*****005:

Sitting at a kind of picnic table bolted to the ground in front of the tunnel crawling slippy slide play land, I watched the kids playing happily with a few other kids their ages who happened to be in the room. Both of the other mothers were expecting, and I could have spoken to them, but my cell phone buzzed and it was Lance, Rafe's brother, a call I had to take.

"Hey Lance." I said into the flat screened palm held phone. I brushed my hair back off my shoulders, wondering why it felt so warm in here, then decided it was the huge floor to ceiling windows overlooking downtown Huntington Beach. The front of this building had some shade trees, but this side did not. I stared unseeing out at the view of concrete and green rubber mat play area just outside that was too hot at this hour to play on. A few brave souls were making the best of a couple of bushes for shade as their kids played on the tea cup swirly things. Not me. I wasn't going out there.

"Hey Aubrey. How's it going?" His voice was rich and melodious like his brother's, and often on the phone I mistook them. Especially since Lance thought it was funny to use a track phone occasionally--- an unidentifiable number and say things like, Hey Babe—just to trick me.

He also called just to chat periodically, and had about every day since his mom died. That was to be expected, since the day his mom died was also the day his wannabe boyfriend had decided he wasn't gay after all. Lance was gay. He'd actually been in a monogamous relationship, possibly married-- they said they were married, but I wasn't sure. They also said they went through a divorce, but again, was that figurative or real? They had three adopted children as well, and they split custody.

All this: gay, divorce, dumped, split from kids, loss of Mom-- all this had happened within the last four months. Hence the daily calls, sometimes multiple times a day.

I know he texted Rafe. Not sure about calling. Rafe was too busy to take chit chat calls, and Lance was famous for them. But the brothers were as close as brothers could be, and comforted each other in their losses. They'd lost an older brother years ago as well, a brother who had been gay-- shunned by his peers, excommunicated from his church, and alone. He'd committed suicide, a devastating blow to their family, one they never recovered from, but a loss they shared.

There had been too much recent loss. It seemed almost impossible.

It was also no surprise that Heavenly Father, knowing all our losses, had brought us into each other's lives when He did. One of the General Authorities of our church had once said that no person we encountered in our lives was by chance. That each soul we came across had something to offer us or us them, and it was our job to search out that reason and develop it. I felt that Rafe and I had been strategically placed in each other's lives at exactly the right moment, when we needed each other the most, and were each the willingest we'd ever be to compromise and trust and grow our love.

Lance too.

I loved Lance.

With all my heart. I truly loved Lance. If I'd met him separately from his brother, I think I would still love Lance.

I smiled. "It's going great, how about you?"

"Oh so-so." He said. He wasn't above putting on a false face for people, but not me, we'd had that from the very beginning, a kind of compassionate understanding that precluded fakeness.

"Sorry. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"

"I didn't wake up in a bed."

"Does that mean you didn't sleep?"

"I think I dozed, fitfully. I slept in my car. Got out late from work and didn't feel like driving clear to LA for the kids, so I stayed out front all night so I could pick them up this morning."

I swallowed. "This isn't an ideal arrangement, you know."

"I know." He sighed.

"And why would you get out late from work? I didn't know you kept hours like that." He was a web designer in his spare time, which was his main source of income at the moment. He could do that anywhere, and did. He could be working at a social gathering, and you'd barely know it. He could work on his phone.

He chuckled. "Yeah, okay, you caught me."

"Caught you what? Stalking your kids? Darnel?" That was his ex.

He laughed outright, a rather bitter sound, understandably so. "No. Caught me hanging out in Laguna."

"How did I catch you doing that? I thought you said you were in LA? Did Darnel move again?" Darnel had moved three or four times in the last six months. Thousand Oaks, LaQinada/Flintridge, West Covina, Arcadia, it was a roller coaster.

"No, he's still down in Pasadena. Been there a good month now. My place in Brentwood, they've got road construction going on and a detour that takes me an hour to get home. So, I hung out at a friend's."

"A friend in Laguna? Oooolala!"

I could hear his chuckle. "Client." He admitted.

"Look, if there's an issue getting into your place, you and the kids are totally welcome at our place. Any time, you know that. Seriously. I mean it."

