27

The deeper they got into spring, the last of the snow had absorbed, and the grass grew taller. The refrigerator was now adorned with artwork depicting their family; every picture had Jamie's brother or sister smack in the middle of Piper's triangle dress. It had been amusing telling their friends and family via Jamie's enthusiastic expressions that they were contributing to the population overload, everyone had been as shocked as Alex. He enjoyed accompanying them to prenatal visits now; during the first visit they went to as a family, he cried as Piper laid down, hearing the static from the Doppler trying to find "his baby." It took some explaining, but he now looked forward to going to visits. He sat on the exam table with her and helped squeeze the gel onto the spot where he was told they were going to listen; he'd be handed the Doppler and looked very proud each time he located the thumping heartbeat. He was very excited to see "his baby" again for their "half-way point" sonogram, where they were told the baby was about the size of a banana. It had been the ongoing nickname until Alex had mentioned a couple months later that the baby was now the size of an eggplant; this news was met with Jamie's silent tears.

"What's wrong?," Piper asked him.

"I don't want it to be eggplant now."

"It's just the size of an eggplant, Banana's still growing."

"But I don't want to call my Banana, 'Eggplant'," he pouted.

"We can still call Banana, 'Banana,'...your Banana," she reassured him, pulling him into a hug while she looked at Alex, her eyes filled with curiosity at the attachment of their son to this baby.

To say it had been an emotional process for everyone would have been the understatement of the year. As time crept on, the reality of modifying their lives again to accommodate a new baby had started to settle in. Conversations involving moving to a bigger space surfaced, but they justified that they had the time to decide if that was necessary, or if they could simply adapt their current space. There had already been moments of jealousy when either of his moms would bring home items from the store, all of which were for Banana, but they tried to spend more time with him to make up for all the baby excitement.

Alex was a blur as she finished up sticking the last clean dish into the dish rack before darting around the living room, straightening up the space that no matter what she did, just never seemed to remain neat for more than twenty minutes. As she returns scattered objects to their rightful spaces in other rooms, she calls out to Jamie every ten minutes, interrupting the game he's playing with Piper, when she finds something of his that he neglected to put away on his own. They hear the water running, the hard plastic from the hand scrubber hits the porcelain of the tub, the sound bouncing off of the tiles from the bathroom, makes the sound even louder than it is. Piper chuckles to herself, Alex was on auto-pilot, with her bursts of energy determined to get all of the chores done so Piper could rest. She's intrigued by how unwavering the mind is, how a certain mindset could conjure all this nervous energy and put it to productive use- resulting in a spotless home. She'd offer to help but,

1) there was no rush, the brunette was cleaning for the sake of mess and mess alone and

2) she'd give Piper a stern look that screamed you keep doing what you're doing, this is what I need to do. It's just understood that this is Alex's way of expressing her love, her dedication, her need to nurture...especially now.

Piper tilts down toward the floor from the couch when it's her turn to press the plastic bubble that scrambles the die and laughs when Jamie releases a frustrated sigh when Alex calls him again.

She feels sorry for him momentarily, and caresses his head as he gets up to find out what Alex has found now; she admires the patience it requires for her wife to continue calling him to take care of his own mess and belongings instead of just taking the five seconds it would've to put something of his away on her own. They spoke often of the delicate balance between keeping him small and teaching him responsibility. She's heard Alex quietly talk to him, mostly before bed, about what it meant to be a big brother, about how he could help take care of Banana, about protection and passing down all the cool stuff he knows. It's just the tip of the iceberg but she sees her subtle gestures aid in his maturation process.

He returns a moment later, resuming his position on the floor. He looks up when it's her turn. She presses the plastic bubble, "what'd you leave in the bathroom?"

"My underwear," he laughs and reaches into his pocket.

Piper eyes his pocket, half-expecting him to pull out said underwear, "here" he says and pulls a tissue from his pocket.

She reads Alex's message scribbled in black eyeliner, "I love you . . . I don't know how or when or where.

I simply love you, no problem, no pride.

I love you thus because I love no other way."

What are you doing to me Alex?, she asks herself with a smirk. Jamie has to prompt her to take her turn again.

Alex walks in and takes long strides toward the game board, glares at Piper who's still leaning halfway off the couch, and lifts the game off the floor. She places it on the table and pushes the coffee table toward the small couch, entrapping Piper on what has now just morphed from Couch Island to Couch Peninsula. She sets Jamie's time out chair next to the table so he can sit.

"Better?," the brunette asks.

"It was fine before," Piper looks at her amused at her obsessive compulsive wife.

"Yeah until you fall off the couch and make scrambled eggs out of our baby. Are you guys almost done?"

"We just started a new game," Piper tells her. Jamie looks at her with an in-your-face look, as he's managed to postpone his bedtime for the third time this week.

"After this kiddo, gotta get ready for bed." He nods exaggeratedly in response.

Alex slumps onto the bigger couch and stretches her arms over her head. She slowly turns over and reaches her arm across the table and holds it out , wiggling her fingers longing for Piper's grasp. Her cheek presses against the leather, "I love the smell of this couch," she says exhausted.

Piper tilts her head back slightly. Alex's eyes are closed, "do you wanna play?"

Dark hair lifts off the leather slightly and shakes from side to side, no, "had enough trouble today." She brushes her hand under the table looking for her book, but just feels the rug, "bah, my book is in the room." Her arm hangs off the side of the long couch, her energy spent.

Piper looks at James with pleading eyes, "oh I'll get it," he says with small defeat at his mother's glance. He returns momentarily with a book, "this one?" He holds it in front of Alex.

