In nine days, the twins will turn two years old. They are having a tiny party this year, on the actual Sunday, with just three little baby-friends from play-dates. And that is essentially what the party will be: a slightly more special play-date. There are going to be little cupcakes with little dollops of frosting. They are going to a warm indoor playground where the toddlers can crawl on foam structures and roll around in a big barrel that is rainbow-colored, and eat their snacks and their cupcakes and then the twins are going to give little thank-you treat bags to their little friends for coming to their little party. After their afternoon nap and some regular time at home, they will have their regular family dinner and that is when they will get to open their presents from mama and daddy, and their grandfathers and their grandmother and their cousins. Then a bath and bedtime.
But Danicka is not thinking about the cupcakes (their nanny will pick them up from the Jewel-Osco bakery) or the treat bags (she and their nanny have time set aside next week to shop and make them and curl the ribbons and so on). She's not thinking of whether or not Lukas will be able to be there to videotape the girls or not, because they don't make plans like that. Right now, as momentous and heart-warming as it is, the first real 'birthday party' her babies have had is not much on her mind.
--
In thirteen days it's Christmas. And they actually are traveling this year, going up to New York and staying with her father, while Anezka and Daniel stay with Lukas's parents. It's the first big trip for the girls, who have never been on a plane before, and Danicka has looked online for books and advice about how to prepare them -- and herself -- for it. She has told them they're going on a trip for Christmas, and they will not shut up about it. They are shockingly agile when it comes to language. Little pups, always barking, she sometimes thinks. She hasn't noticed a twin language between them, but suspects that if they're creating one, it's private, and none of her business anyway. They ask a million questions about New York, about their family, who they haven't seen in a while and don't have the best, clearest memories of. When they can, or even just with their nanny, they've been Skyping a lot. Whenever their big cousins Irca and Emanek are on the screen it's mostly just the two of them showing off and the twins laughing until they drool.
But Danicka is not thinking about the trip, or the presents (some bought and shipped already, others to be found), or how the girls will do on their first flight and how to keep them from getting sick and whether Lukas will be able to use moonbridges to meet them there or if he'll already be on the road with his pack for some reason to meet them there or if, most worrisome of all, if he won't be able to make it. They don't make plans like that anyway. They certainly haven't bought him a plane ticket, even though the moon will be thin then. Right now, as big of a deal as this trip will probably be and as much as she has to do to prepare, it does not occupy her thoughts.
--
In thirteen days it's her husband's birthday. And he really doesn't care if they give him a party. He always says so. And she has never once neglected to make some kind of plan, some kind of surprise, something, so that he can feel special and singular in such a large family, with babies born so close to his birthday, with a major holiday right on the date. This year she also has plans.
But that's not what she's thinking about right now.
--
In nineteen days and several hours, it will be their wedding anniversary. Last year they went on a semi-nude vacation to a tropical villa and fucked each other ceaselessly, noisily, and luxuriously. It was awesome. And they won't be doing that again this year, she thinks. She asked him, in the midst of Christmas planning and birthday planning and travel planning and everything else she's had on her mind lately, if he wanted to do anything big, or just go to dinner and maybe get a room, or what. Danicka ended up telling him she's happy with anything. As long as she doesn't have to plan it or think about it or do anything for it but show up.
But, as curious as she is about what he may or may not do, it's even further from her mind than the rest.
--
Today is December 12th. And everyone's schedule is messed up. The twins had to wake up early so they could have a too-early nap. Danicka's father is there with them, and he slows everything down, especially because he wants to stop every five goddamn minutes to take another picture, or have Danicka or Lukas take another picture. With the twins, who are half bored by him and half appreciative of his docility as they climb on him or show him all their toys one by one. Or he wants pictures of Lukas and Danicka, or the house, or the cat, or a tree outside or the cabinetry.
Danicka keeps rushing him around, talking rapidly in Czech, urging him as patiently as she can to please, please, they have to go, where are his shoes. It's ironic and a bit embarrassing that Lukas is, at that moment, asking Eliska the same question, and she doesn't know what happened to them, but Tatiana claims to and runs off, so of course Eliska runs off after her and then Lukas has to go after both of them because they're just going to end up back in their room playing and probably naked, or at least not wearing their little shiny Mary Janes and probably with the red and black ribbons undone from their pigtails. And then if he's frustrated they might cry and everything will slow down even more, so he tries to walk slowly and speak slowly and get down on his knees even though he's in nice clothes to help them look for Eliska's shoes.
