One Month Later...
"Greg, James, I want to ask you something," Rob requested, standing on top of the stairs of the basement one evening, James was lying in his pyjamas on top of the bed covers and Greg lounging back in the armchair as they watched TV, "what are you boys watching?" Rob frowned walking down the stairs, hearing the sounds of crushing metal.
"Monster trucks. There's a big rally in Oklahoma, and we're watching that live off TV," Greg replied, "do you wanna watch with us?"
Rob smiled and shook his head, "no, no, that's fine. Glad to see that despite everything that happened over the years- you've still kept your love of monster trucks alive. Is this really what James wants to watch though?"
"James loves monster trucks," Greg responded absent mindedly as he ate some instant popcorn in a bag on his lap that he'd heated up in the microwave; James just glanced over and shook his head and shrugged ever so slightly, it makes Greg happy. I don't particularly enjoy it, but he does, so I do by proxy.
"I was actually going to ask you two something quite important, but we can talk about it tomorrow. I'll leave you two be to watch Monster Trucks," Rob smiled.
"No, don't go," James said, and switched off the TV with the remote, ignoring the dirty look that Greg shot him, "tell us,"
"Okay, well… and don't feel under any obligation to do this, but after what happened with Josie, I realised how short life is and how quickly it can change… what would happen if anything ever happened to me… I'm considering redoing my will; and leaving you two with the house, and to be legal guardians of the kids," Rob stated, and both James and Greg sat up and now had their full attention on Rob. "Tyson and Charlie don't have any other family that are actively in their lives, and they adore you boys- especially you, Greg. But as it stands now, if something happened to me, then either the kids would end up with their fathers or their families and be separated because they both have different fathers- and I don't really know what to think about either of them from the few times I met them- or they'd end up in foster care and as wards of the state… Of course, this is a huge decision, and you two have to be ready and agree on it if it should happen,"
"Of course, it goes without saying, we'd take them both," Greg announced immediately, James was silent, "James, if that happened, we can't let Charlie or Tyson end up in potentially bad situations. We can't let them potentially end up like me. I could never forgive myself if that happened,"
"You'll have to talk about it of course, just let me know whichever way you decide, and then I can change my will if necessary… or just leave it as it is. Just let me know," Rob smiled, "I'll leave you two to it, goodnight,"
"Night," the both of them responded.
"James, you've always wanted kids, but it's never happened for you. You know as well as I do that the two of us can't have a child in a traditional way. Plus, its only a hypothetical. Charlie will be three soon, and Rob is only 56, he's not about to drop dead, especially not in the next 15 years before she turns 18. It's just a safety net for Ty and Charlie that if something did happen to him, then they'd be in a safe, stable home where we can protect them," Greg pointed out later that evening; "plus, I love these kids so much, James. I love them like I would have loved my own. They're wonderful. Not to mention that they adore you too. Charlie, she's your little shadow when you're at home, she's Jamie's little girl; and Ty loves you so much too. James, they've already both did not get their biological fathers in the picture at all, they lost their mother, and they lost their grandmother. They're so young and already have had to endure so much throughout their lives. They only have Rob, you, and I,"
James nodded, "yeah, I think as apprehensive about it that I am, I couldn't watch those two get separated and sent into different foster homes when they've already lost everyone else… it's a scary prospect, but you know, you're pretty much a stay at home dad as it is now, and over the last several months since we've lived here; I don't think I've seen you glow as much as you have in that time, and how mature and paternal you've shown yourself to be. You do everything for those kids, and you really stepped up to the plate and maintained it; you've shown and proved to everyone that you are true father material. You do everything from getting them dressed and ready in the morning, to tucking them in at night and reading them a bedtime story,"
The following afternoon, Charlie was at the daycare she attended five days a fortnight; and Greg was the only adult available to attend a requested meeting with Tyson's teacher to address the increasing issues of him disrupting the class and fighting with and bullying the other students. "You got anything to say for yourself before we see the teacher?" Greg asked when he'd arrived at the school in Josie's old SUV that he'd been using for the kids. "You know that I'm not happy, especially the fighting and bullying, Tyson, you're better than that,"
Tyson shook his head with tearful eyes, "come on in then, let's get this over with," Greg sighed, knocking on the door, and they were called to come in. "Here Tyson, I need to speak to your teacher, go and play on my phone in the corner. If you want to watch one of your TV shows or movies on it, keep the volume down," Greg passed him his phone and Tyson dragged his feet to the back of the classroom and began playing a game on the iPhone. "Hi, I'm Greg House, I don't know if we've met," Greg held out his hand and shook the teacher's.