Alex pulls him on her couch in thanks, hooking her arm around his waist and buries her face into his hip. "You're such a good boy," she says and tickles his side causing him to squirm with giggles.

Half an hour later, Alex steps into his bedroom and peers at his empty bed. She sees him sitting under his book nook, "what're you doing? Bed, let's go."

He looks at the book that lies loosely in his arms and clutches it to his chest, "I think I can do it." She steps in closer...

A few months before when Piper was able to feel Banana before anyone else, Alex shared her memory with Jamie, of how exciting it was to finally feel him move. She told him of how she waited, with her hand pressed to Piper's skin for an hour sometimes, hoping to feel him give her the tiniest sign that he could hear her but that he wasn't ready. She told him how once he was, she started reading to him at night regularly, like they did now and he would dance like crazy, sometimes so much that Piper had to tell her to stop reading so he could fall asleep. He asked to hear that story many times, and wanted to start reading to Banana.

Alex lay in bed with him that night as he tried to show her he could read, but after noticing he was reciting text that was nowhere to be found on the page she stopped him. She got a simpler book, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?"

"What letter is this?," she pointed to the 'b'.

"B, like ball or boat."

She wrinkled her nose and smiled, "yes! So what sound does that make?"

"Buh."

They went on like this night after night, the same book, word by word, together. Piper rested in the evenings, her body often revolting with irregular contractions. Alex made it a point to leave her alone in a quiet room, her feet propped up, with two tall glasses of water within her arms reach, while she took Jamie to read in his room.

"C'mon," she beckons with her hand. He stands up, she squeezes his shoulder and follows behind him and stops in the doorway of their living room, while he walks over to Piper and asks if he can try to read Banana a story.

She looks at him, awed by his beautiful little heart and smothers him with kisses, "of course!," she says not realizing that he's actually been practicing.

He looks over his shoulder toward Alex and motions for her to sit next to him. He kneels down on the floor near the couch and leans the book against the leather with Alex by his side. Piper furrows her eyes as she watches him slowly go word by word, sometimes having to go back and correct himself, "keep going," she whispers encouragingly; her baby was reading. She makes eye contact with Alex, and points to her belly, pulling her shirt snugly against the spots that stick out more than others, so her wife could see Banana move.

Alex holds the book for Jamie and moves one of his hands over the spot where she could see Banana poking out. He bends his fingertips against Piper's shirt a few times and giggles, "hey Banana, I still have a lot left."

When he's done Alex squeezes him so hard and knocks him to the ground, they start wrestling on the rug. Piper doesn't know who she should scold, Alex for outsizing him, or her son for fear he's gonna hurt Alex. Alex finally calls "mercy," the strap of her black tank top hangs off her shoulder, her cheeks are flushed, her bun is messier than it was earlier, and her glasses are falling off of her face. She lies on her back with her arms outstretched.

"Okay, bed, for real, now," and laughs smacking him on the butt as he scampers away.

"Was your body not exhausted enough?," Piper asks her, shaking her head.

She laughs out, "twenty seconds away from ordering myself a 'life-alert'," she replies from the floor. She hooks her toes underneath the couch and rolls up slowly in an exaggerated crunch.

"Bed?"

Piper looks at the time, its 8:30 and she starts to laugh, "we are wiiiiiild," she says nodding and pushes herself with her arm into an upright position before slowly standing up. She scrunches up her face with the tightened cramp around their baby, "and Banana is..."

"bananas?," Alex completes with a chuckle. She reads Piper's face, "still having them?," she says with a bite of her lip.

The blonde's hands squeeze slightly at her own hips and nods, "they're just random, but some still hurt like a bitch," she says in reference to her irregular contractions.

Alex pulls at the loose thread on her shorts, nervously. Piper grasps her hand and lowers it, "I'm fine," she says looking into her concerned eyes, "really."

Alex slips an arm around her back and rests her hand on her hip as she walks Piper down to their room.

"I'm not going to break," she says sitting on the edge of their bed as Alex bends down to pull her socks off.

"I know," she nods gently, "you're stronger than me," she shakes her head at the truth, as much as she doesn't want to admit it, "just want to help."

Piper rubs her toes along the brunette's torso down to her hip. "What's up?"

Alex raises her eyebrows, slightly annoyed that Piper generally seems to know when there's something she wants to say but wrestles with refrain.

"They want me to present in Philly in a couple of months," she says, her tone raises with the last word as if she's asking a question.

"Alright? That's great isn't it?," Piper questions.

"Not great, it's in mid-June."

Piper purses her lips and turns her palms upright.

"I should be here, not there," she says getting up. She hooks her fingers behind her head and walks two steps in one direction, before she pivots and goes right back to the same spot.

Piper does the math, "well how long do you need to go for?"

"Just overnight. You guys can come though," she seems more relaxed at the realization and drops her arms to her sides.

"I won't be able to sit in the car for over two hours. It should be fine, I'll still have a few weeks."

Alex shakes her head before she drags her feet toward their door at Jamie's call. She returns with him shortly, her biceps flex as she tilts him down to kiss Piper goodnight and then Banana. She brings him back to his room, the only light on when she comes back to their room is her side light. Piper lays on her side, she flips casually through a magazine as Alex settles in beside her.

"I really should shower," the brunette says as Piper rests her cheek on her outer arm.

The blonde puts a firm arm across Alex's legs so as to trap her, not letting her go anywhere. "You're fine. You still smell like you," she says breathing in the comforting smell of Alex, "well a dirtier you."

Alex groans at her words. Just the single word, makes her heart beat just a tiny bit faster, but she knows tonight is not a good night. She rests her lips atop Piper's hair, her lips linger with a long kiss.