"So each of you are going to tell us all a little bit about yourself,
Kaitlin would you like to go first?" my teacher asked, she was the typical
fourth grade teacher but there was one small problem, she was a teacher in
sixth grade now.
"Um, ok." I stood up and walked to the front of the room. "What would you like me to talk about?"
"How about you talk about your parents? Yes, that's a good idea talk about your mother and father?" the teacher beamed.
"Daddies." I said correcting my teacher. "I don't have a mother I have daddies."
"Excuse me? What do you mean 'daddies'?" she asked puzzled.
"I have Dad and Daddy." I could understand why she couldn't just understand me. For a lot of people the idea was very strange, but not for us. I mean for Paige and I, two daddies was perfectly normal. For a while we grew up thinking that pretty much everyone had the family we had, or something like it. It was funny when we were six and we found out that not everyone had two daddies...
Yugi watched his two daughters playing at the edge of the ocean they ran after the receding waves and ran away from the water as it came back. He could hear them laughing even from his distance. They stopped as they saw their other father, Seto, stand up from the water. He spotted them and waved them over, smiling.
They turned and looked at Yugi, Kaitlin was looking at him hesitantly, unsure of whether or not it was safe, Paige was dying to run into the water but wasn't sure if her sister would come with her.
"Daddy?" Kaitlin asked him. Paige was looking at him too, they were both asking for permission to go out into the water, where they had originally been told not to go.
Yugi could see his husband sneaking up behind the two girls. Seto motioned for him not to alert them. He was smiling mischievously.
Seto stealthily snuck up behind Kaitlin and Paige and scooped them up and under his arms. He laughed as he heard their screams, they were both small and they were fighting with all their strength but still could not get out of his firm but gently grasp. He walked into the water, laughing and threatening them. "I'm gonna throw you guys into the ocean and first one to get back to the beach gets to home, the other is just gonna have to live at the beach!"
Paige whooped and hollered, her little war cry. "BRING IT!!!"
Kaitlin was nervous, she didn't want to be left at the beach, "I don't want to be left at the beach!!!" she wailed.
"HA! She already admits defeat!!!" Paige yelled savagely, she was the more athletic of the pair and both knew it. "C'mon let us go! I wanna go!!"
"You're a lot of mouth Paige, let's see if you can show me some proof." Seto kept walking into the ocean, the water was up to his waist. Meanwhile, back on the beach, Yugi was worrying about the girls. He stood up and started walking toward the water's edge. Seto is tall so the water to his waist was nothing, but the girls were considerably shorter and Yugi was afraid that they might drown if he let them go.
"Please don't let me go!! You win Paige!! You win!! Just please don't drop me Dad!!!" Kaitlin wrapped her little brown arms around Seto's larger muscular arms.
Seto could feel poor Kaitlin shaking nervously in his arm, he hesitated for a second before letting them both go. Kaitlin's grip faltered and she fell into the water, Paige dove into the water like an expert. Seto watched as Paige swam toward the shore with all her might while Kaitlin thrashed around and then finally started treading water.
Kaitlin saw how far Paige was and started crying and trying to swim. Seto caught her and picked her up. "Kaitlin, why are you crying?"
"Because I know Paige is gonna win, she always wins at this kind of stuff!!!" she cried. Seto smiled and touched the little girl's tanned cheek.
"I never said you had to swim to get back to the beach, c'mon climb onto my back."
Yugi was panicking on the shore, he had run from the site where he had been watching, he had seen Seto drop the girls, and he saw Kaitlin was with him but he couldn't see Paige anywhere near Seto.
Paige was an excellent swimmer and she tore through the water, she was determined to win. It wasn't because she didn't want to be left at the beach, she liked the thought of living near the ocean, she could be a wild creature thing that hid in the rocks and scared all the people that went there to hide and do naughty things. She had seen a bigger girl and a bigger boy sneak off to the rocks to do something, she had wanted to go see what they were doing but Daddy, Yugi, had told her not to.
Kaitlin held onto Seto, practically a death grip, her eyes squeezed tight, as he swiftly made his made his way back to the beach half walking, half swimming. She was too scared to realize how fast they were going and didn't even notice when Seto said, "Alright, we're out." Kaitlin still had her eyes closed. "Kaity, you can let go now." She didn't.
"YOU CHEATED!!!" Paige shrieked when she got to the shore. "KAITLIN CHEATED!!! AND YOU HELPED HER DAD!!!!" Paige's yelling woke Kaitlin up from whatever trance she was in. She looked around and saw that she was out of the water and that she was still on Dad's back.
"Huh?" Kaitlin looked around stunned as Seto bent down. She slid off of his back.
"Dad, you helped her cheat!!" Paige stomped over to Seto and looked him square in the eye, which was only possible because he was still bent down. "Daddy, Dad helped Kaitlin cheat!" Paige turned and looked at Yugi.
"Nuh huh, Kaitlin won fair and square. I never said how you had to get back to the beach, I just said you had to be the first one." Seto beamed and watched as Paige opened her mouth to protest but then her jaw dropped.
She scowled at him and muttered, "Snake." She went over to Yugi and hugged his leg. "I like Daddy better!"
Yugi smiled and bent down and picked her up. She wrapped her freckled arms around his neck and stuck her tongue out at Seto.
Seto shrugged and picked up Kaitlin and wrapped his arms around her, "Well I like Kaitlin better!" he stuck his tongue out at Paige, who looked a little stunned. Kaitlin hugged Seto and smiled, she was happy to be loved.
Yugi laughed, most people never got to see the playful side of Seto, 'He's really great with the girls.' Yugi saw Seto starting back to where they had left their stuff and he followed. He laughed as Paige started making faces at Kaitlin who was looking back over Seto's shoulder. When they were back to the site he saw Seto stop in his tracks. "Seto, what is-?" but then Yugi heard it too.
Seto sighed and put Kaitlin down and picked up his cell phone, his smile dropped off of his face as he answered the call. "Hello?"
Yugi could tell by the look on Seto's face that it was work that had called him away from them. He put Paige down and went over to Seto, who had walked away from them.
Kaitlin saw some kids playing in the sand, they were making a sand castle. "Hey Paige, look what they're doing!"
