments, one-offs, not mass-produced boxed ornament sets, that most likely had sentimental meaning for the couple. Several for different locations, like the Grand Canyon, Devils Tower, and other places.
He’d make sure they went on their tree at home, for Isla.
Emery returned a few minutes later with Isla in his arms, Holly following. Isla clutched Puppy in one arm, and a small blanket in the other hand.
“Isla, look what Santa brought you,” Sean mustered in as cheery a tone as he could.
Her eyes widened, sleep dissolving from her system. “Santa!”
Emery sat her down next to the tree while Sean started handing her presents. He realized with not a little sadness that all of the presents were for Isla. He suspected the couple had exchanged private gifts already, or had planned to.
He watched as she opened things, from Hello Kitty to My Little Pony, a few educational toys, books, DVDs, even some Wii kids’ games.
Things her parents had suspected, or outright known, she wanted.
Things he and Emery would have to learn about their daughter.
Sean’s dad recorded the entire thing on his cell phone camera while Holly and the two grandmothers scoured the kitchen to put together an impromptu dinner for everyone. Isla halfheartedly nibbled on a cheese sandwich and apple slices, more interested in her presents.
Once Isla was surrounded by a sea of wrapping paper and new toys, she grabbed Puppy and her blanket and curled up in Emery’s arms again.
“She’s exhausted,” Joseph noted. “Poor thing.”
In another few minutes, she was sound asleep.
They fashioned her a makeshift bed on the living room floor while the adults went into the dining room to eat. Sean sat where he could keep an eye on her, not wanting her to wake up alone.
Emery leaned in and kissed him. “Merry Christmas,” he sadly said.
Sean nodded. “Yeah. Merry Christmas.”
* * * *
It was after eleven o’clock that night when they finished packing the basics they’d need for Isla, as well as a few of her new toys, and headed for the hotel. They would rent a U-Haul trailer tomorrow or Monday to get her bedroom furniture, as well as box up family photos and things they thought she might want for the future.
They’d decided they would move the entire contents of her bedroom to their house and put her in the largest guest room, which had the closest configuration to this one, and happened to be closest to a guest bathroom. It also had a view of the beach. Before they started the major packing, they’d take pictures of her current room so they could set things up as closely as possible to how it was here.
They knew it would still be a disruption for her, but hoped they could minimize the impact for her in this way, at least.
Emery drove, Sean once again in the back seat and staring at Isla’s sleeping face.
She looked very much like her mother, from the pictures they’d seen at the house.
In his lap he kept his hand on the baby book they’d found on the bookcase in the living room, next to other photo albums. Two distinctly different handwriting styles had been used in it, likely Kelley’s and William’s.
They’d kept it up to date, the latest being just three weeks ago, when Isla had learned how to tie her shoes by herself.
The entry for Christmas this year hadn’t been filled in yet.
Even more heartbreaking, so much so he hadn’t been able to bring it with them, was the other baby book that had been next to it on the shelf, with the parents already making notes in it.
And a copy of ultrasounds, showing the little boy that would never be born.
Sean didn’t consider himself a religious person at all. But he made a silent promise to the couple who’d never return, and their unborn baby.
We’ll love her. We’ll make sure she’s happy. We’ll raise her like our own, I promise. And she’ll always know who you were. We’ll make you proud.
“You all right, babe?” Emery quietly asked from the front.
“Yeah.” He stroked Isla’s hand, sniffling when her tiny fingers curled around his in her sleep.
“It’ll be okay.”
“I know. I just feel like a real shit for even thinking about being happy right now. I want to be happy, and yet I can’t. Not totally.”
“I know,” Emery said. “Me, too.”
“I thought when we adopted, it’d be a goofy damn celebration. A party. I don’t feel right feeling good about this because it’s like celebrating that people died.”
“I know.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes.
“There’s some irony here,” Sean quietly said.
“What?”
He met Emery’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “The gay Alpha son and his mate made your parents grandparents before the two sets of kids who are expecting babies.”
Emery’s mouth curved in a sad smile. “True. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
Chapter Five
Isla awoke when they arrived at the hotel. Sean carried her up to their room. She started talking to him when he put her on their bed, so he stayed with her while the others took care of unloading her things.
She kept Puppy and her blanket tucked against her chest while she snuggled with him. He found SpongeBob on TV and left it there when she seemed satisfied with that choice.
By the time everyone returned with the last load of stuff from the truck, Isla had dropped back to sleep again. Sean didn’t want to move for fear of waking her again. Everyone crowded around the bed to watch her sleep.
“She’s beautiful,” Helen whispered. “A perfect little angel.”
Louise draped an arm around her friend’s waist. “We have a granddaughter we can spoil rotten.”
The women tightly hugged.
Sean had no doubts Isla would soon be swimming in girlie outfits and toys. Not to mention devoted, unconditional love.
I’ll need to have a talk with them about not spoiling her.
