WATCHING BRAD
Part 215
"When are you having Thanksgiving, Ted?" Nathan asked.
I thought about that for a moment. "Ummm. . ." I replied stupidly. I really had no idea. It was still a few weeks away.
"On Monday at one o'clock," Brad replied for me. "At Mom and Dad de Villiers'. My Mom and Dad are going to be there, too."
I looked at Brad in surprise.
"What?" he said with a silly, confused grin on his face that displayed his delightful chipped tooth. "I told you last week, didn't I?"
"Ah, no you didn't."
"Oh, sorry," he replied, still grinning. "I thought I did." And then he kissed me quickly. That settled all accounts. Brad's kisses usually settled all accounts. At least in
my book.
With the taste of Brad still on my lips, I looked back at Nathan. He was standing there looking at me, apparently waiting to get my attention. His left arm hugged his stomach and his right arm was bent, the elbow resting against his left wrist and his chin balanced on his right hand. His thumb and index finger spread out and framed his lower jaw. When he had my attention, he quickly glanced down at the boys with a slight nod of his head, then, with his thumb still on his jaw, he stretched out his index and middle fingers, clearly indicating the number ‘two'. He mouthed the question, "Two nights?"
"Have you put serious thought into that, Nathan?" I said. "They can run you ragged after just one."
"I. . ." Nathan began, but Barry cut in. He was already rising to his feet. "Ted?" Barry said. "Can I talk to you for a sec?" I could tell by his expression that it was more of an order than a request.
"Um. . . sure," I replied as I pushed myself up from the sofa.
"Where you going, Daddy?" Justin scrambled to his feet, ready and anxious to tag along with me wherever I happened to be going.
"I'm going to talk to your Uncle Barry."
"Can I come?" By that time, Justin was standing beside me, his arms wrapped around my leg.
"Not this time, my Sonskyn," I told him. "Stay here with the others, okay? I'll just be a minute. Uncle Barry want to talk to me privately."
"Okay," he said with some reluctance but returned to his place on the floor beside his brother and sister and started lifting toy boxes onto a toy flatbed with his toy forklift.
I followed Barry as he led me into the bedroom and, at his suggestion, pushed the door closed behind me. That was the first time I'd been in their bedroom. It was, like the rest of the apartment, decidedly small. The bed was only a double - the same size as the twin's bed in the old house. It was smaller even than our bed in the Winnebago. In fact, I seriously doubted that the queen-sized bed in Winnie would fit in that room. Their bed was pushed against one wall near the only window in the room and would require that the person on the inside either climb over his partner or to slide off the bottom of the bed. At least he
could accomplish the latter if it weren't for the blanket-covered pile of things stacked there at the moment. With them moving to a new apartment at the end of October, I assumed that Nathan had already begun packing and had stacked the things out of the way.
There was a single dresser with an attached mirror placed along the wall directly in front of me as I stood at the door and, just beyond near the corner, a louvred folding door undoubtedly covered a small closet. There was very little room to move around in the room. It was all very cozy indeed, and it didn't surprise me why they were moving to a larger apartment.
Still, the room was surprisingly romantic. Like the rest of the apartment, the floor was hardwood and the walls were builder's beige. The bed, however, was set upon a lush, dark, deep-pile area rug and Nathan had managed to extend the luxurious feel of the carpet into the luxurious fabrics on the bed and framing the window and the painted headboard. A large, romantic oil painting of a very naked and very handsome couple sleepily cuddling each other in their own luxurious, silken bed hung on the wall at the foot of the bed. With the bright afternoon sunlight washing through the single window and across the lush bed coverings and bouncing delicately onto the walls, it was all very soothing, relaxing, romantic and, if I might add, undeniably sexy. I envied Nathan's decorative talent. I could only imagine what the room would look like were Nathan able to paint the walls and ceiling and trim.
Barry must have seen my expression of admiration as I scanned the small room and, somehow, read my mind. "He saw it in a magazine," he said with a soft voice, as if speaking too loudly would break the quixotic spell of the room. One corner of his lips curled up into a hint of a smile. "Of course, that bedroom in the magazine was a lot bigger."
I smiled back and said, "I'm sure. But I don't think you brought me in here to share decorating tips."
