Celebrating

The night was not like all other nights. They’d never celebrated being parents before. How does one do that, they wondered? Should they call each of their friends—collect—and shake Mr. Froggy, the rattle, into the phone? Should they have raucous sex, knowing they wouldn’t have that opportunity again for the next decade or so? Should they buy a couple of Cuban stogies and sit out on the riverbank blowing smoke rings into the perfect Kazakh night?

Instead, they came home to their quiet apartment and sent out a couple of elated emails, thereupon discovering a tasty, new, nasty note from Jane’s work nemesis (Ms. Marin County, CA) which threatened to turn the evening into an anxiety festival. Tremulous but doing her best imitation of denial, Jane sat down with Steve to share the last helping of a 3-day-old chili that was still holding it’s own.

That’s what Steve said, anyway. Jane’s taste buds were nowhere to be found. Several days earlier, she had caught the bug that Jem offered her. There was no way around it—unless she was going to give up hugging, squeezing, kissing, and yumming up little Miss Precious.

They were two bites in when the phone rang: Libby, the coordinator from their adoption agency in the US.
“Yeahhhhhhh!” she screamed into the receiver.
“Yeahhhhhhh!” they screamed back.
And while Jane described the court activities to Libby, Steve ate his dinner, alone, in the darkening kitchen. And when the details had all been discussed, Libby wished them well on an evening of celebrating.

A sated Steve wandered into the living room, as Jane shuffled back into the kitchen to finish her room-temperature flavorlessness.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Dina and her husband were reveling in the new family’s good fortune with a bottle of wine, phone calls to friends…and, probably, raucous sex.

Jane and Steve popped in another episode of ER and went to sleep. Or tried to. Jane’s coughing fit started at about 1 am and bugled Reveille into the early dawn. The next morning when they “awoke,” the couple was exhausted. Steve dragged himself into the kitchen to heat up his morning constitutional of hot water. Jane sat on the toilet to meditate on how to respond to Ms. Marin County’s email.

A few minutes later, there was a crashing of pots and pans, followed by Steve’s laughter. Moaning. Cursing. A water faucet opened full-throttle.

It turned out that the morning constitutional’s pot had slipped from Steve’s hand, burning three of his fingers along the way, and emptying its contents. The tile under foot became just slick enough to send an off-balance-father-to-be colliding into two kitchen chairs, the three of them landing flush against the ceramic floor.

Jane and Steve met in the kitchen, laughing at their lives—fortune and misfortune fused together in a crazy balance. And then they looked at the clock. Just 20 minutes left until their cab ride to the Baby House. They dug into their bowls of muesli, and prepared to spend their morning with the best bubble blower this side of the Ishim River.