He wasn’t a psychology expert by any stretch, but he suspected Isla’s tragedy would invite people to overcompensate her for her loss in material ways. In the beginning, at least.
I’ve got to start thinking like a dad.
Fortunately, they had two ready volunteers to have “the talk” about periods and dating with her when she hit that age, in addition to Emery’s sisters and sister-in-law.
Training bras. Boys. High school.
Thoughts ran through Sean’s brain at blinding speed, threatening to overwhelm him.
She was a baby. Still three months from her third birthday. It was too damn soon to be having those worries yet.
At least we can sic Wyatt on any boys who get too interested in her too soon.
Okay, so that thought brought a smile to his face.
Emery gently herded everyone out of the bedroom and bid them good-night. When he climbed into bed, wearing a pair of shorts, Sean realized their nights of running around the house nakey were, for the foreseeable future, over.
With Emery’s help positioning her in the middle of the bed, Sean carefully got out, changed into a pair of shorts, and returned.
Emery lay propped on one elbow, staring down at her.
“She’s beautiful,” he whispered.
“Yeah.” Sean turned down the volume on the TV but left it on. He didn’t want her waking up in the middle of the night in a strange place with strange people and in total darkness, to boot.
“This doesn’t feel real,” Emery whispered.
“Yeah. Tell me about it.”
“We woke up this morning worrying about
making sure the turkeys wouldn’t catch fire. Now we have a baby.”
“Please tell me we won’t screw this up,” Sean said. “That we won’t screw her up.”
He smiled. “If my parents could raise all five of us, I think we can handle a little girl who’s already past the midnight feeding stage.”
“You sure? I feel outnumbered already.”
“And it looks like we miss out on the potty training phase, although she still wears diapers at night.”
“Lucky us.”
They stared at her for several long, silent minutes.
“Em?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“I get dibs on scaring her first boyfriend off.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough. Although I was seriously considering letting Uncle Wyatt chaperone her dates.”
* * * *
Early Sunday morning, Sean was awakened by a tiny finger poking him in the shoulder. Peeling open his eyes, he saw Isla sitting up between them. She had one arm tightly curled around Puppy and her blanket, with her thumb jammed into her mouth. She poked him again with her free hand. Emery still lay sound asleep on the other side of the bed.
“Good morning,” he whispered.
She stared at him and mumbled something around her thumb.
“What?”
She mumbled it again. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like potty.
That’s when consciousness fully exploded in his brain. He sat up and scooped her from the bed. “All right, princess. Let’s get you taken care of.” From the grey light struggling around the hotel room’s curtains, he realized it was morning, although he wasn’t sure how early.
Emery had thought ahead and put necessities in the bathroom. Sean set her blanket and Puppy safely out of the way on the counter before he helped her pull down her pants and the nighttime diaper and got her on her potty chair.
She kept the thumb jammed in her mouth.
He suspected sucking her thumb was a comfort issue, and he wouldn’t even attempt to stop her from doing it at this point.
“Do you want a bath, sweetie?”
She nodded.
Sean figured out the stopper on the tub and got the water temperature set before letting her in the water. He held up two bottles of shampoo, both with cartoon characters on them. “Which one?”
She pointed, finally pulling her thumb from her mouth. “Hewwo Kitty.”
“Okay.”
She actually had a pretty good grasp on using the washcloth, and only needed help rinsing her hair. As she stood in the draining tub while he got a towel wrapped around her, she reached out and touched his chin.
“Sawn?”
He smiled. “Yes, sweetheart. I’m Sean. The big guy’s Emery.”
“Emwee?”
This felt right smiling about, at least. “Yep. Emwee.”
She scowled a little, but nodded. “Aunt Howwy and Unca Ken said Mommy and Daddy and baby died.”
Ice chilled his core. He hadn’t thought about her parents telling her about the baby, but it made sense. “Yes, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”
She touched his chin again. “You live on de beach?”
Okay, safe territory. “Yep. We have a brand-new house. We’re going to have a pool soon, too.”
“I wike to swim.”
“I bet you do.”
“Mommy said I was too wittle to swim with her and Daddy at the beach. But I wike to swim in de pool.”
Tread lightly, dude. “Well, the water is really cold right now at the beach. But we can look for shark’s teeth and shells right in our backyard. And your Uncle Wyatt and Aunt Marisela have a pool we can use whenever we want until ours is finished.”
Her thumb went back into her mouth as she seemed to process that for a moment. Then she removed it again. “Will you take me to wook for them?”
“For what?”
“Sark teef.”
“Yes.” He scooped her up from the tub with the bath towel around her. “I will most definitely take you to wook for sark teef.”
* * * *
He left the bathroom door open and the light on, hoping it would be enough to see by and not wake Emery. But Emery let out a soft groan and stretched, reaching over to flip on a bedside lamp.
“Good morning,” he mumbled.
Sean set Isla on the bed. “Good morning, Emwee,” she said.
