Work Text:
Go, Dog. Go!
“Alright,” Jonny says settling into the recliner in Amelie’s room. “What story do you want to read tonight ma coccinelle?” He smiles at Patrick folding clothes on the floor, at the ready for songs and cuddles once Jonny finishes reading, and settles himself more firmly into the chair as Amelie contemplates the books on her shelf. “Ouch!” Something sharp digs into his thigh, a rogue book stuffed into the side of the chair.
As Jonny reaches down to extricate the book, he’s hit in the head with a balled up pair of socks. “No!” Patrick mouths at him, darting furtive glances at Amelie. He shakes his head fiercely and levels Jonny with a glare, “No.”
Jonny lets go of the book, raising both hands placatingly. He knows better than to push things when Patrick has that look on his face. Or when he’s this pregnant.
“What did you decide on Ammy?”
“Pout! Pout! Kiss! Kiss!” Amelie exclaims, climbing onto his lap and nearly hitting him in the face with the book.
“The Pout-Pout Fish?” Jonny says, tickling Amelie’s belly until she’s laughing and kicking her feet. “Are you a pout-pout fish?”
“Nooooo!” She squeals, wiggling on his lap. “Kiss! Kiss!”
“Oh you’re a kiss-kiss fish, with a kiss-kiss face?” Jonny teases peppering her face with kisses until she’s shrieking.
“Always riling her up, and then leaving me with a giggly kiss-kiss girl,” Patrick says, but he’s smiling and his eyes are bright - the glare he’d been aiming at Jonny only moments before gone - so Jonny knows he doesn’t really mind.
Later, after Patrick’s sung three rounds of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and an encore of Old McDonald Had a Farm, and they’ve tip-toed out of Amelie’s room, Jonny has to ask: “What was that all about?”
“Hmmm?” Patrick asks, knuckling his eyes with a yawn. “God, I can’t believe we still have to put the boys down.”
“The book in Ammy’s chair? You’re usually bizarrely anal about putting all her books away at the end of the day.”
“I’m not anal, I just don’t like leaving shit all over the floor, unlike some people.” Patrick squeezes Jonny’s side. “Maybe I was just too tired from picking up your towel and clothes this morning to put books back?”
Jonny just raises an eyebrow, “You’re not that pregnant, Peeks.” He rubs a hand over Patrick’s softly rounded belly.
Patrick laughs, and it’s still Jonny’s favorite sound in the whole world. “What happened to 'pregnancy is a binary state, Peeks. You either are or you aren't?'" Patrick mimics. "Until you're carrying the baby, you don't get to tell me how pregnant I am. 'Not that pregnant,'" he mumbles under his breath, and then louder, "you're lucky you're hot, dude.”
“So, the book?” Jonny prods.
Patrick darts a look at Amelie’s door and pulls Jonny further down the hallway. “No, it’s just . . .I cannot fucking read Go, Dog. Go! one more time or I’m going to lose my fucking mind. It doesn’t even have a plot: ‘Big dog. Little dog. Big dogs and little dogs.’ The dogs are up, they’re down, they’re green, they’re blue, they’re in, they’re out, they’re all about.’”
Jonny swoops in to steal a kiss before Patrick gets any more riled up. “I don’t think that line is in the book.” He teases, darting back for another quick press of lips.
“No,” Patrick agrees, raising an eyebrow, “but it might as well be. And I’d know, I read it seventeen times today. Seventeen. I had to distract her with a cookie -- not a word, mister -- and then quickly stuff the stupid book out of sight.”
“Very sneaky of you,” Jonny says with mock seriousness. “Come on, let’s get the boys to bed, I can almost guarantee they’re going to want Captain Underpants, so you’re probably safe.” He kisses Patrick again, enjoying the way Patrick’s body melts into his. “And then we can go to bed, and I definitely don’t want to do any reading.”
Everyone Poops
Jonny’s a bit late getting home from work. It’s his last week at the office before they move to Chicago, but instead of goodbye happy hours and long lunches, he’s been stuck transferring over a surprising amount of work to the Brandons. He’d known he was busy, but transitioning his workload has really brought home just how much time he’d been spending at the firm, and how little he’d been spending with his family since they moved to Los Angeles.
