The "second act" is a monster--I feel like a real writer now that I've hit that tough act that requires so much finesse. I've jettisoned one whole chapter, rewritten this one 'til I couldn't stand it anymore--it's tough stuff. But I reminded myself that the first draft is where you do those things. And cut myself some slack.

So our boy Colt is working through recent events, and Wyatt is fighting to find her place in his world. The big Christmas celebration is finally beginning, and Officer Friendly will, as usual, rear his ugly head. The end is near in more ways than one. But first, a little fun!

 “Gimme my baby,” Aisha cried, as soon as I walked into the media room with the kids.

She took Tyler and started kissing him all over the face while Cat snuck up and wriggled Taylor out of her little pouch and hoisted her high in the air to watch her squeal. But it was Tyler I kept my eyes on.

What I loved about him at that age, and what Aisha sensed before any of us about him, was that having to fight so hard for his life had made him super sensitive and alert. He didn’t want to miss a move or a minute. In fact, he seemed to be way more aware of what he almost missed than Taylor.

She took surviving as license to chill. Nothing rattled that little girl. She was on cruise control. But Ty was always amped. Like, if you gave Ty a toy, he examined that thing every which way before he played with it. And he might break it open, too, as if he needed to know how it did whatever it did.

When we started giving them baby food, he dug his hands into it, stared at it, smelled it, tasted it and gave you a big messy smile or frown as his final decision after all that. All senses involved. It was like you were tasting it yourself, watching him do it—Taylor inhaled hers, he “experienced” his.

So when Aisha took him, his face lit up and he started kicking his legs and flailing his arms for her as if he was trying to tell her how excited he was to see her with his entire body. I mean, if he had a tail he’d wag it for you. And who doesn’t love a kid who greets you like a puppy, right?

She hugged him and looked over at me and said, “You can jus’ go on about your business now, honey! I got this.”

“Where’s my girl?” I asked.

“She was down there stuffing stockings with her kids,” Mike said. She was sitting next to Cat, sort of staring at Taylor like she was some kind of alien being she wasn’t sure what to do with.

She didn’t have a maternal bone in her body, Mike. As I’ve said, she’s the “male” half of their twosome, an interesting kind of “soft butch” that I’ve never been able to explain all that well because it’s such a combo plate. But she enjoyed the twins because they were these tiny little people who did crazy things that made her laugh. She just needed to warm up a little first.

“Kids from DeGrazia?” I asked her.

“Damned near all of ‘em down there,” Aisha said. “That one Lakesha girl and her crew been here all week.”

“So, what? They’re not there now?”

She poked a fearless finger down into Ty’s diaper checking to see if he was wet or worse, and said “I think they took her someplace to eat or something. They sho’ love that woman—you was right about that.”

“Hey! How’s Bonnie?” Cat asked. A little too quickly and deliberately.

“Not so good,” I said. “Takin’ it pretty hard.”

And Big Man said, “You both need a time out.” He was over at the mini fridge where he got a big bottle of water for himself and held it up to see if I wanted one.

I said, “Nah, I’m good. I slept at Nick’s. A little.”

“Well, you don’t look good,” he told me. Again.

“Who don’t look good? I know you not talkin’ about Ba’y Boy,” Aisha told him. She was only partly teasing, of course. You criticize me even a little, she’ll bite your head off.

“Okay, okay, Mami! I’m just saying His Royal Hotness could use some shut eye.”

“Thinkin’ about that nice vacation you gave up now, I bet,” I said.

He sat down in this big round chair that looks like a gigantic catcher’s mitt to me—the decorators hate it when I say that, though.

And he raised his water bottle to me and said, “Not even a little bit.”

Cat grabbed Taylor by the waistband just as she was about to try to climb over the arm of the sofa and said, “You really should get some rest. This is the longest day of the year for us.”

“Yeah, well, they’ll start whining if I leave ‘em here too long.”

“And we will bring them right to you if they do.”

Taylor crawled onto Mike’s lap, grabbed her big boobs and pulled herself up onto her little chubby legs with a victorious, mostly toothless grin.

“She tryin’a walk now?” Mike asked me like it wasn’t the least bit weird to have a baby’s hands attached to her nipples. I gathered from that that she was all warmed up finally.

So I said, “Workin’ on it. She is anyway. Ty’s always just a little behind.”

“Slick move,” Mike said. “Went right for the money! Better keep an eye on this one.”

“That child don’t even know what gay is yet,” Aisha grumbled.

