Part 15 – Big Sister

When Nena opened her eyes that morning, she wondered if the world had changed. Did it taste different? Smell different? Had it happened?

Nena threw the blankets aside and hopped out of bed. When she opened the door of her hotel bedroom, she found Evie sitting in the common area of the suite, reading a book.

"Is the baby here?" she called, running into the room. "Is it here?"

Evie smiled and set down her book. "Not yet, sweetie. But it'll be soon."

"Daddy said it could take all day. Do you think it will take all day?"

"For Mary's sake, I hope not."

"Let's go!"

"Not until they call, remember? We don't want your dads to have to worry about us, too."

Nena frowned. She knew that had been the plan, but now she wanted to be there.

"How about we order breakfast from room service? Then you can take a shower?"

Nena grumbled, but the lure of room service was too much. Evie picked up the menu from the table next to her and held it towards Nena. She took it and started debating between French toast and pancakes.

Her world, which had been holding its breath for days now, would have to hold on a little while longer.

Nena had picked through every shred of breakfast, and was wearing the flowers off of the hallway carpets from her pacing, when the call finally came. She bolted back into the hotel room when she heard the phone.

Evie was smiling. "It's a boy!"

That took Nena back a little – had the baby decided already? – but she quickly recovered. "Let's go!"

"Yes," Evie said with relief and they went downstairs to find a taxi.

As they rode to the birthing center, Nena contemplated the baby's choice. A boy. She'd hoped to get the chance to make her case to the baby for it to be a girl, but she had sworn before that she'd be happy with either choice.

Nena was quite pleased with herself for figuring out the strange mystery of the baby's boy-or-girl-ness. She'd thought before that people came in two kinds – boys and girls. But then she found out that there were three possibilities for baby clothes and decorations – boy, girl, and 'unisex'. Boy stuff was blue, girl stuff was pink, and unisex stuff was yellow. Everyone in the family had referred to the baby as 'it' or 'he or she' and when Nena pressed them, said that they didn't know. So the baby must not be a boy or girl yet. Everyone Nena knew was a boy or a girl, but she didn't know any little babies, so the choice must be made pretty early. Nena was happy with herself for picking to be a girl. She liked pink, and girls could play with both cars and dolls, when boys could only play with cars. Maybe the baby's choice hadn't 'stuck' yet? She might still get a chance to convince it.

"Are you feeling anxious?" Evie asked her.

"Mostly excited, I think," she replied. "And happy that it's over."

"Oh, honey," Evie chuckled. "It's just getting started."

The birthing center was a lot nicer than a hospital. It felt more like a hotel with babies. Daddy met them in the lobby. He looked tired but happy, like when he'd been at work a long time but gotten the bad guy in the end.

"How's Mary?" Evie asked.

"Doing well," Daddy said. "Gabriel's already had his first meal."

"'Gabriel'? Not 'Daniel' or 'Matthew'?" Evie responded.

"What about 'Nonny'?" Nena asked, though she knew that Charlie had done math and rejected that name. 'Nena' and 'Nonny' just sounded good together.

Daddy shrugged. "I was all set for 'Daniel' and then the baby came out and Charlie said it was 'Gabriel'."

Evie smiled. "It happens that way sometimes. At least you didn't end up with 'Buddy' or 'Beautiful'."

"Someone named their kid 'Beautiful'?" Daddy asked.

"On the birth certificate," Evie replied.

"Wow, yeah," Daddy laughed. "But I think we more would have ended up with 'Thank-god-that's-over-and-I-can-go-faint-now'."

"Charlie didn't do well?"

"Oh, he did great. It was just afterwards that he sort of checked out."

"Mm," Evie nodded. "Is he with the baby, with Gabriel?"

"Yeah."

Evie took Nena's hand. "Okay, honey, let's go meet the new kid in the family."

Nena had been warned that the baby wouldn't look like those on TV, but she didn't think he looked too bad. At least from what she could see from the doorway. His skin was blotchy and his head was kind of a funny shape and with his huge eyes and big head he looked more like an alien than a baby, but not too bad. What struck her more, in her view from peeking out from behind Evie, was that he was so tiny. Did they not leave him in Mary long enough? It sure felt like years and years.