"No," Barry replied. "I didn't." The curled lip disappeared and he shuffled on his feet and looked down at the floor. I waited and held my breath. The twins' cheerful chitters and happy giggles came clearly through the bedroom door, but I couldn't hear a sound from either Nathan or Brad. In my mind, I pictured Nathan standing there in the middle of the room, his anxious, unblinking eyes wide open and staring impatiently at the closed bedroom door, his ears straining to hear any sounds coming from the bedroom. As I suspected, there was undoubtedly about as much privacy in their lilliputian apartment as there was for me and Brad back in the camper. Fortunately, Barry spoke again before I turned as blue as the room. He looked up into my eyes again. "I'm not sure you know how much this means to us, Ted," he said quietly. "To both of us, but especially to Nathan."
I kept my voice equally quiet. "I know it means enough for Nathan to ask you to sacrifice your underwear drawer and it means enough to you to actually do it."
"Yeah. This one." He turned and took one step toward the dresser and pulled out the second drawer from the bottom. It was crammed with pants, shorts, underwear, socks, shirts, T-shirts, pyjamas, and even two bathrobes.
"Gee-sus, Murphy," I exclaimed as I bent down to rifle through the clothes. "He didn't have to buy all this stuff. We would have sent over everything they would need while they're here. How did he know what sizes to buy?"
"From the store where you rented the tuxes for your wedding. He got the sizes when he took your wedding clothes back. And he phoned your mother, too."
"Humph," I returned. "Clever. You know, Barry, Justin and Jeremy are probably going to outgrow these clothes before they even get a chance to wear them."
"But that's the point, Ted. Don't you see? Nathan doesn't care. It's all here in case Justin and Jeremy need it. You know, he really wanted to decorate the new second bedroom just for them after we move but I talked him out of it. I mean, we couldn't expect our other friends to sleep in a room decorated with Star Wars wallpaper and C3PO bed sheets, could we? But there's more." He pushed the drawer closed and stepped toward the hidden items stashed beneath the blanket at the base of the bed.
"I thought that was stuff Nathan had packed for the move."
Barry shook his head back and forth. "Nope. It's all for Justin and Jeremy." He bent down, grabbed the blanket, and pulled it away.
The first things which caught my eye were two huge boxes, each holding a child's car seat identical to the ones in the back of our van. "See?" Barry said. "We don't even have to swap the car seats from car to car. They were the first things Nathan bought."
As I cast my eyes over the other items - toys and books and games and DVDs, shoes and sneakers, slippers, raincoats and galoshes, and other things beneath all of that which I couldn't see - Barry spoke again. "There's two sleeping bags and a bunch of bed sheets and blankets and pillows and stuff in the bottom of the closet, too. Look, Ted. Like I told you, Nathan takes this godfather thing very seriously. He brags about Justin and Jeremy to everyone he works with and everyone we know. He has their picture in a frame on his desk. He doesn't even have a picture of
me on his desk. And he carries other pictures of the boys around in his wallet and shows them to anyone who will stand still long enough to look at them, whether they want to see them or not. Believe me. This is the best thing that's happened to both of us since we moved here from BC."
"I know, Barry, but Justin and Jeremy can be a real handful when they get going. Your energy will run out a long time before theirs does. I just thought it might be better for you to work yourselves up to it a little bit at a time instead of all at once."
Barry let the blanket fall over the stash once more. "We know what we're in for, Ted, and we're ready. Besides, your parents do it and Terry looks after them all by herself almost every weekday. We can, too. You trusted us enough to name us their godfathers. Now you have to trust us when we say we can do it."
* * * * *
With the long Thanksgiving weekend only a week away, Justin and Jeremy were all keyed up about the prospect of spending most of it with their uncles, and getting more keyed up each day. They were beyond excited knowing that they would be spending two ‘sleeps' on an air mattress under the expansive blanket canopy of a Barry-made pup-style tent and enjoying a smallish Nathan-prepared Thanksgiving dinner with their uncles on Sunday. They would enjoy another Thanksgiving dinner at Ouma's and Oupa's place with us on Monday.
Jeremy had asked his Daddy Brad to circle the day they would be going on the calendar. Brad did so, drawing a circle around the first Friday in October with a red marker pen. Each morning, Justin and Jeremy would each use that same pen to draw one stroke of an ‘X' to mark off each day until the big day.
Lindsay decided to make her own plans. With her brothers staying with Barry and Nathan until Sunday, my daughter made a few phone calls (with my permission, of course) and arranged her own holiday weekend. Serendipity presented her with the prospect of two Thanksgiving dinners as well. During her previous visits with Mom and Dad, Lindsay had met and become good friends with another young girl who lived in the tiny hamlet of Maple Grove.