“You got a problem with gay?” I teased her this time. I wanted them to know I was in the game so they’d quit worrying about me all the time.

And that did it. She got her back all up and told me, “I got a problem wit her talkin’ like that around her, yeah. She turn out gay, that’s fine. But you don’t have to be droppin’ all kinda hints and shit!”

“Son, you better run before they get into that debate again,” Big Man told me.

“Ya’ll tryin’a make like I’m racist or sum,” Aisha said. For her the “debate” had already begun.

“Not racist. Just homophobic,” Cat said.

“How I’m gon’ be homo whatsis an’ I’m here livin’ wit it every day?”

“But you don’t want our kids to be gay,” Mike said.

Can I just say I loved that she said “our?” Tickled the hell out of me.

Back to the “debate” now:

“You want ‘em to be? Knowin’ what you know?” Aisha said.

“Point taken,” Cat said. “But they’ll have what we have.”

“JJ had what we have’n’ wun happy ‘til he fount Lil Daddy. And he was old by then,” Aisha said. “So if I’m gon’ pick a life for somebody I love, it ain’t gon’ be somethin’ make it harder for ‘em, am I?”

“Okay, truce!” I said, though the point she’d make that time had already shut the others up pretty good.

And then I said, “How are we gonna fit shopping into all this?” to make sure the case was closed. And I noticed a few more side glances and some fidgeting.

 “Papi, gon’ lay down now,” Aisha said. “We got you.”

“We’ll tell lady friend where you are,” Mike assured me.

“And then he’ll be up again fo’ sho’,” Big Man said.

“Pun intended, right?” I said.

“I figure some o’ that dark around your eyes is probably her fault.”

“Will you let that child get outta here?” Aisha scolded. And she gave him big eyes which totally tipped me off that they were trying to keep some kind of secret.

I said, “I’m out, okay? Jeezus...” and headed for the elevators. I like secrets. Fun ones. And I could tell this was going to be good. Bad news they tended to break down and tell me. Fun stuff, they could hide for a while.

Up in my place, I put on the Neo Soul Café and just plopped down on the big divan thing in the actual bedroom. Just to set the scene since I didn’t was too busy getting into Wyatt to describe the place the first time, my master bedroom “suite” has five rooms.

There’s the actual bedroom with my gigantic bed in it, the bath that’s more like a little “spa,” the “water closet” off that of course, a sitting room/library sort of thing and a “play” room with a TV that takes up almost a whole wall, stereo equipment, you get the idea.

The bedroom can get pitch black and it’s soundproof, too. It didn’t keep anyone from knowing what was up if I took somebody in there. But it was nice knowing we could rock out without people hearing everything we said and did—unless someone hit the wrong button or something.

That happened a coupla times. There’s cameras in all the rooms, right? And an emergency thing that should go on only if I’m not there and there’s an intruder or something—I don’t even know what it does, to be honest. But we’ve been “broadcast” to the security wing a few times without realizing it, the girls and me. Big Man says we should use that as a staff recruitment tool—or a test to see how down a new guard really is.

But the only thing they would’ve heard that day was me snoring my ass off. I had no idea how tired I was until I felt someone touch my shoulder and realized I’d passed out as soon as my head hit the big pillow at the top of that divan.

It was Wyatt who woke me. And for a minute I felt like I was still dreaming, because she’d turned the lights on just enough to make herself look like a gorgeous, golden haired ghost hovering there above me.

I said, “Hey, Mami,” and reached up to run a hand through that hair. It was all streaming over one shoulder and felt like satin sliding through my fingers.

“You looked so peaceful,” she said. It was a little apology.

“Now I am,” I said.

 “They want to leave soon.”

I just stared up at her for a moment. Taking her in.

And then I said, “Do you have any idea how much I don’t want to leave this room right now?”

She poked my nose and said “Very oddly constructed sentence,” to break the mood on purpose.

“Okay, you win,” I told her. And she gave me a little kiss and touched my face.

“But I do understand,” she said.

“Can’t take it back now!” I said. “How are my babies doin’?”

 “They’ve had lunch and lots of attention,” she said. “And their grandmother has arrived.”

“She okay?”

“She’s had lots of attention, too. I envy you both.”

I pulled her close to me and said, “Why’s that?”

And there were a few seconds of serious sexual tension that we both had to fight off. I didn’t dare kiss her—her eyes told me she knew it. And then that she didn’t care and then that she knew we shouldn’t...

