Lyman Home, Washington DC: February 20, 2006
"Hello?" Josh called out as he shucked off his coat in the foyer of his house. It was just past seven o'clock and he'd arrived home after a particularly good day at work. He'd help secure two votes for an upcoming education bill and he'd tapped a segment for NBC's Dateline, which would air next week. Not many freshman Senators got primetime coverage on their issues and even fewer were able to get Tom Brokaw to return their phone calls, but Josh was incredibly popular across the nation. He was the most recognized non-Party leader working in government and he took advantage of that distinction. Of course, most people just remembered him as the man who got shot with the President and as uncomfortable as it made him sometimes, if reminding people that got his message to others he was willing to do it.
"Hello? Anyone here?" he called through the living room, laying his suit coat and briefcase on an armchair.
"In the kitchen, Mr. Lyman," a booming female voice with a thick Irish accent bellowed from the back of the house. He made his way back there to discover Natalie seated on top of the newspaper-covered island. The little girl was wearing a huge smock and even more paint on her face than was on the construction paper she was working with. Seated next to her was her new nanny, Nanny Gilroy.
Nanny Gilroy was Siobhan Gilroy, a fifty-two year-old Irish woman with a stocky build, snow-white hair, and the sharpest pair of green eyes this side of the Emerald Isles. She was a widow with no children and she'd come highly recommended by the wife of a Congressman that Donna was friendly with. She had stayed with the last family she worked with for almost twenty years, and by all accounts had been completely devoted to the children she'd cared for. They'd grown up though, of course, and Nanny Gilroy had looked for nearly three months for new employment before she had heard from the Lyman's. They exchanged a few phone calls before Donna invited her over to meet them and the girls and the connection was instantaneous; Emma and Natalie had both raved about her and it only took Josh and Donna two days to do a quick, thorough reference check before Nanny Gilroy had been hired two weeks ago. She'd moved into the house with them, taking one of the spare bedrooms, and both Josh and Donna were amazed at how easily she seemed to fit into their family. She watched the girls whenever Donna was working or in New York and also helped with the housekeeping. She was an absolute blessing for them all and Donna was thankful that Josh had been persistent, though she could never tell him that.
"Daddy!" Natalie shouted when she saw her father. "Come see pictures!" she beckoned to him.
"Well I see someone has entered her Blue Period," Josh said, wrapping his arms around his daughter and showering her head with kisses.
"I made a monkey!" Natalie gleefully informed him, pointing to a giant blue blob on one paper.
"Wow, that's beautiful," he praised her, lifting her up and bringing her to the sink to wash her up. She squealed loudly and splashed her father without mercy while he loved every minute of it. "Come on, sweetheart, you don't want Mommy to come home and find that you've been replaced by a walking mass of blue paint, do you?"
"Mrs. Lyman phoned a little a while ago, sir," Nanny Gilroy broke in as she cleaned up the rest of Natalie's mess. "She missed her train and had to take the late shuttle. She'll be back by eleven or so." Donna had gone to New York for her last monthly staff meeting before she started her maternity leave. She would still write from home but at almost six months pregnant, with twins, her doctor didn't want her traveling unnecessarily.
"Okay then, I guess it's you, me, Emma, and Nanny Gilroy for dinner then," Josh said to Natalie, wiping off her hands with a dishrag.
"Uh sir," Nanny Gilroy said cautiously, motioning with her head towards the doorway. Curiously, Josh strapped Natalie into her booster seat at the table and gave her some crayons and paper.
"Make me a masterpiece," he commanded playfully, squeezing her nose as she blew him a raspberry. He walked over to Nanny Gilroy and asked, "What's wrong?"
"I think perhaps something happened to Emma at school today, sir," she informed him gently. "When she came home from school, she went right up to her room without a peep and hasn't come down since. I've gone up to check on her but she won't tell me what's the matter."
"Could she just be coming down with something?" he guessed, furrowing his brows at the uncharacteristic behavior of his oldest.
"I checked her temperature and it was normal," Nanny Gilroy offered. "And if I may say, sir, she doesn't look sick; she looks.sad and confused."
Josh nodded thoughtfully. "And she wouldn't talk about it at all?"
"I've looked in on her several times and every time, she's just sitting by her window, looking out at nothing."
"Okay," he murmured, mulling over all the possibilities in his head. "I'm gonna go talk to her. Can you feed Natalie, get her settled down?"
"Of course, sir," she nodded and set about caring for Natalie while Josh climbed the stairs to Emma's room.
He knocked twice on her door and waited for a reply. Hearing none, he slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open. "Em? You in here?" he asked glancing around. She wasn't sitting by her window anymore and he didn't see her anywhere else. Then he noticed the small lump curled up on her side on top of the twin bed. "Emma? Are you asleep?" he whispered, softly situating himself next to her near the headboard.
"No," she feebly whispered, not moving. She was holding her favorite stuffed dog, Petey, tightly to her chest, and from the raspy quality of her voice he could tell that she'd been crying.
'Okay, something is definitely wrong,' he thought worriedly. Emma was not a child who cried often; she exuded happiness and cheerfulness nearly all the time, and even when she was sad or angry, she wasn't prone to tears. Something had obviously happened to her and whatever it was it hadn't been good.
"Honey, what's wrong?" he asked her softly, reaching to rub her back. He felt her tense under his touch but she didn't day anything, so he continued. "Did something happen at school, or on the bus?" Still no response. "Did you have a fight with one of your friends?" Still nothing, and now Josh was starting to panic. He knew that Donna would be calmer if she were dealing with this with him, but Josh was always jumping to the worst-case scenarios when something happened to the kids, and all of the scenarios he thought of now terrified the hell out of him. "Emma, turn around and look at me," he ordered, trying to gently roll on to her back.
"No!" she said forcefully, shrugging away from him and remaining as she was.
"Emma, what happened?" he asked her again, struggling to remain calm. He didn't want to upset her anymore but right now, her behavior was terrifying him.
"Leave me alone!"
"I won't leave you alone like this. Something happened to you today and it's upsetting you and I don't like it so you'll tell me what happened right now, young lady," he ordered, raising his voice as he tried to make her look at him again.
"No!" she cried defiantly, still fighting him.
"Emma Antonia, I am your father and I'm telling you to do something so--"
"No you're not!" she declared, sitting up and looking him straight on.
"I'm not what?" he asked, holding onto her shoulders as gently as he could.
"You're not my father!" she cried, pulling away from him again with tears in her eyes.
Though he didn't really remember the circumstances, he remembered the pain of being shot. He recalled a feeling of deep burning pain in his chest, like someone was repeatedly pounding at it with a searing hammer. He imagined it must have been like an explosion had occurred inside of him, with tiny parts of him scattered every which way, while the empty space inside of him was occupied by a constant throbbing. In short, it had been the worst pain imaginable, a pain so terrible he'd convinced himself that nothing else on this Earth could hurt him that much; he'd been wrong. Hearing those four words come out of his daughter's mouth, it was like a pain he could never have contemplated existed until now.
Even as he felt everything inside of him collapse and fall apart, his mind could still make out Emma's pitiful sniffling and her slight hiccups. Mustering up all the strength he had left, Josh asked her, "What.what do you mean, Emma?"