Zoe was a year older than Lindsay and lived within easy walking distance of Dad's house. However, since the walk required crossing the four-lane King's Highway which divided the town, the girls were always driven to each other's house. A few phone calls later and Lindsay's plans were complete. Dad would drive her to Zoe's home on Saturday afternoon. She would have a sleep-over at Zoe's that night and a enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with them on Sunday. The two would then have a sleep-over on Sunday night at Mom and Dad's place and Zoe would join us for Thanksgiving dinner on Monday. This was her first sleep-over with Zoe and she was quite looking forward to it.
That left Brad and I free from Friday night when we would join Tom and Terry for dinner and the concert until later Sunday afternoon when the twins would be coming back home. It was Brad's idea that we get in touch with Bill and Warren and see if they were up to a bit of company for the weekend.
"Mais bien sur, mon cher!" Warren exclaimed over the phone when I made the suggestion. I always loved hearing the excitement in his voice. "That's wonderful!" Then, having moved the telephone away from his mouth, he called, "Bill! Teddy and Bradley are coming to visit next weekend!"
Bill's muffled voice came from somewhere else in the apartment. Sounds of ice tinkling in drinking glasses suggested he was in the kitchen. "Should I phone to change the reservations?"
"Merde," Warren mumbled. Returning to the phone, he asked me excitedly, "When would you have to go back home, Teddy?"
"Sunday afternoon before suppertime. Nathan and Barry will be sitting with Justin and Jeremy until later Sunday afternoon."
"Look. We've made reservations at a restaurant near here for a Thanksgiving buffet on Sunday evening. If we can change the reservations to noon, would you and Bradley like to join us?"
I quickly explained the plans to Brad. His reply was a smile and a nod. "Sure, Warren," I told him. "We'd love to."
"Okay, Teddy. Hang on. Hon? Could you see if you can move the reservation to noon instead?"
"Already dialing, Warren," Bill's voice called back.
"It's a great restaurant, Teddy," Warren continued. "We've eaten there quite often. Well, not as much as we used to before my surgery. It's a Chinese restaurant but they have all-you-can-eat buffet dinners for all the main holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter. They make traditional Canadian meals and they always have a gorgeous young man who carves the meat when you tell him what you want. They may be Chinese, but they make the best roast turkey I've ever tasted, and their stuffing is to die for! They even bring in real, homemade pumpkin pie that tastes just as good as what your Mom makes. De-e-e-e-e-lish! Everything you could want for a genuine Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. And their glazed ham is melt-in-your-mouth. I can't eat that anymore, of course, but. . ."
"There's room for us at noon, Warren," Bill called. "Do I book it?"
"Tell him ‘yes'," I said into the phone without waiting for Warren to ask me.
Warren spoke and the reservations were booked. It was most definitely going to be a very busy, enjoyable, and belly-stuffing Thanksgiving weekend for everybody. But it was going to be our first as a complete family and, after all, Thanksgiving is all about family and friends.
* * * * *
I wasn't sure what woke me up in the early hours of Thursday morning. All I knew was that it was one of those ‘Daddy, wake up!' sounds that a father's brain tunes in to no matter how deeply asleep he might be. I've been that way since the day Lindsay came home for the hospital after she was born. City noises couldn't keep me awake. Sirens blaring outside my bedroom window couldn't stir me from my slumber. But I heard every whimper my daughter made.
I was awake immediately, staring into the dark and mentally tuning in my ears to every sound. A quick flick of my eyes to the digital clock to my right told me that it was eight minutes past two in the morning.
I heard the sound again and knew immediately what it was. Justin was crying. I wasn't really surprised. He hadn't really been his usual self before he went to bed. He had been uncommonly quiet and lethargic following his bath and had spent the night curled up in my lap, saying very little and barely paying attention to the television. In fact, he'd fallen asleep halfway through
Wheel of Fortune. There was no sign of a fever, but I woke him and gave him a children's Aspirin when I put him to bed. Still, I had checked on him several times before Brad and I finally went to bed.
I pushed aside the sheet and blanket, slid out from beneath Brad, and swung my legs out of bed. "Ted?" Brad's sleepy voice said into the dark room.
"Justin's awake," I whispered.
As I stood up, I turned on the bedroom light, grabbed my housecoat, and pulled it on. Justin's sobs continued. A moment later, I was out the bedroom door, passing through the kitchenette toward the twins' loft bed at the front of the camper. The soft glow of the bedroom light lit my way forward. Lindsay was awake, too, and rolled onto her elbow as I passed toward the ladder to the loft. "Daddy?" she said. "What's wrong?"
