"Say it again, son," Daniel encourages.
"It's a random string of syllables," I say without looking at him.
"Nope, he said, 'Dada,'. Say it again, son, say 'Dada,'" Daniel encourages. Daniel is laying on the couch with his knees up, and the baby is leaning back against them.
"I'm not denying that the sound 'dada' came out of his mouth, I am just saying he doesn't know what it means," I say, holding Mattie up like she's standing. She takes a couple of reflexive steps just like I knew she would. Daniel grins at her, but she doesn't get the reaction her brother's babble does.
"He was looking right at me when he said it," Daniel says.
"Of course he was looking at you. He's always looking at you."
"Dada," Kush says.
"Atta boy, son!" Daniel exclaims, raising him by his armpits over his head. "First words," Daniel says to me.
"Nope," I defend, "Come on, I'm a child psychologist. I should know."
"I'm a linguist," he defends.
I roll my eyes.
"Fine, I'm his Dad, and that makes me uniquely qualified to judge on this. I know that he said 'Daddy'," Daniel says, grinning and looking at his son the whole time he talks to me.
"Dada," Kush repeats.
All right, he's starting to make me change his position. He might not understand the word, but he does know it's a magic key to his Daddy's joy.
"Dada," Kush says, earning a tickle on his stomach from his father.
"I never thought his first word would be in English," Daniel observes sadly.
"You still have a chance, because that's not his first word," I tease.
"Fafa," he says.
"Da is a much easier syllable," I say.
"Fafa," Daniel repeats near his son's face.
"Ah!" Mattie yells from my hands.
"Good girl!" I say with a grin.
Daniel puts out a hand reaching for his daughter. He nestles both of them on his knees. "Look at my babies talking. "Fafa."
"Dada," Kush says.
"Ah!" Mattie repeats.
Daniel tickles them both.
"So, did the dinner with his parents go bad?" Daniel asks.
"I told you it was fine when we came back," I remind him.
"I know, but then you haven't seen or talked to him for a week, so I thought you might have lied. Dada, Fafa," he says, earning repeats from both of them.
"The kids are talking now, maybe we shouldn't talk about adult things in front of us," I say.
He grins, "You admit my babies are talking."
I roll my eyes.
"Come on, what happened with Pat?" he asks.
Damn, I thought that I could distract him. "I may be avoiding him, just a tiny bit, but he didn't do anything wrong."
"So he did everything right, and that ended up with you avoiding him… why?" Daniel asks studying me before eliciting words form the babies again. Yeah, they have no idea what they are saying, they just know magic words that make Daddy happy.
I sigh, "I think he might be thinking about marriage, and that freaks me out."
Daniel's eyebrows go up, "Yeah, you're pretty young to be thinking about marriage. You haven't finished school. You haven't even known each other for an entire year yet!"
"My thoughts exactly," I say.
Daniel grabs his arms and wiggles them, making his kids do a funny little dance.
"You talk to him about this?"
I shake my head.
Daniel gives me one of those naked soul looks for a few seconds, "Who was hinting about marriage?"
"His mom," I admit grudgingly.
"Yeah, moms do that type of thing. It doesn't mean that's how he feels about it," Daniel points out.
I twist my mouth around in a grimace.
"If you like him, call him. He's twenty-one years old, he's probably as freaked out by the idea of getting married as you are. I know when I was a twenty-one-year-old guy, the idea of marriage would have made me want to run. Then again, he's already doing a lot better than me. I never made it to the two month anniversary."
"What if he really is thinking about marriage?" I ask.
"Tell him you're eighteen, and it terrifies you. He might be willing to forget about it," Daniel says.
"It might be a deal-breaker. That is sort of why I am avoiding him."
"Well, unless you want your relationship to stay in limbo forever, you are going to have to talk to him about it. If you do, there is a good chance you can work through it."
"There is a chance that we can't," I say with a sigh.
"Steph, work through the fear," he encourages. "Come on, two weeks before finals. Deal with the relationship stuff now."
Deep sigh. There is no way I'm going to win the argument I leave the room hearing choruses of "Dada," and "Ah!" as I walk down the hallway.
"Pat," I say when I hear him pick up.
"Hi," he says. He's concerned, but he doesn't want to push it. I've hurt him by being all stubborn.
"Sorry I haven't talked to you lately," I say.