"You're not my Daddy, my real Daddy anyways," she said calmer than before, not looking at him.
Listening to her repeat the words didn't make it any easier, but at least now he knew he hadn't misinterpreted her. "What makes you say that?" he asked, needing an explanation as to where this was coming from. In the time that he'd known her and loved her, she'd never once made a mention of her biological father, Ben Peterson. He had been the infamous Dr. Freeride and after Donna had given birth to their child, she gave Emma to her own grandmother to raise while she worked in DC. Emma had moved to DC to live with them once her mother and Josh became engaged and ever since then, she'd always referred to Josh as her father. He'd adopted her shortly before being elected to the Senate and had always treated her like his own, so it stunned him for her to be saying these things.
Using her arm to wipe at her eyes, she continued to stare at her little stuffed animal as if it held all the answers to her questions. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked up at him with her big blue eyes, her mother's eyes. "At school today," she began quietly, "in art class, we started working on our family trees. We had to put the names of the people in our family and how they're related to us on these paper leaves, and then hang them on our trees. I finished all of my leaves and started putting them on the branches when Tommy Forrester pointed at your name and asked me, 'Who's name is that?' and I told him it was my Daddy's." She swallowed hard and he could see her lower lip starting to quiver as she remembered the encounter. He ached to hold her in his arms, to protect her from the pain she must be feeling, but he knew she wouldn't accept it just then. So he impatiently waited for her to continue. "And then he said that you weren't my Daddy, not my real one. I told him he was stupid and that he was really wrong about it. But he said he'd watched the news with his parents a few nights ago and then his parents said that you weren't my real Daddy. You talked to the reporter person and then afterwards, he heard his mommy and daddy say that Mommy had me before she met you." She stared up at him hopefully, desperately. "Is it true?"
Josh would have sold his soul to the Devil if he could have lied to her at that moment. If he could tell her that Tommy Forrester had been playing a mean joke on her and of course she was his and had been from the moment she was born, just like her sister. He would have killed himself and almost anyone else if he could say he was her biological father, just so she wouldn't look at him with such deep-seeded pain in her eyes. What he really wanted, though, was to go back in time and turn down every single solitary interview request he'd ever given. If only he could have foreseen this happening one day, he would never have opened himself or his family up for that type of scrutiny. But he couldn't, no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't undo time or genetics and he couldn't lie to her either. So his only option left was honesty.
"Yeah sweetie," Josh said regretfully, nodding slowly as he carefully selected his words. "You were already born when I met your Mommy." He watched as Emma lost her battle against her tears, as she bowed her chin to her chest and as her shoulders began to shake. He just wanted to cry along with her but he knew he couldn't. Instead, he gently cupped her face in his hands and forced her to look up at her. "But that doesn't mean I'm not your father, Emma. I didn't need to be there when you were born to be your father. I've been your father since the minute I saw you and I will be until the day I die, I swear."
"But it's not the same," she whimpered as if she hadn't heard him.
"What isn't the same?"
"It's not the same as Natty," she tried to clarify. "You don't love me the same way that you love her. Because she's yours and I'm not."
That did it. He could no longer hold back the tears that came with seeing his child in such despair. Using more strength than he liked, he pulled her into his lap and rocked her gently, smoothing her hair as she cried into his shirt. When he finally reestablished some control, he whispered in her ear, "Emma, I need you to listen me right now." Slowly, she pulled back from him and looked up at him. Tenderly stroking her reddened cheek he said, "I love you more than anything in this world. There is absolutely nothing that I wouldn't do for you. The same goes for Natalie and for the twins that Mommy is having and for any other child that we may have." He swallowed around the lump in his throat before continuing, "You're my daughter, Emma. My child, my first born, and I love you so much that sometimes it makes my heart hurt because there's so much love in it for you. It doesn't matter to me one bit that I haven't been with you since you were born; what matters to me is that I'm going to be your father for the rest of your life. That's how a father is supposed to love his children and that's how much I love you."
She sniffled quietly, wiping her nose with her shirt. "So much that your heart hurts?" she questioned weakly.
"And then some," he tried to assure her. "What could have ever made you think that I could love you any less than your sister?"
"Tommy," she told him bitterly, scrunching up her nose in distaste.
"Do you want me to go to school with you tomorrow and steal his lunch money?" he tried to joke with her. He thanked every deity he could think of when she cracked a small smile and shook her head. But almost as soon as it appeared it disappeared to be replaced by a questioning stare.
"What do I call him?" Emma asked, switching topics.
"Call who?"
"The Daddy that was there when I was born," she elaborated, biting at her thumbnail.
"Um," Josh began, trying not to feel the normal resentment he usually felt whenever he let himself think of Ben Peterson. "Well, the correct term is he's your biological father."
"Biological father," she repeated slowly. "What is his name?"
"Ben," he replied quietly. "His name is Ben."
"Do you know him?"
"No, I don't."
"Do you know anything about him?"
"I know that he's a doctor," he told her, being careful of what information he gave her. She really was too smart for her own good sometimes and Josh and Donna had to be very careful about what she was exposed to. "But that's it really. Your Mommy didn't ever talk about him with me a whole lot so I can't tell you much about him."
"Can Mommy tell me?" she asked innocently.
He tried not to feel jealous. He knew it was a natural reaction for Emma to have, for any child, to want to know where they came from. But no matter how much he rationalized it to himself, he couldn't help but feel that perhaps if he had been a better father, she wouldn't have this curiosity for information about her birth father. "Yeah, she probably could," he finally said. "But she's not going to be home until way past your bedtime and you have school tomorrow. I'll tell her what we talked about when she gets home and tomorrow she can answer your questions for you. Can you wait until then to talk to her?" She nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, good." He glanced at her bedside clock and saw that nearly an hour had passed. Nanny Gilroy would be getting Natalie ready for bed, so that meant he and Emma could have some more quality time together. "It's time for dinner, just you and me," he said, standing up with her in his arms. She was getting to the point where she was almost too big to carry but that didn't matter to Josh, especially tonight. "I'll make you anything you want, you name it."
"Grilled cheese with tomatoes and bacon?" she asked, practically salivating at the thought.
"You got it," he told her as they made their way downstairs, their relationship a little fractured but still solid.
Later that night, after the kids and Nanny Gilroy were tucked into bed, Josh decided it was finally a good time to indulge in his sorrows. Retrieving a sixteen year-old bottle of scotch from his bottom desk drawer he wandered into the family room, picking up a glass on the way. There he began to rifle through the collection of videocassette tapes Donna kept in the drawer under the television until he found the one he wanted. He popped it into the VCR, pressed 'Play', and settled back against the sofa.
The screen was black for a few seconds and then the image of a cozy living room appeared on the screen. The camerawork was shaky and the sound quality poor but Josh wasn't looking for a cinematic experience; he was looking for something more meaningful.
"Come here, my darling," a delicate female voice said off-camera, a voice graced with a familiar Italian accent.
"Ab ba la bal," a tiny, cheerful voice gurgled loudly. And then there she was. Emma, at six months old: crawling on her great-grandmother's carpet towards the camera. Her bright blue eyes gleaned with joy as her little arms and legs carried her forward. Josh sipped his drink and smiled softly at her face, at the milestone he hadn't been able to be a part of.
