No Regrets, Just Love (The Hammel Babyverse)

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#10 – Precious

Halloween had always been a favorite holiday to Sean for three reasons: the first, and most important, was that it was a holiday for families with children, and he was able to interact with the children in his neighborhood in the days leading up to Halloween night.

The second reason was the prevalence of sweets available for the holiday. Sean felt that children these days missed out on the full Halloween experience, primarily due to unreasonable paranoia by their parents, hastened by misrepresentations of news stories in the 1970s and 1980s. When he had been a child, trick-or-treating involved handmade treats: cookies, cupcakes, candied apples, popcorn balls, fudge and taffy...and anything else that adults felt like sharing with the neighborhood youngsters.

However, regardless of his opinions on the subject, trick-or-treating had been reduced to pre-packaged candy. The least he could do was buy a variety and give out more than one piece of the “fun-sized bars” or distribute larger candy bars.

The third was tied to the first: the excuse to wear costumes. Doing so was fun at adult parties, which was a bonus. However, the neighborhood children were always delighted when adults answered the door in costume, and Sean always made sure to have an appropriate outfit. When in a relationship, he tried to coordinate with his partner so that they could have a theme.

This year, the task of finding a costume was more difficult than in years past.

The bulge in his stomach interfered.

Josh, at least, was both sympathetic towards Sean’s inability to find a fitting costume and indulgent of his efforts despite his difficulty.

“You could just buy an extra-large costume,” the attorney suggested, as he mixed juice and sherbet in their punch bowl. They had found a recipe online for non-alcoholic Halloween punch, and Sean had wanted to try. Since the telepath was condemned to sobriety until after their baby was born, he wanted to introduce variety into his diet. Josh had gotten excited at the prospect of being able to play bartender, even if the beverages were no-proof.

The older man shook his head. “I already wear extra-large costumes.” His height and frame were already larger than average. The addition of the bulge in his stomach in a pattern that was uncommon for men did nothing to add to his costume options.

“Oh.” Josh knew his partner was large, but he wasn’t in the habit of actually checking Sean’s sizes. Turning back to the punch bowl, he added the last of the juices, stirred, and then took a sip. It tasted fine – very sweet and a bit fizzy – and then ladled a healthy portion into a cup that he handed to the older man. “We could be Romans. Togas are easy to make, and then we could match.”

Using king-sized bed sheets would leave enough to cover Sean’s entire body while not constricting his stomach.

“I’d rather not traumatize the neighborhood,” the telepath replied.

Josh didn’t know how to respond to that. His partner had always had a self-deprecating sense of humor. However, with the pregnancy, the attorney didn’t know whether the jokes were intended to fish for compliments; they weren’t before, but hormones confused him. It didn’t matter that Sean’s moods had remained relatively stable, because the bespectacled man lived in fear of saying the wrong thing and transforming the telepath from his typical self into Chase or Cobalt at the drop of a hat.

That very notion was terrifying.

Sean spared him the need to reply. “This tastes pretty good.”

“I’m glad. The recipe wasn’t that hard to make.”

The telepath nodded and took another sip. “Next time, we should try a different sherbet flavor.”

“That’s easy,” Josh agreed. They sold tubs of sherbet in the grocery store where the novelty frozen treats were. He didn’t remember precisely what flavors were for sale, but he knew that there were more than two available.

Sean leaned back on the sofa, sipping his punch thoughtfully. “I’m running through the fictional characters that I know.” Most of the telepath’s reading interests were non-fiction these days, and most classic literature didn’t apply to his situation. Likewise, his other reading interests – Vonnegut, for example, and some of the more obscure science fiction and fantasy from his younger days – were also ill-fitting.

“Why not ask Ryan for help?” Josh proposed. He dropped onto the sofa beside Sean and wrapped one arm around his partner’s shoulders. “Surely he knows some comic book figure that might work for you. And they all have teams or duos so you and I could still coordinate.”

Sean shook his head, negating the thought. “I already brought this up with him,” he explained. It had been a casual conversation but the results had been dissatisfying. “Most of the characters run around in those skintight outfits that don’t fit people half my age and size, before we even get to the pregnancy.” Not to mention that the first two suggestions Ryan had, for men who had interesting stomachs in comics, had been named Maggott and Chamber. Maggott’s powers were precisely what one might expect from his name: two large parasites lived in his stomach and would burst from his abdomen in combat. Chamber apparently had some sort of black hole or energy furnace in his chest, which, while interesting from a medical and scientific standpoint, was hardly complimentary.

His pregnancy was not a black hole.

Plus, while he didn’t want to conceal his stomach, since he wasn’t ashamed of the pregnancy, he also didn’t think that it had to be the defining feature of his costume.

“What are the women from your Lamaze class doing for their costumes?” Josh interrupted his train of thought with a valid question.

“Not all of them celebrate Halloween. A few are doing simple things – cat ears and face paint. Karen’s husband suggested that she go as an oven with a bun in it, and now he’s sleeping on the sofa until further notice.”

Josh had seen those costumes in stores. He’d already thought that they were in the height of bad taste, but he made a mental note not to even reference them as a joke.

“At the last knitting circle, I’d floated the idea for a few of the other women to dress as fertility goddesses across cultures, since the group is diverse.” Sean finished off his punch and set the cup aside on the end table. “The problem is that there aren’t fertility gods in the same sense. With good women.” Cisgendered men didn’t get pregnant, and thus they had no need to be fertility deities.

“That brings us back to togas,” Josh pointed out.