So I said slid my hands down her arms and got hold of her hands because I didn’t want to break contact entirely yet.

And she sort of shuddered and said, “What did you ask me?” in this trippy, spaced out way that was so honest about how much she wanted me that I could hardly stand it.

So I said, “I have no idea,” even though I remembered very well and sort of wanted an answer, even.

But it made her laugh. And then I said, “I missed you.”

She got this little look on her face then. And she said, “I will never understand that,” in this wistful way.

“I’m nuts about you. What’s to understand?”

She finger combed my hair and smiled.

“A great deal,” she said. “But then I look at this face...and none of it matters.”

And then we got into that staring thing again, so I broke it up with, “Look, lemme freshen up a little, huh? They’re not getting all gussied up yet are they?”

Before she could answer, I took dragged her to the spa with me.

The spa is like a bathroom. But the toilet and bidet are in the water closet, the shower is massive and off to itself, the tub is like a friggin’ pool and there’s a hot tub at one end and a “personal” sauna at that other that fits two. Everyone always says they could live in my bathroom. But then they say that about the elevators, too. I know what they mean, though.

She lit on one of the little chairs near the vanity to watch me wash up and mess with my hair. It has these two big bowl-like red marble sinks in it—the colors and patterns in them blow my mind.  They’re lit from underneath, and they look like kaleidoscopes when you look down at them through water.

“You do realize I have nothing even close to appropriate to wear,” she said.

“Don’t worry about that. Sweater, slacks—jeans, if you want.”

She said, “Well, we’ll be outside, too, so--” and stopped, looking all guilty. I just smiled at her in the mirror.

“For the white Christmas thing? It’s not all that cold, the snow,” I told her. And she relaxed. It worked.

She said, “How do you do that?” just to make sure.

I kept up the ruse with, “We get ‘em from Ski Valley. The snow blowers. They use ‘em when they don’t get enough powder some years.”

“Isn’t it ridiculously expensive?”

“I suppose. They just do it, though. We pay them a little something but not the whole cost, probably. I just hope it’s cold enough to work right.”

“Below freezing after dark, they said. The first time this winter.”

“That’s perfect. But I always feel for the ones who wanna stay and watch the service, though. When it gets really cold.”

“They watch outside?”

“They can go in the warehouse, too, but a lot of ‘em wanna sit out in the snow.”

“So how many can be in the service itself?”

“It’s a whole floor, but once we get to standing room only, the people back there can’t see all that well. We tried handing out folding chairs, but it gets noisy and they start fighting over them.”

“Is there anything you don’t think of?”

“I don’t think of hardly anything. I learned everything I know from watching all the people in charge, mostly. I just show up.”

“That’s not true. You work and you plan and you redirect...”

“Just when something weird happens, I jump in. And I don’t work that much.”

“You should see yourself the way others do. I get exhausted just watching.”

I winked at her and said, “And the Academy Award goes to...”

That made her laugh, too.

When we got underway in the big Escalades we always take “out on the town” because Big Man loves to roll like that, I could tell we weren’t going shopping by the route he was taking.

I was sort of relieved. The kids wouldn’t give a damn if they got gifts or not. And every day of our lives is a gift. Besides which, it almost seemed disrespectful to be thinking about material things after the sacrifice Maddie had made.

I saw it that way, by then. Like she’d thought the best gift she could give me was to get the hell out of my life for good. I’d actually sort of prayed to her about it—to tell her she shouldn’t have felt like that. I mean, I don’t know if they can hear us once they’re gone like some people say they can. But I bowed my head and said I was sorry for making her feel that way.

In fact, I liked the idea of having her to pray to. I did that with Grace and the kids sometimes, but it was more to comfort them. I felt like Maddie would just listen. And maybe do us a solid now and then. She was less abstract than God. I could believe that a friend or relative would do something for you if you asked. This random God thing...I was still having trouble with that.

Anyway, we headed almost out of town by a back road I’d grown up hitch hiking on, so I knew exactly where we were going. Big Man drove us as far back into the woods as he could and then Cat said, “We’ll have to hoof it from here,” with this wicked little smile.

I got the kids fastened on and everybody got out and made the walk with us. Bonnie hadn’t ever been there, so she looked a little nervous. So did Kelli.

So I got hold of Bonnie’s hand and said, “The little monument to my family is out here.”

Which...didn’t exactly make her feel better, of course. She looked up like she was worried about me, after that. But I squeezed her hand and just kept going like it was no thing at all.