"That's my big girl," the woman's voice broke in. The camera panned to Donna's grandmother, Mena Falansio, the woman who had raised Emma until she was almost five years old, as she scooped Emma up from behind. "I am so proud of you. That was your first crawl," she cooed to the child, cuddling her to her shoulder. Mena turned her towards the camera and waved one of her little arms. "Can you say hello to your Mommy? Can you say we miss you but we hope you're having fun on the campaign?"
"An um mh mh," Baby Emma chortled, gnawing on her great-grandmother's hair. The camera zoomed in on her face and Josh paused the movie. He stared at the cherubic face, frozen in a time and a moment when Josh hadn't been her father, hadn't even known she existed. Donna had not told anyone about Emma until the child came to live with them and in some small way, Josh resented his wife for keeping her from him. They hadn't been together at the time but he always felt he'd been robbed of a chance to share something with her. Of course he couldn't truly be angry at Donna for it; she'd missed so much of Emma's early years because of her life in Washington and technically, that was because of Josh. How could he blame her from keeping Emma from him when he'd inadvertently kept Emma from her?
"Josh?" he heard from the doorway. "You conscious?"
'Speak of the devil,' he idly thought. "I am alive, Donnatella," he sighed, slightly slurring his words. "Just a little inebriated."
"Ah," she replied as she lumbered towards him. Her stomach was highly pronounced under her sweater and one hand was supporting her lower back. Twins may be two times the joy of one baby but they were also two times the weight. "Rough day on the Hill?"
"No," he said cryptically, taking another sip of his drink. "Not at work." She was standing in front of him now and he pulled at her waist until her stomach was at eye level with him. He nuzzled his face against the wool of her sweater and he could hear the faint heartbeats of his two newest daughters. "How are you two doing in there?" Josh asked them. "Slowly driving your mother insane again?"
Donna smiled and ran her fingers through Josh's hair. "They've declared a ceasefire in their battle against Mommy's internal organs," she told him. She noticed the scotch on the coffee table and she rubbed his neck supportively. He never brought out the scotch unless he was particularly morose. "What happened?" she questioned gently.
His response surprised her. "Am I a good father?" he asked, still leaning his head against her stomach.
She immediately pulled back and took his face in her hands. "Of course you are," she said passionately, making him look in her eyes. Lowering herself gingerly, she sat on the coffee table and continued her diatribe. "There is no one on this Earth that I would rather have children with and there is no one that I can think of that tries as hard as you do to be a good father. How could you ever think that you weren't--"
"Emma told me I wasn't her father," he interrupted stoically. He didn't look at her but he felt her let go of his face so he downed the rest of his drink and he reached over to the bottle to refill it. "She said I wasn't her father the way I'm Natalie's and she wanted to know about her birth father."
"How?" Donna asked him quietly, stunned. She stared at the spot on the couch were Josh had just been sitting as she felt the news wash over her like a tidal wave.
"One of her classmates saw a news interview I did and his parents made a point of mentioning in front of him that you had Emma before we even met," he answered bitterly.
"Oh God," Donna moaned, laying her head in her hands. This was not a situation she was prepared for. She knew it was foolish but she had always hoped Emma would never have any questions about Ben, never want to know anything about him. And she especially wasn't ready for her daughter to be asking these questions when she was only eight. 'How do I explain to her he didn't even want her born?' Donna thought, horrified. "Was she.was she upset?" Donna asked her husband.
Josh chuckled dourly. "She spent all afternoon in her room alternately trying not to let anyone see her cry and trying to convince herself that we hadn't been lying to her."
"We haven't lied to her," Donna rebuked determinedly. "You're her father, you have been for years and you will be for the rest of her life."
"She thought that I loved her less because I wasn't her birth father," he said dejectedly, collapsing back on the sofa in front of Donna. He shook his head in disbelief and Donna's heart broke for him. Emma meant the world to him and to have her not understand that couldn't have been easy for him to deal with. "How could she ever think.? What did I do that made her believe.?" he trailed off and went to take another sip of his drink but Donna pulled the glass away from him and sat it beside her.
"Josh," she began ardently, "if you had to you would hold up a gun to any person on this planet, myself included, and pull the trigger if it meant protecting Emma from harm." He didn't stop her to disagree so she continued. "You would do the same for Natalie and the same for these babies. How do expect a child to understand that kind of love and devotion?"
"They couldn't," he whispered. "I don't even understand why I do the things I do for them sometimes." He rubbed his hand over his face tiredly and sighed. "I know that she's just confused about everything now and she can't really understand what she's saying, but it just killed me to think that I hadn't done enough for her somehow."
"I know," Donna soothed, gliding her fingers through his hair. They sat there silently for a moment, taking comfort from one another as they faced this latest challenge. "What did she want to know about Ben?" Donna finally inquired.
"Just stuff like his name and what she should call him," he shrugged listlessly. "I couldn't really tell her much." He stared at her thoughtfully. "You know that you have to, right?"
"Yeah," she nodded, going to sit next to him. She rested her head on his shoulders and felt him wrap his arm around her.
"What are you going to tell her?"
"Whatever she wants to know, within reason."
"How come you never talk about him with me?" Josh asked, saying out loud what he had wondered for some time.
"I don't know," she replied tiredly. "There was never really any need to. He wasn't a part of my life that I look back on fondly. The only worthwhile thing he ever did for me was Emma, so." She paused for a moment.
"What? You can tell me," he prodded her gently.
"Ben was the first man that I ever really loved, or I should say that I thought I ever really loved, outside my family," she admitted. "And he just used me time and again and every time that I had had enough and left, I always ended up going back. I relied on him so much emotionally and I.I didn't want you to think I was weak. For staying with him as long as I did."
"I'd never think that about you," he promised, kissing her forehead.
"Really?"
"Maybe you gave into him sometimes but when it really mattered, you stood up to him."
"Why do you think that?"
He pulled back slightly and smiled at her. "Because we have Emma."
"Yes, we do," she agreed, nodding slowly as her eyes drifted over to the television screen and Emma's toothless grin. She pushed herself off the couch and held a hand out to him. "Bedtime," she decreed. He willingly complied and they headed off to bed.
The next afternoon, Donna was sitting in her car in front of Emma's school, waiting for her daughter. She had no idea how Emma was going to react to what they had to discuss today. Would she want to see Ben, have a relationship with him? Would she just be completely indifferent to him? Would she be angry with her mother for not telling her? Donna wasn't sure; she wasn't sure if this was the right thing for Emma or for them as a family, but there was no turning back at this point.
Emma emerged from the building a few minutes after the bell rang and immediately spotted her mother's car. She walked slowly towards it, her shoulders hunched and her expression preoccupied. She opened the door and climbed into the seat, buckling her seatbelt without a word to her mother.
"Hi baby," Donna tried to open up communication.
"Hi," Emma replied softly, looking down at her mittens.
"How was school?" Donna asked as she started the car.
"Okay," she said in the same tone.
'Enough beating around the bush, Donna,' she thought to herself. "Emma, I know you're upset about what happened yesterday," Donna told her as she eased into traffic. "But you and I need to talk about this and we can't do that if you're giving me one word answers to my questions."