"I hear ya, sis. Just didn't know if I could handle all that domestic bliss you guys throw around. My brother the changed man, you know? The whole birthday card wall day really got to me."

Rafe hadn't exactly told me about their conversation the birthday card wall day, when the kids had opened all Rafe's fan mail birthday cards and taped them to the wall in our half court gym down stairs beside the yoga room. But he'd told me enough to know that for a split second Lance had questioned his own sexual preferences identity. For a split second. He'd been sure to reiterate later that he was still gay.

"I can obliterate the birthday card wall and just stick to the basketball court." I told him in genuine honesty. I would do that for him, even though it was my favorite wall in the house for what it stood for-- unity.

"Well----." He drawled. "I wouldn't want you to go to all that trouble, but I might have to take you up on that offer, not that that was why I was calling you. But yeah, I really hate to be a bother."

"Okay, I won't go to all that trouble, and you can just suffer through the birthday card wall, and sleep upstairs. I have a girl's room for Kaye that has two beds as you well know from prior sleepovers, and the boy's room for Will, and you and JoJo-Mojo can have the guest room or even our room for that matter. We're moving into Dad's room downstairs today as a matter of fact."

He was startled. "Where's Dad going?"

Rafe's dad had been living with us in the downstairs guest room for half a year as he figured out his divorce. He still had stuff there, but he'd essentially moved out even before Mom killed herself with her drug overdose. He'd met someone, someone we hadn't met yet, someone he was serious enough about that he'd petitioned the church for a cancellation of sealing. Meaning he and Mom would be divorced, like even a Temple divorce.

"I think he got an apartment in Thousand Oaks."

"Not too far inland." Lance mused. "How can he stand it? Straight freeway with nothing but houses to break the monotony."

I noticed that Elisios Sanchez was coming in with his little hellion, Juan.

"So, Lance, see you tonight, yes?"

"Okay, Aubrey, you won me over. I'll bring the kids. Thanks for your help. Are you sure it's no trouble? I don't want to impose."

"Oh, for Pete's Sake, Lance, you're our brother. Our home is your home. Forever if need be. Okay? Enough said. I've gotta go. Love ya."

I clicked off and indicated the seat nearby me on the bench, and where Juan could see the other kids and decide if he wanted to get some of that energy out. My kids generally played nice, although Virgil was big enough to climb the outside of the play place, and make my little heart flutter in nervousness. Elisios told Juan to go play and he took off like a rocket. Elisios sighed wearily and sat down, not too close, and gave me a wan smile.

"They say he's grieving. That's where all this angry misbehavior is coming from." He explained, his swarthy complexion breaking with deep dimples in an otherwise unlined face. His hair was wavy long in Latino spendor, and his skin tones were to die for.

And it was evidence of death I heard. "Grieving something recently?" I felt genuine concern.

"Call me Eli. May I call you Aubrey?" At my nod, he continued. "My wife. He is grieving his mother."

I made an alarmed face, not realizing the burden of death was so close to home. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. She was a douche bag bitch. We'd been separated for two years." He watched Juan climb after Virgil with deft precision, even Rein and Felicity-- four and three respectively-- were in awe.

"Do you mind if I ask how she died?" I'm a doctor, I can't help it.

"Encephalitis due to herpes simplex."

"Rare. Is it the California Virus?"

He looked startled. "No."

"Oh." I nodded. "She lapsed into a coma? Seizures? Flu?"

"Terrible fever." He said slowly, eyes wide on me. "Not many people are that aware of it."

"I'm a doctor." I told him with a reassuring smile, and a soft pat on the hand that was resting along the bench back. "Was it recent?"

"About three months."

"I'm very sorry. That can't have been expected. How long had you been separated? Did you have custody, or did she?"

"We shared custody, and he's taking it very hard. Exhibiting all kinds of behavioral abnormalities."

Having children with bereavement issues I was curious to know what abnormalities he was dealing with. "Like what?" This wasn't my field, although I certainly knew a little about grief.

"Om.... Well.... He tells every person on the street that he meets that his mom died." He looked embarrassed.