Jonny detours around the moving boxes stacked in the foyer. He’s impressed that Patrick’s been able to get all the packing done despite being pregnant, with three children underfoot who think it’s great fun to unpack the boxes just as fast as Daddy packs them. The boxes are even painstakingly labeled in Patrick’s best handwriting, blue sharpie stark against the white boxes Jonny’d stolen from the mailroom at work: ‘Crap,’ ‘More Crap,’ ‘Kids’ Crap.’ Jonny shakes his head with a chuckle, maybe not as organized as one might have hoped.
He’s halfway up the stairs when he hears Patrick’s irritated voice coming from the boys’ room, “This book isn’t even for you!” Patrick groans. “This is Ammy’s book. It’s a potty-training book. You two? Already potty trained!”
“Potty!” Bryan giggles.
“Poop!” Eric exclaims, and it sets both boys off into peals of laughter.
Jonny bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at the look on Patrick’s face when he walks into the room.
“Papa!” Eric crashes into his legs.
Bryan is still rolling around his bed, breathless with laughter. “Poop!” He gasps out.
Patrick sends Jonny an exasperated look. “Okay boys, I’m reading the next chapter of Captain Underpants while Papa goes and gets out of his work clothes. So let’s try to settle down.” He picks up the well-loved chapter book, and shoos Jonny out with a smile.
Chapters are read, glasses of water are fetched, and soon enough both boys are tucked in under matching Lightning McQueen comforters, lights out and quiet for the first time all day.
Patrick stops Jonny at the top of the stairs and tilts his head up for a kiss. Jonny drops a hand to his waist and feels something cool and smooth through Patrick’s shirt. He lifts Patrick’s shirt up, and sees a copy of Everyone Poops tucked neatly into the elastic waistband of Patrick’s maternity jeans. He pulls it out with a laugh. “What in the hell are you doing with this, babe?”
Patrick plucks it out of his hands. “Trashing it.” He says decisively. “Do you know what the boys said to me today?” He asks Jonny, before continuing without waiting for an answer, “‘Everyone eats, Dad, so everyone poops!’ While I was having breakfast. Breakfast! I can’t even remember the last time my stomach let me eat breakfast. This book has to go. I don’t care what that website said about how it helps potty-training. And who were we kidding, we’re not potty-training Ammy right now. In the middle of a move with a new baby coming? No way.”
Jonny pulls Patrick in for another kiss, loving the slight flush he gets when he’s agitated and worked up. “Okay, baby, the book can go. But maybe recycle it instead of throwing it away. No need to contribute to the landfills just because our boys think there’s nothing funnier than poop.”
Patrick’s giving him an assessing look, as if he fears that Jonny thinks poop is as funny as the boys do. “Fine. I don’t care much what bin the book goes in, just so long as I never have to read about the many different types of poop again.”
“That seems eminently reasonable,” Jonny says, pulling Patrick behind him down the stairs. “Now come on, let’s go make out for a few minutes before we spend the rest of the night packing and cursing the number of kitchen gadgets we’ve managed to collect over the years.”
“Such a sweet talker, Toews,” Patrick says with a smile, dimples popping and eyes bright. “You know just what the boys like to hear.”
“Know what this boy likes to hear,” Jonny agrees, with a leer, grabbing a handful of Patrick’s ass.
“Terrible, Toews, terrible.” Patrick grins.
Moo, Baa, La La La
Jonny returns from his first day of work at the newly opened Chicago branch of Crosby Malkin to find all three kids firmly planted in front of the television watching Cars. There are six open boxes surrounding the TV; DVDs, blocks, and board books spilling out onto the floor, and Jonny would bet his life they were opened in a desperate bid to find the only movie all three kids currently agree on.
“Hi guys, I’m home!” He calls, but not one kid even glances away from the screen. “Drugged,” he says with a quiet chuckle, before pressing kisses to the tops of their heads.