Paige turned and was intrigued as well, she started in the direction but her sister stopped her, "We have to ask permission."
"Dad! Daddy! Kaitlin and I are going to go talk to those kids over there!!" Paige yelled, knowing full well that both parents weren't paying attention to her or her sister.
"Yeah, sure." Yugi was trying to talk to Seto, trying to get him to finish the phone call quickly. He had no idea what Paige had just yelled his way.
Kaitlin looked at Paige, "That wasn't right."
"Oh well, besides they'll be able to see us from here, now c'mon wanna see if they'll let us help?" Paige started running off and Kaitlin followed.
The two girls went over to two little boys and a girl, they all looked almost alike. Paige went over to them first and said "Hello!"
Kaitlin hung back a bit and looked at the castle that they were making.
"Hello!" one of the boys said, he had lightly tanned skin and short 'dirty' blonde hair, he was wearing blue swim trunks with green waves and a little island on them. "Who are you?"
"I'm Paige." Paige forgot all about her sister when she saw the girl starting to put a large shell on one of the castle's little towers. "It'll fall over if you use that shell, here try..." she looked around herself for a shell that would be the right size and then she found it and put it into the side of the castle's tower. "That one works, see?"
The girl smiled, "But what will I do with this one?" she had long 'dirty' blonde hair up in pigtails, her hair was a little browner than the first boy's, and her skin was lighter than the first boy's, she wore a pink bathing suit with sunflowers that looked as if they had been photographed while dancing. She also had a gap where one of her front teeth was supposed to be. "I like it and I wanna put it on the castle."
"Make it the door!" Paige took the shell from the girl and stuck it where it looked like the door should be. "There!" she and the girl smiled.
"It's supposed to have a drawbridge." The second boy, who wore black trunks with red stripes on the sides, his hair was the same color as the first boy's but it was a little longer, his skin was the same shade as the girl's though. All three children had the same color eyes, light brown almost honey color. He had on a smug look.
"Be nice James!" the girl yelled, speaking with a slight lisp.
"Yeah, I'd like to see you try to make a drawbridge, we've tried before, remember." The first boy said and the second, James, sat back looking a little put out. "Sorry 'bout James, he's my brother, I'm Jack, and this is our sister Gabby."
Paige smiled, completely forgetting about poor Kaitlin who was inspecting the castle, she reached to poke something and James threw her a look, she froze.
"Who are you!?" he asked suspiciously. He was giving her an evil look.
"I-I'm Kaitlin." She was afraid of the boy.
Then Jack and Gabby looked at her, "Uh, hello..." Jack said, he wasn't nearly as warm to the Kaitlin as he had been with Paige. Gabby didn't do anything but stare at Kaitlin, not really sure of what to do.
Paige noticed the silence and then turned and saw what they were all staring at. "Oh! This is my sister Kaitlin! Say hello Kaitlin." Paige said, all smiles, as usual.
"Hello!" Kaitlin smiled, uneasily.
"You guys can't be sisters," James said looking at them both, Gabby looked at Kaitlin then at Paige then back at Kaitlin, Jack did the same.
The three looked at Kaitlin and saw that she had long dark brown hair like chocolate icing on a cake, medium brown eyes the color of a Hershey bar but with a little caramel mixed in, and skin that was the brown color of cocoa powder. But Paige had fair skin lightly tanned like a chocolate c hip cookie without the chips, dotted with freckles from being out in the sun a lot, short red hair that was almost the color of blood, and dark green eyes that were like emeralds.
"Yes we can, and we are." Paige gave him a look and he didn't say anything else about her and her sister not being able to be related.
The children played, talked, laughed, and joked. Yugi was pleading with Seto to just let the call go, he succeeded, Seto wrapped up the call.
"I'm sorry about that Yugi." Seto apologized.
"I don't really care, it's just that you don't really get to spend much time with the girls." Yugi gestured behind him, where he thought the girls still were.
"Uh, Yugi, what are you pointing at?" Seto looked over Yugi's shoulder and saw nothing.
"The girls, of course!" Yugi hadn't turned to see what he was actually pointing at and Seto could tell that he was about to launch into a full blown rant. So Seto thought fast and turned Yugi around to make him face the void that, clearly held no two little girls. "See! The girls!"
Seto was astonished when Yugi turned back around. "Um, Yugi, dear, look again..."
Yugi rolled his eyes and then it hit him, the girls weren't there. "AAAIIEEEE!!!! WHERE ARE THEY!?!?!!?!" he yelled and turned around and pushed Seto out of the way and started looking behind him. "OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD!! OHMYGOD!!!!!"
Seto grabbed Yugi's shoulders, "Yugi. YUGI!! Look at me! Calm down, we'll find them. They couldn't have gotten too far off, Kaitlin is afraid to wander off."
Yugi's eyes were huge and he fidgeted, "But what about Paige, she loves wandering off, remember when they were little, we could hardly blink without losing sight of her!!"
Seto couldn't really say anything to that, he remembered Paige used to have them searching the house for hours. "Ok, granted, but she'd never leave Kaitlin on her own."
Yugi knew that was true. "But what- what if they were taken?" Yugi's voice trailed off and he was trembling, just thinking about his daughters being kidnapped made him sick to his stomach.
Seto had always feared that something like that might happen, but he wasn't about to tell that to Yugi, not at a time like this. "Don't worry, we'll find them. Remember they're kids they probably wandered off, they can't have gone far and where you find one you'll find the other." He smiled and Yugi started to calm down slightly.
"Hey guys! I see you found two new friends!" a man said, coming over to the kids that were still perfecting their castle.
"Daddy!" little Gabby jumped up and ran over to the man who bent down and picked her up.
"This is Paige and Kaitlin." Jack said, getting up and pointing at each of the sisters.
Paige popped up and went over to the man and thrust out her little hand to shake the man's hand. "Hi!" Kaitlin stood up and sheepishly waved.
"Their sisters." James said, he still didn't seem to believe the girls. Jack kicked his brother and gave him a look.
"Behave James, hello Paige," the boy's father shook the little girl's hand. "and Kaitlin." He smiled and waved back at her. "Do you guys want some ice cream? You girls are free to join us."
The boys and their sister whooped, Paige smiled big but looked at Kaitlin.
