Chapter 12 - by jugglequeen
Sam's keys almost hit Rainer's head before they landed on the kitchen table.
"Ey-oh, oh-ey. What's with you, Sam?" Rainer exclaimed.
"Has my father taught you some English? It sounds as if he's talking to me," Sam asked in an annoyed tone. She was exhausted after a long day of unsuccessful flat-hunting throughout the surrounding suburbs of Fairfield. "It's unbelievable! For a reasonable rate you either get a tiny shoebox or a rotten hole, and for an acceptable place they charge you a fortune. I think the kids and I have to live with Dad and Angela until the end of time," she whined.
Rainer suddenly had an idea. "Why don't we look for a place close by where Nicky, Marie and you can move in with Jonathan and me?" he asked excitedly.
"Have Jon and you really given up the plan to look for a flat in Chelsea?" Sam knew that the boys had hired a gay real estate manager to find them a place within their community.
"Well, ..."
Rainer hadn't told his boyfriend yet that he wasn't so keen on moving right into the middle of this gigantic city anymore. He came from a small town in former East Germany. Although he had lived in Berlin for years, and the capital was Germany's biggest city, it was nothing at all comparable to The Big Apple. The noise, masses of people and on-going activity of Manhattan bothered him. He loved to visit the pulsating city center and was thrilled to go to work there, but every evening when he returned to the little flat above the garage on 3344 Oak Hills Drive in Fairfield, he took a deep breath and enjoyed the peace and quiet of suburban Connecticut. And he didn't necessarily have to live among other gay people. Some of the very out-going gays even intimidated him. He had already once popped the idea of looking for a small house close to his mother's estate, but wasn't so sure whether Jonathan had really understood.
"Well what?" Sam was intrigued right away.
"It would be much easier to find an affordable place for three adults and two children than for a single-mom with two kids," Rainer reasoned.
"And you would be willing to move in with these two nerve-racking brats?"
"Are you kidding? Your kids are adorable!"
"And they love you, Rainer. You're really good with kids. You and Jon should definitely think about adopting a baby. You'd be a great father."
With this Sam had hit Rainer's blind spot unintentionally. He had always dreamt about having children of his own. In Germany it was difficult for a gay couple to officially adopt a baby, albeit not impossible. But he had once read in a magazine that gay adoption was easier and more common in the United States than in his home country. He had even heard that surrogacy became evermore acceptable within the American society, so maybe one of them could even be the biological father to their baby. This thought warmed his soul. He loved Jonathan from the bottom of his heart and was very much looking forward to their wedding and their life together afterwards. The two of them raising a child would be the icing on the cake.
"So, ... what do you think?"
"Have you already talked to Jonathan about it?"
"No, but I will. Tonight. I bet he'll be as thrilled as I am." Rainer was very excited. "And your Dad will also like the idea, I'm pretty sure. He's a very protective father and grandfather. He would enjoy having you near."
"That's the understatement of the year! He thinks I'm still his little girl. But I'm a grown woman, soon a two-time divorcée with kids of my own. Don't get me wrong, Rainer. I love my Dad and it's good to know that I can always count on him, but he tends to be a little over-protective. Especially now. He thinks that I'm devastated and broken, but I'm not. I feel as if a load has been taken off me. I wasn't happy in my marriage for quite some time. I stayed with Oliver only because of the kids. I'll receive child support payments for Marie and Nicky, and Angela already offered me a job at The Bower Agency. I can take care of my life and that of my children on my own."
"You working for Angela would be so cool, Samantha. The three of us would be colleagues then. Well, Jonathan would be your boss! Do you think you can handle that?"
"Well, the Micellis are used to being bossed around by the Bowers," she joked, and both burst out into laughter. "You mustn't overlook the fact that he'd be your boss as well, Rainer. Your fiancé will be your boss," she said with a devilish grin.
"I have to ask you father for advice on how to cope with that situation then, I guess. He's very experienced at how to handle being in love with your boss."
Now, Sam and Rainer collapsed with laughter. They laughed so hard that they could hardly inhale anymore and tears were running down their cheeks. Finally, after minutes of roaring laughter, Rainer calmed himself and came up with another good reason for them to move in together.
"And if we lived together, Jon and I could look after the kids when you're out on a date. You won't have to ask your father to babysit. How about that?"
"Oh, Rainer, it really is a tempting idea. Maybe you're right, we should talk to Jonathan. I wonder what he'll be thinking about it."
As could be expected, Jonathan liked the idea from the first moment Rainer told him about it. He had always loved his surrogate sister, he even had a little crush on her for a short time as a teenager. And he loved her kids. He also enjoyed having them around, for he also secretly dreamt about being a father some day - just like his fiancé. So they didn't waste any time but fired their gay real estate manager and hired a young lady to look for a house big enough for five people in the Fairfield area, with a garden and a picket fence. Angela and Tony were thrilled at the prospect of having everybody so close. They were both passionate grandparents and had always regretted that their grandchildren lived so far away in England.