He smiled. Sean felt his cock stir as he watched Emery’s torso while he stretched. Sean told it to pipe down and suffer. They couldn’t fool around this morning, not with Isla and both sets of their parents around.
“Good morning, sweetie,” Emery said.
She pointed at Sean. “He gave me a bath.”
“I can see that.”
“I need clothes.”
Sean watched as Emery tried not to laugh. She sounded so cute. “Do you want to pick them out yourself?”
She nodded.
He got out of bed and went over to one corner, where he’d stacked a large suitcase they’d found in her parents’ room and filled it full of her clothes. He brought it over to the bed and opened it for her. She rummaged through it and pushed aside a package of diapers.
“I don’t need a diaper in the daytime. Only for sleepin’.” She glared at the men. “I’m a big girl.”
“Okay,” Emery said. He looked at Sean and sent him a wink.
He winked back.
When Isla sat back, she had in her hands a Hello Kitty T-shirt, a pair of jeans with pink ruffles at the cuffs, and pink underwear with My Little Pony characters on them.
“You need socks and shoes,” Emery told her. “It’s chilly outside.”
“Not chilly in here.”
Sean pressed his lips together and desperately tried not to laugh. He could see where these roles were heading. Emery the disciplinarian, and himself the easy touch.
“No, but we’re going to eat breakfast soon,” Emery told her. “You need socks and shoes in the restaurant.”
She scrunched up her face in thought. “Oh. Okay.”
Emery pulled out socks from the suitcase, and when he reached for the sneakers she’d had on the day before, she pointed at a pair of soft, pink boots that looked like miniature fake Uggs.
Emery smiled. “Okay, these instead of sneakers?”
She nodded.
When Sean tried to help her get dressed, she pulled the T-shirt away from him. “I’m a big girl! I can do it.”
“Okay, sorry.”
She pulled on the clothes herself. Emery added a lightweight jacket for them to carry down with them to the restaurant in case she needed it.
As she was finishing pulling on her boots, they heard a light knock on their door. “Sean?”
His mom. “Yeah, it’s safe. Come on in.”
Helen opened the door, Louise on her heels as the two women piled in. “How’s our girl this morning?”
This time, Sean let the laugh come through. “She just finished telling us she doesn’t need our help getting dressed.”
“Well, of course she doesn’t,” Helen said. “She’s a big girl.”
“That’s what I tol’ them, Gwamma Hewen.”
Sean prayed his mom didn’t burst into tears. Fortunately, she didn’t. Instead, she scooped the toddler up with Louise also fussing over her. “How about we go out into the living room and watch TV so your dads can get their showers and get dressed?”
“Okay.”
Sean and Emery stood there, watching as the two women spirited the girl out the door, closing it behind them.
Emery finally looked at him. “I think we were just given our marching orders.”
“I think so, Emwee.”
* * * *
When they all went downstairs to the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast, Ken and Holly meeting them there, Emery could sense Helen trying to hold back from giving advice or taking over with Isla.
He loved her all the more for her attempts at restraint, knowing how difficult that was for her considering her own dream of a gra
ndchild had just come true.
Fortunately, the restaurant had a breakfast buffet, including plenty of kid-friendly choices. Sean carried Isla so she could see and pick out what she wanted while Emery carried her plate for her. When they returned to the table and slid her into her high chair, she immediately dug in with her fingers and a spoon she held in her other fist.
His mom and Helen waved the men off. “Go get your own plates,” his mom told them. “We’ll watch her.”
When they returned to the buffet and grabbed their plates, Sean leaned in. “Our moms are glowing. I think it’s the only thing keeping me from crying right now.”
“Don’t you dare start crying unless you want to see me crying, too.”
Sean rested his head against Emery’s shoulder. “Aw, dude, we’re a couple of marshmallows. You realize that, right?”
“Yeah, but we need to nut up fast, or we’re going to have a little girl running around with us wrapped around her fingers.”
* * * *
Emery didn’t have time to process any of his emotions. He instinctively knew Sean felt the same way he did, overjoyed to expand their family, but grieving at the cost in lives.
Ken had made some calls first thing that morning and arranged for them to borrow a box truck. His son would drive it to Englewood for them on Monday after the hearing and bring it back to Orlando. After a stop to buy boxes and other packing supplies, they all headed back to the Shorlins’ house, where Ken’s son would meet them that afternoon with the truck.
Sean and Emery turned Isla over to their moms while they worked with their fathers, under Holly and Ken’s guidance, to get everything packed they felt they needed to take on this trip.
While the adults’ mood was somber, Isla seemed to take it in stride, frequently coming to find him or Sean to show them something.
When they started packing the things in her room, she insisted on helping.
Emery wished she wouldn’t, but he wasn’t about to force his mother or Helen to keep her out of the room, either. And with her young age, he found it hard to believe she would so readily accept two strangers she’d never met before as her new parents.