Wendip Week 2023
Note: It's been a while! Back around Independence Day, my wife and I were driving along as normal when a car ran a red light and T-boned us. She's OK, me pretty banged up with a few broken bones. I'm dictating this story, as it is difficult to type with one hand. Hope you like it!
1-Are You Positive?
It didn't seem as though it had been three years, but on August 31 of that year, Dipper and Wendy celebrated their third wedding anniversary. They were living in a tidy two-bedroom house that Manly Dan had built for them on land not very far away from the Shack, and only a bit farther from Grunkle Stan and Graunty Sheila's house, and just a tad farther from Grunkle Ford and Graunty Lorena's.
Wendy and Dipper both worked—she as a specialist with the Forestry Service, her main beat including Gravity Falls and the Valley, along with three neighboring counties. Dipper was a half-time writer, with a series of YA mystery-adventure novels out under his pen name, and in the rest of his time he worked as Ford's personal assistant and clerk, organizing and caring for Ford's writings and the histories of his (private) investigations.
As for Teek and Mabel, they were happily married, too, living in their own little house. Teek, who had taken a degree in film, now worked as an assistant director and script doctor for a production company out of Portland. Luckily, the name of the company was Cascades International, and it had a studio not far from Bend, which allowed him to commute to work. Mabel had become an entrepreneur, designing clothes for teens and selling the designs to a company that made and marketed the gear.
That year the twins celebrated their birthday and Dipper and Wendy their anniversary.
And then toward the first of October . . ..
They were visiting Wendy's Aunt Sallie up on her farm. She was a spry woman whose hair still was more red than gray, and she kept active, though really she didn't have to farm for a living. She had an income from her late husband's estate, but as she said, she just flat loved taking care of the place, raising the chickens and animals, and growing bumper crops of vegetables. That day, after helping Sallie can a roomful of veggies—at least the quart Mason jars quite filled up a basement pantry—they relaxed on the porch with lemonade.
From out of nowhere, Sallie said, "There's gonna be two, you know."
"Two what?" Wendy asked, blinking.
"What do you think?" Sallie asked with a mischievous smile. "I got a gift, remember. Second sight. I told you a good few year ago about what to expect."
Dipper was slow to catch on, but then he glanced sharply at Wendy, a quizzical smile on his lips. "Wendy? Are you-?"
"Not that I know of," Wendy said. "Aunt Sallie, are you sure about this?"
"Are you sure that you can call up a rainstorm?" Sallie asked. "That's your Corduroy gift. I'm not sure where you and your husband here picked up your mind-reading powers, but you're a weather-caller. By the way, congratulations on keeping control of that. I wouldn't want to be a weather-caller myself. Too much temptation to try to do some folks a little good and mess it up for others." She smiled at the two of them, holding hands and silently communing. "If I were you," she said to Wendy, "I'd surely stop at a pharmacy on the way back home. My second sight is hardly ever wrong, but you know what they say—sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't."
Accordingly, they stopped in a small town on the way back south and Wendy made some drug-store purchases. Back home, she went into the bathroom and then opened the door. "Come and hold my hand," she said. "I'm kinda nervous."
They stood at the sink counter, staring down at a white plastic device about the size of a thick permanent marker. A small window in it showed a vertical blue line. Next to it a somewhat larger window showed a faint blue horizontal line. Dipper mentally asked his wife, -What does that mean?
Nothing yet, Dip. It'll take two or three minutes. Even then—you know, I've been right on schedule so far, nothing missed. It's about time, but I'm kinda thinking Aunt Sallie swung and missed on this one.
About thirty seconds later, a strong blue vertical line faded in over the horizontal one, turning it into a plus sign.
Dip! If this is right—we're gonna be parents!
With their hands clasping, they could feel a surge of happiness and excitement, equally shared. Aloud, and in a rather shaky voice, Dipper asked, "Is that a hundred per cent accurate?"
"Don't think so," Wendy told him. "And right now I'd just be, what three weeks along? Kinda chancy. I don't think we ought to spread the news just yet!"
"When will we know for sure?" Dipper asked.
"Wait until the end of next week, and if I don't get my period, then we'll go see the doctor for a professional test."
"Mom," Dipper said, hugging her. "Or Mama. Or Mum!"
"Dad," she said, hugging him back. They both laughed, holding each other tight.
When a week and five days had passed without Wendy's usual visit from what Mabel always called "Old Red," they used the second test. It showed positive, too. "Do you feel different?" Dipper asked.
"Dunno, man," Wendy said. "Not yet. Except for being happy and scared, all at the same time."