There’s rustling and clinking noises coming from the kitchen, so Jonny turns there next. Patrick’s sitting on the floor, surrounded by pots, pans, half-opened boxes, and what looks to be a week’s worth of crumpled newsprint. There’s a streak of black ink across one cheek, his hair is just starting to curl again; he’s beautiful.
“Hey, babe,” Jonny says, “looking for something?” He does a double take when he sees coffee mugs littering the table, filled with cold mac-and-cheese, doubtless leftover from lunch. “Plates and bowls maybe?”
“It’s not funny,” Patrick grumbles, lifting his arms to Jonny for an assist to get to his feet. “Welcome home,” he kisses Jonny warmly. “I hope your day was better than ours, or mine I guess. The boys thought eating lunch out of coffee mugs was hilarious, and Amelie was only too happy to rediscover Moo, Baa, La La La! when I was looking for the movies earlier.” He shakes his head, “I really thought I did a better job of hiding that damn book than that. I’m a little annoyed with past-me, way to throw current-me under the bus.”
“At least the book introduces the concept of silence?” Jonny offers, even though he knows Amelie has shown no interest in silence since the day she started talking.
“‘It’s quiet now, what do you say?’ is only an excuse for Amelie to make all the animal noises she knows that the book didn’t showcase. Loudly,” Patrick says. “Well, at least it’s a short book, I guess.” He cuts open another box and starts pulling out cans of soup and wooden serving spoons. “There’s not much food in the house, but I found the canned goods; we could have chicken noodle soup for dinner,” he offers without enthusiasm.
Jonny makes a face; canned soup when you’re sick is one thing, but he has zero desire for that now.
“Yeah, I know,” Patrick agrees, wrinkling up his nose. “I think we’re going to have to order pizza again, I can’t find a single useful item in any of these boxes. I’ve got our wok and twenty mason jars, but can I find the coffee pot? No, no, I cannot. Would you like a glass? Yeah, me too. Too bad, so sad. I can offer you, however, your choice of color and size when it comes to chip-clips,” he inclines his head to the side where Jonny seeks a frankly alarming sized pile.
“I know,” Patrick says, reading Jonny’s mind easily. “And the number’s climbing with every box I unpack. A normal family surely doesn’t require this many. I’m beginning to think they’ve reproduced somehow between L.A. and here.” He eyes them suspiciously and Jonny laughs.
“The only reasonable explanation,” Jonny says. “I hesitate to ask, but I thought you labeled all the boxes?”
Patrick runs a his hands through his hair, sending his hair into even greater disarray. If he gets any more frustrated he’s going to resemble Einstein, in hairstyle if not intellect. “I did,” he grumbles, “but it turns out ‘Kitchen Crap’ isn’t all that helpful when it’s on forty-some-odd boxes. Plus -- oh, I don’t know -- maybe the kids distracted me while I was packing, but two of the kitchen boxes had stuff for the boys’ room in them. What I’m saying is it’s possible that the dishes aren’t even in any of these boxes, and we won’t find them again until we’re pulling the Christmas decorations out next year.” He smiles a little challengingly at Jonny. “And you can’t be annoyed, I’m pregnant.”
“I’m not sure pregnancy is the catch-all excuse you think it is, Peeks,” Jonny teases. “Besides, you did everything, I’m in no place to judge. I’m not that much of an asshole.”
“Ehhh,” Patrick wiggles his hand back and forth, with a smirk.
“Shut up. And I don’t care if we eat take-out every night. Hell, we can hire someone to unpack if you want.”
“I thought about that actually,” Patrick says taking a bite of the leftover mac-and-cheese with a grimace. “Ugh, cold.” He takes another bite, apparently undeterred. “But they probably wouldn’t put things in the right place or I’d have to sit there directing, and if I’m gonna do that I might as well rot our children’s brains with TV for a few days and do it myself.”
“You know, for someone so intent upon making sure the soup spoons are sorted into a separate slot from the table spoons, you’d really think these boxes would have been itemized to within an inch of their life.” Jonny teases.