Until we got there, and the girls and Big Man yelled, “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown.”

I couldn’t say anything. They had blown my mind.

There was this huge stone statue of a woman with little kids surrounding her, standing just a few feet from the top of the plaque I’d put there myself. It reminded me of the ones you see in books about Michelangelo. That Pieta we’d seen, JJ and me, especially. He loved that almost as much as he loved that big David dude, but David he loved for more obvious reasons.

“Not well hung, but the ass,” he said, as we walked up to it. What a perv.

Our statue had a little shrine space for candles and things carved into it. And then on the ground, right above the plaque, they’d somehow recreated the only picture Gracie ever took with all of us around her on a slab of granite—don’t ask me how.

The statue wasn’t exactly a mirror image of the picture, though. It was more artistic, so the woman and kids didn’t look like us. In fact, they didn’t really have faces—you know the kind of thing I mean. But the feeling in both of them was the same. Peaceful, like Gracie’s eyes.

And behind the shrine, I could see where they had planted a row of little trees like the ones Wyatt had wanted—maybe even the same ones we’d never got around to doing anything with. And some other ones, too—they weren’t pine trees, those ones. But they were all decorated and glittering with lights—except for one sitting off on the side by itself, still not planted.

I knew why the minute I saw it. And that finally broke me up. And told me that Wyatt had had a hand in this. A big role, in fact. Bless her heart, she didn’t know what’d hit her but she was in there swimming as hard as she could.

The girls surrounded her and me and Big Man came and put his hands on my shoulders like he was afraid I was going to collapse.

“You guys got me good this time—I can’t believe this,” I said.

“Her kids was out here all day yesterday and this morning getting those trees together,” Aisha said.

And I looked at Wyatt, but she just smiled and didn’t add anything to that. Didn’t need to.

So I walked up to the statue and gave it a really good look. Touched the mother’s face.

“We wanna maybe turn it into a park or something—Big Man came up with that,” Mike said. “Maybe a rec center for the kids around here, you know? Only...well, it’s such a private place for you we didn’t wanna just jump on it, without your permission.”

“But I love that idea,” I told her. “We could enclose this space or something. Not totally, though. Maybe just a big fence or something—wrought iron, real nice, right? So people could still see it. Set candles in there, interact with it--that’d be perfect.”

“Well, you leave it to us, for once,” Aisha said.

I smiled at her because there was a little message in that statement. In fact, all three of them were giving me this little defiant look, to let me know not to meddle or take the whole thing over—not to steal their power. Now that they were finally ready to flex it.

Another milestone reached.

But then for a minute or two they didn’t seem to know what to do next, having stepped up to me for the first time. That was kind of cute, actually. They were like teenagers who weren’t sure what to do once they got what they asked for.

But then Big Man stepped up, and said, “We gon’ leave you’n’ Miss Bonnie here for a minute. Let you have some private time.”

And Bonnie said, “No, stay” and looked at me as if to make sure it was okay.

So I said, “Yeah, c’mon, guys! Let’s do this!”

And we all went over to the little hole that had been left empty, right in the middle of the line of trees. And I picked up the little tree and set it down in the hole with Bonnie there, looking on. It felt like we were burying Maddie--that’s what had worried Big Man, I think. That we would feel sad when we did it.

But I was happy for her, actually. She was family, and this was like our way of welcoming her officially. I think Bonnie realized that, too, but she was blubbering so hard I didn’t want to get into all that at the time. I could tell she knew the whole tree story already, anyway.

So I got down on my knees, shoved the dirt in the hole with my hands and mounded some up around the trunk. And then I gave the mound a little love pat and looked at the tree to make sure it wasn’t leaning to one side or anything.

I was sort of glad it wasn’t all decorated. It was too special to be all tarted up with tinsel—it had been, but they’d taken it all off and put it in a box sitting right behind it. She’d had a lot of fun buying that stuff, but I wanted it left plain. So it would stand out from the others.

Big Man handed me a big water bottle for me to pour from. It was for the tree, but it reminded me of a burial again. So I poured it carefully around in a circle and Bonnie finally just totally freaked out and had to be walked away—Kelli came and got her.

And then after we stood there staring at the trees for a minute, Aisha raised her hands to heaven and starting singing “Oyaheya” and I just let the tears go on and flow. It’s the only religious song I listen to on my own and she knew that, of course. So she sang it strong and soulful for me. If you don’t know it, it’s here:

http://youtu.be/dApPjaplAcA

And if that doesn’t do it for you, you’ve got a serious soul problem.