“For them, it does.” The telepath shook his head to himself, since he considered that matter settled. “We could go the simple route.”

“How simple?”

“Back to basics. Ghosts and skeletons.”” Then, inexplicably, Sean began to chuckle.

“What?”

“What if I had a skeleton costume but there was a tiny skeleton over my stomach, commensurate with fetal development at this stage?”

Josh chuckled too. That probably wouldn’t be that hard to pull off, in the scheme of things. Sean could sew...and there were art students who might be willing to help with the painting. “That isn’t a bad idea.”

“I’ll put it in the maybe pile,” the telepath said when he had stopped laughing. “Can I have some more punch?”

“Of course!” Josh reluctantly let his arm slip from around his partner’s shoulders so he could reach for the cup. He was off the sofa and at the punch bowl in a flash, since this was an easy need to satiate. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Do we have any of Riley’s marshmallow squares left?”

“I’ll go check.” Josh handed Sean the refilled cup. “You keep thinking about costumes.”

It didn’t matter much to Josh what they did; he would defer to Sean on this. As it was, this Halloween was already special.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#58 – Weary

Toddlers, like their infant counterparts, were prone to getting sick. Their tiny bodies with their tiny immune systems were breeding grounds for germs, particularly with how they touched and licked everything within arm’s reach, and then, for good measure, would shove their fingers into various orifices, not the least of which were their mouths.

Parents of toddlers were also prone to getting sick. This was unsurprising given that their children would, after their adventures in germs, dirt, and bodily fluids, invariably rub their tiny hands all over their parents’ faces.

The Neville-Bernstein household was lucky, in that Eleanor only had a cold.

The Neville-Bernstein household was far less lucky, in that both Sean and Josh had contracted influenza. Despite the fact that both men had gotten their annual flu shots. The strain going around was not one of the ones predicted for this year’s vaccination, which rendered their prevention efforts worthless. It didn’t matter who had given it to whom; both men had it, and both were miserable.

Sean had eaten nothing in days – he could barely keep down tea- which created problems for his shielding. The brain required glucose to function, and, as a psychic, he required far more than the average person. Shielding required more effort than utilizing his telepathy – at least in terms of scanning surface thoughts – and thus, in the absence of brain fuel, the telepath didn’t have the energy to shield at all. This exacerbated the throbbing pain in his temples and all over his body.

Josh felt equally pained, nauseated, and miserable. However, he chose to pretend everything was fine. His exercise in denial would have been more convincing if, despite consuming nothing but juice, he hadn’t spent half the morning hunched over the toilet in the master bathroom, before collapsing onto the tiles, too exhausted to pick himself up and go to bed, let alone to continue his daily business as though he was well.

Sean hobbled into the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe for support. “Come to bed.”

“No.” Josh’s voice was muffled by the tiles against which his cheek was pressed. “I have to take care of you and Eleanor.”

“Eleanor doesn’t want to socialize. She just wants to lie in bed, watch Sesame Street on the portable television, and sip apple juice.” For good measure, she also had a tub of Goldfish crackers for her to nibble, if she became hungry.

“She’ll need her diaper changed,” Josh murmured in protest.

“We can set the alarm and take shifts.”

“And I need to take care of you.”

Sean didn’t have the energy to properly roll his eyes, and so he sighed softly. “I need to sleep, and so do you.”

“But-”

“You’re giving me a headache.” The telepath’s voice softened. “Please?”

Josh didn’t want to argue. “Okay,” he conceded, but he remained where he was, sprawled across the cool, bathroom tiles.

“Do you need help?”

“...yes.”

It took more effort than it should have to pull the attorney off the floor. Then, with the younger man leaning heavily on Sean, they managed to stumble back into the bedroom and all but collapse into bed.

The telepath set the alarm. Their bedroom door was open, so that they could hear if Eleanor called out for them, and so she could easily enter if she needed them. She wasn’t shy about summoning, or seeking out, one or both of her fathers if she wanted them.

Sean knew he had a fever, as he had taken his temperature earlier that morning. Josh’s body felt just as warm beside him, and the younger man’s forehead was hot and sticky with sweat. The telepath pressed a kiss to his partner’s cheek and then pulled the covers around both of them.

“I can’t wait for this to pass,” he told Josh as she settled beside his partner. He didn’t wrap his arms around the attorney, despite the shiver that went through him. He ached from head to toes and the effort was too strenuous. Although Josh was too stubborn to admit it (given that he was too stubborn to admit that he was ill), the telepath knew that the younger man had similar full-body aches. Spooning would make it worse, even if they couldn’t get each other sicker from the close quarters.

Despite Josh’s protests, the attorney’s eyes had already closed, and his breathing had begun to slow and grow more even. In between chest-wracking coughs.

Sean closed his eyes as well. Perhaps they would feel better when they woke up.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#84 – Cinnamon

Eleanor had inherited her Daddy’s sweet tooth.

Sean saw nothing inherently problematic about that. Humans were hardwired through evolution to crave sugar, salt, and fat. Eleanor’s sweet tooth was hardly noteworthy in terms of setting her apart from other children, or from other people at large. Additionally, Sean had no desire to be a hypocrite with his daughter. If he was allowed to have desserts, and Josh was allowed to have desserts, then Eleanor was allowed to partake as well.

The telepath simply advanced the concept of moderation in the Neville-Bernstein household.

Fruit was an important source of sugar in the Neville-Bernstein household. Eleanor was allowed to have as much fruit as she wanted, but dessert proper was limited to one each day, except on special occasions. That would change when she grew older, but Sean did want her to learn moderation. Besides, if adults didn’t teach children good nutritional habits, then they would never learn them.