Only three weeks later the tenancy agreement was signed and everybody was excited about the move, especially Nicky and Marie. Their landlord was an elderly man with white hair and tiny brimless spectacles. Rainer, who had mainly negotiated the contract, was sure that Mr Richardson hadn't completely figured out the relation between the five people moving into his house. He was quite sure that he assumed that Sam and he were a couple with their kids, and Jonathan a close friend of the family. And even if he had been a bit suspicious he didn't show, probably mainly because Angela and Tony were well-respected members of the Fairfield community and so their folks were given unprejudiced credit.
Another few weeks later, Rainer and Jonathan started to plan their wedding. It would be an intimate celebration with only the closest family being present. Jonathan had invited his father and his second wife, but due to health problems neither of them could join. Much to Rainer's dismay, his parents refused to come. They still had problems accepting that their son was gay. And although gay marriage existed it Germany too, they were too narrow-minded to be able to value it as highly as a straight marriage. But Rainer's brothers Stefan and Mark had announced their intention to attend. The three brothers had always been like the The Three Musketeers, being not even two years apart from each other. Stefan was the oldest. He was a freelance journalist and had traveled almost every spot in the world with a backpack and a camera. He was tall, lean, had blond short hair and bright blue eyes. His full beard underlined his adventurous soul. Samantha was fascinated by the handsome German the moment she first met him. Mark was the youngest of the three brothers, but the one who had settled down first. He had married his childhood sweetheart shortly after they both had graduated from high school and was the father to a pair of two-year-old twin girls. His wife was pregnant once again and therefore couldn't come to join her brother-in-law's wedding. Mark was also very likeable, but talking on the phone most of the time to those who had stayed home. He planned to fly back to Berlin soon after the wedding, whereas Stefan jumped at the opportunity to spend a few weeks in New England, as the United States was one of the rare countries in the world he hadn't traveled much around yet.
"Maybe I'll get the chance to write an article or I might come up with a nice photo reportage. Is the Indian Summer still on?" he asked Samantha.
"Well, if you go further North, you'll have more of the foliage. That's what we call it when the leaves turn red and orange. It's beautiful. But I'm afraid in most areas it's past peak already, but it still is an amazing natural spectacle to watch. You have to go there, Steven, ... oh, sorry, Stefan!"
"It's okay, you can call me Steven if you like. I've heard my name in so many different versions. The French call me Stéphane, the Spanish Estebàn, the Italian Stefano, and the English speaking people Steven. I was in Hungary last year and they called me Istvàn. So, just pick one!" He grinned. "My family calls me Steff, so if you want to, you can call me Steff, too. When my brother and your step-brother are married, you and me are family, aren't we? Well, sort of, ..." Another bright grin appeared on his face, showing flawless teeth.
"Alright, Steff, I'd like that," Sam replied with wobbly knees. This man was very charming!
The wedding ceremony took place on a bright October Sunday afternoon in the office of the local Justice of the Peace. Tony still had some problems with reckoning a gay marriage equivalent to one between a man and a woman. His Catholic upbringing had taught him everything about the holy state of matrimony, being the hatchery of traditional families consisting of a mother, a father and children. But when he saw the love and happiness in Jonathan's and Rainer's eyes, exchanging their marriage vows in front of the justice, his heart melted away. He loved Jonathan to bits and wanted him to be happy more than anything. If this young German man made him happy, then so be it. Tony thought back to the times when people had turned up their noses at his relationship to Angela. He was reminded of how bad it had made him feel that others would not see that his love for her was all that counted, no matter how odd it might have appeared in their eyes. Jonathan probably felt the same way, Tony figured, so he swallowed his remaining misgivings down like an acid drop and welcomed Rainer to the family.
After Jonathan and Rainer were officially married, Angela invited the whole party to dinner at a fancy restaurant downtown Fairfield. As Rainer's parents weren't present, it was up to her to pay for the expenses, which she didn't mind at all. She had always dreamt of the day her only son would walk down the aisle. Of course she hadn't pictured him eventually marrying a man, but she liked Rainer a lot and was at peace with the world and the situation as it was. The Bower-Micelli family was growing, adding more beautiful people to it, that was all that counted. It had all started with Tony and her in 1984 - 30 years ago! Together with Sam, Jonathan and Mona they had started their little patchwork family. Sam had first brought Hank and later Oliver into the family. Both had already vanished, but Sam's second marriage had been blessed by two great kids. Nicky and Marie enriched everybody's lives, especially the ones of their grandparents. And today another member had been added to the family. Rainer Herrmann from Germany, the man who made her son happy. Somehow, he fit perfectly into this unique structure they all called their family.