"Are we going home now?" Emma asked suddenly, looking at her mother.
"Why? Do you not want to go home right now?"
"Do you remember when I first came to live with you and we lived with.Daddy in that apartment?"
"Yeah," Donna said, noting nervously Emma's hesitation on referring to Josh as her father.
"There was a park near there that we used to go to sometimes," Emma continued. "Can we go there instead to talk?"
"Um.sure," Donna said as she began to change directions to head back to their old neighborhood. The pair was silent for the fifteen-minute ride to their old Georgetown neighborhood. When she and Josh had gotten engaged, they had lived with Emma in Josh's old apartment. Once Josh decided to run for the Senate and Donna became pregnant with Natalie, they had moved to Connecticut but that apartment and that neighborhood had been the first place they'd lived together as a family. 'Maybe that's a good thing that she wants to go back there,' Donna thought, pulling into a parking space on the sidewalk. "We're here," Donna said unnecessarily to fill the silent void. Emma didn't say anything back, just got out the car and waited on the sidewalk for her mother as she pushed herself out of the car.
"Does it feel funny?" Emma inquired as she and Donna began walking towards the nearly deserted park area.
"Does what feel funny?" she replied, grateful that Emma seemed to be opening up slightly.
Emma pointed to her stomach. "Having two babies inside you instead of one," she clarified.
"A little," Donna answered. "I can feel them moving around more than I did with you and Natalie."
"Who moved the most?"
Donna smiled at her inquisitive child. "Actually, I think it might have been you."
"Really?" Emma said, smiling a little.
"Yep, you were always a big ball of energy that couldn't be contained even when you were inside me."
Emma began to look contemplative, like she was in deep thought. "Did my birth Daddy like to feel me move?" she finally asked hesitantly.
"What?" Donna said, not sure she'd heard her.
"Dad.Daddy puts his hand on your stomach a lot because he says he likes to feel the twins move," she elaborated. "Did my birth Daddy like to do that with me?"
Donna stopped walking and pulled on Emma's hand, directing her to a nearby bench. She turned the little girl to face her and prayed fervently that she would do this right. "Emma," Donna began seriously. "I was very young when I had you; I was younger than Zoey was when she had little Kevin. Your birth Daddy was young too and baby, sometimes when people are young, they're not always ready to be a mommy or a daddy. It's a lot of responsibility to be someone's parent and your birth Daddy wasn't ready for that." 'So much so, he wanted you to be a pile of biological waste in the bottom of a dumpster,' she thought to herself, still very bitter and angry over Ben's selfishness all those years ago, though she would never in a million years say that to Emma. "Do you understand that?"
"I think so," Emma nodded slowly.
"It doesn't mean that he doesn't love you," Donna said ardently. "He does love you, Emma. I promise you that."
"He just wasn't ready to be my Daddy."
"Yeah," Donna confirmed. "And by the time he was ready, you already had a Daddy."
"But you were ready to be a mommy?"
"Yes I was," Donna simply said, smoothing Emma's blonde locks. "I was so ready to be your mommy and you have no idea how happy it makes me to be a mommy."
"What was he like?" Emma asked curiously.
"Your birth Daddy?" The child nodded tentatively. "Um, his name is Ben and he's a doctor."
"What kind of doctor?"
"One who delivers babies. He actually delivered your cousin Shawn." Though Donna neglected to mention she'd been there when it happened, trying to force Ben to sign away his full paternal rights so Josh could adopt her.
"Really?" she said, smiling.
"Yeah he did," Donna continued. She thought of what other appropriate things there were to tell her about Ben. Unfortunately, there weren't that many. "He likes to read mystery books, he's excellent at Monopoly, and he doesn't like to eat fish. He could be very serious sometimes and other times very fun loving."
"Do I look like him at all?"
"Not particularly. He has very dark hair and dark eyes. You look more like my daddy and me. But you do have a birthmark that's just like his."
"The one on my hip?" she asked, pointing to her left side. "The one that looks sort of like a walnut?"
"Yep, that's just like Ben's," Donna told her. "And you know how when you get nervous or anxious, you always bite your thumbnail? He used to do the exact same thing."
"Do you know.do you know where he is?" Emma asked, looking at the ground.
Donna pursed her lips together, not liking where this was going. "Yes, I know how to find him," she replied hesitantly. She looked carefully at her daughter and took both of her hands. "Emma, do you want to meet him?"
The child shrugged. "I don't know," she answered quietly. Cautiously, she looked back over at her mother. "Mommy?"
"Yeah baby?"
"I don't want two daddies," Emma admitted apologetically. "I just want to have Daddy be my real Daddy." She ducked her head forlornly. "I'm sorry."
"Oh Emma," Donna chuckled soothingly, hugging Emma to her. "That's okay. That's perfectly fine."
"Daddy told me last night that he loved me and Natty and you so much that sometimes his heart hurt because there was so much love in it," Emma said against her mother's chest. "And that's how I feel too and I don't think I have room in it for another daddy."
"That's fine," Donna said, kissing her head. "I'm sure your birth Daddy knows that you love your real Daddy very, very much. He wouldn't mind you only having one daddy as long as you're happy."
"Because he still loves me, even though I don't know him and he doesn't know me?"
"Yes." Donna held her for a few moments longer, feeling a huge weight lifted off her shoulder. She couldn't wait to talk to Josh later tonight. Or maybe. "Say Emma? Do you want to go see Daddy now at work?"
"Really?" Emma pulled back eagerly, her eyes shining. "We can? Right now?"
"Sure," Donna said, getting up slowly, thinking that Josh wouldn't mind moving around an appointment or two for a visit today. "Let's go quick before dinner," Donna said as they headed back to the car. "Your new little sisters would be mad at Mommy if we missed dinner."
Emma giggled, taking her mother's hand. "What are we going to call them?" she asked happily.
"The twins? Well, the one that's born first is going to be named Audrey Joan," Donna told her.
"That's so pretty!" Emma gushed. "What about the other one?"
"You know, Daddy and I haven't decided yet." Donna winked at her. "Why? Do you have any suggestions?"
"Well." Emma hedged. "There's a first name that I like. But you don't have to call her it if you don't want to."
"What is it?"
"Alexandria," she said, accenting the last two syllables.
"Where'd you come up with that name?"
"I don't know," Emma shrugged. "I think I read it in a book somewhere. It's really nice isn't it? Like, 'it could be the name of a princess' kind of nice."
"Alexandria.Alexandria," Donna mused out loud, finding herself quickly falling under its spell.
"Do you like it?"
"I do," Donna replied slowly. "But, Emma, that is kind of a big name for a little baby, don't you think? I mean it's five whole syllables. That's a lot."
"Hmm," the child thought, crinkling her eyebrows. "I hadn't thought of that." Then, inspiration struck. "What about Lexi? That way her name would still be Alexandria but we could call her Lexi for short."
"Lexi and Audrey Lyman," Donna smiled down at her child as the reached the car. "I think you've got a future in this naming thing, baby."
"Thanks," Emma said as she opened her door. Before she got in, she turned back to her mother who was on the other side of the car. "Mommy?"
"Yes?"
She grinned sweetly. "It makes me really happy that you're my mommy too."