For her part, Danicka looks stunning. She's dressed in this charcoal sheath with bright blue piping, her heels elegant and simple and black. Wedding ring. Bracelets and necklace from her husband. Earrings from Anezka, from her birthday, which she is still working on affixing to her ears beneath her sleek, full hair. Her clutch is tucked under her arm, and she's nervous and excited and very distracted, walking around calling down the hall to Lukas to ask if the girls' bag is already in the car. By this she means the bag that has some extra diapers and change of clothes and their Quiet Books and the pile of things that makes going out with two small children survivable. He calls back that it is and she asks her father if he has extra batteries and when her father finds the extra batteries then Lukas is herding the twins out into the living room and assuring Danicka that yes, they already did their 'try' on the toilet and they are both in clean diapers and
then her father wants to take more pictures and Danicka is pressing her lips together while he does but then hurry hurry, everyone downstairs, out the door, buried in their coats and piling into that sporty, sleek SUV of hers to drive all the way into the city.
She relaxes on the way there. A little. They listen to music. Lukas smiles at her and she smiles back and her father takes pictures out the window and the girls talk constantly to each other and their parents and their grandfather, who indulges them the most, and mostly in Czech, which they're not as good at, because their nanny knows a little but isn't completely fluent.
Danicka relaxes during lunch, too, at the cafe. She eats lightly, nervously, but she does eat, and she and her father wipe the girls' faces clean after they're all done. It's time to go, so they can drop Danicka off at the Cloister Club by 2pm (no later) and then entertain themselves for a bit until they can be seated in the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel by 2:45pm (no later) to watch her. But Danicka, who is currently standing just inside the lobby to Ida Noyes Hall where the Cloister Club is located, currently crouching down and smooching her girls one at a time while they each say "Now me!" and giggle as she goes back and forth and back and forth to their round, dimpled cheeks,
Danicka has to go line up. Danicka has to put on her gown. And her cap. And her tassle. Danicka, who has sworn to use her powers of material engineering only for good and 'kicking of the Wyrm's ass' in late-night conversations with Lukas in bed,
has to graduate.
Lukas KvasnickaDecember's always a busy month. So many holidays and birthdays and anniversaries; always the question of where this year, when, who.
They've already decided: this year, Christmas will be in New York. They'll stay with Danicka's father, though chances are they'll all come together -- all their big, growing family -- for the holiday dinner. They'll retire to their separate homes, though, where Lukas and Danicka can have at least a few hours of quiet and privacy to celebrate his birthday.
He doesn't care if there's a party. He doesn't even really want a party. He wants a few hours with his closest family; his mate and his cubs. That is enough. That is more than enough.
And then their anniversary. He's planning something this year. It won't be a tropical vacation. It won't be a cruise, it won't be a trip to Paris. It'll be something small, and warm, and intimate. More intimate still than his birthday: just him and his wife. Maybe in New York. Maybe in Chicago. Kids at a sitter's, though. Or maybe them at a hotel. He'll decide when the date gets closer. There'll be time to decide later, because
today is a special occasion. A special day in a special month; an event that's not once a year or even once a decade.
His mate is graduating college. It's once in a lifetime.
--
So Danicka's father is in town. And the babies need to be dressed up and their little shoes need to be buckled on and they need to have their hats and their coats. Their bag needs to be in the car with diapers and snacks and changes of clothes and toys, books, things to keep them entertained. Danicka's father needs to be gently ushered along, they need to go, okay, just one more picture.
Eventually they make it out of the house. They make it to lunch, and then they make it to the venue, and as Danicka is climbing out of the car Lukas calls her back. They kiss over the center divide, making the girls squeal with laughter in the back as though they didn't see their parents kiss on a daily basis. Forty-five minutes isn't a lot of time, in the long run, to park and navigate and find seating. It's even less time when Lukas stops by a supermarket and buys flowers and balloons. The quartet -- a wolf, an old man, two pups, and a floating phalanx of brightly colored balloons -- makes it, nonetheless: finding their way into the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel and to their seats just as the lights dim.
The girls are old enough to be excited by the new place, all the people, the stage on which Something Exciting is going to happen. Lukas has Eliska on his lap, and Miloslav has Tatiana. The winter convocation is a little smaller than the summer. Even so, the undergraduates are many. Danicka's mate is sitting forward in his seat, scanning the gowned-and-capped masses for his wife.