"Thank you!" Kaitlin said, she loved ice cream and forgot about needing to ask permission before wandering farther off.
They all went off the beach and to a little ice cream parlor on the boardwalk,
the kids all picked the kinds of ice cream they wanted, and they all sat down and ate, laughing and joking.
Meanwhile, Seto set about searching the water's edge in case they had gone back to look for shells or to go swimming. Yugi called the lifeguards. "Yes, they're two little girls, one of them is Paige, she has short red hair, green eyes, and tanned skin, she has a whole bunch of freckles. She'll be with her sister, Kaitlin. Kaitlin has long dark brown hair, medium brown eyes and brown skin."
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, "You said they were sisters?" the woman asked confused.
Yugi had become accustom to this sort of reaction when describing his daughters to strangers. "Yes, just please find them."
The woman snapped back to herself and realized that there was a job to do. "We'll do our best. Is there any other information that you think may be helpful?"
Yugi thought for a moment, he couldn't think of anything. "No, other than they will both be together."
"Well, thank you. we'll get right on it."
Yugi hung up and stood near the blanket, he was to stay there in case the girls came back.
Seto was worried, he knew how rich he was and what some people would do for money. It made him nervous and sick to think about his daughters being held for ransom, he didn't want to think of something horrid like that happening to them just because of who their father was. He didn't see the girls so he called Yugi and told him he was going to check some of the stores on the boardwalk.
A woman came over to the group and tousled James's hair, she laughed as James made a fuss in pushing his hair back down. "You guys came to hide in here, eh?" she smiled as Jack offered her his vanilla with rainbow sprinkles cone. "Thanks. And who are these two?" she looked at Paige, who had rocky road all around her mouth, and Kaitlin who was peacefully eating her orange sherbet.
"They're Paige," the father gestured towards the red head who smiled and had a chocolate sprinkle on the tip of her nose, "and Kaitlin." He gestured to the timid little girl who was taking the sprinkle from her sister's nose.
"Hello, Kaitlin and Paige. I'm James, Gabby, and Jack's mom." She picked up Gabby who had made her way over.
Kaitlin stopped eating and looked at the woman strangely, "Mom?"
"Yep, or so this one tells me!" she nudged her husband playfully.
Paige looked at the grown ups confused, "What's a 'mom'?"
The family looked at Paige strangely, then they saw the way Kaitlin was looking and also looked at her strangely.
"What's wrong with you guys? Why don't you know what a mom is? Are you retarded or somethin?" James asked.
"James!" the mother yelled.
"But Mom look at them! They said that they're supposed to be sisters! They don't look anything alike!!" James yelled and pointed at the two girls.
"James!!" the father took the boy and walked him away to scold him. Jack and Gabby just looked at the two girls, the girls could tell that they were thinking the same thing.
"I'm so sorry about that, girls, James sometimes-"
"He does have a point though, Mom." Jack said sheepishly. The woman blushed slightly.
"Well I think they look like sisters!" she smiled but the damage was done. Thankfully though, Seto showed up.
"Kaitlin!? Paige!?" he ran over to them. "You two shouldn't have wandered off like that!!" he looked at the two girls then noticed the woman with the girl in her arms. He cleared his throat. "Thanks for taking care of my daughters."
"It's no problem at all, you're their father?" she looked at him, smiling.
"Yes, sorry about this, I answered the phone and then turned around and they were gone." Seto laughed uneasily.
The woman laughed happily, "I understand completely, my son James does it all the time." The husband came back with James, James didn't look too happy...at all.
"Hello." The man didn't know Seto and so he wasn't too keen about how close he was standing to the two little girls. His wife noticed this and quickly assured him.
"This is the girls' father, he had the same problem that we have with James all the time!"
"Oh, well wow, I hope you haven't been looking long. I should have had them ask you for permission. I wasn't thinking, I'm really sorry about this."
The man and woman were so nice and Seto was so happy that he had found his daughters and they were both ok, in fact they seemed to be in great hands, that he smiled. "It's alright. The important thing is that they're safe."
"Excuse me, are you two Kaitlin and Paige?" a female lifeguard asked the two girls who were now standing, getting ready to leave with their Dad.
"Yes, they are." Seto answered for them, then he looked at the woman and realized that she had been sent to look for the girls. "Their my daughters, thanks for your help though."
The woman looked the guy over; he hadn't been the one she had talked to on the phone. "Excuse me? I spoke to their father on the phone earlier."
"Yes that's their other father." Kaitlin took her dad's hand and pressed up against his thigh.
"What?" the woman looked at him strangely. 'Two fathers?' "I found the girls." She radioed in.
"You spoke to their other father." Paige could hear something a little different in her dad's voice and she took a half step back, and looked up at him.
The woman looked at him strangely and disbelieving, she had never been in this position before, the girls seemed to know the man. She was torn, she knew that this wasn't the man she had spoken to earlier, what was she going to do?
Seto stood his ground, looking at the woman annoyed, he knew that he'd have to deal with this crap at some point, he just didn't want to.
Suddenly Yugi ran over to the group, he ran straight at the girls. "Oh thank god!!"
"Daddy!" Paige said happily. Yugi bent down and hugged her and her sister.
"I'm so glad you girls are ok!" he was so happy he was about to cry. "You had us soo worried!!"
The woman looked at the man hugging the two girls, she knew that he was who she had spoken with. "Sir, you're the girls' father?"
The father and mother watched the whole scene confused, the kids stared.
"Yes, thanks for finding them." Yugi stood up and smiled.
"Um, may I ask who he is then?" the woman motioned toward Seto, who was still standing, looking a bit annoyed.
"Oh that's their other father." Yugi smiled. Then he saw the shock on the lifeguard's face. "Oh I'm sorry I didn't tell you about him, I was just so worried about the girls that I wasn't really thinking about it."
"Terry, we need you back here." A distorted voice came from the woman's walkie talkie.
"Yeah, I'm coming." She responded. "Then I guess I'll just leave you guys." She smiled, uneasily, and left.
"We better get going." Seto said, he took Kaitlin's hand and started walking away. Paige went up into Yugi's arms.
"Weirdos." James whispered the word. Yugi was too happy to hear it, and so was Paige, but Seto and Kaitlin heard it.