"Hello?" Josh called out as he shucked off his coat in the foyer of his house. It was just past seven o'clock and he'd arrived home after a particularly good day at work. He'd help secure two votes for an upcoming education bill and he'd tapped a segment for NBC's Dateline, which would air next week. Not many freshman Senators got primetime coverage on their issues and even fewer were able to get Tom Brokaw to return their phone calls, but Josh was incredibly popular across the nation. He was the most recognized non-Party leader working in government and he took advantage of that distinction. Of course, most people just remembered him as the man who got shot with the President and as uncomfortable as it made him sometimes, if reminding people that got his message to others he was willing to do it.
"Hello? Anyone here?" he called through the living room, laying his suit coat and briefcase on an armchair.
"In the kitchen, Mr. Lyman," a booming female voice with a thick Irish accent bellowed from the back of the house. He made his way back there to discover Natalie seated on top of the newspaper-covered island. The little girl was wearing a huge smock and even more paint on her face than was on the construction paper she was working with. Seated next to her was her new nanny, Nanny Gilroy.
Nanny Gilroy was Siobhan Gilroy, a fifty-two year-old Irish woman with a stocky build, snow-white hair, and the sharpest pair of green eyes this side of the Emerald Isles. She was a widow with no children and she'd come highly recommended by the wife of a Congressman that Donna was friendly with. She had stayed with the last family she worked with for almost twenty years, and by all accounts had been completely devoted to the children she'd cared for. They'd grown up though, of course, and Nanny Gilroy had looked for nearly three months for new employment before she had heard from the Lyman's. They exchanged a few phone calls before Donna invited her over to meet them and the girls and the connection was instantaneous; Emma and Natalie had both raved about her and it only took Josh and Donna two days to do a quick, thorough reference check before Nanny Gilroy had been hired two weeks ago. She'd moved into the house with them, taking one of the spare bedrooms, and both Josh and Donna were amazed at how easily she seemed to fit into their family. She watched the girls whenever Donna was working or in New York and also helped with the housekeeping. She was an absolute blessing for them all and Donna was thankful that Josh had been persistent, though she could never tell him that.
"Daddy!" Natalie shouted when she saw her father. "Come see pictures!" she beckoned to him.
"Well I see someone has entered her Blue Period," Josh said, wrapping his arms around his daughter and showering her head with kisses.
"I made a monkey!" Natalie gleefully informed him, pointing to a giant blue blob on one paper.
"Wow, that's beautiful," he praised her, lifting her up and bringing her to the sink to wash her up. She squealed loudly and splashed her father without mercy while he loved every minute of it. "Come on, sweetheart, you don't want Mommy to come home and find that you've been replaced by a walking mass of blue paint, do you?"
"Mrs. Lyman phoned a little a while ago, sir," Nanny Gilroy broke in as she cleaned up the rest of Natalie's mess. "She missed her train and had to take the late shuttle. She'll be back by eleven or so." Donna had gone to New York for her last monthly staff meeting before she started her maternity leave. She would still write from home but at almost six months pregnant, with twins, her doctor didn't want her traveling unnecessarily.
"Okay then, I guess it's you, me, Emma, and Nanny Gilroy for dinner then," Josh said to Natalie, wiping off her hands with a dishrag.
"Uh sir," Nanny Gilroy said cautiously, motioning with her head towards the doorway. Curiously, Josh strapped Natalie into her booster seat at the table and gave her some crayons and paper.
"Make me a masterpiece," he commanded playfully, squeezing her nose as she blew him a raspberry. He walked over to Nanny Gilroy and asked, "What's wrong?"
"I think perhaps something happened to Emma at school today, sir," she informed him gently. "When she came home from school, she went right up to her room without a peep and hasn't come down since. I've gone up to check on her but she won't tell me what's the matter."
"Could she just be coming down with something?" he guessed, furrowing his brows at the uncharacteristic behavior of his oldest.
"I checked her temperature and it was normal," Nanny Gilroy offered. "And if I may say, sir, she doesn't look sick; she looks.sad and confused."
Josh nodded thoughtfully. "And she wouldn't talk about it at all?"
"I've looked in on her several times and every time, she's just sitting by her window, looking out at nothing."
"Okay," he murmured, mulling over all the possibilities in his head. "I'm gonna go talk to her. Can you feed Natalie, get her settled down?"
"Of course, sir," she nodded and set about caring for Natalie while Josh climbed the stairs to Emma's room.
He knocked twice on her door and waited for a reply. Hearing none, he slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open. "Em? You in here?" he asked glancing around. She wasn't sitting by her window anymore and he didn't see her anywhere else. Then he noticed the small lump curled up on her side on top of the twin bed. "Emma? Are you asleep?" he whispered, softly situating himself next to her near the headboard.
"No," she feebly whispered, not moving. She was holding her favorite stuffed dog, Petey, tightly to her chest, and from the raspy quality of her voice he could tell that she'd been crying.
'Okay, something is definitely wrong,' he thought worriedly. Emma was not a child who cried often; she exuded happiness and cheerfulness nearly all the time, and even when she was sad or angry, she wasn't prone to tears. Something had obviously happened to her and whatever it was it hadn't been good.
"Honey, what's wrong?" he asked her softly, reaching to rub her back. He felt her tense under his touch but she didn't day anything, so he continued. "Did something happen at school, or on the bus?" Still no response. "Did you have a fight with one of your friends?" Still nothing, and now Josh was starting to panic. He knew that Donna would be calmer if she were dealing with this with him, but Josh was always jumping to the worst-case scenarios when something happened to the kids, and all of the scenarios he thought of now terrified the hell out of him. "Emma, turn around and look at me," he ordered, trying to gently roll on to her back.
"No!" she said forcefully, shrugging away from him and remaining as she was.
"Emma, what happened?" he asked her again, struggling to remain calm. He didn't want to upset her anymore but right now, her behavior was terrifying him.
"Leave me alone!"
"I won't leave you alone like this. Something happened to you today and it's upsetting you and I don't like it so you'll tell me what happened right now, young lady," he ordered, raising his voice as he tried to make her look at him again.
"No!" she cried defiantly, still fighting him.
"Emma Antonia, I am your father and I'm telling you to do something so--"
"No you're not!" she declared, sitting up and looking him straight on.
"I'm not what?" he asked, holding onto her shoulders as gently as he could.
"You're not my father!" she cried, pulling away from him again with tears in her eyes.
Though he didn't really remember the circumstances, he remembered the pain of being shot. He recalled a feeling of deep burning pain in his chest, like someone was repeatedly pounding at it with a searing hammer. He imagined it must have been like an explosion had occurred inside of him, with tiny parts of him scattered every which way, while the empty space inside of him was occupied by a constant throbbing. In short, it had been the worst pain imaginable, a pain so terrible he'd convinced himself that nothing else on this Earth could hurt him that much; he'd been wrong. Hearing those four words come out of his daughter's mouth, it was like a pain he could never have contemplated existed until now.
Even as he felt everything inside of him collapse and fall apart, his mind could still make out Emma's pitiful sniffling and her slight hiccups. Mustering up all the strength he had left, Josh asked her, "What.what do you mean, Emma?"