“I know, I know, laugh it up, asshole. But it’s not going to be so funny if we’re still eating pizza at the end of the week.” Patrick says. He pinches Jonny’s hip. “It’s fine if I don’t fit into my clothes, I barely do as it is, but your ass on the other hand? If it gets any bigger we’ll have to find you custom pants.”
“Don’t front, you love it.”
Patrick leans up for a kiss, and reaches around to grab a handful, “I really do.”
Things are just starting to get heated, when suddenly little hands are pushing at their legs, “Nooooooo. Miiiiiiine.” Amelie says inserting herself in between the two of them. “Mooo,” she demands, holding up Moo, Baa, La La La! to Patrick. “Daddy, read.”
“Oh, I bet Papa wants to read that to you,” Patrick looks at Jonny beseechingly.
“I do, pretty girl, want to come up with Papa while I get out of my work clothes and then we’ll read?” Jonny says, swooping her up into his arms for a hug.
“Nooooooo,” Amelie screams, arching her back and trying to wriggle out of his hold. “Nooooooo. Mine, Daddy!”
Patrick grabs her with a sigh before she slides to the floor, “Okay, Lady Bug, let’s calm down, okay?” He glances at Jonny, “Someone’s cranky. Don’t worry about it. I’ll read this -- again, for the hundredth time today -- and you can call for dinner?”
“Deal.” Jonny says, kissing Patrick and rubbing noses with Amelie, all smiles now that she’s in Patrick’s arms. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find the plates after the kids in bed.”
“Maybe,” Patrick counters, wiggling his eyebrows “after the kids are in bed, you’ll just get lucky.”
Dragons Love Tacos
“Babe! Are the kids’ swimsuits in there?” Patrick calls out.
Jonny finishes sorting the last of the wash before checking the drying rack -- empty -- and the dryer. He pulls out a mound of beach towels, but no suits, and out tumbles a book, jabbing him in the foot with one of its hard corners. “Oww,” he grumbles, picking up Dragons Love Tacos with a shake of his head. “Amelie strikes again.”
He tosses the towels on the folding table, before heading back out to the kitchen. “No suits,” he says, “but I see Ammy’s been playing in the dryer again.” He shows Patrick the book he’d discovered.
“Hmmm,” Patrick says distractedly, glancing quickly at Jonny, before returning to packing up lunch for the beach. “Maybe they’re hanging up in the bathroom? Where did I put --” He does a double take, grabbing the book from Jonny’s hand and sticking it in an open cabinet, with a furtive look at the living room where the boys are helping Amelie build block towers. “Don’t just go waving that around where anyone can see!” He hisses.
Jonny laughs, “is this a pregnancy thing? Is the thought of tacos just too much for you to bear? You’re getting hungry right now aren’t you.”
Patrick glares at him, but it’s without heat. “It’s not a pregnancy thing, it’s a sanity thing. It’s a long-ass book. Do you know how many times I’ve read that the past few days? Me neither, but it’s a lot. So many times. Too many times. As much as dragons love tacos, that’s as much as I needed a break from reading about them for a few days.”
“Not your best hiding spot, then. What if Ammy had found it? What then, Patrick?” Jonny gasps theatrically, holding a hand to his chest in mock-horror.
“She’d probably make me read it three times and then sing her a song about tacos, before she’d deign to take her nap.” He says darkly, swatting at Jonny’s hand.
“Taco song? Do I even want to know?”
“Tacos in the morning , tacos in the evening, tacos at suppertime, when tacos are on the menu you can eat tacos any time!” Patrick sings in a warbly baritone.
“Isn’t that a Bagel Bites commercial?”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t know that,” Patrick says with a shrug. “Ooooh bagels! Don’t bagels sound good?” He bats his lashes at Jonny exaggeratingly. “What if we got bagels on the way to the lake?”
Jonny laughs helplessly, “Bagels? You sure? You don’t want tacos?”
Patrick raises one shoulder, patting his belly: it’s so big now he complains constantly that he barely fits in his pregnancy pants, “Bagels now and tacos for dinner, I think. Don’t make that face, you’re the one who keeps bringing them up!”