"You ignored my phone calls and didn't return any messages," he clarifies.
"Yeah," I say. There is no point in denying it.
"What did they say? What did my family say that freaked you out?" he demands.
"You're mom sort of tried to feel me out on the issue of marriage."
Silence. When he starts to talk again, he is pissed, "I'm furious that she said that to you, but it wasn't me. I'm not ready for marriage. You're barely an adult."
"You're older than me. You're going to be graduating from college in a couple of weeks and…"
He cuts me off, "That doesn't mean that I am ready to get married. We're still new. I don't think we need to get that serious right now."
I decide to let the whole truth out. I could keep dancing around it. He and I might even be able to have a few more months together before the whole thing blew up in our faces. I just think about how much it's going to hurt if it goes south. I'd better be honest, right now. "I'm going to be in school for a long time. I'll have my bachelor's by the end of next year. Then I have to work my doctorate which will take at least three more years. I don't want to get married before that. And if Daniel's wife doesn't come back by then, the kids will be in school so I won't feel like I am leaving them."
"You're their nanny, not their mother," he reminds me.
"I know, but that line is sometimes finer than you might think," I say.
"All right, again, I'm not exactly thinking about getting married right now."
"I know, but you're older than me, and you are probably going to be ready sooner than four years."
"Listen, I am serious enough about you that I definitely want to stay with you for as long as you can put up with me. I'm not so serious that I'm going to be ring shopping any time soon. My mom is grandkid crazy, but she's going to have to wait a while. I don't know, Jamie is the mostly likely candidate to give her grandkids. She should start bugging him."
"He's only seventeen," I point out.
"Yeah, only a year younger than you," he says, and suddenly I get why he's pissed. Some part of my boyfriend views me like Jack does… a poor little baby that needs to be defended.
"I had a baby," I suddenly say.
"What?" It's surprise, not anger that I hear in his voice.
"When I was kidnapped. I had a son, Phoenix. He died."
"I'm so sorry," he says.
"I was only fifteen."
"Fifteen is way too young to have a kid. I don't think you would have if it was your choice. Seventeen is too young, so is eighteen, even twenty-one is too young."
"I was a good mom to him while he was alive," I defend.
"Oh, I'm sure you were. I've seen you with Daniel's kids. You'd be a good mom if you had a baby right now. That doesn't mean that you and I should get married and start reproducing."
"Sorry I freaked when you talked about me not being ready to have a kid," I mutter.
"If you were the single mom of a three-year-old, I would still be with you right now," he tells me.
That makes my heart bubble up, all warm. Suddenly I want to talk about the future, even the idea of the future used to terrify me just a couple days ago. "After I finish my internship, I want to start turning out babies - like four or five. I would love it if I could only work part time until they were old enough to go to school, but I guess that would depend on my husband's job."
"Five?" he asks, sounding a little bit worried.
"I don't know. It will probably change. Two years ago, I never wanted kids. A year ago, it was one," I say.
"And that is exactly why we are not ready for kids yet," he says with a giggle.
"How many are you thinking right now?" I ask.
"Three, spread way apart so that you never have more than one in diapers at a time," he says.
"Oh, two in diapers is fun," I say, referring to the twins.
"Not for me. I want to be one of those involved fathers, and I still want to have the parenting load spread out enough so I can still sleep, and work, and go on dates with my wife without going nuts. I also want to be settled in my job. Tenure track, maybe even tenured. That would make it less likely for me to move, and it would mean I had way more time and way less stress. Besides, I am already enrolled in a doctorate program. I'm probably not going to be out of school much sooner than you are."
Deep breath. "Okay."
"I'll tell my mom to lay off the pressure," he says.
"It wasn't her fault. I mean, she just said one thing. I was the one who focused on it for the next couple of days and turned it into this really huge deal."
"I'll just mention our plans to her, and she can start applying the pressure elsewhere," Pat says.
"Or maybe tell her to get a dog."
He laughs.
"Or she could get you another brother. You know, something to hold onto and cuddle until one of you is ready to give her grandkids."
"Yeah, I've got five brothers already. I so don't need any more. Maybe you're going to have to bring Daniel's kids over."
"They do sort of fill the gap, don't they?" I ask.
"Yeah. I love you. Can we have a date soon?"
"Tomorrow night?"
"Yeah, walk in the park or movies?"
"Both."