In addition to her sweet tooth, Eleanor liked to help. That was inevitable, given who her parents were.

Eleanor liked to help her Papa to set the table. She liked to help with clean up. She liked to help her Daddy to cook.

She liked to help her Daddy to bake.

“We bake something?” The toddler asked, looking up at her Daddy with big, blue eyes.

The telepath had been engaged with his daily crossword puzzle, while his daughter ate blueberries and watched Sesame Street in the den. However, at the question, he looked over at little Eleanor. “What would you like to bake, Sweetheart?”

Eleanor scrunched up her face, because she hadn’t thought that far into the future. She’d simply wanted to bake with her Daddy.

Sean sensed that. “How about we see what we have the ingredients for?”

His daughter nodded eagerly and rose from the sofa like a shot. She ran into the kitchen, faster than Sean could catch her. While the telepath had the advantage when it came to stride, he was also in his mid-fifties and didn’t have the same energy as his little girl.

However, he reached the kitchen soon enough and began to pull items out of their baking cupboard. After a quick inventory, he proposed, “How about cinnamon rolls?”

Again, Eleanor nodded eagerly. She loved cinnamon. She liked how sticky and sweet the buns were, and she liked to lick her fingers after eating them.

With that settled, Sean put away the ingredients they wouldn’t need. “Can you get out the measuring cups and the mixing bowl?”

They kept the baking tools separate from the other kitchen tools. That allowed Eleanor to take out the items and help her father, without Sean having to worry that she might cut herself on something sharp.

His daughter nodded, going to the proper cabinet – one on level with a toddler’s height – so that she could fetch the requested items.

Meanwhile, Sean took the milk and the margarine out of the refrigerator. “We’ll surprise your Papa when he gets home,” he announced. Josh also loved cinnamon rolls, and the telepath was sure that his partner would enjoy eating these almost as much as Eleanor would.

“Yeah!” She was excited at the prospect of surprising Papa as well. “What first?”

“First we need four cups of flour...”

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Night Game

Then the night turned cold,
Colder than the moon.
The stars were white as bones.

One of the nicer aspects of small town life was that so many activities were geared towards children in around various holidays. Sean had always enjoyed that, as he liked to be around children and families. However, with his own expanded family, he had all the more reason to appreciate the assorted activities.

Last year, Eleanor had been too small to appreciate Halloween or any of the autumn activities. Sean and Josh had dressed her up in an adorable bear costume and had toted her around with them, but she had spent most of that time asleep or otherwise staring up at people with a confused look on her face. Or cooing from whatever attention passersby paid to her. Or sipping the milkshake that Sean had bought to share with her.

This year, Eleanor was old enough to have a better grasp of the events. She was verbal now, and she could walk even if she still toddled rather than reaching a comfortable stride. She smiled at everyone in her path, and her blue eyes lit up because there was so much to see and to do and to experience.

Continuing with the theme of adorable animal costumes, Sean and Josh had had a discussion before deciding on a ladybug costume. This was the last year that they would be able to dictate what their daughter wore for a Halloween costume (as next year she would be old enough to choose her own; they would veto something inappropriate but would not force a particular outfit on her), and thus they wanted to take advantage. She looked so adorable in her red and black polka dot outfit, with the wings on her back and the little cap with the deely bobbers.

Despite not choosing the outfit herself, Eleanor adored it, and she beamed when she spied it in her closet when looking for toys, or when one of her fathers went to fetch a clean shirt or pants for her after an accident.

Sean had dedicated the better part of a week teaching her what to do on Halloween night. This was interspersed with the other activities of the season: apple picking at the orchard upstate, the corn maze at the farm the next town over, and a hayride around the farm. She had sat in Sean’s lap for that, while Josh made gentle teasing faces at her, interspersed with pointing out the animals.

They returned from the orchard with a bag of apples and two gallons of apple cider (one hard and one not). Sean baked an apple pie and then mixed in some fresh apples into the chicken salad he made for lunch for the next day.

They returned from the farm with two large pumpkins to carve and two small pumpkins for Eleanor to paint. Josh bought a corn cob pipe, although he promised not to smoke it in the house. An unnecessary promise, given the fact that he never smoked cigarettes in the house, and he was unlikely to begin a pipe habit when he and Sean had both agreed that he would try to cut back now that they were parents. A promise to which Josh stuck fast, even if there was backsliding; nicotine was so addictive.

They decorated their house, as Sean and Josh had done since before Eleanor was born, as Sean had done since long before he and Josh had reconciled, to designate them as a family that celebrated Halloween. As one that would serve adequate treats and which was receptive to children (and even teenagers, although Sean and Josh disagreed about the appropriateness of teenage trick-or-treaters) showing off their costumes in exchange for sugary treats.

Their pumpkins proudly guarded the front porch: Sean’s carefully carved jack-o-lantern on one side of the door, with Josh’s somewhat less precise creation on the other. Eleanor’s two tiny pumpkins sat on the windowsill, lacking proper faces because she was too young to fully grasp how to make them, and lacked the refined motor skills for painting neatly on a spherical surface, even if she knew how or cared to try. Fake tombstones littered the front yard: heavy enough to remain stationary in wind conditions but still light enough that Sean had been able to fetch them from the garage and adorn the grass without straining any muscles. Black and orange Halloween lights decorated the frame of the door and the outside of the windows, glowing brightly to draw attention to them at the end of the cul-de-sac. The two men had debated a fog machine but decided against it, lest they lose sight of Eleanor. While the street hardly qualified as a thruway, a car might come by and she was too young to understand that she had to avoid them. A large wreath, made from twigs, fall-colored leaves of rich browns, reds, oranges, and yellows, and grapes, hung from the door. A sign beneath it, written in Sean’s neat script, invited trick-or-treaters (and their concerned parents) to “ask about allergy and dietary accommodations.”