When she finished the song, she nodded to the others, walked me back around to the shrine said, “Here yo’ boy, Miss Grace...”

And with that, they all started walking back to the cars, so I could the private moment I always had with my “first” family on Christmas Eve.

Wyatt stopped to look back and I put a hand on my heart to thank her. She gave me a lovely smile and a nod, and then trotted off to catch up with the others.

When they were gone, I took a couple of deep breaths and just stood there until I felt tuned in. Sometimes I could feel them there. But it took them longer to come to me that time.

But after I settled down some and it was dead silent for a minute or two, I felt them hovering around. So I sat down right on the plaque and set both the kids down beside me. I don’t pray or talk out loud. I just think things. Sense things.

But this time, I mostly tripped out on Gracie’s face in that photo they’d put down there.

She looked like just another kid—maybe the older sister, not the mother. And those big wide eyes were like nothing we went through had touched her. She was an angel. And that’s why she couldn’t stay, I guess. I just can’t figure out why the hell it had to be such a horrible death.

I do know that looking at that face, and then the faces of the wee ones who died with her, I got really pissed off about it again. Balled up my fists to keep from screaming. And then, as always, I laid down on the plaque. This time with my kids right next to me. And I closed my eyes and promised to keep being “good.” Whatever that meant.

It's just the kind of promise you make to a mother, to be “good.” And whenever I looked into those eyes of hers, that's the first thing I think of. The basic, really simple way she saw the world and expressed herself.

Gracie didn't have the language or the brain power to go deep—everything was instinct. Gut. But her childlike words made everything crystal clear, actually.

Like, her just saying, “Son, don't,” the way she did sometimes—what is that, two words, right? But it said she sensed danger and I could feel the fear.

She couldn't tell me what to do, but she could sound the alarm. That's what it was like—a siren in the night, telling me to wake the fuck up.

I started to really miss her once I got her voice back—I’d had a hard time remembering what she sounded like, but I could hear her plain as day all of a sudden. Even that little teenage girl laugh she gave me whenever I did something. Whenever I came home she got all giggly and excited. Which eventually got me a beating from whoever she was with at the time—I’ve told you that before.

I was beating myself up about not going to see her enough when Tyler got up and walked right over to me.

I know, right? The one who wasn’t even trying as far as I knew.

He had his little arms stretched out like Frankenstein so I could catch him as soon as he got close enough. And Taylor started bouncing up and down like she was happy for him.

So I grabbed him up and kissed him and kept saying, “Way to go, dude! Way to go!” And he squealed and kicked and carried on. And then I pulled Taylor in for a group hug and we sat there in a little love knot celebrating for a minute or two.

And then I got up and took them over to Maddie’s little tree and said, “Merry Christmas, Mom.”

And as soon as I put Ty down he headed right for it while Taylor clung to my legs, laughing. And when he got to the tree, he grabbed onto it, turned, and gave me the loopiest victory grin, ever.

Honest to God, there wasn’t anything in the world you could get me for Christmas that would top that moment. So I told them both how happy I was to be their daddy and that I loved them. And then I let him stumble along ahead of us on the way to the cars.

And when we got settled in the Escalade, I checked to see who’s been blowing up my cell the whole time—I’d felt it buzzing away in my pocket, but there was no way I was going to insult all the people who’d worked so hard by getting on the phone in the middle of everything.

Wyatt gave me a troubled look when I finally checked, though.

And Cat said, “Really?” and stared like your mother does when she really means business.

I scrolled over as quick as I could, and when I saw the message, I went, “Wow.”

The HR woman had sent me a copy of a text message from Friendly that said:

“Detaned by cops at the airpt. Please warn kid I am being watched. He may be to. Tell him dont to worry will take care of it. Has my word. Thank you all for trying.”

I didn’t have a chance to even think about it, though, because Cat leaned over and snatched the phone away.

“Your baby boy just walked for you,” she said.

“What is it?” Wyatt asked, pulling rank a little bit because she was worried for me. But I didn’t want to make it worse.

So I lied and said, “It's cool. It's being handled.”

But nobody in that car was the least bit convinced—none of the adults, anyway. Tyler climbed up into my arms and gave me one of those wonky, open mouthed kisses they give you that feel like they’re chewing on you with their little toothless gums.

I gave him a squeeze and said, “You da man!”

And the way he laughed made everyone else laugh. Except Wyatt.