"You're not my Daddy, my real Daddy anyways," she said calmer than before, not looking at him.
Listening to her repeat the words didn't make it any easier, but at least now he knew he hadn't misinterpreted her. "What makes you say that?" he asked, needing an explanation as to where this was coming from. In the time that he'd known her and loved her, she'd never once made a mention of her biological father, Ben Peterson. He had been the infamous Dr. Freeride and after Donna had given birth to their child, she gave Emma to her own grandmother to raise while she worked in DC. Emma had moved to DC to live with them once her mother and Josh became engaged and ever since then, she'd always referred to Josh as her father. He'd adopted her shortly before being elected to the Senate and had always treated her like his own, so it stunned him for her to be saying these things.
Using her arm to wipe at her eyes, she continued to stare at her little stuffed animal as if it held all the answers to her questions. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked up at him with her big blue eyes, her mother's eyes. "At school today," she began quietly, "in art class, we started working on our family trees. We had to put the names of the people in our family and how they're related to us on these paper leaves, and then hang them on our trees. I finished all of my leaves and started putting them on the branches when Tommy Forrester pointed at your name and asked me, 'Who's name is that?' and I told him it was my Daddy's." She swallowed hard and he could see her lower lip starting to quiver as she remembered the encounter. He ached to hold her in his arms, to protect her from the pain she must be feeling, but he knew she wouldn't accept it just then. So he impatiently waited for her to continue. "And then he said that you weren't my Daddy, not my real one. I told him he was stupid and that he was really wrong about it. But he said he'd watched the news with his parents a few nights ago and then his parents said that you weren't my real Daddy. You talked to the reporter person and then afterwards, he heard his mommy and daddy say that Mommy had me before she met you." She stared up at him hopefully, desperately. "Is it true?"
Josh would have sold his soul to the Devil if he could have lied to her at that moment. If he could tell her that Tommy Forrester had been playing a mean joke on her and of course she was his and had been from the moment she was born, just like her sister. He would have killed himself and almost anyone else if he could say he was her biological father, just so she wouldn't look at him with such deep-seeded pain in her eyes. What he really wanted, though, was to go back in time and turn down every single solitary interview request he'd ever given. If only he could have foreseen this happening one day, he would never have opened himself or his family up for that type of scrutiny. But he couldn't, no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't undo time or genetics and he couldn't lie to her either. So his only option left was honesty.
"Yeah sweetie," Josh said regretfully, nodding slowly as he carefully selected his words. "You were already born when I met your Mommy." He watched as Emma lost her battle against her tears, as she bowed her chin to her chest and as her shoulders began to shake. He just wanted to cry along with her but he knew he couldn't. Instead, he gently cupped her face in his hands and forced her to look up at her. "But that doesn't mean I'm not your father, Emma. I didn't need to be there when you were born to be your father. I've been your father since the minute I saw you and I will be until the day I die, I swear."
"But it's not the same," she whimpered as if she hadn't heard him.
"What isn't the same?"
"It's not the same as Natty," she tried to clarify. "You don't love me the same way that you love her. Because she's yours and I'm not."
That did it. He could no longer hold back the tears that came with seeing his child in such despair. Using more strength than he liked, he pulled her into his lap and rocked her gently, smoothing her hair as she cried into his shirt. When he finally reestablished some control, he whispered in her ear, "Emma, I need you to listen me right now." Slowly, she pulled back from him and looked up at him. Tenderly stroking her reddened cheek he said, "I love you more than anything in this world. There is absolutely nothing that I wouldn't do for you. The same goes for Natalie and for the twins that Mommy is having and for any other child that we may have." He swallowed around the lump in his throat before continuing, "You're my daughter, Emma. My child, my first born, and I love you so much that sometimes it makes my heart hurt because there's so much love in it for you. It doesn't matter to me one bit that I haven't been with you since you were born; what matters to me is that I'm going to be your father for the rest of your life. That's how a father is supposed to love his children and that's how much I love you."
She sniffled quietly, wiping her nose with her shirt. "So much that your heart hurts?" she questioned weakly.
"And then some," he tried to assure her. "What could have ever made you think that I could love you any less than your sister?"
"Tommy," she told him bitterly, scrunching up her nose in distaste.
"Do you want me to go to school with you tomorrow and steal his lunch money?" he tried to joke with her. He thanked every deity he could think of when she cracked a small smile and shook her head. But almost as soon as it appeared it disappeared to be replaced by a questioning stare.
"What do I call him?" Emma asked, switching topics.
"Call who?"
"The Daddy that was there when I was born," she elaborated, biting at her thumbnail.
"Um," Josh began, trying not to feel the normal resentment he usually felt whenever he let himself think of Ben Peterson. "Well, the correct term is he's your biological father."
"Biological father," she repeated slowly. "What is his name?"
"Ben," he replied quietly. "His name is Ben."
"Do you know him?"
"No, I don't."
"Do you know anything about him?"
"I know that he's a doctor," he told her, being careful of what information he gave her. She really was too smart for her own good sometimes and Josh and Donna had to be very careful about what she was exposed to. "But that's it really. Your Mommy didn't ever talk about him with me a whole lot so I can't tell you much about him."
"Can Mommy tell me?" she asked innocently.
He tried not to feel jealous. He knew it was a natural reaction for Emma to have, for any child, to want to know where they came from. But no matter how much he rationalized it to himself, he couldn't help but feel that perhaps if he had been a better father, she wouldn't have this curiosity for information about her birth father. "Yeah, she probably could," he finally said. "But she's not going to be home until way past your bedtime and you have school tomorrow. I'll tell her what we talked about when she gets home and tomorrow she can answer your questions for you. Can you wait until then to talk to her?" She nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, good." He glanced at her bedside clock and saw that nearly an hour had passed. Nanny Gilroy would be getting Natalie ready for bed, so that meant he and Emma could have some more quality time together. "It's time for dinner, just you and me," he said, standing up with her in his arms. She was getting to the point where she was almost too big to carry but that didn't matter to Josh, especially tonight. "I'll make you anything you want, you name it."
"Grilled cheese with tomatoes and bacon?" she asked, practically salivating at the thought.
"You got it," he told her as they made their way downstairs, their relationship a little fractured but still solid.
Later that night, after the kids and Nanny Gilroy were tucked into bed, Josh decided it was finally a good time to indulge in his sorrows. Retrieving a sixteen year-old bottle of scotch from his bottom desk drawer he wandered into the family room, picking up a glass on the way. There he began to rifle through the collection of videocassette tapes Donna kept in the drawer under the television until he found the one he wanted. He popped it into the VCR, pressed 'Play', and settled back against the sofa.
The screen was black for a few seconds and then the image of a cozy living room appeared on the screen. The camerawork was shaky and the sound quality poor but Josh wasn't looking for a cinematic experience; he was looking for something more meaningful.
"Come here, my darling," a delicate female voice said off-camera, a voice graced with a familiar Italian accent.
"Ab ba la bal," a tiny, cheerful voice gurgled loudly. And then there she was. Emma, at six months old: crawling on her great-grandmother's carpet towards the camera. Her bright blue eyes gleaned with joy as her little arms and legs carried her forward. Josh sipped his drink and smiled softly at her face, at the milestone he hadn't been able to be a part of.