“Whatever you want, Peeks.”
“Whatever I want, huh?” Patrick says, eyes dancing. He steps closer to Jonny, trailing a finger down his arm. He licks his lower lip, and looks up at Jonny through thickly fringed eyes, “even if I want . . . cotton candy and a corn dog once we get to the beach?”
Jonny can feel himself make a pained expression, all that sugar, all that fat. But before he says anything Patrick starts laughing, “Nah, I’m just kidding. Not about the bagel though, or the tacos, or the corndog -- we’re definitely getting those -- but I don’t really need the cotton candy.”
“Cotton candy?” Bryan yells from the living room, and they hear a crash as a block tower comes tumbling down, followed shortly thereafter by Amelie’s cries.
They groan in unison, “Now you’ve done it,” Jonny says, “You should have spelled it!”
“Papa,” Eric says, standing in the doorway, “Bryan and I can spell candy, we’re not babies.”
“Yeah, we’re not babies,” Bryan says. “Are we going to the beach now? We’ve been waiting forever!”
“As soon as we find your swimsuits,” Patrick says. “Do you guys know where they are?”
“No,” Bryan says, and Eric shakes his head too.
“I’m baffled,” Patrick says to Jonny, “I really thought they were in the upstairs bathroom. Lady Bug, where’d you put the swim suits?” He teases.
Ammy laughs and runs to the pantry, shutting the door behind her.
“Where’s Ammy?” Jonny sing-songs, “Wherever could she be?” He opens the pantry door with a flourish, “Found you!” He starts laughing, “And these.” He holds out the boys’ trunks and Amelie’s suit to Patrick. “I think someone was helping again.”
“Helping! Helping!” Amelie echos.
“Helping me lose my mind,” Patrick says. He claps his hands together. “Alright everyone to the car, beachtime! Let’s go, let’s go!”
The kids run out toward the garage, Jonny trailing behind them with the towels and lunch cooler. “I saw that,” he says with a quick glance over his shoulder towards Patrick.
“Hmmm?” Patrick’s looking at him with wide eyes and bulging cheeks.
“Okay, we can pretend you didn’t just grab a handful of Oreos, I’m cool with that.”
Patrick swallows audibly. “Shush you,” he laughs. “Come on, let’s go, I’m starving, those were just to hold me over until you get me my breakfast.”
“Second breakfast.” Jonny smirks, “See, it’s funny because it’s a joke about your appetite and your height.”
"Did you just call me a hobbit?" Patrick gasps, outraged, and Jonny winks and hoofs it for the car.
Horton Hatches an Egg
Jonny comes home from work to find all three kids planted on the couch placidly watching Planes and his very pregnant husband on his hands and knees scrubbing at the baseboards. It’s the third time he’s been to this particular rodeo, and he’s no longer even surprised, just tries to mitigate the crazy by hiring window cleaners and gutter cleaners to do the dangerous work that Patrick has threatened to do himself in the past.
“Hey, babe, house looks good. Want me to start anything for dinner?” Jonny asks, dropping a hand to Patrick’s shoulder in greeting.
“No.” Patrick says, with barely a glance in Jonny’s direction. “I’ve got a casserole in the oven, it’ll be ready in ten or so, you should really go up and change. I just need to finish dusting these baseboards, and then I think I’m done for the night. These were the last things on the baby to-do list!” He leans back on his heels, surveying his work with a satisfied nod.
Jonny had made the mistake once of offering to help Patrick clean, but the ensuing fight-cum-crying-fit (“I can do it, I’m pregnant, not an invalid!”) had really -- really -- not been worth it.
When he comes back downstairs, all three kids have migrated to the kitchen, where they’re digging into dinner, ignoring Patrick’s admonishments to, “wait for Papa, please!”
“It’s okay, I’m here” Jonny says, snagging a plate off the counter and pressing a brief kiss to the side of Patrick’s mouth. “Sorry, I was answering an email.” He notices that Patrick has both hands braced on the counter and is shifting his hips minutely side to side. “You doing okay?” Jonny tries to keep his tone even; he is only too aware how much Patrick hates any question even tangentially related to “is the baby here yet?”