In the car the two girls started looking at the people they passed with increasing interest. They didn't understand what it was when a man and a woman were together. No, that wasn't it, they knew what it was, but in their world it didn't seem concrete. They had grown up all their lives with two dads. They just hadn't thought about that not being the way that things were, not till now.
"Daddy, why do some kids have a mom?" Paige asked from the backseat as Seto drove them back home.
Yugi and Seto exchanged a glance, "Well a mom is a woman who takes care of her child."
Paige understood that, "Ok, but why is it that the kids we met today had a dad and mom?"
Seto and Yugi weren't sure how this conversation was going to go. "That's because the man and woman fell in love, and then they had kids."
Kaitlin sat completely silent, staring out of the window, for the first time she saw that most of the couples she saw were made up of a man and a woman.
"Oooh alright! But then how come those kids didn't think Kaitlin and I were sisters?" Paige was asking all the important questions.
"Why do we have to be so different!?! Why are we weirdos!!!" Kaitlin wailed and then she broke down into tears. Yugi looked at Seto, he couldn't understand what was happening, but Seto did.
"Kaitlin, Paige, when we get home we're gonna have a little family meeting, alright?" Seto said. He knew this was going to happen at some point but he was hoping that it would be put off for so long that it would never really happen.
"Kaitlin, please don't cry." Yugi handed the little girl a tissue. "Here, here's a tissue, dry your eyes." She looked at him and it broke his heart to see her look at him with her eyes half filled with tears.
Paige didn't understand why they were having a family meeting, they had those when there was something wrong. She fidgeted on the couch, unsure of what had been done wrong. She looked at Seto, who was thinking, "Did I say something wrong?"
Seto looked down at her, "No, why?"
"We're having a family meeting, and the last time we had one of those I had broken a lamp." Paige looked worried, remembering that time.
Seto smiled, he almost laughed. "No, it's nothing like that. We just needed to talk to you girls about some stuff."
Yugi walked in with Kaitlin in his arms, she had calmed down a bit but her cheeks were still wet. She just leaned her head on Yugi's shoulder, Yugi looked very sad.
Paige walked over to Yugi when he sat down on the couch. She sat next to Kaitlin and put her hand on her sister's shoulder. Kaitlin shrugged off her sister's hand. Paige looked sad, her bottom lip quivered, and she wrinkled up her nose so that she wouldn't start crying, Seto saw this and went over to them. He sat down and pulled little Paige into his lap.
"Your Daddy and I are a special couple, at least that's what a lot of people think. Our relationship is strange to a lot of people, but we're really pretty normal." He looked at Paige's face and saw that she didn't really understand. "When you saw that family at the beach, did they laugh and smile?"
Paige looked at him strange, "Yes."
"Do we all laugh and smile?"
"Yes."
"Then we're not any different, are we?"
"But there was a mom in that family. We have you and Daddy."
Yugi jumped in at this point. "Do we love you two? Do we take care of you like those kids' parents do?"
Paige hesitated for a moment. "Yes."
"So then we are just like that family, we are a family."
Paige smiled, understanding, "We're a family!"
"No we aren't, we're just a bunch of weirdos." Kaitlin's little muffled voice came from Yugi's chest, she picked her head up and looked at Paige. "We're not sisters."
Yugi bit his lip, he didn't know exactly how to deal with this one. Lucky for him Seto jumped in at this point. "What makes you say that Kaity?"
The girl simply put her hand out and put it next to her sister's face, "Look."
Seto looked at Paige's confused face and Kaitlin's hand. "Yeah, I'm looking...?"
"We aren't the same!" she shrieked. "We look completely different!!"
"So...? No one looks exactly like someone else." Seto said matter-of-factly.
Paige looked up at Seto, "Yeah those kids didn't think that we were sisters, one of them even said that we couldn't."
"You two are sisters, not by blood though." Seto said that and saw that he had again confused the girls. Yugi jumped in again.
"You two aren't blood sisters like that family at the beach but you're sisters by love."
The girls looked at Yugi, they still did not understand. "What?" Kaitlin asked.
"You two are loved together, in this family, you are our daughters and since you're that, then you're sisters."
"Kaity, when you got scared while watching that movie last week, who were the people who stayed with you so that you wouldn't have nightmares?" Seto helped.
"You, Daddy, and Paige." Kaitlin answered sheepishly.
"That's right, your family. And who took care of your knee when you scraped it last month?"
"Daddy did."
"Exactly, he was taking care of his daughter."
"And who stayed up all night during that thunderstorm three months ago when you and Dad were out of town?" Yugi added in.
"Dad." Kaitlin's answered were less and less hesitant.
"And who covered for you when you broke that lamp, last week?!" Paige added, all smiles.
"My sister." Paige beamed and hugged Kaitlin, who didn't push her away this time. Yugi hugged both of the girls. Then Seto wrapped his arms around all three.
I blushed as I realized that I just recounted the entire story with the class. Everyone looked at me in awe.
"We're really not all that different from everyone else, my sister and I love our parents, just like you all love yours. So we may not look like the pictures you see in the magazines, and maybe we aren't what you see on television. But when you look at your family...and you think about all the time you've shared with them all those cool, great, bad, sad, annoying moments that you had with them you'll see what we see."
Twenty years later, and she stands before a crowd of people saying:
"So you and your family laugh, just like mine. You go out, just like we do. We're just like other families, we just look a little different. It's all love, we all love each other, just like everyone."
The crowd erupts into cheers, they make a lot of noise, and it makes her blush. This is the biggest group she has ever talked in front of. She's been speaking to a lot of different groups for a long time now, she realized a long time ago that people needed to be educated, needed to understand that her family was a normal one.
She looked down at the crowd and standing with the rest of the crowd, in the first row were the three most important people in her life, looking up at her was her Dad, Seto, Daddy, Yugi, and her sister, Paige.
[][] I'm happy that they have allowed same sex marriage in the states.
To all of those who just recently were married in Massachusetts and to those who were married not too long ago:
CONGRATULATIONS!! BEST OF LUCK AND HAPPINESS!!!!
And to all of those who have been married for some time:
MANY MORE HAPPY YEARS TO YOU AND OUR FAMILIES!!