"That's my big girl," the woman's voice broke in. The camera panned to Donna's grandmother, Mena Falansio, the woman who had raised Emma until she was almost five years old, as she scooped Emma up from behind. "I am so proud of you. That was your first crawl," she cooed to the child, cuddling her to her shoulder. Mena turned her towards the camera and waved one of her little arms. "Can you say hello to your Mommy? Can you say we miss you but we hope you're having fun on the campaign?"
"An um mh mh," Baby Emma chortled, gnawing on her great-grandmother's hair. The camera zoomed in on her face and Josh paused the movie. He stared at the cherubic face, frozen in a time and a moment when Josh hadn't been her father, hadn't even known she existed. Donna had not told anyone about Emma until the child came to live with them and in some small way, Josh resented his wife for keeping her from him. They hadn't been together at the time but he always felt he'd been robbed of a chance to share something with her. Of course he couldn't truly be angry at Donna for it; she'd missed so much of Emma's early years because of her life in Washington and technically, that was because of Josh. How could he blame her from keeping Emma from him when he'd inadvertently kept Emma from her?
"Josh?" he heard from the doorway. "You conscious?"
'Speak of the devil,' he idly thought. "I am alive, Donnatella," he sighed, slightly slurring his words. "Just a little inebriated."
"Ah," she replied as she lumbered towards him. Her stomach was highly pronounced under her sweater and one hand was supporting her lower back. Twins may be two times the joy of one baby but they were also two times the weight. "Rough day on the Hill?"
"No," he said cryptically, taking another sip of his drink. "Not at work." She was standing in front of him now and he pulled at her waist until her stomach was at eye level with him. He nuzzled his face against the wool of her sweater and he could hear the faint heartbeats of his two newest daughters. "How are you two doing in there?" Josh asked them. "Slowly driving your mother insane again?"
Donna smiled and ran her fingers through Josh's hair. "They've declared a ceasefire in their battle against Mommy's internal organs," she told him. She noticed the scotch on the coffee table and she rubbed his neck supportively. He never brought out the scotch unless he was particularly morose. "What happened?" she questioned gently.
His response surprised her. "Am I a good father?" he asked, still leaning his head against her stomach.
She immediately pulled back and took his face in her hands. "Of course you are," she said passionately, making him look in her eyes. Lowering herself gingerly, she sat on the coffee table and continued her diatribe. "There is no one on this Earth that I would rather have children with and there is no one that I can think of that tries as hard as you do to be a good father. How could you ever think that you weren't--"
"Emma told me I wasn't her father," he interrupted stoically. He didn't look at her but he felt her let go of his face so he downed the rest of his drink and he reached over to the bottle to refill it. "She said I wasn't her father the way I'm Natalie's and she wanted to know about her birth father."
"How?" Donna asked him quietly, stunned. She stared at the spot on the couch were Josh had just been sitting as she felt the news wash over her like a tidal wave.
"One of her classmates saw a news interview I did and his parents made a point of mentioning in front of him that you had Emma before we even met," he answered bitterly.
"Oh God," Donna moaned, laying her head in her hands. This was not a situation she was prepared for. She knew it was foolish but she had always hoped Emma would never have any questions about Ben, never want to know anything about him. And she especially wasn't ready for her daughter to be asking these questions when she was only eight. 'How do I explain to her he didn't even want her born?' Donna thought, horrified. "Was she.was she upset?" Donna asked her husband.
Josh chuckled dourly. "She spent all afternoon in her room alternately trying not to let anyone see her cry and trying to convince herself that we hadn't been lying to her."
"We haven't lied to her," Donna rebuked determinedly. "You're her father, you have been for years and you will be for the rest of her life."
"She thought that I loved her less because I wasn't her birth father," he said dejectedly, collapsing back on the sofa in front of Donna. He shook his head in disbelief and Donna's heart broke for him. Emma meant the world to him and to have her not understand that couldn't have been easy for him to deal with. "How could she ever think.? What did I do that made her believe.?" he trailed off and went to take another sip of his drink but Donna pulled the glass away from him and sat it beside her.
"Josh," she began ardently, "if you had to you would hold up a gun to any person on this planet, myself included, and pull the trigger if it meant protecting Emma from harm." He didn't stop her to disagree so she continued. "You would do the same for Natalie and the same for these babies. How do expect a child to understand that kind of love and devotion?"
"They couldn't," he whispered. "I don't even understand why I do the things I do for them sometimes." He rubbed his hand over his face tiredly and sighed. "I know that she's just confused about everything now and she can't really understand what she's saying, but it just killed me to think that I hadn't done enough for her somehow."
"I know," Donna soothed, gliding her fingers through his hair. They sat there silently for a moment, taking comfort from one another as they faced this latest challenge. "What did she want to know about Ben?" Donna finally inquired.
"Just stuff like his name and what she should call him," he shrugged listlessly. "I couldn't really tell her much." He stared at her thoughtfully. "You know that you have to, right?"
"Yeah," she nodded, going to sit next to him. She rested her head on his shoulders and felt him wrap his arm around her.
"What are you going to tell her?"
"Whatever she wants to know, within reason."
"How come you never talk about him with me?" Josh asked, saying out loud what he had wondered for some time.
"I don't know," she replied tiredly. "There was never really any need to. He wasn't a part of my life that I look back on fondly. The only worthwhile thing he ever did for me was Emma, so." She paused for a moment.
"What? You can tell me," he prodded her gently.
"Ben was the first man that I ever really loved, or I should say that I thought I ever really loved, outside my family," she admitted. "And he just used me time and again and every time that I had had enough and left, I always ended up going back. I relied on him so much emotionally and I.I didn't want you to think I was weak. For staying with him as long as I did."
"I'd never think that about you," he promised, kissing her forehead.
"Really?"
"Maybe you gave into him sometimes but when it really mattered, you stood up to him."
"Why do you think that?"
He pulled back slightly and smiled at her. "Because we have Emma."
"Yes, we do," she agreed, nodding slowly as her eyes drifted over to the television screen and Emma's toothless grin. She pushed herself off the couch and held a hand out to him. "Bedtime," she decreed. He willingly complied and they headed off to bed.
The next afternoon, Donna was sitting in her car in front of Emma's school, waiting for her daughter. She had no idea how Emma was going to react to what they had to discuss today. Would she want to see Ben, have a relationship with him? Would she just be completely indifferent to him? Would she be angry with her mother for not telling her? Donna wasn't sure; she wasn't sure if this was the right thing for Emma or for them as a family, but there was no turning back at this point.
Emma emerged from the building a few minutes after the bell rang and immediately spotted her mother's car. She walked slowly towards it, her shoulders hunched and her expression preoccupied. She opened the door and climbed into the seat, buckling her seatbelt without a word to her mother.
"Hi baby," Donna tried to open up communication.
"Hi," Emma replied softly, looking down at her mittens.
"How was school?" Donna asked as she started the car.
"Okay," she said in the same tone.
'Enough beating around the bush, Donna,' she thought to herself. "Emma, I know you're upset about what happened yesterday," Donna told her as she eased into traffic. "But you and I need to talk about this and we can't do that if you're giving me one word answers to my questions."
