There are three chaps in what might have been the base for the sequel so this story end at 13 chaps. Thanks for those who have enjoyed it. xxxx
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11
"Come feel this," I said.
"Is she moving around?" Jack walked over, holding his hand out to me.
I took his hand, placing it on Tosh's rotund belly. Jack frowned for a moment, apparently not feeling anything. Tosh shifted his hand until it was in the right spot. Then his eyes lit up as he felt the little bulge pressing up against him from inside her belly.
"Feel that? She's practicing her ninja kicks in there." I smiled, proud of the little life growing inside of Tosh and glad that Jack had the chance to feel her move. Then Tosh winced in pain when the little tyke kicked me in a sensitive spot. She had to sit down, taking slow, deep breaths.
"You okay?" Jack asked. "Was that a contraction?"
Tosh smiled at him, shaking her head. "No. She's just moving around a lot."
I wasn't quite ready yet, though she'd been having some Braxton Hicks contractions for a few weeks already. But every time she started feeling any aches or pains, my husband got excited. He already had a bag packed with clothes and everything else we'd need for our trip to the hospital, even though the due date was more than a month away.
I could tell he was anxious for our little girl to be here already. I supposed that I couldn't blame him. I certainly couldn't wait for her to arrive either.
"Maybe you should both take the day off," Jack suggested. I sighed at him, giving him an affectionate smile. He'd been doting on her with me for months, and trying to get me to slow down before the baby arrived so I would be ready for an emergency. But I kept telling him that I didn't want to stay home from work just to smother the poor girl. She had plenty of opportunities to sit down and rest when needed, and being active helped make her feel better. Sitting at home for the next month would have absolutely driven me crazy let alone her. Poor Tosh, I owe her so much. She had moved in with us, carried the slug and coming to work with me was her only amusement.
"I'll be fine," Tosh said.
I smiled at her and knew she wanted some peace and quiet, not Jack fussing over her all the time. Owen was doing enough of that.
"Besides, I've got that new exhibit starting up in a couple of weeks, and there's too much work to be done." "I said softly, "She is such a help with the cataloguing."
"Isn't there someone else who could do it?"
"Nope." I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then grabbed my keys and my bag as Tosh rushed to get her coat. "And if I want to be able to take my maternity leave, I've got to get this all done before the little ninja arrives. I'll see you when I get home."
"All right," Jack said. "Call me if you need anything. Or if Tosh has any contractions."
"I will," I said, though I knew I wouldn't be calling him over every little twinge, even if that's what he wanted. I might be a first-time Taddy, and I had to admit that I'd gotten paranoid a few times about the changes Tosh was going through and all the unusual aches and pains, but she knew enough to tell the difference between false contractions and real ones. Our doctor and I had discussed it several times already, and I had an app on my phone ready to go so I could start timing contractions when they arrived, so we'd know the difference between the irregular contractions of false labour and the regular, steadily increasing contractions of the real thing.
I drove down to the Brandenburg Railroad Museum. I expected a pretty slow day today. It was getting close to Thanksgiving, which wasn't the busiest time for trains. A lot of our school trips came earlier in the year, or else later in the spring, when the weather was nice enough for the outdoor portions of the railroad tours. And school trips were easily our single biggest source of guests at the museum, so when there weren't any school trips, it was usually a slow day.
I parked in the employee parking lot and walked around to the main entrance to drop Tosh in the back office where I knew she would snooze on the sofa more than do any imputing, since I had to head upstairs to do some work on the exhibits in the tower. The recently renovated clock tower ticked quietly overhead, reminding me of the hard work I'd done last year, with Jack and JJ's help, in getting it repaired. There had been a couple of minor issues in the way the clock ran, and we'd had to call the repairman out a few times to keep up with the maintenance on it, but for the most part, it had been running smoothly ever since we got it fixed. The publicity surrounding the clock had died out a long while ago, but we still got some visitors now and then who came by to head upstairs and look at the display that showed the clock's inner workings, along with a visual timeline of the clock's original construction, then the breakdown it had suffered decades before, and finally its recent repair. It was easily my favourite exhibit in the museum, considering I'd been the one responsible for raising the money and getting it repaired.