"Let's go out tonight and celebrate," Dipper said. "Where would you like to eat?"
"Greasy's," Wendy said. "For some reason I want a big old helping of pancakes with Brussels sprouts and brown gravy!" She couldn't keep a straight face and said, "Just putting you on, Dip! Mm, I know, let's go to the Farmhouse and have ourselves one of their big old steaks!"
They did, and on the way back home that night, after a comfortably stifled burp, Wendy said, "I'm gonna have to watch my diet from here on out. Do you mind if I make an appointment with Dr. Greenberg in Hirschville? I mean, I like Dr. le Fievre, but he's a GP—"
"Make it as soon as you can," Dipper said.
Dr. Greenberg's nurse told them the earliest appointment was in late November. Wendy reluctantly made it. And then just a few days later she got a call from the doctor's office: A patient had moved away, opening the obstetrician's calendar if—"Can you come in tomorrow morning at nine?"
"I'll be there," Wendy said.
"We'll be there," Dipper said from beside her.
Wendy took a personal day—she was involved in doing a population count of bears, but that could wait—and Dipper's schedule was absolutely flexible. They left before eight the next morning and arrived at the small hospital complex in Hirschville thirty minutes later. The office wasn't open, and they sat in Wendy's car, the Green Machine, holding hands and trying to hold in their excitement.
At nine sharp they entered the waiting room, and a half hour after that, Wendy finished filling out the medical information forms. Dr. Greenberg's nurse called her back a few minutes later.
Dipper got up and paced the waiting room, attracting the glances of two women who were obviously pregnant. He thought This is such a cliché, me unable to sit still and they knowing I'm waiting on news!
But, dang it, clichés are clichés for a reason. No matter how tired they seem, they always have some truth behind them.
"Mr. Pines?"
Dipper almost jumped out of his skin, but it was just the nurse. "Come with me."
She led him down the hall and into a pleasantly furnished office. A window looked out toward a view of the mountains, and behind a desk sat a fortyish woman in white scrubs. She smiled and said, "Congratulations, Mr. Pines. You're going to be a father."
"Twins!" Wendy blurted, immediately turning pink in the face.
"Perhaps twins," the doctor said. "It's a little early to be sure. Mr. Pines, I'm Katerina Greenblatt, and I'll be seeing Wendy through this whole experience."
"I'm pleased to meet me," Dipper said. Then he turned pink, like Wendy, and said, "Pleased to meet you, I mean, Doctor. And call me Dipper. That's my nickname. My real name is Mr. Pines. I mean Mason. I don't know what I'm saying."
Wendy squeezed his hand. "I'll calm him down, Dr. Greenberg," she said.
"I've seen worse responses from a new father," the doctor chuckled. She gestured at the walls, and for the first time Dipper registered that every one sported dozens of photos, all of them pictures of newborn babies. "As you can see, I've had considerable experience. Now I don't expect this pregnancy to present any problems. Wendy is a healthy, strong young lady, and as long as you support her emotionally and when the time comes help her physically, there's no reason to think anything will go wrong. You can expect some morning sickness—"
And there were pamphlets to read, diets to be studied and planned, cooked and served, things not to do—"Guess felling trees is out for a while," Wendy said with a grin—and things to do, and oh, yes, there was a class in birthing they could take together, but that wouldn't be until the seventh month, and, and, and, a whole lot of things to think about."
"Names!" Dipper said as he took the wheel of Wendy's Dodge Dart and left the doctor's parking lot, heading back to the Falls. "We have to think up some good names and not let Mabel think up any. Oh, my gosh, Mabel!"
"Calm down, man," Wendy said. "I told you, I can drive. Pull over if you want to swap places with me."
"No, no, I'm fine," Dipper said.
"Then why are we goin' the wrong way down a one-way street?"
"Aaghh!" Fortunately, no oncoming cars came on, and he was able to drive through an alley and get back on track. "Sorry, sorry, I'll pay attention!"
"Pull over into the bank parking lot ahead before you hit a pedestrian or something. Stop the car. Now you let me drive and maybe we'll get home in one piece. Seriously, Dip, we've been up against scarier stuff than this!"
"I know, but—but this is you we're talking about now," said a chastened Dipper, buckling the passenger-side seat belt. "You and our baby. Babies."
As Wendy expertly took the turn and headed down the highway to the Falls, she said, "Relax, man. It won't be that hard. Anyway, clear your mind, 'cause we do have a serous problem right ahead of us."
"What's that?" Dipper asked, now pale with worry.
"Like I said, a genuine problem, man. Now—now we have to decide how we break the news to our families!"
But that is another story.