Jasper's POV:

At first I helped Monroe with whatever he asked me too, but as time passed I made it clear that I preferred to hang with Mariam and Mariel and do woman's work. I still chopped the occasional log and butchered an animal or two, but mostly I helped with the laundry, mending, and sewing. I even learned to knit and make bread, from scratch. I never thought I would learn to cook after my disastrous experience with Alice trying to cook for our hosts; although I had been the better cook out of the two of us, I had only been able to prepare boxed meals and microwave dinners.

Now I had nothing better to do with my time than learn to cook from scratch, not that I spent much time in the kitchen, because that was Bethany's domain and I was still avoiding Monroe's wife, but occasionally Mariel, Mariam, Ma Jackson, and I would find ourselves together in the kitchen cooking. But mostly Mariel, Mariam, and I would sit in the afternoon sun and talk while we knitted. I was making sweaters for Kair and Kare, Mariel was making a blanket, and Mariam was making a pair of socks.

"How come no one ever stops by?" I asked untangling a bit of died wool. It was not died bright colors like in my time, but a reddish brown.

"How do ya mean?" Mariel asked.

"Well in my time I was always riding over to my grandfather's house and people were always stopping by our ranch for one thing or the other. There was the postman with our mail and sometimes the sheriff would come by and ask if we'd seen some runaway slave or cow. Ladies would stop by to purchase some of my mam's fried fish or just to sit and knit together. Men would come over to help out with the ranch or to talk with Pa. And other children would stop by to play. I haven't seen any visitors here and I've been here almost two weeks now."

"I think you forget that Houston's a very young town. We're on a homestead out in the middle of nowhere, not a ranch in a city. Monroe goes into town to pick up the post when he picks up our supplies and drops off whatever we have to sell. There're aren't no children yet 'cept baby Monty and Monroe hasn't had to pay any men to help him out since he's got you. We used to go over to the Whitlock's homestead to knit and sew with Suzanna, because she's our age. But that's a lot of work to get there and Bethie and Ma can't go on account of the baby. And now we've got you to knit and sew with, so we reckoned we might just as well stay here and save ourselves the hassle," Mariam said.

"Houston was a good size city in my day. Is it really just a tiny little frontier town?"

"Sure is," Mariel answered.

"How old are you, if you don't mind my asking," I asked, changing the subject. It was not common to see single adult women and I was wondering how it was that I had stumbled across two of them. They had mentioned that their seventeenth birthday had already passed, but they looked and acted a few several years older than that.

"We're almost eighteen. Our birthday's next month," Mariam answered, explaining why they were not hitched yet: they were younger than I thought and were still seventeen.

"And what of those suitors you mentioned before?"

"Well Augie ain't exactly asking for my hand and now that you've said I don't marry him, I guess I'll just be staying," Mariel said.

"In my days girls were getting hitched by eighteen and some as early as fifteen. What's the typical age to get married?"

"Eighteen or nineteen. But it can take longer out on the frontier to find a suitor that's not related," Mariel answered.

"So if Augie came knocking on the door tomorrow and asked for either of your hands, would you go?" I asked, wanting to know if they were planning on leaving the homestead, and thereby me.

"I might," Mariel replied.

"Definitely not; he hasn't even been courting me," Mariam replied. "And I ain't gonna marry Lenny if he's gonna die soon anyway."

"Well I guess that's as good as I can ask for," I said happy that I had convinced my grandmother not to waste any more of her time on Lenard Cook.

"Enough 'bout us, we wanna know 'bout you," Mariel said.

"Yes, tell me about your wife Jasper. What's she like?" Mariam asked me.

"She's perfect, truly perfect. She smells like sunshine and her eyes sparkle. And the best part is how she feels; she has the most luscious, decadent feelings I've ever felt. It's like she's composed of pure hope, joy, and excitement," I answered.

"How'd ya meet?" Mariel asked me.

"I was alone, walking along the streets of Philadelphia and very depressed, when it started to rain. I ducked into a little diner to get out of the rain and there she was. She walked right up to me and said, 'You've kept me waiting a long time.'"

"She saw you coming?" Mariam asked.

"Yes, she had seen me decades before, but decided to wait until I was ready for her."

"Why wouldn't you be ready?"

"I lived a very different life before she found me that day. I had only recently left my brother Peter to wander on my own. And I had only been with him a few years before I ran away from my creator, Maria. Alice didn't want to take me from Maria, but instead waited for me to come to her."

"But surely if you were meant to be, then your creator would've let you be together," Mariel replied.

"She might've, but that wasn't the type of life Alice wanted to live, because she knew I wouldn't be able to handle eternity like that. Maria and I were in a very long never ending war with others of our kind. She was constantly creating soldiers to fight in our war and I was constantly training them and leading them into battle. They never lasted long, so it was an endless occupation."

"So Alice waited?" Mariam asked, looking up from her knitting.

"Yes she waited. I asked her once what she did with all her time while she was waiting and she told me that she spent most of her time fantasizing about rescuing me. She wanted to ride in on a white horse and rescue poor little me from my distress."

"How romantic: the princess rescuin' the prince in distress," Mariel said.

"It's better that she waited to do it the way she did, because if she would've just come galloping in I would've thought she was a threat and attacked without speaking to her first. All of my experiences taught me that strangers could only be a threat. She'd die and then I'd be stuck in that miserable existence forever."

"It makes a lovely story dear," Mariam said.

"I wish a man'd come sweep me off my feet like that," Mariel added.

"But that's the thing, I didn't sweep Alice off of her feet, she swept me off of mine. And she didn't do it until I took the initiative to leave Maria on my own. If you wait to be saved, you never will be. You've got to save yourself first and then others can help."