I spent most of the morning working on the setup for our newest exhibit, which was scheduled to begin after Thanksgiving. Every year, for the holidays, the museum put up a special exhibit of Christmas decorations and model trains, including some original Lionel electric toy trains from the early 1900s. It was a big hit with the families that came out to the museum around the holiday season, and with the small subculture of model train enthusiasts that frequented the museum.
Around lunchtime, my stomach (and my unborn baby judging from Tosh's text messages about dying from hunger)was grumbling. I sent my work crew on their lunch break, and I was about to head down to the employee break room, when my phone chimed with an incoming call. I recognized the ringtone as my Google App's video chat, and I immediately knew just who was calling.
Since the room I was working in was closed and no one was around, I pulled out my phone and answered the video call.
"Hey, JJ," I said, smiling into the camera.
My stepson was one of the only people I knew—aside from my mother, who only called on weekends—who used video chat instead of old-fashioned phone calls, and he'd been hooked on them since he got his first smart phone for his birthday a couple of months ago. I still didn't think a ten year old was old enough to have his own phone, but his real mother had gotten it for him, and it certainly wasn't my place to argue about it.
"Hey, Ianto," he said. "Are you busy?"
"I'm at work," I said, leaning against one of the tables.
I was pretty sure JJ would be able to see the model trains through the camera. He'd been asking about them for weeks. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"
"It's Columbus Day," he said. "No school."
"Ahh." I bit my tongue before I could bring up all the reasons why Columbus Day shouldn't have been a real holiday. It had shocked me as an adult to learn all the horrible things Columbus had done to the Native Americans he'd first met. But I didn't want to spoil JJ's day off by bringing up the dark, hidden history associated with the holiday. "Well, what do you need? I only have a little bit of time for lunch, and the baby's hungry."
"Oh." JJ's expression dropped instantly. He looked away from the camera, looking absolutely crushed. "I guess I can call back later."
I bit my lower lip, trying to think of what to say. JJ had been especially sensitive ever since he'd found out that Tosh was pregnant for us. I wasn't quite sure, but I suspected that he was afraid of being pushed aside and out of his father's life when the new baby arrived. He'd always been happy about my relationship with his father, even if his mother hated me. But now that Jack and I were starting our own new family together, I worried that JJ would feel excluded. Especially since the new baby would be living with us, while JJ still lived with his mother.
I decided that giving JJ some of my time right now, instead of putting him off until later, was the best idea. I wanted to keep him happy and involved.
"I have some time," I said. I started heading for the stairs while holding my phone up to keep chatting. "What's up?"
"Well, Mum wanted me to ask what's going on for Thanksgiving," JJ said. "We're supposed to go to my uncle's house, unless you and Dad are cooking turkey."
I hesitated. I hadn't really discussed Thanksgiving with Jack yet. With the baby on the way, the holidays were a bit of a low priority. And since our due date was about a week before Thanksgiving, it was possible we'd end up skipping the holiday all together. But on the other hand, I didn't want to rob JJ of the chance to spend Thanksgiving with his dad. Making sure he was included in all of our holiday plans was a big part of making sure he didn't feel left out with the baby on the way.
"I guess I need to ask your dad about that first," I said. "How about I talk to him about it, and call you back later today?"
"Yeah. Okay." JJ's eyes drooped and his shoulders slumped. I worried that he thought I was making excuses or something, but the simple truth was, I had no idea what to tell him. We hadn't really done Thanksgiving together last year; JJ had spent Thanksgiving with his mother's side of the family, and he had come over on Friday to visit with me and Jack. We'd heated up leftovers and watched some movies together. It hadn't been much of a holiday, but that had been back when Jack and I were working on wedding preparation. And now this year, another obstacle was getting in the way of our holiday plans.
"I promise I'll talk to him as soon as I get home. We'll figure something out, okay?"
"Okay. Bye." JJ cut off the video call, but not before I saw the disappointment etched into his face.
JJ was on my mind for the rest of the day. I was worried about letting him feel rejected. But in a way, I also knew that I wasn't the one who really needed to take care of this situation. This was more between him and his father. Even though I was JJ's stepdad now, I was, and would always be, an outsider. As much as I worried that he might not feel like a part of our family, the truth was that he had his own mother, so it wasn't a question of whether I, as his stepdad, rejected him. But he only had one father, and it was his father's love he was afraid of losing.