--
The first speaker hasn't reached the podium yet when Danicka's cell phone buzzes under her gown. It's Lukas. If she picks up, she can hear the background noise: chatter from their neighbors, the kids talking with their grandfather.
Lukas's voice, closer, warm with his unseen smile: "How's the view down there?"
Danicka MusilDanicka kisses everyone. Kisses the girls with their now me, now me game. Kisses her husband before he drives off. Goes inside, her clutch left with Lukas, carrying the bag with her cap and gown and the rest. There are graduates milling about inside, swarming; it's winter, and the ceremony is smaller, but that only makes it a little more intimate.
Eliska and Tatiana are to sit between their grandfather and their father. They have seats and their legs stick out in front of them. They are asking questions and Miloslav is taking pictures and climbing into laps even though they have seats and they're peering out toward the doors where the throng of graduates is lined up, waiting for their processional.
And what a long processional it is. All the noise. Bagpipes are played. And of course they'll see her in the middle, with her last name as it is. She checked their tickets beforehand: she looks up, scans quick while walking, and waves. She's beaming. Eliska and Tatiana go nuts, waving their entire arms and calling out to their mama, pointing her out to their daddy, and grampa, and everyone. People sitting nearby can barely stand how cute they are, in their little ribbons and shiny shoes and excitement. They aren't quite staying in their chairs. They have to be ushered back in, shushed, told that mama is sitting down and being quiet now, it's time for everyone to sit down and be quiet.
--
Danicka, who left her purse behind because she isn't permitted to carry anything, tucked her phone into the pocket of her dress. It vibrates quietly and she feels it, then looks up and back a bit, at Lukas, who is smiling right at her, phone to his ear. She grins. She mouths NO, all big and amused. What is he thinking. She grins wider.
Kisses the air in his direction. And turns back to her ceremony, her speech, her everything. It's hers. She worked so hard for this. And made it, despite everything.
--
Convocation ceremonies are not meant for toddlers. The speech is long, and the girls get restless and then flip through their soft Quiet Books. They try to talk, and to be fair the room isn't purely silent but they have to be reminded a few times to whisper, which they are not good at.
They end up sipping watered-down juice from their cups, quite bored. Every adult around them is bored too. But look at her down there. She's sitting so straight, her legs crossed, her hands folded. Her back is straight and her eyes are bright and she looks about ready to shoot out of her chair.
Tatiana is asleep, slumped over against Miloslav, his heavy arm atop her. It's thoughtless; he uses one hand to take photos with his little digital camera -- which Danicka and Lukas gave him -- constantly. Mostly of her. But really: of everything. The banners. The speaker. The assorted dignitaries. The sleeping twin. The proud husband. The restless twin who is secretly sucking her thumb while she looks through a picture book, the pages rustling.
Eventually it is time for them to rise, and file. The size of this ceremony allows them to call each student -- each graduate -- by name. To walk and to shake someone's hand, to be handed their diploma, to pause for an official photograph, to head back to their seat.
There is a Monroe, and a Murray, before
"Danicka Musil,"
and they say it Danikka and from the look on her face as she shakes that older hand she doesn't care at all, she just takes it and clutches it like a lifeline. Pauses, beaming that inimitable enormous grin that is rare enough even now but once -- Lukas remembers -- did not even exist. It was not an expression. There was always something held back, a little secret, quiet. This grin lights up her whole face, so much that it nearly hurts her cheeks, and it's somewhat giddy. She gets her photograph taken and goes back to her seat but she waves up at her family again, seeing one of her babies asleep and one of her babies bored but her father clapping so fierce and so hard, his eyes red, and pausing to wipe his eye quickly, secretly. She sees, also,
her mate. Her male. Who has been with her this entire time.
Lukas KvasnickaWinter convocation draws a slightly different crowd than summer. There are more non-traditional students here. Working moms like Danicka. Second-career types. Grad students, both of the masters and the doctorate breed. Four-and-a-half-year college kids, and the five-and-a-halfers, and all the ones who are just a little more independent, individualistic, unique. The ones who care a little less about graduating with all their friends and their frat brothers. The ones who care a little less about having twenty people in the audience and a two-week caribbean cruise after the fact to celebrate their official entry into the adult world.