I paused long enough to sweep her hair back with my fingers and to give her a kiss on the forehead. "I don't know yet, Sweetheart," I whispered quietly. "Try to go back to sleep, okay?" I gave her another kiss and she settled back onto her pull-out bed but didn't appear that she was ready to go back to sleep yet.
I stood up and reached for the ladder only to find Brad standing there beside me. His face was as full of concern as I'm sure mine was. I grabbed the upper rung of the ladder and stepped on the bottom rung and reached to pull back the privacy curtain. Beside me, Brad reached up and grasped the railing, stretching up onto his tiptoes so he could see.
Justin was lying on his back close to me. His brother was sitting up Indian style on the other side of him. Jeremy wasn't crying, but, in the dim bedroom light and glow of the kitchen nightlight, I could see sympathetic tears running down his cheeks.
My free hand went directly to Justin's forehead, brushing his hair aside and laying my palm over his skin. I leaned over him and pressed my lips against his skin. He felt warm but not significantly so. At least he didn't have a high fever. "What's wrong, my Sonskyn," I asked soothingly.
As Justin continued to sob and sniffle, Jeremy replied meekly for him. "His tummy hurts, Daddy."
"Justin, show me where it hurts," I told him. With some considerable relief on my part, he patted his belly in the vicinity of his belly button but, to be safe, I checked with my own hand, paying particular attention to the region of his appendix. He felt a bit bloated, but there were no serious reactions when I pressed my fingers into his stomach. "Do you feel sick?" I asked. Justin nodded. "Do you feel like you want to throw up?" He shook his head this time.
"He feels like he has to burp, Daddy," Jeremy replied.
"Food poisoning?" Brad mumbled softly.
"No," I answered without looking at him. "Just rumblies in his tumbly. Come on, Son. Let's try to get you feeling better, okay?" I tried to keep my voice light and cheerful so as not to frighten either Lindsay or Jeremy or, indeed, Justin himself.
As I stepped down onto the floor and reached up for him, Justin rolled onto his side and into my hands. I cuddled him gently as Jeremy followed and crawled easily into his Daddy Brad's waiting hands.
"Does your head hurt, too?" I asked Justin as I rubbed his back gently. He continued to sob and sniffle as he shook his head ‘no' against my chest. I could feel his warm tears already soaking into the terrycloth of my bathrobe. "Do you feel cold?" Again he shook his head back and forth.
"Okay." I kissed the top of his head and cuddled him closer. "Goodnight, Sweetheart," I said to my daughter as I bent myself over to give her one more reassuring kiss. As we headed back to the bedroom, I stopped at the corner cabinet in the kitchenette and retrieved the bottle of antacid tablets and, in case they were needed as well, the bottle of Children's Aspirin from the highest shelf. "Can you grab a bottle of water, Tiger? Thanks."
Moments later we were back in the bedroom and I was sitting up in bed with Justin sitting sideways in my lap. His arms wrapped themselves around me. My open bathrobe was wrapped snugly around both of us and Justin chewed and crunched on half a Tums through his sniffles and sobs. The other half of the antacid table sat ready and waiting for him on the bedside table beside us. My left arm cuddled him to me. His head rested against my shoulder. The palm of my right hand, tucked into the folds of my bathrobe and beneath his pyjama top, drew slow, soothing, and warming circles on his belly.
Justin finished both halves of the Tums and even swallowed a few sips of water but, for the most part, he did little more than to sit there and continue his weeping and whimpering. Beside us, Brad was also sitting up in bed with Jeremy seated in his lap. Jeremy sat silently, his eyes still moist and staring intently at his twin brother with such empathy that I feared he, too, might be soon begin feeling ill as well.
I was taken as much by surprise as Justin was. Without any prior warnings or indications, I felt Justin's diaphragm suddenly contract violently and he literally erupted out of both ends. Although the vomit was liquid for the most part, what came out the other end felt reassuringly solid. I was grateful that he wasn't having to deal with diarrhea as well. The gurgling and burbling screams which came out of him might have panicked me in other circumstances but I guessed he was simply startled and frightened that I would be angry at him for making such a mess both on me and in his own pyjama bottoms. All I could do was to hug him and to make certain he knew that I wasn't upset at him.