"No, we haven't. I'm Miss Smith," the young teacher introduced herself, "Tyson tells me that you're his uncle, is that right?"
"No, not really. Kind of. We're cousins I think is technically the right term? His mother and I are cousins. Or at least we were. But he calls me Uncle Greg mostly because of the age gap," Greg clarified, "not that it really matters, I suppose, it's all just semantics," to which the teacher nodded, "but for the last probably nearly a year now, since my long term partner and I moved in with my Uncle, Ty's granddad, I've done a lot of the day to day stuff for Ty and his sister. Of course, we'd be lost without Rob's help who has consistently been great, and my partner too of course, he just adores the kids too- but he works a lot,"
"Tyson has been behaving progressively worse over the past six months or so, I just needed to let you know as his primary caregiver that we really can't continue to tolerate a lot of the behaviours that Tyson consistently shows every day in class and on the playground. He's physically a lot bigger than any other kid in the class, and he's just so angry all the time; but he doesn't want to talk about any of it," the teacher revealed.
"Ty has been through a lot over the last year and a half," Greg pointed out quietly; "his mother passed away, he doesn't have a father, and now he's just recently lost his grandmother too. He's not even six years old yet, I'm sure that all this is, is just a phase that he's going through,"
"Mr House, Tyson is very rough and can be very cruel. He's an exceptionally bright boy, but he doesn't apply himself and use those traits for positive instead of negative," Miss Smith pointed out and Greg nodded.
"Yes, I have been meaning to get him in to see a therapist or counsellor or something to help with that. Things have been very hectic recently with the passing away of Josie that was completely unexpected. However, I am planning to ring around tomorrow and see if I can find a counsellor to help him cope with everything that he's been through, as well as that I've started teaching him piano and guitar, and also started teaching him French, or at least my partner has, he lived and studied in Quebec. I want to try and put his intelligence to good use, so he doesn't feel so bored and continue acting out because of it," Greg said.
Miss Smith gave Greg an odd look, not quite sure whether Greg knew that he was just speaking a lot about a lot of irrelevant topics to this meeting; he's probably just not sure what to say in this situation, it's stressful enough for the most social of parents, and this guy seems to be painfully, even maybe pathologically, socially awkward. "Okay, well, that's great to hear, I think that talking about things that have happened will be helpful for him, Mr House, and it was great to meet the man that Tyson talks so much about," Miss Smith went on, and Greg nodded in his agreement, before glancing behind him to reassure himself that Tyson was still in the classroom.
"The teacher was telling me that you're not trying very hard in class, Ty," Greg told him as they walked back out towards the parking lot, and Ty just shrugged.
"It's boring anyway. I can't wait to be grown up and then I don't have to do anything that I don't want to do," Tyson shrugged.
Greg held back a laugh, "that's not quite how the world works, Tyson. You're always going to have to do what you don't want to do sometimes,"
"Not me, I'm going to have a huge mansion and have lots of servants who are all going to do what I say, and I will have the best life, and they'll all have to listen to me and do what I want," Tyson countered defiantly.
Greg let out a dry laugh as he watched Tyson hop into the car, and lit a cigarette before climbing into the driver's seat and starting up the engine and started talking as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street, blowing smoke out the window before returning the cigarette to his mouth; "well if you want that to happen, Tyson, you need to start working harder in school and getting better grades so you can get a good job and make that kind of money. You're a smart boy, Tyson, and I know that things have been hard for you; but that doesn't mean that life has been easy for the rest of us. Sometimes bad things happen and there's nothing we can do to stop it aside from ensuring that we don't repeat those mistakes,"