Tatiana and Eliska aren't the only kids in the crowd. They're still a rare sight, though, and heart-smashingly cute. Even when they're being restless. Even when they talk a little too loud or fuss a little. Particularly when they fall asleep or read. It's a long ceremony, peppered by applause and cheering, and by the time Danicka walks the stage one girl is asleep and the other is bored,
bored but looking because her father nudges her and points and then busies his big hands clapping, clapping, clapping, gets up out of his seat and whoops and yells and cups his hands to his mouth and roars:
THAT'S MY WIFE. I LOVE YOU, BABY!
loud enough to elicit a wave of laughs and counter-cheers. Loud enough to wake Tatiana, and frankly to startle her a bit. So it is that by the time Danicka makes it back to her seat Tatiana's little face is screwed up, and Tatiana's father and grandfather are hushing her and soothing her and showing her it's okay, it's okay, daddy's not mad.
--
There's nearly half the ceremony left after Danicka walks. There's an endless stream of graduates, and then a few closing remarks, and then the big moment: the tassles turned from right to left, and then the caps whipped off and thrown into the air. An enormous cheer rising from the crowd, graduates and families alike. Triumphant music. Confetti.
And then it's time to pack up. A gradual flow of people from the auditorium to the lobby, where cameras flash and graduates press their cheeks together for pictures. It takes some time for them to find each other, but Danicka's mate is six-four, and Danicka's mate is trailing half a dozen balloons, and Danicka's mate has one of Danicka's cubs sitting astride his shoulders, the other side-saddle on his hip.
It's Tatiana that spots her mother first. Points, yelling mama! mama! at the top of her lungs until her daddy turns his dark head. His grin lights up his eyes, puts dimples in his cheeks. Miloslav in his wake, he starts wading across the room toward Danicka.
DanickaLukas interrupts Eliska's book to show her that mama is finally doing something. And Eliska is startled and annoyed for half of one second, confused for the other half of that second and a couple of seconds after, then getting up out of her chair to look at things. Lukas just up and stands, whooping and hollering and yelling. Beside him, Miloslav is laughing. Beside him, Eliska is bouncing, which is her trying to jump but keeping both feet on the ground, her chubby little body bobbing around. Beside him, Tatiana is startled awake and tensing up, looking around, trying to figure out what is going on.
But down below Danicka is turning pink moments before her fancy photograph. Her blushing is rare to the point of vanishing but she blushes bright and entire now, ducking her head, long hair swinging across her cheeks for a moment. She has to compose herself, after all, and take her photo, and then she's lookin up at her family when she gets back to her seat, waving again. By then Tatiana is in her grandfather's lap, and he is holding her and rubbing her back and, with thoughtless habit, straightening her up a bit from her miniature nap.
--
More graduates, then, and more speaking, and finally everyone is exuberant in part because all the speeches are over and they can get up and move. There's the recessional, and then the lobby, where Danicka takes off her hat and says hi hello how are you to people who stop her and hugs a few friends and professors, but she's really looking for her family. The ones she's closest to.
Tatiana, sitting on her father's shoulders and occasionally yawning, starts yelling for her, causing Danicka to whip around. Eliska is cradled against Lukas's side so that Miloslav can take pictures and so the girls don't get trampled. Danicka heads their way; Lukas heads hers.
"You look ridiculous," Danicka laughs, at Lukas, with his balloons, with children hanging off of him. Gives him a kiss, feeling Tatiana pat at her as daddy dips forward. She hugs her father then, tight and long, and when she comes up there are tears hidden in her eyes, blinking away. There's something he says to her, clutching her. Kisses her cheek, brief and fierce, before he lets her go.
But then she's lifting up Eliska and babbling to her about how mama is so smart, she just graduated, isn't Eliska proud? Nuzzling her, kissing her daughter, taking balloons or flowers or whatever Lukas wanted to shower her with.
"Megan," she says, calling out to a passing student with a sharp asymmetrical cut of black hair. "Megan! Would you take a photo of us?" And that is how Megan ends up with the camera, and how the Kvasnicka-Musil family ends up arranged into a row of three adults with two little girls and a bunch of balloons to take a few photos. Megan turns out to be, as she's introduced to Miloslav and Lukas and the girls, another girl from Danicka's program. One of the few, and one of the only graduating this term along with Danicka. She introduces Danicka's family to her mom, her stepdad, her dad, her stepmom, and her brother, so for a while there are just a bunch of names flying around, most of them to be forgotten. Miloslav gets a little ruffled by Megan's dad chortling something about girls in the sciences and how it's lucky his daughter is already married, and Megan has this look for a moment, but nothing can really keep any of them down.