Jeremy, fearing for his brother, bolted upright in Brad's lap and started crying and screaming as well. I expected and anticipated that he might throw up in sympathy, but, fortunately, that didn't happen. Lindsay showed up in the doorway moments later, standing there in her favourite nightgown and bare feet and holding onto the frame with one hand. She was obviously very concerned about her brothers.
Justin's stomach heaved again and another rancid volley boiled out of his mouth and onto both of us. Fortunately, by hugging him to me, I managed to keep it confined to the two of us for the most part although the bedding took a few collateral hits. There was one more small eruption a minute or so later. This was followed by a series dry heaves during which Justin continued to cry and scream. He did his best for several more minutes to spit out the vile taste in his mouth.
I could do little more than to ride it out until I was more or less certain that Justin was finished. I sent Lindsay back to her bed and began clean-up duty. I had Brad pull the soiled blanket off the bed and carefully fold it to contain the splatters there and to lay it out on the bathroom floor for me. He did so and even turned on the shower for us without me asking him to do so. I gathered the bathrobe around us as best I could in an effort to keep everything contained and climbed carefully out of bed. Justin's screams had stopped, but he continued to cry.
In the bathroom, I knelt on the floor, carefully unwrapped us, and used the bathrobe to wipe up as much of the vomit as I could before undressing Justin. I rolled up the robe and set it on the blanket. I had just taken off his pyjama top and dropped it onto the robe when he shouted, "Daddy!" From the sound of his voice, there was no need for him to elaborate.
I managed to get him to the toilet before the next round began. There wasn't as much discharge this time, but there was still a considerable amount of dry heaving which followed as his small body tried to purge itself. When he finished, I wiped his mouth with a small wad of toilet paper, then pulled off his soiled pyjama bottoms, cautiously emptying the contents into the toilet bowl before I flushed it. I tossed the bottoms onto the growing pile of dirty clothes. Finally, after I pulled off my underwear, I picked up my son and we stepped into the warm shower.
I could hear Brad moving about beyond the shower curtain, putting the dirty and smelly items into a large garbage bag. "I'm just going to set this stuff outside the door until morning," he said. I replied with an "okay" and a "thank you, Tiger."
Justin threw up one more time before the shower ended. We had enough warning to make it to the toilet this time as well and my son vomited up what appeared to be the lingering remnants of whatever it was which had disagreed with his tummy. Back in the shower, he clung to me and continued his sorrowful lamenting as I held him in one arm and finished washing both of us with the other. Clean pyjamas for Justin and clean underwear for me awaited us, draped over the edge of the small sink and vanity, as we stepped out of the shower. I dried and dressed us, then helped Justin brush his teeth and rinse his mouth with mouthwash to help get rid of the rancid taste which would, undoubtedly, remain there for some time.
The bed had been stripped and remade with clean sheets and blankets. A blue, plastic cleaning bucket now sat on the floor beside the bedside table in case Justin needed it. The aural thermometer sat on the table beside the bottle of water. Jeremy was curled up on his side against Brad's pillow, awaiting our return. Brad sat on the side of the bed beside him, bent over at the waist and tying up his sneakers. He was fully dressed.
"Brad?" I said.
He glanced over his shoulder as he sat up and said, "No Pedialyte." Then, with a slap of his palms on his knees, he gave Jeremy a kiss on the cheek and promised him he'd "be right back", stood, and walked around the bed to give Justin and me a kiss as well. "Oh, and Lindsay couldn't get back to sleep so I took her to stay the rest of the night with Mom and Dad. Mom will bring her back in the morning to get ready for school." And then he was off and out the door in a flash. He was turning out to be a pretty damned good father.
I sat down in the bed, leaning back against my propped-up pillow. Justin remained curled up in my lap and clinging to me. He'd stopped crying, but still continued sniffling and sobbing. Jeremy quickly scooted over to us, climbed into my lap, and curled up beside his brother.
I took Justin's temperature and, although it was higher than it would normally be, I was satisfied that it wasn't alarmingly so. To make Jeremy (and myself, I suppose) feel better, I took his temperature as well. His temperature was normal. I settled back into the pillow and sat there in silence, hugging my sons and giving them both soothing and comforting caresses with my fingers and gentle, fatherly kisses on the tops of their heads.
As we awaited Brad's return, I thought about the coming weekend and all the plans we had made. Thanksgiving is all about family and friends, but mostly it's about family, and nothing is more important than family when one of its members is feeling ill.
Plans could change, of course, and people would undoubtedly be disappointed - and there would undoubtedly be a lot of disappointed people.
But they would understand.
To Be Continued