Charlie was sitting in a chair, holding the small baby bundle. A head full of black curls like Charlie's was resting on Charlie's arm.

"Come on over, sweetie," Daddy called from Charlie's side. "Come meet Gabriel."

"I'm fine," Nena said.

"You don't want to get a little bit closer?" Evie asked.

"Nope."

Charlie looked up at Daddy. "Maybe get her present?"

Nena couldn't help it, she perked up. "Present?" She was willing to be bribed, just a little.

"Right," Daddy said and went over to his bag. He pulled out a small wrapped package and handed it to her. She quickly tore it open. It was a white t-shirt with the word 'BIG' in huge, colorful letters and underneath that 'Sister' plus a flower and a butterfly.

"Thanks," she said to Daddy.

"It's from Gabriel."

"Um," she moved a little closer. "Thanks, Gabriel."

"Don't you have something for him, honey?" Daddy asked.

"Oh!" Nena said. "I forgot it at the hotel!"

"It's right here," Evie said, pulling the small package from her purse.

"Thanks," Nena said and took the package. She held it in Gabriel's general direction. "It's for you."

"You open it," Daddy said. "That's one of the privileges of being the big sister, you get to open his presents until he's old enough to do it."

"Oh," Nena said. That didn't sound too bad. She opened up the package that she'd wrapped several weeks ago. What was in it had been a secret between her and Uncle Don and Uncle Will. She held it up. It was a baby outfit with a cute little giraffe and it said, "I love my daddies".

"Look at that!" Charlie laughed. "That's great!"

"Very cute," Daddy agreed.

"He should put it on," Nena said.

"He's kind of wrapped up in this blanket," Daddy said reluctantly.

"How about we save it for the trip home?" Evie asked. "That way there won't be any questions about who the mother is."

Charlie grimaced. "Or maybe even more questions."

"Well …" Nena said. She'd been bothered by this issue. "What should I say when people ask who the mommy is?"

Daddy and Charlie looked at each other with the parents-brain-zap then Daddy said, "First you say, 'he's got two daddies and a big sister and grandpa and uncles, so he doesn't need a mommy.'"

"But—"

"If they push you and you think that person has the right to know – I mean not some stranger in the grocery store but someone like our neighbor or your mom – say that it was a very generous anonymous woman."

"That we bought at the mommy store?"

Daddy winced. "We didn't buy her, she gave a gift to the clinic so people like us could be lucky and have children."

"But didn't you pay lots of money?" There had definitely been some tension around the house about money, and she knew that Charlie had taken out a 'second mortgage', whatever that was.

Daddy said firmly, "What we paid the money for was the doctors and hospitals and for Mary to not have to work while she carried the baby. There was no 'buying' the baby."

"Oh," Nena said, though she was unsure. If you gave people lots of money and they gave you a baby, didn't that mean you bought the baby? That didn't seem like a bad thing, but Daddy and Charlie seemed to think so. She decided that it was a grown-up thing and dropped it. "Can we go home now?"

"No, honey," Daddy said. "You remember that we need to stay here for a few days while the baby gets the special milk from Mary."

Nena remembered being told this, but was a little fuzzy on the reasons and details. "Can we at least go back to the hotel? Everybody?"

"Later today," Daddy promised. "As soon as we make sure that Mary can leave and that Gabriel is okay, too."

"Is something wrong with Mary?"

"No, she just had to do a lot of work to help the doctors get the baby out. She's very tired."

Nena frowned, but didn't really want to know any more. She liked Mary and didn't like the idea of her with pain and blood and yucky stuff, like Daddy had described. She searched for something else she could do. "Can I go down to the cafeteria?"

"This isn't the hospital," Daddy said. "They don't have a cafeteria here. There's some vending machines, I think."

"Okay," she pulled on Evie's hand. "Let's go do that."

"Don't you want to spend any time with Gabriel?" Daddy asked.

Nena looked at the little baby, with his tiny nose and wrapped-up body and shrugged. "He's asleep. And he doesn't play yet, anyway." She held up her new shirt. "I'll go put this on."

"Okay, honey," Daddy said with his worried voice. But it wasn't his really-worried voice, so Nena felt like she could safely leave him with Charlie and Gabriel.

"C'mon," Nena said, pulling Evie towards the door. "Let's go see if the machine has peanut M&M's."