To those of you who haven't been married:
JOY AND HAPINESS TO YOU AND THE BEST OF WISHES IF YOU DECIDE TO MARRY!
"Um, ok." I stood up and walked to the front of the room. "What would you like me to talk about?"
"How about you talk about your parents? Yes, that's a good idea talk about your mother and father?" the teacher beamed.
"Daddies." I said correcting my teacher. "I don't have a mother I have daddies."
"Excuse me? What do you mean 'daddies'?" she asked puzzled.
"I have Dad and Daddy." I could understand why she couldn't just understand me. For a lot of people the idea was very strange, but not for us. I mean for Paige and I, two daddies was perfectly normal. For a while we grew up thinking that pretty much everyone had the family we had, or something like it. It was funny when we were six and we found out that not everyone had two daddies...
Yugi watched his two daughters playing at the edge of the ocean they ran after the receding waves and ran away from the water as it came back. He could hear them laughing even from his distance. They stopped as they saw their other father, Seto, stand up from the water. He spotted them and waved them over, smiling.
They turned and looked at Yugi, Kaitlin was looking at him hesitantly, unsure of whether or not it was safe, Paige was dying to run into the water but wasn't sure if her sister would come with her.
"Daddy?" Kaitlin asked him. Paige was looking at him too, they were both asking for permission to go out into the water, where they had originally been told not to go.
Yugi could see his husband sneaking up behind the two girls. Seto motioned for him not to alert them. He was smiling mischievously.
Seto stealthily snuck up behind Kaitlin and Paige and scooped them up and under his arms. He laughed as he heard their screams, they were both small and they were fighting with all their strength but still could not get out of his firm but gently grasp. He walked into the water, laughing and threatening them. "I'm gonna throw you guys into the ocean and first one to get back to the beach gets to home, the other is just gonna have to live at the beach!"
Paige whooped and hollered, her little war cry. "BRING IT!!!"
Kaitlin was nervous, she didn't want to be left at the beach, "I don't want to be left at the beach!!!" she wailed.
"HA! She already admits defeat!!!" Paige yelled savagely, she was the more athletic of the pair and both knew it. "C'mon let us go! I wanna go!!"
"You're a lot of mouth Paige, let's see if you can show me some proof." Seto kept walking into the ocean, the water was up to his waist. Meanwhile, back on the beach, Yugi was worrying about the girls. He stood up and started walking toward the water's edge. Seto is tall so the water to his waist was nothing, but the girls were considerably shorter and Yugi was afraid that they might drown if he let them go.
"Please don't let me go!! You win Paige!! You win!! Just please don't drop me Dad!!!" Kaitlin wrapped her little brown arms around Seto's larger muscular arms.
Seto could feel poor Kaitlin shaking nervously in his arm, he hesitated for a second before letting them both go. Kaitlin's grip faltered and she fell into the water, Paige dove into the water like an expert. Seto watched as Paige swam toward the shore with all her might while Kaitlin thrashed around and then finally started treading water.
Kaitlin saw how far Paige was and started crying and trying to swim. Seto caught her and picked her up. "Kaitlin, why are you crying?"
"Because I know Paige is gonna win, she always wins at this kind of stuff!!!" she cried. Seto smiled and touched the little girl's tanned cheek.
"I never said you had to swim to get back to the beach, c'mon climb onto my back."
Yugi was panicking on the shore, he had run from the site where he had been watching, he had seen Seto drop the girls, and he saw Kaitlin was with him but he couldn't see Paige anywhere near Seto.
Paige was an excellent swimmer and she tore through the water, she was determined to win. It wasn't because she didn't want to be left at the beach, she liked the thought of living near the ocean, she could be a wild creature thing that hid in the rocks and scared all the people that went there to hide and do naughty things. She had seen a bigger girl and a bigger boy sneak off to the rocks to do something, she had wanted to go see what they were doing but Daddy, Yugi, had told her not to.
Kaitlin held onto Seto, practically a death grip, her eyes squeezed tight, as he swiftly made his made his way back to the beach half walking, half swimming. She was too scared to realize how fast they were going and didn't even notice when Seto said, "Alright, we're out." Kaitlin still had her eyes closed. "Kaity, you can let go now." She didn't.
"YOU CHEATED!!!" Paige shrieked when she got to the shore. "KAITLIN CHEATED!!! AND YOU HELPED HER DAD!!!!" Paige's yelling woke Kaitlin up from whatever trance she was in. She looked around and saw that she was out of the water and that she was still on Dad's back.
"Huh?" Kaitlin looked around stunned as Seto bent down. She slid off of his back.
"Dad, you helped her cheat!!" Paige stomped over to Seto and looked him square in the eye, which was only possible because he was still bent down. "Daddy, Dad helped Kaitlin cheat!" Paige turned and looked at Yugi.
"Nuh huh, Kaitlin won fair and square. I never said how you had to get back to the beach, I just said you had to be the first one." Seto beamed and watched as Paige opened her mouth to protest but then her jaw dropped.
She scowled at him and muttered, "Snake." She went over to Yugi and hugged his leg. "I like Daddy better!"
Yugi smiled and bent down and picked her up. She wrapped her freckled arms around his neck and stuck her tongue out at Seto.
Seto shrugged and picked up Kaitlin and wrapped his arms around her, "Well I like Kaitlin better!" he stuck his tongue out at Paige, who looked a little stunned. Kaitlin hugged Seto and smiled, she was happy to be loved.
Yugi laughed, most people never got to see the playful side of Seto, 'He's really great with the girls.' Yugi saw Seto starting back to where they had left their stuff and he followed. He laughed as Paige started making faces at Kaitlin who was looking back over Seto's shoulder. When they were back to the site he saw Seto stop in his tracks. "Seto, what is-?" but then Yugi heard it too.
Seto sighed and put Kaitlin down and picked up his cell phone, his smile dropped off of his face as he answered the call. "Hello?"
Yugi could tell by the look on Seto's face that it was work that had called him away from them. He put Paige down and went over to Seto, who had walked away from them.
Kaitlin saw some kids playing in the sand, they were making a sand castle. "Hey Paige, look what they're doing!"
Paige turned and was intrigued as well, she started in the direction but her sister stopped her, "We have to ask permission."