“Fine.” Patrick grumbles, “just more prodromal labor, I’m sure. This baby is never coming. I’m just going to be pregnant forever.”
“You can be pregnant forever?” Bryan asks, eyes wide.
“No,” Jonny says, “Daddy’s just joking.”
‘M not.” Patrick says petulantly “What do you know, you’re not the one who’s pregnant.”
It may have taken fifteen years and three pregnancies, but Jonny has learned to pick his battles, so he wisely says nothing more than, “dinner’s good, babe!”
Jonny asks the kids about their days, smiling at the boys’ excited retellings of games played at recess and all the new friends they’re making at school. He and Patrick had been a little worried about how the boys would adjust after the move, but the first few weeks of school have been great; Chicago definitely seems to agree with everyone.
Amelie is loudly recounting her own adventures -- she talks so much now, even if Jonny can only really understand every third word -- when he peripherally sees Patrick rubbing his lower back and texting someone.
Patrick catches Jonny’s questioning glance, and says, “It’s probably nothing, but Melanie -- the midwife -- wants me to take a bath and see if it knocks out these contractions, or if this might be real thing.”
“Okay - are you worried?”
“No, it’s just - Amelie was early and I want this little guy - “ when Eric’s head shoots up, Patrick laughs and shakes his own - “or little girl - to cook a little longer. Just - Just in case.”
“I know, babe,” Jonny says, pulling Patrick close for a side-hug, nuzzling his cheek. “But you’re due in two days, so whenever this baby comes, he or she will be perfect. I’m sure of it.” Patrick relaxes a little into Jonny and they stand there for a long moment until Patrick shifts a little uncomfortably. “Okay, go take a bath, and I’ll clean up and get the kids ready for bed. You can join us for stories, yeah?”
By the time Jonny’s cleaned up from dinner, helped the kids put away all the toys they’d managed to pull out in the five minutes he was loading the dishwasher, and found Amelie where she’d been hiding in the hall closet; he’s exhausted. How has Patrick been doing all this while nine months pregnant?
“Alright, guys, let’s go upstairs, and we’ll all read stories tonight in Ammy’s room.”
“Yaaaay!” Ammy claps her hands.
“Do we each get to pick a book?” Eric asks, eyes shrewd.
“Sure,” Jonny agrees, before quickly amending, “as long as they’re not too long.”
He’s just finishing up the boy’s choices -- two chapters from The War with Grandpa -- when Patrick comes into the room, skin still damp from his bath.
He looks a little disappointed, even as he smiles at the kids’ raucous greetings. “Did I miss all the stories?”
“Nope, one left. How was your bath?”
Patrick shrugs, “Eh, didn’t do much of anything. Okay, I’m reading the last one right? What is it? The Going to Bed Book? Are You My Mother? And Tango Makes Three? His face falls a little as Jonny hands over Horton Hatches the Egg. “Horton? Really?” He asks Amelie. He looks at Jonny, almost petulantly, “I hid this, I know I did.”
“Under the crib? Yeah, she found it. I can read it?” Jonny offers.
Before Patrick can respond Amelie interjects, “No, Papa! Daddy! No, Papa, Daddy!” with increasing volume.
“Alright, alright,” Patrick says, sitting down with a groan. “Horton Hatches the Egg, let’s do this.”
Once Maisy bird crashes the circus “way down in Palm Beach” Patrick sounds about two seconds away from bursting into tears. “‘My goodness! My gracious!’ They shouted. ‘MY WORD! It’s something brand new! IT’S AN ELEPHANT-BIRD!! And it should be, it should be, it SHOULD be like that! Because Horton was faithful! He sat and he sat! He meant what he said, and he said what he meant . . .’ And they sent him home happy, one hundred percent!’” He looks at Jonny, voice choked up, “Everyone’s getting their baby but me.”
“Yaaaay!” Amelie cheers, oblivious to Patrick’s impending meltdown.
“You’re getting your baby right on time, remember, Pat?” Jonny reminds him gently. , “Why don’t you take the boys to their room and I’ll put Amelie down, okay?”