By now, Miloslav has Tatiana and Eliska is back with Lukas and Danicka has diploma and balloons and the girls' bag and the crowd in the lobby is thinning out. A little. "We should go to the reception," Danicka tells Lukas, while Miloslav talks to Megan's mom and Megan is making faces at Tatiana, who keeps pretending to be shy.
Danicka wraps her arm around her husband, her embrace only a little disrupted by the toddler he's holding, the toddler who is obsessed with the big Mylar balloons. She smiles up at him. There's nothing really she can say. All she can do is smile.
LukasLukas can't remember the first time he saw that smile. Maybe it was when she brought him kolaches, and he couldn't help but peek. Maybe it was later. Weeks until the first flash, though, if not months. Months, years, until she let herself smile like that without reining it in. Pulling it back. Hiding something -- hiding herself.
Not because she was deceitful and wicked. Not that at all, but because she was vulnerable, and so oft-abused that she had learned to protect herself. To hide. To be secret and sly as a fox.
Oh, she's smiling now, though. She's so happy that it radiates off her, lights everything around her. Even her large, dark mate, who wraps his arm around her -- the one he has free, anyway. The one that wraps her tiny arm around his wide chest, ineffectually at best, more to show affection than to affix herself to him. Eliska is smiling too. She is fascinated by the big, colorful balloons and a little overwhelmed by all the noise and happy happy happy because mommy is happy too.
Lukas: kisses Danicka's hair. Wraps his hand behind her head to press that kiss a little more firmly to those sleek gold locks, to her scalp beneath, to that brilliant, brilliant brain of hers under it all. "Proud of you," he murmurs, secret, just for her, before he wraps his arm back around her shoulders and looks about to locate her father.
"Want to go to the reception, Miloslav?" he calls.
DanickaTruth be told, Lukas may have never seen quite this smile. This much open, blatant happiness. This much open, blatant pride in herself. Sometimes her pride is a vicious thing, a Shadow Lord thing, as though standing for herself and liking what she sees is, itself, subversive. And sometimes her happiness feels like a trespass to her, a naughty thing she's doing, something she's gotten away with. Absurdly, the closest he's seen might be the night they got married in that tiny ceremony with their parents in attendance and Danicka in grey, where she was calm and gracious and did not cry at all like some brides but positively ran out with him, grinning at odd intervals. And when the girls were born she cried. A lot. And laughed at the same time. A lot. It was bizarre.
This is all different. She did this. She did it on her own. She did it really well, if the braided cord draped over her gown is any indication. She did it while (in no particular order) getting out from under the thumb of an abusive family member, occasionally facing life-threatening danger, a tumultuous love affair, caring for an ailing parent and an ailing sister, getting married, setting up a house and home, arranging to make herself a kinslayer-by-proxy, traveling to two other countries, and the little break she took to carry and deliver and begin raising a pair of twins who are roughly as energetic as Lukas was when he was little.
Of course she's proud of herself. Of course she's exhilarated, thrilled, a little shocked to find it all completed. So she glows. She's more animated right now, for everyone, than she usually is with anyone but her girls, when they're all being silly together. Of course, when Lukas holds her for a moment, he feels her trembling a little from sheer joy.
Eliska gets a balloon close enough that she can bap it away and shrieks. Then she's all but diving out of Lukas's arm to chase it.
Danicka nuzzles his chest a bit. Lukas whispers that he's proud of her. Noisy as it is in this lobby, noisy as their own children are, his voice cuts through it all clear and warm and dark. She closes her eyes and lets it slip into her, warm her from within.
"Me too," she murmurs, and squeezes him, and turns her to her father. Megan and her family have drifted off, and Miloslav is blowing his cheeks out, his mouth against Tatiana's palm, so she's shrieking, too. They're cute, but their voices can be absolutely piercing like this, overexcited and laughing hysterically.