"Dad! Daddy! Kaitlin and I are going to go talk to those kids over there!!" Paige yelled, knowing full well that both parents weren't paying attention to her or her sister.
"Yeah, sure." Yugi was trying to talk to Seto, trying to get him to finish the phone call quickly. He had no idea what Paige had just yelled his way.
Kaitlin looked at Paige, "That wasn't right."
"Oh well, besides they'll be able to see us from here, now c'mon wanna see if they'll let us help?" Paige started running off and Kaitlin followed.
The two girls went over to two little boys and a girl, they all looked almost alike. Paige went over to them first and said "Hello!"
Kaitlin hung back a bit and looked at the castle that they were making.
"Hello!" one of the boys said, he had lightly tanned skin and short 'dirty' blonde hair, he was wearing blue swim trunks with green waves and a little island on them. "Who are you?"
"I'm Paige." Paige forgot all about her sister when she saw the girl starting to put a large shell on one of the castle's little towers. "It'll fall over if you use that shell, here try..." she looked around herself for a shell that would be the right size and then she found it and put it into the side of the castle's tower. "That one works, see?"
The girl smiled, "But what will I do with this one?" she had long 'dirty' blonde hair up in pigtails, her hair was a little browner than the first boy's, and her skin was lighter than the first boy's, she wore a pink bathing suit with sunflowers that looked as if they had been photographed while dancing. She also had a gap where one of her front teeth was supposed to be. "I like it and I wanna put it on the castle."
"Make it the door!" Paige took the shell from the girl and stuck it where it looked like the door should be. "There!" she and the girl smiled.
"It's supposed to have a drawbridge." The second boy, who wore black trunks with red stripes on the sides, his hair was the same color as the first boy's but it was a little longer, his skin was the same shade as the girl's though. All three children had the same color eyes, light brown almost honey color. He had on a smug look.
"Be nice James!" the girl yelled, speaking with a slight lisp.
"Yeah, I'd like to see you try to make a drawbridge, we've tried before, remember." The first boy said and the second, James, sat back looking a little put out. "Sorry 'bout James, he's my brother, I'm Jack, and this is our sister Gabby."
Paige smiled, completely forgetting about poor Kaitlin who was inspecting the castle, she reached to poke something and James threw her a look, she froze.
"Who are you!?" he asked suspiciously. He was giving her an evil look.
"I-I'm Kaitlin." She was afraid of the boy.
Then Jack and Gabby looked at her, "Uh, hello..." Jack said, he wasn't nearly as warm to the Kaitlin as he had been with Paige. Gabby didn't do anything but stare at Kaitlin, not really sure of what to do.
Paige noticed the silence and then turned and saw what they were all staring at. "Oh! This is my sister Kaitlin! Say hello Kaitlin." Paige said, all smiles, as usual.
"Hello!" Kaitlin smiled, uneasily.
"You guys can't be sisters," James said looking at them both, Gabby looked at Kaitlin then at Paige then back at Kaitlin, Jack did the same.
The three looked at Kaitlin and saw that she had long dark brown hair like chocolate icing on a cake, medium brown eyes the color of a Hershey bar but with a little caramel mixed in, and skin that was the brown color of cocoa powder. But Paige had fair skin lightly tanned like a chocolate c hip cookie without the chips, dotted with freckles from being out in the sun a lot, short red hair that was almost the color of blood, and dark green eyes that were like emeralds.
"Yes we can, and we are." Paige gave him a look and he didn't say anything else about her and her sister not being able to be related.
The children played, talked, laughed, and joked. Yugi was pleading with Seto to just let the call go, he succeeded, Seto wrapped up the call.
"I'm sorry about that Yugi." Seto apologized.
"I don't really care, it's just that you don't really get to spend much time with the girls." Yugi gestured behind him, where he thought the girls still were.
"Uh, Yugi, what are you pointing at?" Seto looked over Yugi's shoulder and saw nothing.
"The girls, of course!" Yugi hadn't turned to see what he was actually pointing at and Seto could tell that he was about to launch into a full blown rant. So Seto thought fast and turned Yugi around to make him face the void that, clearly held no two little girls. "See! The girls!"
Seto was astonished when Yugi turned back around. "Um, Yugi, dear, look again..."
Yugi rolled his eyes and then it hit him, the girls weren't there. "AAAIIEEEE!!!! WHERE ARE THEY!?!?!!?!" he yelled and turned around and pushed Seto out of the way and started looking behind him. "OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD!! OHMYGOD!!!!!"
Seto grabbed Yugi's shoulders, "Yugi. YUGI!! Look at me! Calm down, we'll find them. They couldn't have gotten too far off, Kaitlin is afraid to wander off."
Yugi's eyes were huge and he fidgeted, "But what about Paige, she loves wandering off, remember when they were little, we could hardly blink without losing sight of her!!"
Seto couldn't really say anything to that, he remembered Paige used to have them searching the house for hours. "Ok, granted, but she'd never leave Kaitlin on her own."
Yugi knew that was true. "But what- what if they were taken?" Yugi's voice trailed off and he was trembling, just thinking about his daughters being kidnapped made him sick to his stomach.
Seto had always feared that something like that might happen, but he wasn't about to tell that to Yugi, not at a time like this. "Don't worry, we'll find them. Remember they're kids they probably wandered off, they can't have gone far and where you find one you'll find the other." He smiled and Yugi started to calm down slightly.
"Hey guys! I see you found two new friends!" a man said, coming over to the kids that were still perfecting their castle.
"Daddy!" little Gabby jumped up and ran over to the man who bent down and picked her up.
"This is Paige and Kaitlin." Jack said, getting up and pointing at each of the sisters.
Paige popped up and went over to the man and thrust out her little hand to shake the man's hand. "Hi!" Kaitlin stood up and sheepishly waved.
"Their sisters." James said, he still didn't seem to believe the girls. Jack kicked his brother and gave him a look.
"Behave James, hello Paige," the boy's father shook the little girl's hand. "and Kaitlin." He smiled and waved back at her. "Do you guys want some ice cream? You girls are free to join us."
The boys and their sister whooped, Paige smiled big but looked at Kaitlin.
"Thank you!" Kaitlin said, she loved ice cream and forgot about needing to ask permission before wandering farther off.