“Noooooo,” Amelie whines, “Horton! Again! Daddy, Horton again!”
Patrick nods at Jonny, eyes glassy, but as he stands up there’s an audible pop and water goes everywhere, soaking the recliner and drenching Horton Hatches an Egg.
“Gross!” Eric says appreciatively.
“Was that -- ?” Jonny starts.
“I think my water just broke.” Patrick confirms. He looks surprised before a contraction sends him back into the now-soaking chair, “This baby is coming now.”
“Right.” Jonny’s got his phone to his ear in no time flat, listening to the tinny ringing as he wills Donna to pick up. “You know, Peeks, there are easier ways to get out of re-reading a book.”
The Book with No Pictures
Patrick’s reclining in the hospital bed, golden curls standing out against the industrial white pillows, looking oddly rested for someone who just had a baby. Said baby is curled up in a pink ball on Patrick’s chest, lips pursed in sleep and with a shock of black hair peeking out from a tiny knit pink cap.
Patrick smiles at Jonny, holding Amelie and loaded down with bags of presents that Patrick had reminded him to bring for the older kids.
Bryan and Eric are standing back from the bed slightly, eyes wide, taking it all in, uncharacteristically quiet.
“Hi guys,” Patrick says, “come meet your new sister!” The boys shuffle over as one, and tilt their heads to peek down at the baby.
“She’s tiny.” Bryan says, after a moment.
“Yeah,” Eric agrees with a nod. “Can we turn on your TV?”
Patrick laughs, “In a little bit, we’re all gonna visit for a few minutes first. Besides, I think Charlotte brought you presents.”
“Who’s Charlotte?” Bryan asks, looking around the room, as if someone might be hiding.
“Your new sister is Charlotte,” Jonny says, stepping more fully into the room and depositing Amelie at the foot of Patrick’s bed. “Careful ma coccinelle,” he admonishes lightly, drawing her back down the bed before she can fling her full weight on Patrick. “We have to be very gentle with Daddy and baby Charlotte right now.”
“The new baby brought us presents?” Eric sounds skeptical, and Jonny would bet his childhood hockey card collection -- including his prized Jarome Iginla rookie card -- that Eric will be the first of their kids to suss out the truth about Santa.
“Yup!” Patrick says completely unfazed, as he pushes a standing Amelie back down on to her bottom with the toe of his foot, making her laugh. He turns to face the boys, “Unless you don’t want your presents?”
Jonny has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at the boys’ expressions in the face of Patrick’s practiced innocence.
“No, no, we want them.” Bryan hastens to assure them. He elbows Eric in the side and gives him a significant look.
“Yes!” Eric says, and then, “please.”
“Alright, Papa,” Patrick says, nodding to a pile of wrapped gifts on one of the chairs surrounding his bed, “let’s hand out the new-baby presents. Wasn’t that nice of baby Charlotte to think of you guys on her birthday?”
“Birfday, birfday,” Amelie sing-songs.
The boys get new matchbox cars to add to their ever-growing collection, and Jonny has to stifle a groan. They have so many already the living room is a veritable parking lot, and the only thing that hurts worse than stepping on a tiny tow truck is stepping on lego bricks, of which they also have more than their fair share. No one would ever say the Toews boys are deprived.
Amelie cheerfully tears into her “pwesant!” and is in raptures over her new baby doll, dressed in a miniature of the ruffled romper currently adorning Charlotte. Jonny shakes his head a little at the image.
“Cute, huh?” Patrick asks, beaming
“Yeah,” Jonny says. “But to be honest, I’m more amazed by the fact that you were organized enough to find matching baby/baby-doll outfits and put together a three ring ‘Baby Binder’ itemizing each kid’s daily routine and including a freezer meal spreadsheet.”
“I am pretty great.” Patrick says, smiling cheekily. Char emits a tiny cry, almost a squeak, and Patrick tuts at her, patting gently on her bottom to ease her back into sleep.