He nods at them, and begins heading off after them. More than likely Lukas ends up taking the baby-bag that Danicka is carrying and putting it on his own shoulder, at which point she demands one of her chubby babies, who are only barely babies anymore. They walk. They talk. They are learning how to use the toilet. They have decided favorites: foods, colors, books, stuffed toys, blankets, clothes. They are turning from chubby babies into little girls, but Danicka holds Eliska against her chest as they head to the car to go to the reception, arms held close to keep her warm.
--
The reception is lovely. There's some toasts and recognition and a thousand more photographs. There's tea and snacks and the girls are let down to run around a bit; they have a surprising degree of independence, though this might be because their father is there. He could never lose track of them, not without some dark magic worked against them all. He could find them with a sniff of the air or a cock of his head to hear their voices in particular through the throng. And even though his sense for evil, for wrong-doing, for darkness is keen, there's also Danicka. Who never quite lets them out of her sight, even though this moves her around the room, her cap and gown and cord shed in the car, holding a glass of iced tea with lemon while she talks to professors, to friends, introduces them to her husband, points out her girls to them, grins as they shake her father's hand and tell him things that make her duck her head.
Danicka catches Lukas's eye frequently. It's a moment, after they've both tracked the crowd to pinpoint the current location of their daughters -- currently standing beside a plant against the wall, inspecting it -- that she sees his mind is the same place as hers, his eyes the same place as hers.
She mouths something at him.
miluji t .
--
Already the sun is setting, set, the sky dark. Snacks are good but the twins need a real dinner. They woke early, took an early nap, need bedtime -- though it won't be early at this point. The reception isn't long, but neither is the willpower and strength of a not-quite-two-year-old. And the actual ceremony was quite long indeed. It's when Danicka goes over to the girls to tell them no, it is not time to take off their shoes, and Eliska bursts into tears and throws one of those shoes down in frustration, that Danicka decides it's time to go. She scoops up Eliska immediately, and her missing shoe, and walks down the hall away from the crowd. Of course Tatiana comes on after her, and she starts fussing, and a moment or two later Lukas gets a text:
time to go. get dad, bring car around?
Time to go. Time to take fussy girls home, kicking off Mary Janes in the car and trying to stay awake when they would much rather zonk out. Time to heat up leftovers and drink some milk and take a bath and get their teeth brushed and get in PJs and go to their big baby flop-bed, which will be replaced with their separate smaller mattress flop-beds the day after their little birthday party, surprise,
time for the exhausting and never-ending routine of childrearing. The fact that those girls needing that routine, that dinner, that bath, that bedtime, that comfort, that time at home away from the outside world, more than their parents need to party or be flexible or what-have-you, is just part of the deal. It's what they signed up for. And Danicka, who thought she could never love anyone, anything, finds it meaningful. Not always happy. But meaningful. That level of dedication, that kind of almost submissive devotion blended -- somehow -- with leadership, with gentle dominance, with being the fucking adult.
Doesn't lessen her happiness today, wrapping her girls up in coats to go out to the car and buckle them into their safety seats. While it warms up she darts back inside to say goodbye to a few more people, but the reception is already winding down anyway. When she climbs back into the car she looks tired, and the girls already have their shoes off, and Miloslav took pictures of her leaving the reception.
Looks at Lukas as she tugs the door closed next to her. Exhales a sigh. Eyes a little glassy from the tumult of the day, the excitement, the everything. Looks like she wants something from him.
LukasTime to go.
Her mate senses this just as she does. In tune. In sync. Hears that wail or sees the flung shoe; knows instinctively, immediately, and with absolute certainty: time to go. Time to pack it in. Time to call it a night before the twins decompensate further, or decompensate entirely. Time to be the fucking adult.
Eliska gets whisked up. Lukas watches, sharp-eyed, to make sure his other pup follows. She does. They're smart pups, smart like their mother. A few moments later his phone buzzes, and he checks the message, and texts back a brief reply:
OK
A few quick goodbyes, a few long handshakes with their new friends; Danicka's professors and classmates and admirers. On the way out, Lukas doesn't lead Miloslav by the arm or anything so degrading as that, but he does put his hand on the older man's shoulder now and then. Just to make sure he gets through the crowd. Just to send that wordless, half-conscious message: I protect this one, too.