They all went off the beach and to a little ice cream parlor on the boardwalk,
the kids all picked the kinds of ice cream they wanted, and they all sat down and ate, laughing and joking.
Meanwhile, Seto set about searching the water's edge in case they had gone back to look for shells or to go swimming. Yugi called the lifeguards. "Yes, they're two little girls, one of them is Paige, she has short red hair, green eyes, and tanned skin, she has a whole bunch of freckles. She'll be with her sister, Kaitlin. Kaitlin has long dark brown hair, medium brown eyes and brown skin."
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, "You said they were sisters?" the woman asked confused.
Yugi had become accustom to this sort of reaction when describing his daughters to strangers. "Yes, just please find them."
The woman snapped back to herself and realized that there was a job to do. "We'll do our best. Is there any other information that you think may be helpful?"
Yugi thought for a moment, he couldn't think of anything. "No, other than they will both be together."
"Well, thank you. we'll get right on it."
Yugi hung up and stood near the blanket, he was to stay there in case the girls came back.
Seto was worried, he knew how rich he was and what some people would do for money. It made him nervous and sick to think about his daughters being held for ransom, he didn't want to think of something horrid like that happening to them just because of who their father was. He didn't see the girls so he called Yugi and told him he was going to check some of the stores on the boardwalk.
A woman came over to the group and tousled James's hair, she laughed as James made a fuss in pushing his hair back down. "You guys came to hide in here, eh?" she smiled as Jack offered her his vanilla with rainbow sprinkles cone. "Thanks. And who are these two?" she looked at Paige, who had rocky road all around her mouth, and Kaitlin who was peacefully eating her orange sherbet.
"They're Paige," the father gestured towards the red head who smiled and had a chocolate sprinkle on the tip of her nose, "and Kaitlin." He gestured to the timid little girl who was taking the sprinkle from her sister's nose.
"Hello, Kaitlin and Paige. I'm James, Gabby, and Jack's mom." She picked up Gabby who had made her way over.
Kaitlin stopped eating and looked at the woman strangely, "Mom?"
"Yep, or so this one tells me!" she nudged her husband playfully.
Paige looked at the grown ups confused, "What's a 'mom'?"
The family looked at Paige strangely, then they saw the way Kaitlin was looking and also looked at her strangely.
"What's wrong with you guys? Why don't you know what a mom is? Are you retarded or somethin?" James asked.
"James!" the mother yelled.
"But Mom look at them! They said that they're supposed to be sisters! They don't look anything alike!!" James yelled and pointed at the two girls.
"James!!" the father took the boy and walked him away to scold him. Jack and Gabby just looked at the two girls, the girls could tell that they were thinking the same thing.
"I'm so sorry about that, girls, James sometimes-"
"He does have a point though, Mom." Jack said sheepishly. The woman blushed slightly.
"Well I think they look like sisters!" she smiled but the damage was done. Thankfully though, Seto showed up.
"Kaitlin!? Paige!?" he ran over to them. "You two shouldn't have wandered off like that!!" he looked at the two girls then noticed the woman with the girl in her arms. He cleared his throat. "Thanks for taking care of my daughters."
"It's no problem at all, you're their father?" she looked at him, smiling.
"Yes, sorry about this, I answered the phone and then turned around and they were gone." Seto laughed uneasily.
The woman laughed happily, "I understand completely, my son James does it all the time." The husband came back with James, James didn't look too happy...at all.
"Hello." The man didn't know Seto and so he wasn't too keen about how close he was standing to the two little girls. His wife noticed this and quickly assured him.
"This is the girls' father, he had the same problem that we have with James all the time!"
"Oh, well wow, I hope you haven't been looking long. I should have had them ask you for permission. I wasn't thinking, I'm really sorry about this."
The man and woman were so nice and Seto was so happy that he had found his daughters and they were both ok, in fact they seemed to be in great hands, that he smiled. "It's alright. The important thing is that they're safe."
"Excuse me, are you two Kaitlin and Paige?" a female lifeguard asked the two girls who were now standing, getting ready to leave with their Dad.
"Yes, they are." Seto answered for them, then he looked at the woman and realized that she had been sent to look for the girls. "Their my daughters, thanks for your help though."
The woman looked the guy over; he hadn't been the one she had talked to on the phone. "Excuse me? I spoke to their father on the phone earlier."
"Yes that's their other father." Kaitlin took her dad's hand and pressed up against his thigh.
"What?" the woman looked at him strangely. 'Two fathers?' "I found the girls." She radioed in.
"You spoke to their other father." Paige could hear something a little different in her dad's voice and she took a half step back, and looked up at him.
The woman looked at him strangely and disbelieving, she had never been in this position before, the girls seemed to know the man. She was torn, she knew that this wasn't the man she had spoken to earlier, what was she going to do?
Seto stood his ground, looking at the woman annoyed, he knew that he'd have to deal with this crap at some point, he just didn't want to.
Suddenly Yugi ran over to the group, he ran straight at the girls. "Oh thank god!!"
"Daddy!" Paige said happily. Yugi bent down and hugged her and her sister.
"I'm so glad you girls are ok!" he was so happy he was about to cry. "You had us soo worried!!"
The woman looked at the man hugging the two girls, she knew that he was who she had spoken with. "Sir, you're the girls' father?"
The father and mother watched the whole scene confused, the kids stared.
"Yes, thanks for finding them." Yugi stood up and smiled.
"Um, may I ask who he is then?" the woman motioned toward Seto, who was still standing, looking a bit annoyed.
"Oh that's their other father." Yugi smiled. Then he saw the shock on the lifeguard's face. "Oh I'm sorry I didn't tell you about him, I was just so worried about the girls that I wasn't really thinking about it."
"Terry, we need you back here." A distorted voice came from the woman's walkie talkie.
"Yeah, I'm coming." She responded. "Then I guess I'll just leave you guys." She smiled, uneasily, and left.
"We better get going." Seto said, he took Kaitlin's hand and started walking away. Paige went up into Yugi's arms.
"Weirdos." James whispered the word. Yugi was too happy to hear it, and so was Paige, but Seto and Kaitlin heard it.