I was used to that response myself. "Felicity does that. She is seeking support and observing others to gauge how they might feel, so she can determine how she should feel. Textbook grief."

"He sometimes doesn't remember what happened, but then pees his bed every night for a month. Before her death, he was completely potty trained."

"Oh yeah." I nodded sagely. "I've heard of that. So far we haven't had to deal with that phenomenon, but they ask me about it all the time. Rein, my three-year-old wasn't potty trained when we adopted him, but he is responding to age appropriate cues really, really well. It helps that we have a girl almost the same age, and she's been potty trained for two years. He sees her and wants to do what she does."

He didn't seem to have anything else he wanted to share. In fact, he looked slightly uncomfortable, so I allowed the subject to be changed, even though the doctor in me, and the mother in me, was far more interested in that subject than any others.

"Your kids are all adopted? Did you go through this agency? This is your mother's dream baby, right?" Now his eyes took on a strange light and I heard a few alarm bells which I calmly shushed. Talk of my mother and my connections did that to me. It was inbred that we didn't discuss outside of family and family business. But this was a guy at ABC asking simple ABC related questions.

"Yes, we adopted three children, but no, not all from here." I didn't want to reveal too much on this subject. Rafe's profession made that difficult, when things hadn't been publically announced, anything else was hearsay and had the potential to cause issues in online venues. I wasn't sure just what sorts of issues it could cause as I sat there with this lonely grieving man and his hyperactive grieving child. A part of me felt slightly rebellious within my own thoughts, rebellious against the preconditioning I'd received saying that I couldn't talk to anyone outside the family about family items, even my own. I'd always valued being my own person, and doing whatever I deemed fit. If I wanted to talk, I should be able to.

"Their parents all died?"

I jerked my head in the negative. "No. Just Felicity's, our daughter. She saw her parents die a very gruesome and violent death. She's actually in counseling four days a week. The boys suffer abandonment, not death of a parent."

"And how often do they go?"

"Just two days a week."

"Who watches them when you're busy with the girl? Or do you leave her here alone and you watch the boys?" Now why did he need to know that? That was none of his business. I sat up, stretching, buying myself some time.

I looked around. No one was paying any attention to us and Keeva was in the room, but she was reading on her phone in a farther away corner. This was a safe spot.

"Do you get a sitter often? We have a nanny for some things." I admitted.

He laughed, sensing my nervousness at his personal queries. "Sorry." He apologized instantly. "It's easy to get talking like a soccer mom at the park, since I'm mom and dad now, I do talk to all the moms. Getting used to the lingo. I have to take him to daycare. I have to work, unlike some people."

"Whoa!" I said surprised at his jibe. "We all have to work."

"Oh, I wasn't implying anything." He blew that off, but he had been implying that obviously, I didn't have to work. I don't know if he knew who I was married to--- he'd called me Aubrey Mann, but he did know that I'd been a doctor.

"Oh, that's okay." I tried to laugh it off too, knowing I was hyper sensitive to imprecations involving my ability to contribute. Not that Rafe had ever, ever wanted me to work. In fact, I knew he didn't want me to work outside the home, he felt that raising these kids was a full-time job, and he treated it as a valued, super skilled full-time career occupation. It wasn't him--- it was me. I felt of less value and worth because I wasn't monetarily contributing. I looked at Eli sideways and gave him an apologetic smile. He nodded.

"I was just wondering how you did it with three kids is all." He said gently. "It's hard enough for me with one."

The one in question actually took that moment to slip off the multi-colored net thing he was climbing the outside of doggedly like a raving monkey, he was actually screeching, and then the screech turned to a shriek as he fell. The stuffed mats beneath him cushioned his fall, but Eli had jumped up to catch him, missed and now cuddled him as he cried, not hurt, but frightened.

Of course, this frightened Rein, who toddled over to me and wanted up. I wasn't supposed to lift him, but I'd already done so today once, and that from a standing position. He was three, he couldn't understand not being cuddled and picked up by the only person he thought of as mom. I pulled him onto what little lap I had left.

This abruptly ended the play date with Eli and Juan, and we decided it was time to head out. Places to go, people to see, things to do in our busy lives. Goodbye new friend, probably never see you again, but it was nice while it lasted.

*******