Such was the scene that greeted Josh when he returned home early on Halloween night.

“Tig O Teet!” Eleanor yelled, running from the play room to the foyer, when she heard the door unlock, followed by her Papa’s footsteps. Wearing her adorable ladybug costume, she held aloft the white plastic bucket with the silly ghost face that her parents had bought for the holiday. In the dark, it glowed green, which would make her even easier to keep track of during the evening escapades.

The attorney set down the box of doughnuts that he had bought for the occasion. Then he leaned down, captured her in his arms, and lifted her easily. “Where’s Eleanor?” He asked playfully. Smiling into her tiny features, he declared, “All I see is the Queen of the Ladybugs.”

She looped her arms around him and smiled back at him. The plastic bucket dug into his cheek and shoulder blade uncomfortably, and so he shifted her to one arm to tug away the accoutrement.

Stubbornly, she refused to let go. “Tig O Teet!” She said again.

“I’ll give you a doughnut if you give me the bucket,” he offered.

That met with her approval. Instantly, she dropped the bucket, which clattered to the floor; fortunately, as it was made from durable plastic (and empty) it neither broke nor spilled anything across the floor. Her now empty hand opened and closed in the universal toddler sign for “Give me.”

Josh picked up the box of doughnuts and carried both that and his daughter into the playroom from whence she had come. Setting her down on the sofa, he opened the box to show her the contents. “What type would you like? Powdered sugar?”

She did not look impressed.

“Glazed?”

Her eyes nearly glazed over.

“Pumpkin spice?”

She blinked.

“No, that’s more of a Daddy doughnut. What about this nice chocolate frosted one with sprinkles?” Little red, orange, and yellow sprinkles shaped like leaves; Ari always went above and beyond.

Eleanor reached for that one, enticed by the promise of chocolate (she took after Sean that way) and the colorful sprinkles. Josh tore it in two and gave her half, as she had yet to eat a full one in one sitting, and she would have candy later, after the evening’s activities.

“Josh?” Sean’s voice wafted from the kitchen, followed by the heavier footsteps that belonged to the older man. “I thought I heard you come home; I was just finishing up with the candy before we get any trick-or-treaters.”

He stepped into the playroom, taking in the chocolate smudges on their daughter’s face and the doughnut remnants in her hand, his eyes falling then to the open box on the table. “Doughnuts? How thoughtful!”

Josh did not reply immediately, as his eyes were drawn to the telepath’s outfit. Sean wore black suit pants with a crisp white shirt, tailored for his frame. Over that a gold vest, a red bowtie tied impeccably (not a clip on), and a red, gold, and black jacket with gold epilates. Black boots afforded him several addition inches of height, so that he towered even more than usual, and a black top hat rounded out the costume. Be still Josh’s beating heart.

“Since you got me a treat, I’ll have to give you one too.” Sean smiled at the younger man, as he picked up the pumpkin spice doughnut and took a bite; his face melted into an expression of epicurean delight. After polishing it off with no effort, he picked up a napkin and wiped his hands, before leaning in to wipe Eleanor’s mouth and fingers as well. She did not fight the attention.

“But that will have to wait until after we get back.” The telepath hefted Eleanor into his arms and then glanced around the room. “Where’s your bucket, Sweetheart?”

“She traded it to me for a doughnut. I ahh think it’s in the front hall.”

“Can you get it, please? I’m going to give her a more thorough wash before we go.”

“Of course.”

While Sean disappeared with Eleanor into the kitchen, Josh doubled back to the foyer, retrieving the bucket that their daughter had dropped moments ago. He brought it into the kitchen just as Sean was toweling off Eleanor’s face.

“What do you say to Papa?” Sean prompted her, when Josh handed over the basket to her now clean and not-sticky fingers.

“Tig O Teet!”

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Satin Summer Nights

But they’ll last for a long summer night.
I can feel the fire in her eyes.
Tonight, tonight,
Under satin summer skies.

Soft cries caused Sean to wake in the middle of the night. The alarm clock flashed a three.

Beside him, Josh began to stir, and the telepath gently placed one hand on his partner’s shoulder. “It’s my turn,” he reminded the younger man.

With that, he slipped from their bed and shrugged on his robe. He tied his sash en route to the nursery. Pushing open the door, he found his daughter flailing in her crib, fussing and crying.

“What’s the matter, Sweetheart?” He asked, although Eleanor was not yet verbal, and Sean already knew the answer to his question.

She was teething. His poor, little baby.

He lifted her into his arms and began to rock her. Although that helped with her flailing, she continued to whimper in pain.

He kissed her forehead. “Let’s get your teething ring.”

The trip downstairs took almost no time with the telepath’s long stride. They reached the kitchen, and Sean opened the freezer door, pulling out one of the brightly-colored teething rings. Eleanor recognized it immediately and grabbed it to shove in her mouth. Immediately, she began to gnaw at it, stifling her cries as the activity distracted her and the ice served to numb her gums.

“Nobody told you that teething would be such hard work, did they?”

She gurgled around the teething ring.