In the car the two girls started looking at the people they passed with increasing interest. They didn't understand what it was when a man and a woman were together. No, that wasn't it, they knew what it was, but in their world it didn't seem concrete. They had grown up all their lives with two dads. They just hadn't thought about that not being the way that things were, not till now.
"Daddy, why do some kids have a mom?" Paige asked from the backseat as Seto drove them back home.
Yugi and Seto exchanged a glance, "Well a mom is a woman who takes care of her child."
Paige understood that, "Ok, but why is it that the kids we met today had a dad and mom?"
Seto and Yugi weren't sure how this conversation was going to go. "That's because the man and woman fell in love, and then they had kids."
Kaitlin sat completely silent, staring out of the window, for the first time she saw that most of the couples she saw were made up of a man and a woman.
"Oooh alright! But then how come those kids didn't think Kaitlin and I were sisters?" Paige was asking all the important questions.
"Why do we have to be so different!?! Why are we weirdos!!!" Kaitlin wailed and then she broke down into tears. Yugi looked at Seto, he couldn't understand what was happening, but Seto did.
"Kaitlin, Paige, when we get home we're gonna have a little family meeting, alright?" Seto said. He knew this was going to happen at some point but he was hoping that it would be put off for so long that it would never really happen.
"Kaitlin, please don't cry." Yugi handed the little girl a tissue. "Here, here's a tissue, dry your eyes." She looked at him and it broke his heart to see her look at him with her eyes half filled with tears.
Paige didn't understand why they were having a family meeting, they had those when there was something wrong. She fidgeted on the couch, unsure of what had been done wrong. She looked at Seto, who was thinking, "Did I say something wrong?"
Seto looked down at her, "No, why?"
"We're having a family meeting, and the last time we had one of those I had broken a lamp." Paige looked worried, remembering that time.
Seto smiled, he almost laughed. "No, it's nothing like that. We just needed to talk to you girls about some stuff."
Yugi walked in with Kaitlin in his arms, she had calmed down a bit but her cheeks were still wet. She just leaned her head on Yugi's shoulder, Yugi looked very sad.
Paige walked over to Yugi when he sat down on the couch. She sat next to Kaitlin and put her hand on her sister's shoulder. Kaitlin shrugged off her sister's hand. Paige looked sad, her bottom lip quivered, and she wrinkled up her nose so that she wouldn't start crying, Seto saw this and went over to them. He sat down and pulled little Paige into his lap.
"Your Daddy and I are a special couple, at least that's what a lot of people think. Our relationship is strange to a lot of people, but we're really pretty normal." He looked at Paige's face and saw that she didn't really understand. "When you saw that family at the beach, did they laugh and smile?"
Paige looked at him strange, "Yes."
"Do we all laugh and smile?"
"Yes."
"Then we're not any different, are we?"
"But there was a mom in that family. We have you and Daddy."
Yugi jumped in at this point. "Do we love you two? Do we take care of you like those kids' parents do?"
Paige hesitated for a moment. "Yes."
"So then we are just like that family, we are a family."
Paige smiled, understanding, "We're a family!"
"No we aren't, we're just a bunch of weirdos." Kaitlin's little muffled voice came from Yugi's chest, she picked her head up and looked at Paige. "We're not sisters."
Yugi bit his lip, he didn't know exactly how to deal with this one. Lucky for him Seto jumped in at this point. "What makes you say that Kaity?"
The girl simply put her hand out and put it next to her sister's face, "Look."
Seto looked at Paige's confused face and Kaitlin's hand. "Yeah, I'm looking...?"
"We aren't the same!" she shrieked. "We look completely different!!"
"So...? No one looks exactly like someone else." Seto said matter-of-factly.
Paige looked up at Seto, "Yeah those kids didn't think that we were sisters, one of them even said that we couldn't."
"You two are sisters, not by blood though." Seto said that and saw that he had again confused the girls. Yugi jumped in again.
"You two aren't blood sisters like that family at the beach but you're sisters by love."
The girls looked at Yugi, they still did not understand. "What?" Kaitlin asked.
"You two are loved together, in this family, you are our daughters and since you're that, then you're sisters."
"Kaity, when you got scared while watching that movie last week, who were the people who stayed with you so that you wouldn't have nightmares?" Seto helped.
"You, Daddy, and Paige." Kaitlin answered sheepishly.
"That's right, your family. And who took care of your knee when you scraped it last month?"
"Daddy did."
"Exactly, he was taking care of his daughter."
"And who stayed up all night during that thunderstorm three months ago when you and Dad were out of town?" Yugi added in.
"Dad." Kaitlin's answered were less and less hesitant.
"And who covered for you when you broke that lamp, last week?!" Paige added, all smiles.
"My sister." Paige beamed and hugged Kaitlin, who didn't push her away this time. Yugi hugged both of the girls. Then Seto wrapped his arms around all three.
I blushed as I realized that I just recounted the entire story with the class. Everyone looked at me in awe.
"We're really not all that different from everyone else, my sister and I love our parents, just like you all love yours. So we may not look like the pictures you see in the magazines, and maybe we aren't what you see on television. But when you look at your family...and you think about all the time you've shared with them all those cool, great, bad, sad, annoying moments that you had with them you'll see what we see."
Twenty years later, and she stands before a crowd of people saying:
"So you and your family laugh, just like mine. You go out, just like we do. We're just like other families, we just look a little different. It's all love, we all love each other, just like everyone."
The crowd erupts into cheers, they make a lot of noise, and it makes her blush. This is the biggest group she has ever talked in front of. She's been speaking to a lot of different groups for a long time now, she realized a long time ago that people needed to be educated, needed to understand that her family was a normal one.
She looked down at the crowd and standing with the rest of the crowd, in the first row were the three most important people in her life, looking up at her was her Dad, Seto, Daddy, Yugi, and her sister, Paige.
[][] I'm happy that they have allowed same sex marriage in the states.
To all of those who just recently were married in Massachusetts and to those who were married not too long ago:
CONGRATULATIONS!! BEST OF LUCK AND HAPPINESS!!!!
And to all of those who have been married for some time:
MANY MORE HAPPY YEARS TO YOU AND OUR FAMILIES!!
To those of you who haven't been married:
JOY AND HAPINESS TO YOU AND THE BEST OF WISHES IF YOU DECIDE TO MARRY!