"Are we going home now?" Emma asked suddenly, looking at her mother.
"Why? Do you not want to go home right now?"
"Do you remember when I first came to live with you and we lived with.Daddy in that apartment?"
"Yeah," Donna said, noting nervously Emma's hesitation on referring to Josh as her father.
"There was a park near there that we used to go to sometimes," Emma continued. "Can we go there instead to talk?"
"Um.sure," Donna said as she began to change directions to head back to their old neighborhood. The pair was silent for the fifteen-minute ride to their old Georgetown neighborhood. When she and Josh had gotten engaged, they had lived with Emma in Josh's old apartment. Once Josh decided to run for the Senate and Donna became pregnant with Natalie, they had moved to Connecticut but that apartment and that neighborhood had been the first place they'd lived together as a family. 'Maybe that's a good thing that she wants to go back there,' Donna thought, pulling into a parking space on the sidewalk. "We're here," Donna said unnecessarily to fill the silent void. Emma didn't say anything back, just got out the car and waited on the sidewalk for her mother as she pushed herself out of the car.
"Does it feel funny?" Emma inquired as she and Donna began walking towards the nearly deserted park area.
"Does what feel funny?" she replied, grateful that Emma seemed to be opening up slightly.
Emma pointed to her stomach. "Having two babies inside you instead of one," she clarified.
"A little," Donna answered. "I can feel them moving around more than I did with you and Natalie."
"Who moved the most?"
Donna smiled at her inquisitive child. "Actually, I think it might have been you."
"Really?" Emma said, smiling a little.
"Yep, you were always a big ball of energy that couldn't be contained even when you were inside me."
Emma began to look contemplative, like she was in deep thought. "Did my birth Daddy like to feel me move?" she finally asked hesitantly.
"What?" Donna said, not sure she'd heard her.
"Dad.Daddy puts his hand on your stomach a lot because he says he likes to feel the twins move," she elaborated. "Did my birth Daddy like to do that with me?"
Donna stopped walking and pulled on Emma's hand, directing her to a nearby bench. She turned the little girl to face her and prayed fervently that she would do this right. "Emma," Donna began seriously. "I was very young when I had you; I was younger than Zoey was when she had little Kevin. Your birth Daddy was young too and baby, sometimes when people are young, they're not always ready to be a mommy or a daddy. It's a lot of responsibility to be someone's parent and your birth Daddy wasn't ready for that." 'So much so, he wanted you to be a pile of biological waste in the bottom of a dumpster,' she thought to herself, still very bitter and angry over Ben's selfishness all those years ago, though she would never in a million years say that to Emma. "Do you understand that?"
"I think so," Emma nodded slowly.
"It doesn't mean that he doesn't love you," Donna said ardently. "He does love you, Emma. I promise you that."
"He just wasn't ready to be my Daddy."
"Yeah," Donna confirmed. "And by the time he was ready, you already had a Daddy."
"But you were ready to be a mommy?"
"Yes I was," Donna simply said, smoothing Emma's blonde locks. "I was so ready to be your mommy and you have no idea how happy it makes me to be a mommy."
"What was he like?" Emma asked curiously.
"Your birth Daddy?" The child nodded tentatively. "Um, his name is Ben and he's a doctor."
"What kind of doctor?"
"One who delivers babies. He actually delivered your cousin Shawn." Though Donna neglected to mention she'd been there when it happened, trying to force Ben to sign away his full paternal rights so Josh could adopt her.
"Really?" she said, smiling.
"Yeah he did," Donna continued. She thought of what other appropriate things there were to tell her about Ben. Unfortunately, there weren't that many. "He likes to read mystery books, he's excellent at Monopoly, and he doesn't like to eat fish. He could be very serious sometimes and other times very fun loving."
"Do I look like him at all?"
"Not particularly. He has very dark hair and dark eyes. You look more like my daddy and me. But you do have a birthmark that's just like his."
"The one on my hip?" she asked, pointing to her left side. "The one that looks sort of like a walnut?"
"Yep, that's just like Ben's," Donna told her. "And you know how when you get nervous or anxious, you always bite your thumbnail? He used to do the exact same thing."
"Do you know.do you know where he is?" Emma asked, looking at the ground.
Donna pursed her lips together, not liking where this was going. "Yes, I know how to find him," she replied hesitantly. She looked carefully at her daughter and took both of her hands. "Emma, do you want to meet him?"
The child shrugged. "I don't know," she answered quietly. Cautiously, she looked back over at her mother. "Mommy?"
"Yeah baby?"
"I don't want two daddies," Emma admitted apologetically. "I just want to have Daddy be my real Daddy." She ducked her head forlornly. "I'm sorry."
"Oh Emma," Donna chuckled soothingly, hugging Emma to her. "That's okay. That's perfectly fine."
"Daddy told me last night that he loved me and Natty and you so much that sometimes his heart hurt because there was so much love in it," Emma said against her mother's chest. "And that's how I feel too and I don't think I have room in it for another daddy."
"That's fine," Donna said, kissing her head. "I'm sure your birth Daddy knows that you love your real Daddy very, very much. He wouldn't mind you only having one daddy as long as you're happy."
"Because he still loves me, even though I don't know him and he doesn't know me?"
"Yes." Donna held her for a few moments longer, feeling a huge weight lifted off her shoulder. She couldn't wait to talk to Josh later tonight. Or maybe. "Say Emma? Do you want to go see Daddy now at work?"
"Really?" Emma pulled back eagerly, her eyes shining. "We can? Right now?"
"Sure," Donna said, getting up slowly, thinking that Josh wouldn't mind moving around an appointment or two for a visit today. "Let's go quick before dinner," Donna said as they headed back to the car. "Your new little sisters would be mad at Mommy if we missed dinner."
Emma giggled, taking her mother's hand. "What are we going to call them?" she asked happily.
"The twins? Well, the one that's born first is going to be named Audrey Joan," Donna told her.
"That's so pretty!" Emma gushed. "What about the other one?"
"You know, Daddy and I haven't decided yet." Donna winked at her. "Why? Do you have any suggestions?"
"Well." Emma hedged. "There's a first name that I like. But you don't have to call her it if you don't want to."
"What is it?"
"Alexandria," she said, accenting the last two syllables.
"Where'd you come up with that name?"
"I don't know," Emma shrugged. "I think I read it in a book somewhere. It's really nice isn't it? Like, 'it could be the name of a princess' kind of nice."
"Alexandria.Alexandria," Donna mused out loud, finding herself quickly falling under its spell.
"Do you like it?"
"I do," Donna replied slowly. "But, Emma, that is kind of a big name for a little baby, don't you think? I mean it's five whole syllables. That's a lot."
"Hmm," the child thought, crinkling her eyebrows. "I hadn't thought of that." Then, inspiration struck. "What about Lexi? That way her name would still be Alexandria but we could call her Lexi for short."
"Lexi and Audrey Lyman," Donna smiled down at her child as the reached the car. "I think you've got a future in this naming thing, baby."
"Thanks," Emma said as she opened her door. Before she got in, she turned back to her mother who was on the other side of the car. "Mommy?"
"Yes?"
She grinned sweetly. "It makes me really happy that you're my mommy too."