The car is cold when they get out there, and Lukas turns the heat on immediately. Gets out when Danicka arrives with the girls; kisses her cheek and tells her he's got it. She goes to say her own goodbyes. He buckles the girls in, takes off Eliska's shoes when she complains daddy! toes!, takes off Tatiana's too when she whines to see her sister liberated. Sometimes they exasperate him. Sometimes he realizes this period is short, short, so fleeting, they're already growing up and becoming little girls and needing him less and less by the day. This period is precious.
And exasperating. But.
He's behind the driver's seat when Danicka gets in for good: a swirl of blonde hair, lovely dress, cold air. She looks tired. Miloslav in the back: checking his stash of photos. Precious things too, those. Some part of Lukas wonders if he takes photographs to remember what his failing mind cannot. It's a sad thought, so he brushes it aside. Reaches across the center divide and puts his arm around his mate, unbidden; pulls her against him for a brief but tight hug.
DanickaLukas and Miloslav walk through the crowd while Danicka bundles one very upset little girl and then one moderately upset little girl into their coats, telling them we're going home to have dinner and a story and cuddle time -- which seems to soothe one girl a little and confuse the other, because she suspects this also means bedtime soon.
Miloslav occasionally feels Lukas's hand, and perhaps he can tell that it means to be protective, if he can tell it means to be anything at all. He permits it. He allows it like a man whose pride was pulverized, pulped, so long ago that he barely remembers it. There is also this: he likes Lukas. Not the son he was given. Not even, really, the son he might have wished for. But his son, in a way, all the same.
This one does not hurt Danicka. This one does not hurt any of them. This one takes babies from his mate so she can run off to say her goodbyes. Buckles them into their carseats, snug in their coats. Measures his breath as one whines about her shoes and kicks fussily. Slips the shoes off her feet, one at a time, careful to use his big hands gently, when he could pull the shoes off in an irritated yank and throw them to the floor of the car. This one takes off the other girl's shoes, too. This one gets them each their sippy-cups of water and double-checks the straps of their seats to make sure they are safe.
This one, this other son of his, answers patiently when the girls begin to ask after their mama.
Miloslav watches Lukas for a bit, as they're getting in, as they're waiting for daughter, mate, mother. He takes a picture of Lukas behind the wheel of the car, twisting to answer the girls that their mama is coming soon, she's saying good-night to her friends. Perhaps he can feel what is happening to him. Perhaps. But most of all, these days, he just likes to look through the photos. Renata comes to his house sometimes to get the memory cards, drives them to the store, makes him print copies of everything. When his family, or Lukas's, visit, he is often working on these photo books he makes, carefully writing names and dates and descriptions, putting everything in order. Perhaps he plans ahead for when it is all gone. Or just
enjoys it. Taking the photos. Renata's visits. The glossy pictures themselves. The inscription. Looking through them, remembering.
--
Danicka comes to the car. She exhales into the heated seat and looks at Lukas and needs something from him. And this is why they never get bored with each other, even having known each other for lifetimes: he can't read her mind. So, next best thing: hugs her. She almost never resists a hug anymore, not unless something is deeply, deeply wrong and she simply can't bear to be held. Even then she eventually leans into it. Things change.
He hugs her and she smiles, nuzzling his shoulder, and inhaling his scent, and exhaling a soft sigh that sounds contented. "Let's go home," she says,
so they do.
--
And it's late by then, at least for the twins. And the house is chilly and Tatiana doesn't want to climb up the stairs and before anyone can stop him Miloslav just scoops her up and carries her. Eliska, stunned, fusses, and he shushes her: tells her, in Czech, that Tatiana's legs do not work anymore and she can never be put down again.
Miraculously, Tatiana laughs. Begins begging him to put her down, put her down, but he doggedly insists her legs don't work anymore. When a pang of worry shows in her eyes, like MAYBE HE'S NOT KIDDING, he asks her if she's sure, then puts her down and she stands up and he exclaims that it is a miracle, miracle.
Danicka stands with Lukas at the top of the stairs, Kando winding around their legs, and holds his hand. Looks up at him.
"After they eat and everything and get to bed... would you like to go for a drive with me?"
Just her. Just them.
LukasLukas is still grinning silently -- was laughing with his shoulders shaking but not a sound escaping his lips as Miloslav played his little game with Tatiana. Looks down at his mate with eyebrows up; makes a questioning sound:
hm?
while she holds his hand and asks if he'll take a drive with her. His eyebrows relax. He leans into her, brow to brow, closing the half-a-foot or more between them. Kisses her gently.
"Of course."