“I know it hurts and it doesn’t seem fair, but I promise it’ll be worthwhile.” He smiled down at her. “Think about all of the exciting foods you’ll get to eat when you have teeth and your Papa isn’t worried about choking anymore.”

She continued to gum her ring, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this was an invitation to a conversation.

Sean took no offense. She was a baby, and he would talk to her regardless of whether she acknowledged him. He knew that she heard and learned, even when she gave no outward indication.

“You’ll be able to eat spaghetti,” he told her with a smile. She always watched – enchanted – when her parents had any type of pasta dish for supper. Long, thin noodles so differed from formula and strained baby food that surely she thought they were magical.

“And pizza.”

Eleanor looked up at him with big, blue eyes. Her parents only ate pizza occasionally, as Sean focused on the importance of complete meals, he enjoyed cooking, and when they ordered takeout they had so many options beyond pizza. They ate it primarily when they hosted parties or a friend came over to watching a sports game. Still, pizza was a perennial favorite for children, and the telepath had no doubt that, once his daughter had the means to eat solid food, she would join the ranks of countless other children before her.

He continued to hold her tightly in his arms as she gummed her teething ring. In an attempt to lull her back to sleep, he began to walk with her, as the sensation tended to soothe her. Back and forth through the kitchen and the living room and the den, careful not to step too heavily, as the entire point of taking shifts was to let his partner sleep.

“Let’s think of everything else that you’ll be able to eat. What about cookies and brownies, just like Daddy?” She had already shown an interest in baked goods, prompting both Sean and Josh to remark that she had inherited the telepath’s sweet tooth. Time would tell. “And pie. There are so many different flavors of pie that I want to share with you: blueberry, apple, pumpkin, peach, strawberry rhubarb, key lime, chocolate cream...”

He named every variety that came to mind. When he finished with pies, he moved on to different flavors of cakes. “I can’t wait to share chocolate cake with you,” he admitted, and he knew that his partner felt the same. While Josh’s sweet tooth wasn’t quite as notorious as the telepath’s, the attorney still enjoyed baked goods and other sweets, with an emphasis on chocolate. “And cheesecake, although you’ll have to wait a bit longer for that one. And every type of strawberry shortcake known to mankind; there are so many different ways to make it. Some people use sponge cake, and some use warm biscuits, and some use puff pastry...”

Eventually, he exhausted all of the baked goods in his repertoire.

Eleanor had stopped shifting in discomfort, but she was wide awake now.

His goal had been half-achieved. Now to lull his daughter back to sleep so that he could salvage what few hours remained in the night.

“You’re too young to appreciate this, but food is so important to humans as a whole. All of our cultures care about it.” The telepath kissed the top of his daughter’s head again. “Your Papa and I want to share our cultures with you; they’re yours too, you know.”

She was far too young to have any grasp of that notion. Sean was aware of this fact, but he was also tired, and he wanted to coax her back to sleep. Talking to her often did the trick, particularly in the middle of the night.

“Your Papa wants to make latkes and eat jelly doughnuts with you.” Despite the fact that this was the wrong season, the telepath knew that his partner wanted to share all of the traditional foods with her. “Also apples and honey, and matzo ball soup, and gefilte fish.” The last of which would, undoubtedly, be an acquired taste. He was sure that Josh would want to feed her pimento cheese as soon as she was old enough as well.

“I’m going to make you corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes,” he promised her. When she was old enough, she could partake of his traditional mid-March meal. “We can eat stuffed peppers. And we’ll order Chinese food from my favorite restaurant, so you can have dumplings and spring rolls.”

His stomach began to rumble from the thought, and he shifted his grip on his daughter to free up his hand. Given the late hour of the night, he wanted nothing heavy, and so he opted for a banana.

“Daddy is going to eat his banana,” he announced, smiling down into Eleanor’s face. “After that, we’ll look at some of my cookbooks to see how many different foods we can name.”

He hoped that would tire her out, so that they could salvage a few hours of sleep. If not, then at least it would be a bonding experience.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#62 – Treat

Holidays in the Neville-Bernstein house had been low-key for the first couple of years. Sean had no particular need to celebrate the holidays of his childhood, and so he gladly celebrated Josh’s holidays instead, as those meant more to the attorney than Christmas or Easter meant to the telepath. Their celebrations ended up a hodgepodge of the many Jewish holidays interspersed with American secular ones:

Chanukah. Passover. Purim. Rosh Hashanah. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Valentine’s Day. St. Patrick’s Day. New Year’s Eve.

Holidays had taken on an entirely new significance with the arrival of their daughter.

Instead of focusing on what two middle-aged men might want to do with their friends or with each other, holidays became an exercising in sharing and learning.

The first year of her life, Eleanor experienced many holidays but understood none of them. She watched with wide-eyed wonder as they celebrated cultural milestones with appropriate festivities. She listened while her fathers explained the significance of this or that function. Mostly, she ate what solid food she was allowed to, in the tiniest portions imaginable to compensate for her lack of teeth.

During her second year of life, she had more active participation, in that she could toddle around now and she grabbed for things and pointed at others. She spoke a smattering of words, and her vocabulary increased daily, even if her grammar and pronunciation left something to be desired. As a toddler, she followed routine and relied upon it, and holidays were noticeable for their deviation from the typical day-to-day.

By her third year of life, she actively participated in the holidays, albeit in a modified way. She was only a little girl, and she had plenty of time to grow into responsibilities.

