Author's Note: So here we are. I'm sorry to say it's over, but I'll be starting up new projects eventually...I never stay on one project long enough to get significant cases of writer's block...
Anyway, if there's interest in a sequel, as my fave rave reviewer suggested...I'm seriously considering. I love these characters. I'm sad to see them go...
Spring 2034
Gatsby? He found himself wondering for the millionth time. Could it be we're trying to turn back time, old chap? Rowing against the currents and hoping for that green light to make Daisy ours again?
But as much as he loathed the passage of time, and the parts he so callously took for granted, he would not have traded a single thing in the world for this moment when he held his first granddaughter. She was as tiny as her mother had been when she had been born scarcely twenty-five years earlier. The lump in his throat may have been bigger than the minuscule, breathing babe in his hands.
"She's acting like an angel." Robert heard Jane's voice accusing. "It's deceiving."
"This is as well-behaved as she's ever been, trust me." Gemma's soft and musical voice assured her. "She's taken after Gavin, thank you very much. She may have my mother's half of my genes, anyway."
"Share," Kendra prodded him gently and he turned, finally lifting his eyes from the tiny wrinkled face as it slept serenely against his palm. Kendra took the baby girl gently, tucking her against her shoulder like a mother. As she smiled and patted her on the back, the child awoke somewhat and cooed at the assembled group before lazily kicking her feet.
"It's a pretty name, too." Jane continued, her chin resting in her hand. A gray streak had started somewhere in her temple, but it was the only streak in her fiery red hair. She didn't seem to mind her age-mark, and Peter didn't seem to mind much either. Robert personally counted Kendra lucky for finding him graying and weary. If she'd seen him in action as a strapping twenty-year-old, something told him she'd be disappointed with his growing middle, graying head, and wrinkling face.
"We have to uphold the strong English roots, right? Mom is Irish, I guess...but we've got the UK gambit run, I think." A young man with dark auburn hair handed Gemma a tall, thin glass of Kendra's homemade iced tea and sat beside her with a proud grin. "Gemma's got Brits and Scots, I've got good old Ireland and England on my end."
"She'll have freckles and blue eyes. The hair's a toss-up." Gemma's own dark, wavy hair seemed almost overpowering, especially when it contrasted with her skin, which had taken after Kendra's after all.
Robert looked at the assembled group tiredly and touched the back of his neck. The house hadn't been this full since his father's wake some seven years ago. His mother's funeral, quite the opposite, had been a big affair at the nearer country club. The burial had been emotionally trying, particularly for Joel and himself, but once the woman was put to rest, it was as if everyone had breathed a little easier. She was at peace, and the pressures were no longer bearing down on them. And his father, bless him, had survived a good ten years after she had passed.
The side door opened as Robert made his way to the cabinet for a glass of scotch. He turned, listening as the smart shoes tapped their way inside. Amie smiled at him as her squeaky-footed friend joined.
"Well?" The girl asked, standing on her tip-toes to kiss her father on the cheek.
"She's a healthy, beautiful girl. They decided on Gwendolyn Marie as a name. I forget her weight and all. She's tiny, though." Robert indicated the fridge. "Tea's in."
"God bless Momma." Joni pulled open the fridge and spun with the pitcher. "Where's the kid?"
"Where else? School." Robert wrinkled his nose. "Up to his ass in credits. He's lucky if he doesn't fail his Latin course for all the studying he's been doing."
"And the other kid?"
"On his way home. He's on break still." Robert tapped his fingers against his glass of scotch. "Amie looked pretty pleased."
"I'm due for publishing this fall." Joni sent him a sly smile. "They say I write a bit like Lewis Carroll."
Robert's lips twitched. "Fantastic."
She stood on her tip-toes again and hugged him around the neck. "Auntie Joni is going to visit her tiny niece now. Where's Momma?"
"Holding your tiny niece."
"Here," she handed him her cell phone. "Call Johnny, would you? Tell him to fail his fucking Latin course and come home for a day."
"Absolutely, Miss." He nodded and she slid down the hallway toward the living room. Robert turned opened the contacts list. He knew the phone had voice-recognition, GPS, and a number of other gadgets, but he hardly knew enough to send and receive messages, let alone activate it with his voice. So he old-fashioned speed-dialed his eldest son, John, and suggested a slight sabbatical to visit his newborn niece, see his sisters, and clear his head. He called his younger son, Paul, afterward.
Kendra came in as he ended this second call knowing Paul was just a few more hours away. "Who was that?"
"Paul. He's just now leaving Connecticut."
Kendra's nose wrinkled and she filled her glass with tea for the second time, staring out the window of the house blankly. "I wish he weren't so far away. Everyone's flown the coop, you know?"
"We could always get a puppy." Robert suggested softly and Kendra laughed, shaking her head.
"We felt old enough without grand-kids," she grumbled. "Where do they get off reproducing before I'm sixty?"
"Any later and I might have been in a hospital bed beside her." Robert griped.
Kendra chuckled again and turned, looping her arms around his neck. "Bezoomny, I tell you. Starry old veck that you are."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Once upon a time you used to not like it when I quoted Burgess."
"And then I got suspended for knocking Nancy Schmidt unconscious, and after we traded recipes and got over our differences, I started skipping around the school reciting 'I Sat Belonely' and A Clockwork Orange whenever I wanted."
"And wherever I was, my ears would perk, and I'd think to myself–"
"What a wonderful world?"
"No, I'd think to myself, 'See? She's great.'"
"How prolific, Sir Writer."
He kissed her cheek and felt himself starting to grin as she buried her face against his collar bone and let him sway with her gently, as though music were playing somewhere.
