Page 57 of Karma Kitty Christmas
While the party commenced, Isaac manned the kitchen, making sure the food was staying covered if it wasn’t being eaten (which was rarely) or the dishes were being replaced if they were empty (which happened alot, because Luca’s crew of construction guys and their wives ate alot) and occasionally running back to the nursery to make sure Roxy or Brian was well-provided with food while they watched their children.
This time he found Brian sitting quietly in the rocking chair with Sparrow Anne on his shoulder, watching his younger two fondly while they played with giant Legos.
“You okay in here?” he asked softly, leaning against the door frame and taking in the scene.
“Yeah,” Brian said. “It’s almost nap time. I’ll settle everybody down and come out.” He glanced around and sighed. “I know it’ll be busy for a couple months after she has the baby, but honestly, I can’t wait until they all play together. Nobody tells you that kids are a blast, you know?”
Isaac nodded. “Yeah. I-I mean, Todd didn’t want them, but I was always so happy to be Uncle Isaac for your kids. I’m excited to get another chance.”
Brian gave him a sideways glance. “I’m going to butt into your business here, and you know I’ve stayed out of it the entire time you and Roxy have been friends.”
Isaac grunted, remembering when Brian had run him cookies and ice cream and hadput it in his lap with a spooninstead of putting it in the kitchen and expecting Todd to get it for him.
“Of course,” he said blandly, and Brian’s mouth pulled in at the corners as he tried not to laugh at that.
“Todd was a dick,” Brian said. “Roxy doesn’t want to say it because you’re her friend and she wants to let you get all your feelings out on your own. I can say it because I’m just the husband and nobody expects me to have an opinion. But he was a dick. You’re a good guy, Isaac. In fact, you’re anamazingguy. This is the part where a hetero chest-thumper would say, ‘If you weren’t gay, I’d be jealous,’ but you could be as hetero as I am—”
Isaac snorted, and Brian rolled his eyes but kept on talking.
“—and I’d still know you were too rock-solid to move in on somebody else’s partner. You’re a good uncle—and you’d be a great dad. And you and Luca are so nice. When you lived here with Todd, it was a really big house, but you came to visit us in our tiny one, and you looked happy. Now? We come to visit you, and it’s a home. You’ve got a good family here. This party is really wonderful. I wish I’d thought to throw one for Roxy when she was pregnant with Falcon. And you probably would have thought of it—Iknowyou would have—but Todd wouldn’t have let you throw it here in spite of the fact that all your guys’ friends are your own coworkers. So, uhm….” Brian petered to a stop. “That’s all I wanted to say, really. Be happy. Enjoy the new baby. And the new sister. And the new guy. You deserve them all.”
Isaac stared at him, eyes burning. “And now you made me cry!” he accused, and to his surprise, Brian pulled him into a one-armed, baby-holding dad hug.
“My family is grateful for you,” Brian told him. “Be happy.” He pulled away to set Sparrow Anne in the porta crib, where she proceeded to bat at the baby toys inside. “And watch my kids while I go to the can and pretend this never happened.”
Brian scrammed, and Isaac looked down to see Justice standing in front of him, arms out.
“You want a hug, big guy?” Isaac asked, squatting to pull the boy up into his arms.
“Daddy gave you one,” Falcon Justice said. “So you need one.”
Isaac hugged the kid for a moment, and then he squirmed to be put down, and Patricia was in his place.
Isaac hugged her too, and then set her down, and she went to get one of the books from her mother’s crap bag (as Roxy called the diaper bag) so she could read it quietly in the toddler bed.
Isaac watched as she lay back and closed her eyes to sleep without prompting, as did the baby, and with a grumpy little “Humth” and a gentle push toward the bed next to his sister, so did Justice, and he thought about kids. How when their parents were gentle, you could see it in their behavior. They still got loud, sure, but they cried when somebody nearby raised their voice in anger. They still hit, sure, but they stopped when asked nicely. Little kids were desperate to please—gentle parents were pleased by gentle behaviors, and Roxy and Brian had some of the sweetest.
For the first time, Isaac thought about getting to help with Allegra’s baby, and how they could teach the baby kindness and joy and fun and gentleness.
And that quickly he wondered how parents could turn their backs on kids after taking that much care in their raising. What did it take in a person’s heart to simply turn their back on a lovingly cared-for child? What poison did somebody have to have nurtured to let a relationship that special be killed with just a word?
Isaac leaned against the door frame of what was, even now, a happy nursery, and wondered at the empty place in Luca’s and Allegra’s hearts to have that relationship yanked away.
He understood their anguish now, their willingness to risk rejection this one last time before they gave up on their parents completely. Isaac would give so very much—sovery much—to be able to see his parents again, to tell them they were the best, and that he loved them, and to tell them what his life was like right now, and how much he loved and was loved.
But he wouldn’t givethis, this moment with the family he’d found in his heart. He knew his parents would never ask him to.
And he knew that for Luca and Allegra, that sacrifice was the one they’d be asked to make.
“Whatcha thinking?”
Isaac startled and then closed the door on the nursery and turned to smile sadly into Luca’s eyes.
“I’m thinking about parenthood,” he said. “And the past, and the present, and sacrifices we’d make, and sacrifices we shouldn’t.”
Luca grunted. “That is some incredibly deep shit. Come on. Allegra’s cutting the cake as soon as Romper Room in there wakes up, and I haven’t seen you sit down once.”
Isaac felt a pleasant, giddy sort of tiredness in his legs and back. “Once would be nice,” he admitted.