She ran through the hall of the house, with Sean chasing after her. How approaching his late 50s, he did not have the energy to keep up with her in the same way that a man a decade younger than him could have. Or even Josh could. Josh was only three years younger than him, but his personality was more energetic, and he lacked the aches and pains that afflicted him.

At least his long stride made up for the lack of energy.

Finally, outside of the living room, he finally caught up with her, catching her from behind and wrapping his arms around her. Carefully, he lifted her up, and she squealed in delight.

“That’s enough running for now,” he declared, keeping his grip on her. He could put her down when they had found another activity to occupy them. “What should we do now?”

“Cookies!” Eleanor knew her Daddy’s weaknesses.

“We can have cookies,” Sean said with a smile. Shifting her in his arms, he walked towards the kitchen. “Do you want to bake some? Purim is coming up, and we can make some hamantaschen. Your Papa would like that.”

Josh always liked when his cultural and religious heritage was acknowledged, and he had been so happy the past couple of years since they had agreed to raise Eleanor Jewish. Sean had made good on that promise and had never undermined the decision, even if he remained an atheist.

Eleanor nodded enthusiastically.

Once they reached the kitchen, Sean set her down. She knew better than to run in the kitchen. “Go get the baking cups while I get the jam. What type do you want to make?”

“Strawberry.” As if there was any doubt. She had her favorites.

“Strawberry it is.” They could start the Purim preparations a bit early this year.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#74 – Ballad

“Daddy, sing.”

Thankfully, they were home alone, rather than somewhere in public. In public, Sean never sang, because he considered it the least he could do for other people.

In fact, prior to becoming a father, the telepath had not sung in years, if not decades. He didn’t sing when alone in his car. He didn’t sing along with the radio or with scenes in movies that he liked. He didn’t even sing in the shower. He didn’t sing, because he had no desire to inflict that on anyone else, no matter what crimes or ethical lapses they might have committed elsewhere in life. He didn’t sing privately because he didn’t want to get used to singing and thus slip up when in public. He considered that part of being a responsible, unselfish person.

That had changed with fatherhood. Every parent that he had ever met sang to their babies. Every resource he read encouraged singing to babies. Every anecdote he had ever heard encouraged singing to babies. Everything he knew about neuroscience and early childhood development supported singing to babies.

Every instinct he had told him he should sing to his baby.

So he sang to his baby.

Although mostly while home alone, rather than in public. To the best of his ability, he reserved that for when they were alone, or for when the only other person to overhear them was Josh. His partner knew that his singing was atrocious and joined in the same teasing and self-deprecating humor about his singing voice that the telepath initiated, although the other man had a higher tolerance than the average person. In that Josh would never kick him out of bed for singing to him, if the mood struck him to do so.

By contrast, Eleanor simply didn’t know better.

From day one, the telepath sang to her. He sang lullabies. He sang folk songs. He sang show tunes. He sang selected favorites from Paul Simon’s entire catalog. He sang her to sleep at night or for naps. He sang to her in the car when they had to drive somewhere. He sang to her when they watched television and movies. He sang to her when she wanted to dance.

As a result, she associated his singing with comfort and love, and she thought his singing was good.

While he never wanted her to outgrow the feeling of comfort and security that came from his love and attention, Sean felt confident that, one day, she would understand that his singing was anything but good.

Until that day came and she reached that realization, he would comply with her requests.

“What should I sing?”

She scrunched up her face thoughtfully, before she clapped her hands and answered, “Rose! Rose!”

One could never go wrong with traditional Irish folk ballads.

He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her onto his lap.

Clearing his throat, he began to sing, “Come over the hills my bonnie Irish lass. Come over the hills to your darling...”

Scratchy and off-key as always, but Eleanor smiled and snuggled against his chest.

That made it worth it.

“...Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows. Fair is the lily of the valley. Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne. But my love is fairer than any.”

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#14 – Pauses

Despite practicing law for over twenty years and having the highest law degree that a person could possess, Josh didn’t often go to trial.

Not comparatively, at least. Not the way that his colleagues who practiced criminal law were on trial, or at least the way they used to be. With the heavy reliance on plea bargains, people went to trial less in the criminal arena as well.

However, most companies, businesses, or services sued for discrimination chose to settle their cases. They didn’t want to risk going to jury, where they could find themselves on the line for damages many magnitudes greater than what they would pay in a settlement. Moreover, they did not want to have liability carved in stone, or deal with the negative publicity of a trial, or risk changing the law in a way that would negatively impact them in the long-term.

Yet his client’s former employer, a small business capitalizing on the Supreme Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby had denied his client access to his HIV medication, on the grounds that they believed HIV to be divine punishment, and thus, they found treating it to be a violation of their religious beliefs.

In no universe should anyone be able to walk into a court and claim that without being laughed out two minutes later. And yet he had to prepare for a lengthy trial to get his client basic medical care.

This was why Josh had become a lawyer.

Unfortunately, the trial preparation was not going as well as he had expected.

Or, it had, this morning when he had been at the office.

But Sean had an important afternoon session, followed by a weekly staff meeting, and so they had switched off so that one of them was home with Eleanor at all times.

Typically, they sent her to day care, but she was sick.

Typically, when Eleanor was sick, Josh was so panicked about potential causes or results that he could only focus on her.

But it was only a cold. Her pediatrician had assured both himself and Sean of that, and so Josh could focus on other concerns.

Rather, he could try to focus on other concerns.

He had never noticed how needy she could be when sick before.

“Papa!” She called through the baby monitor.

She had outgrown the baby monitor when she had become verbal, but the house was so big that both men kept them active for when she was sick. Especially Josh, since Sean could rely on telepathy instead of technology.