"I must be some sort of author. We've bred another one."
Kendra's squeal was somewhat muffled in his shirt. "Really? Amie and Joni had good luck selling it, then?"
"She got recommended to a really nice guy as an editor, and he's told her by fall it'll be ready for publication and distribution."
Kendra stood up and hugged him tighter around the neck, kissing him soundly on the mouth. "All in all, not bad, eh?"
"Not at all, my dear." He closed his eyes, picturing their brood. Each of them with dark, wavy hair, each with broad, toothy grins, boisterous laughs, long fingers, naturally tuned ears, and perfect pitch. The boys were both six foot and going, Gemma had settled quite nicely somewhere between five feet six inches and five feet seven inches. Joni was scarcely as tall as her mother, but both boys, the youngest of the four, had skyrocketed well past their mother, and John was rivaling his father these days at a healthy six feet three inches.
"It'll be a little boy for the two of you." Smithsen smiled warmly as he mulled over the test results. "I'm very pleased to be the one giving you the news, I'll say."
Kendra seemed very quiet, and then she tilted her head. "Does this mean we're running through the Beatles?"
"Well, John is at least a family name, too." Robert muttered. "Are you sure it's a boy?"
"Couldn't be surer. How is Gemma taking it?"
Kendra couldn't help but laugh. She rested her hands on her belly and wrinkled her nose a touch. "She wants another sister."
Robert's stomach twisted, and in one arcane moment, he felt himself lift as if too wide for space and time, and a fiercely protective part of him made a rare cameo, causing his hand to twitch and pinch Kendra's side just barely, and his legs to jitter suddenly.
"We're late picking them up from Jane's–"
"You know they don't mind having them a few extra minutes." Kendra stood nevertheless. "Thank you, Doctor. It's exciting to know ahead of time, I think."
Robert linked his arm around Kendra's waist, aware at any moment something might happen to his wife, his son, his family. All at once he was very tired, and he was very much looking forward to hangman with his girls, dinner, bedtime stories, and celebrating with Kendra.
"Good luck to the two of you. Neither of you had more than two in the family, right?"
Kendra's eyes brightened. "I have a few cousins...I'm not totally green."
"They've spread to all corners. We're lucky Gemma was still in-state when the baby was born." Kendra mumbled.
"She couldn't fly out that far along." Robert reminded her. "They were going to travel to LA by bus. I'm sure she planned to have the baby here, with her family."
"Still..." Kendra sighed. "I guess we'll have Joni here, won't we? She'll be publishing out of New York. Maybe she'll stick around. Y'all know I can't stand phone-conference Christmases two years in a row."
"Won't happen again, I swear." Robert kissed the top of her head. "John will be done with finals, Paul will be done his finals...Joni will be riding the waves of her new book, and I'll put my foot down so Gemma lightens up her touring schedule."
"But don't you cramp her style, Bobby." Kendra rested her cheek against his heart, feeling its strong and steady beat against her temple. "You make me so happy."
"Still?" He straightened proudly. "There's something."
Kendra laughed and reached, tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling him down so he rested in her neck. "I think I'd like that puppy."
"Yeah?"
"If only to take cart-wheeling around the grounds and to have for when I jump in the pool."
"I do miss Daisy now and then." He sighed and leaned closer, resting his chin on top of her head. "You look good today, Kendra."
His son's first steps. He collapsed against a king sized pillow-top bed in France and contemplated pulling his hair out. He'd missed, of all things to miss, his son's first steps. Because Amie had insisted he go do some interviews, promotions, and publicity for his new book in Paris.
"Bobby?" The phone asked in a tinny, flat voice. "Baby, what happened?"
"Nothing!" He announced angrily. "It's just my son. Nothing important anyway."
"Get over yourself. He doesn't know the difference. He's hardly a professional at it, anyway. You should see the goose-egg on his head from when he decided to walk himself over to the ottoman and throw himself over it..."
He sighed and leaned, taking up the phone and pressing it to his ear. He rolled to his back and tangled his fingers in his hair. "You aren't mad, then?"
"Mad?" Kendra asked as though the word were simply misplaced in the sentence. "Why would I be mad?"
He smiled faintly and covered his eyes, sighing again. "How are you feeling, by the way?"
"Pretty good. I, uh...went to the doctor today. To get my life insurance updated for the school coverage."
"Yeah?"
"They were a little concerned with my temperature, and they..."
Robert's mind flipped back roughly a month and he fumbled with the phone, avidly remembering a night when the kids had gone to bed, magically almost, without a fuss. He and Kendra had sprinted to their own rooms, far from prying eyes and ears, closed and locked the door for the first time in what felt like forever, and forgotten about three children, a house, bills, lessons, papers, and visits from the family.
"We're looking at another baby."
He felt his eyes close. "I wish I were home, Kendra."
"Me too. But I'm not mad. I promise."
"What if I'm mad?"
"Don't be." Kendra soothed, and Robert's hands crooked, reaching and scraping to touch something he knew was a thousand miles away. "Bobby, you'll be home soon. Joni and Gemma are looking forward to finishing up their French for the week, and Johnny will be walking still. He'll be showing up by the time you get back."
"And you?" He listened at her contemplative silence. "Kendra?"
"I'll be here. Waiting for you, ready to introduce you to the new baby."
She smiled against his chest again and shook her head. "Your tongue be made of silver, sailor."
"Then come me own one, come me fair one."
"I'm already here."
He blinked, almost as if he had to remember he was floating on a cloud, and then slashed at the rope keeping his cloud floating so securely above solid ground, and not for the first time in his life did he closed his eyes and lift out of the morass and into the blue.