"Yes, but you're the pregnant one knitting the sweaters, which makes you the woman in your relationship. So of course she'd be sweeping you off your feet," Mariel replied.

"I'm still the man of the house and the father of our children."

"Who stays at home and who goes to work?" Mariam asked.

"In my time, women and men are equals, so it's common for the men to stay home and the women to go to work."

"You didn't answer the question," Mariel argued.

"Fine, neither of us stays home all day. Alice goes to work at a manufacturing plant and I worked at the school. I was one of the teachers."

"Teaching's women's work," Mariel replied smugly.

"Teaching's an important job that has to be done. We only had eight adults in our community and I was the only one who could control those children. You've got no idea what it's like to be in a room with a dozen of 'em."

"Okay, if you were one of the teachers, who was the other?" Mariam asked.

"My brother Emmett. He had a teaching degree already, but he couldn't control my monsters."

"Hmm, both men? Me thinks the men are the women and the women are the men in your world," Mariel concluded.

"Hold up sister and give him a chance. Who watches the young'ins after school?" Mariam asked.

"I do," I admitted. I did not see anything wrong with being a man and taking care of my children at the same time, but it just was not done in their time. "Many men in my time are stay-at-home dads."

"But surely there are still jobs that men are better at. They're strong and all," Mariam replied.

"Men and women of my kind are both plenty strong. And strength won't be needed in the human world for much longer. They build machines to do everything for them and it comes down to brains, not brawn."

"How wonderful! I think I'd like to live in a world like that!" Mariam exclaimed.

"I think I'd still like to stay home with the children," Mariel replied.

"Believe me, staying home with my children is harder than what Alice does at work all day. Kair and Kare are tame in comparison to my other kids."

"I don't believe it. How could those sweat girls have siblings that're that bad?" Mariam asked. "I've been picturing all your kids just like them."

"Jackson's into extreme sports. He was running circles on the ceiling when he was the size of a two year old," I started.

"That can't be," Mariel replied surprised.

"It can. Scryan and Ashley were just barely born when they first tried to follow him. They spend most of their time up on the ceiling waiting to ambush me. But at least when they're up there, I know what their doin.' Otherwise, they're off somewhere else planning a prank that's worse."

"Like what?" Mariam asked.

"Like one time they made their aunts kiss on the lips."

"What about the other one?" Mariel asked. "The fourth child."

"Allison's both the easiest and the most difficult. She's calmer and highly rational and she'll help us out sometimes by setting a good example and encouraging her siblings to do what they're told, but only when she wants to. At the same time, she's smarter than us and comes up with some pretty out there schemes. Once when she was a baby she built a rocket and was planning on launching it by herself. And Jackson had a bunch of fireworks. If it hadn't been for Alice's visions, we'd have two dead children by now."

"Okay, they do sound like they're out of control. How's your wife gonna manage without you?" Mariam asked concerned.

"Well the kids did promise to behave when they learned they were getting another two sisters. Alice didn't want more children because the first four were so much work, so when we decided to try again, we sat them down and explained that they couldn't behave like monsters if they were getting baby sisters. And they're all preteens now, so they're a little better with controlling themselves, and I hope they're keeping their promises and not giving Alice too hard of a time."

"Are they lookin' forward to the birth of the twins then?" Mariam asked.

"Yes. I think Jackson is the most, because he's very paternal."

"The little dare devil is paternal?" Mariel asked surprised.

"Yes. He's always helping out with Scryan and Ashley. He's the only one who has said that he wants to be a parent when he grows up. He wants to be just like me and have a house full of kids and be the stay-at-home dad." Parenting in my house always resembled an extreme sport, so I could see the lure it had over my dare-devil of a son.

"Do all of the men stay home with the children and all of the women work?" Mariel asked.

"No, it's all about free choice. There are families were the woman stays home and the man works. Each couple can decide for themselves who works and who stays home and often times they split it. Esme and Carlisle, my adoptive parents, will switch off. He used to work full time and she would only work part time when we were with the humans. Once we moved to our island, they both only worked part time. But she's an architect, so when we needed to expand, she worked full time and he only worked part time."

"What about the other families in your town?" Mariam asked.

"Emmett, the other teacher, was like me and took care of his children after school. And with Edward and Bella, they'd split it. Bella watched the kids in the morning before school while Edward went to work and Edward watched them after, before Bella got home. And with Peter and Charlotte, Charlotte stays home and Peter works."

"It's as if anything goes," Mariel suggested.

"Yes and I wouldn't trade my life for anything. My family's perfect and I love being the one who gets to stay with them."

"Even the one who runs on the ceiling?" Mariam asked.

"Just because a boy can act wild like the boys of your day, doesn't mean that's all there is too him. When Jackson was little he'd hug me and kiss me and tell me he loved me and that I was the best dad in the world."

"I wish I could meet him," Mariam said. "He sounds very sweat."

"He is sweat; they all are."

"Even Ashley?" asked a disembodied voice from one of my twins.

"Yes, even Ashley," I answered, looking for where the voice was coming from.

"Pull as through Nana Mariam and Nana Mariel," the disembodied voice of my other twin asked.

Mariam and Mariel set their knitting aside, stood up, and each pulled one of my girls out of their wormhole. Kair and Kare now appeared to be the size of five year-old humans and they were much too heavy for the human twins to carry, so they were immediately set down. As soon as they were down, they were jumping into my arms and I barely had time to set down my knitting.

"I'm so glad to see you girls. You've kept me waiting a long time," I said, kissing each twin on the forehead.

Author's Note: Please Review!