Sighing, Josh set aside the pile of discovery and trudged down the hall from his office to Eleanor’s room. Poking his head inside, he asked, “Yes, Sweetie?”

“I need the potty.”

He frowned. She was potty trained. She had her own bathroom that had been outfitted entirely for a small child. They had embedded a special toilet seat so that she wouldn’t fall in. Why was she telling him this?

“You can go potty.”

“Need help.”

He knew that wasn’t true, but he sighed in resignation. It would be quicker just to help her with whatever she wanted rather than argue about it. “I’ll help.”

Five minutes later, they had each washed their hands, and he had deposited her back in bed. With a kiss on her forehead, he retreated back to his office to work.

For another fifteen minutes.

“Papa!”

She couldn’t possibly need the potty again.

Josh appeared in her doorway a couple of moments after her call. “What is it, Eleanor?”

“I’m hungry.”

Sean had warned him about this. She hadn’t eaten much breakfast, and she had thrown up her lunch. So she would be hungry.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Mac and cheese.”

Josh was not making her macaroni and cheese. Sean always said not to feed her anything too heavy as the next meal after she vomited, because her stomach wouldn’t take it well.

“I’ll make you some soup,” he offered instead.

She pouted and repeated. “Mac and cheese.”

He didn’t want to argue about this. Just as he hadn’t wanted to argue about her needing assistance in the bathroom. He also didn’t want to have to clean up after her.

“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

He returned with a melamine bowl filled with chicken noodle soup, a bag of goldfish, and a sippy cup filled with apple juice.

She pouted about the lack of macaroni and cheese for a moment but then started to eat her soup.

Josh went back to his office to work some more.

“Papa!”

This was getting ridiculous.

Josh walked slowly down the hall to his daughter’s room. Opening the door, he found her covered in spit up.

Poor Eleanor.

“Let me get you a bath,” he told his sick little girl.

The trial preparation would have to wait.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#73 – Delivery

The women in his Lamaze class weighed their options carefully, read endlessly about every possible decision to make during, prior to, and after, labor.

By contrast, Sean had made his plan months ago, about two hours after his internist had informed him of his pregnancy. Those two hours had been spent waiting for the practice OB-GYN to come in and perform the necessary tests as confirmation, and for the telepath to cope with the reality of the situation, since by all metrics it should be impossible.

Then they had calculated his due date and he had scheduled a C-section for then. They had made the hospital plan to begin the day before, just so that he could settle in his room and get comfortable, as he would be there for a few days. Not only would they want to keep him as per post-surgical policy, but as the world’s first pregnant cisgendered man, medical science had questions.

Lots of questions.

Sean left those to his team of medical specialists.

Not that he wasn’t curious. Of course he was curious, but he had more pressing concerns.

Like the fact that, in six months, he was going to have a baby. He and Josh would have a baby together and their house was a death trap waiting to happen.

Nothing in their home was baby-proofed, because they were two middle-aged men who shared a house with a rabbit. They had dozens of outlets to cover, because they had over a dozen rooms. They had to worry about the stairs. They had to worry about the garage, and the basement, and the attic. They had to worry about the washing machine and the dryer; they had to worry about the oven and the dishwasher and the trash compactor. They had to worry about the front door, and the back porch, and all of the windows.

The telepath couldn’t muster any concern about the C-section when he had to think about everything that came after that.

He couldn’t muster any concern about the C-section because he had no other options. The only way that he could give birth to his baby would be via C-section, and he had no love for the naturalistic fallacy. He was a man of science, a doctor himself, and he was grateful for the advent of surgical procedures that would facilitate this. That would give him his baby.

He didn’t envy the women in his Lamaze class for the tremendous pressure on them. Pressure to give birth without pain medication or any form of medical intervention. Pressure to exclusively breastfeed for far longer than most of them could, let alone wanted to. Pressure to stay home rather than to work. Pressure not to sleep train. Pressure to carry their baby and never use a stroller. Pressure to use cloth diapers so that they had to spend what little time they didn’t have a baby hanging off them doing laundry. Pressure to co-sleep. Pressure to attachment parent and never take time to themselves. The view that motherhood meant that they ceased to have individual needs, and that anything that might make their lives easier, or might allow them to share childcare duties with their co-parents would irreparably harm their children. The fact that this came from both more conservative sectors as well as from supposedly progressive ones.

The fact that the young hipsters of Vermont shared opinions about gender roles with the Sean’s grandparents, the ones that had been born at the turn of the last century was frustrating and sad.

Sean couldn’t solve that alone, even if he encouraged his Lamaze friends to branch out and read scientific studies rather than mommy blogs.

Instead, all he could do was prepare for bringing a baby into his home. The baby that he would have via scheduled C-section with an epidural and a local anesthetic.

In theory, he was grateful for all three. He knew that, by the time he was in labor, he would be even more grateful.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Allergies

Maladies.
Melodies.
Allergies to dust and grain.
Maladies.
Remedies.
Still these allergies remain.

“I don’t remember my parents doing tummy time with Talia.”

“They didn’t. Neither did my parents. Neither did Kathleen.”

“So why does Eleanor need it?”

“Otherwise she won’t be comfortable enough on her stomach to prompt crawling in a timely fashion.”

“We all learned how to crawl fine.”

“And we used to put babies to sleep on their stomachs but now we put them on their backs.”

“What prompted that change?”

“Long-term population studies found correlation between SIDS rates and babies sleeping on their stomachs.”