“You really are,” Jonny says fondly, not even ashamed of how sappy he sounds. Especially when it makes Patrick’s face melt, too. His eyes are shining, and they’ve already done this once today - crying together over their babies is apparently their thing now. Before things get too maudlin, though, he pokes Patrick’s shoulder playfully. “But what I’m wondering is how is this the same man, that labeled forty boxes ‘kitchen crap.’”
“Not my fault! I wasn’t nesting when I packed,” Patrick says with a laugh, wiping at the corner of his eye. “It worked out in the end.”
The boys are racing their new cars up and down the -- thankfully -- unattached IV pole, and Amelie is talking nonsense to the baby-doll in her lap, sporadically looking over at Patrick and patting the baby on the belly with a “shhhh.”
There’s one present left on the chair, and Jonny picks it up, flipping it in between his hands. “Who’s this for?” Jonny asks. “Me? Did Charlotte get me a present, too?”
“You could say that.” Patrick says, and the look on his face is one Jonny has come to be wary of over the years. It’s the look that says: “Couple costumes!” or “You totally just grabbed my ass in front of my grandparents that you haven’t met yet!” or “I gave you a hickey during free period, and now you have to go to class with the only teacher in school who’s going to call you out about it!”
Jonny has a feeling embarrassment is in his imminent future. He’s not sure how exactly, what he’s holding is innocuous and book-shaped. But after fifteen years, he’s confident in his ability to read the facial expressions of one Patrick Toews.
“That one’s for the whole family.” Patrick says. “Hey Bry, Eric, y’all want to open the last present from Charlotte?”
“Y’all” Jonny says lowly. “You’d think you were born in Birmingham not Buffalo.”
“Hush, you” Patrick says, blowing him an air kiss. “Come on” he inclines his head towards the boys, “give them the present to open!”
Eric and Bryan tear into the meticulously wrapped present.
“The Book With No Pictures?” Bryan sounds out carefully.
“Oh.” Eric says, disappointment in every line of his face.
“I think you’ll like it. Maybe Papa will read it to us all?” Patrick says, eyes dancing with mirth. “Since my hands are occupied, Babe. You don’t mind right?”
Jonny, sighs, resigned and totally gone for his husband. (“Whipped” Brent would say, and has on many an occasion.) He clears his throat and opens the cover. “‘This is a book with no pictures. It might seem like no fun to have someone read you a book with no pictures. It probably seems boring and serious. Except . . . Here is how books work: Everything the words say, the person reading the book has to say. No matter what. That’s the deal. That’s the rule. So that means . . . Even if the words say . . . BLORK.’” Jonny darts a look at a smiling Patrick as the boys start to giggle. “‘(Wait -- what? That doesn’t even mean anything.) BLUURF.’”
By the time he’s half-way through the book, “ . . .’My only friend in the whole wide world is a hippo named BOO BOO BUTT.’” Eric, Bryan, and Amelie are rolling with laughter; even Patrick is giggling helplessly. Jonny’s just hoping that the nurses hold off on their rounds until he finishes. “Charlotte’s my favorite.” Jonny says, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “She’s the only one not laughing at poor Papa.”
“Boo Boo Butt!” Amelie shrieks, laughing maniacally.
“ . . .’Next time, please please please please, please choose a book with pictures. Please? Because this is just too ridiculous to read. The End. BONK. (I didn’t want to say that.)’” Jonny closes the book with a smile.
Amelie claps her hands, “Yaaaaay!” she cheers. “Again!”
Patrick wipes a tear from the corner of his eye, still laughing. “Yes, again! Again!”
“You are a menace, Patrick Timothy Kane Toews.” Jonny leans over to plant a kiss on Patrick’s smiling lips, ignoring the chorus of groans coming from the boys. He settles back into his seat and picks up the book again.
Jonny takes in all the smiling faces looking expectantly up at him and the new sweet bundle cuddled up high on his husband’s chest, and he feels overwhelmed with love for his not-so-little family. But he’s got a job to do now, and he clears his throat dramatically, making Amelie giggle.
“Alright,” Jonny says grandly. “‘This is a book with no pictures . . .”