Josh swallowed and turned his attention from Sean to their daughter, watching her lay on her stomach atop her dedicated tummy time mat – with the bright colors and soft toys at the edge of it, used as incentive to one day induce her to crawl. “It’s so easy to forget about SIDS when she’s so vibrant and healthy.”

Sean reached for a rattle and shook it above Eleanor’s head, dangling it just within her line of vision. She raised her head to better see it, but lacking full control of her neck’s range of motion, settled for looking at his face. She smiled, showing off her toothless mouth. The telepath smiled back at her.

Both he and Josh always smiled back at her, to encourage her in everything she did. She was too young for them to worry about negative reinforcement. If they couldn’t coddle their daughter when she was a baby, then they could never do so.

Despite his smile, the telepath focused on the serious discussion topic. “It’s easy to forget so many of the dangers because she’s cleared milestones. And generally because of how much easier it is to survive childhood than it used to be.”

Josh reached for Eleanor’s plush Rabbit and fiddled with it. “It wasn’t that dangerous when we were growing up.”

“We both have smallpox vaccine scars.” Eleanor didn’t have the slightest comprehension what her fathers were discussing. Sean considered it a scientific and medical marvel that she wouldn’t even need that vaccine, because humanity had managed to wipe smallpox from the face of the earth. “And I don’t know about you, but I managed to catch mumps, rubella, chicken pox, and mono.” He had somehow managed to avoid meningitis, but he counted that as luck rather than accomplishment.

Sean had had the good fortune also of being a doctor’s son, so that he had received the measles vaccination soon after it had been released. His father had been a big proponent of vaccine interventions, as had his mother, and as was Sean now. So was Kathleen, for everything else that made her reactionary, she would never oppose vaccination. Not even for HPV.

“I did too.” Josh was younger than Sean, so that he benefited from some of the vaccines earlier, but it had made no difference with many of the other childhood illnesses. Yet those illness were rare now in the U.S., except when people refused vaccines and brought back visions of the 1950s.

“Right.” Sean wasn’t surprised. He continued to dangle the rattle above Eleanor’s head, lowering it slightly so that it was closer to her, before pulling it back. She seemed entertained, believing that this was a new game. “Children’s pajamas were still made of flammable fabrics. Cars didn’t have seatbelts or airbags. Drunk driving wasn’t treated as seriously by law enforcement or by society. Everyone smoked. Baby-proofing the way we do it now was virtually unheard of. They didn’t do a good job screening blood. Doctors and dentists didn’t wear gloves until after the AIDS Crisis.”

They were both old enough to remember when that particular change had taken effect. One never forgot living through those changes.

“And despite living in an upper-middle class neighborhood, at least one kid lost his eye to a bb gun. Plus lawn darts used to exist.” The telepath shook his head and lowered the rattle completely so that Eleanor could reach it if she put forth the effort.

“You’re beginning to sound like some of the judges I have to deal with. About how children are too coddled these days, and how we all managed to survive harsher conditions.”

Sean drew his head back and stared into his partner’s face, shaking his head slowly. “I’m glad that she gets to grow up without all of those complications. So many diseases or events that would have been death sentences even thirty or forty years ago have treatments now. The fact that we made it to adulthood at all is nothing short of miraculous when looking back on all of that.” He then reached for the stuffed rabbit, which Josh handed over to him, and Sean set it down beside Eleanor’s head on the mat. “I don’t believe in that survival of the fittest nonsense; you know that.”

While the telepath accepted evolution as scientific fact, he didn’t believe in social Darwinism. Aside from being predicated on racism and classism, it offended his collectivist sensibilities. He knew that Josh agreed with him.

Somehow, the rabbit’s presence seemed to upset Eleanor. Rather than gleefully accepting a soft toy, her face scrunched up and she began to sniffle. Sean reached for her, pulling her into his arms. “That’s enough tummy time for now.” Peering over her should, he said to Josh, “How about we go for a walk?”

The attorney nodded and went to go get her sling and the stroller. The fresh air would do them well, to banish thoughts of all the unpleasantness Eleanor would never have to face.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#28 – Bubbles

“Daddy, let’s play outside!” Eleanor ran through the house in search of the parent who was home with her right now. Josh was in court, since it was a weekday, but, as it was summer recess at Hammel, Sean was home with her, rather than sending her to daycare.

However, she couldn’t find him in her search. He wasn’t in the kitchen making lunch. He wasn’t in the living room reading the newspaper or working on one of his crossword puzzles. The basement door was closed, which meant he wasn’t doing laundry. The bathroom door was open, which meant he wasn’t in there. He wasn’t in the playroom. He wasn’t in the den. He wasn’t in the dining room. But then she found the door to his study open slightly, which meant he was inside; he never left the door open if he wasn’t there.

She knocked politely and then pushed the door open wider. There he sat at his desk, with one of his big files open.

“Daddy!”

“Yes, Sweetheart?” He set aside his papers and turned to look at her.

“I want to play outside.”

He laughed lightly. “Of course you do; it’s gorgeous outside.” Then he stood up and walked around the desk, holding his hand out to her.

She took it eagerly.

“So what do you want to play?”

Eleanor thought about her tricycle, even though she mostly rode that with Papa. Papa had a bicycle too, and Daddy sometimes talked about how he had trouble bending to push her. That was okay, since she had plenty of other toys to play with.

She thought about the big pack of chalk in all the colors of the rainbow that she was only allowed to play with outside, since she wasn’t allowed to color on the walls or on the floor.

She thought about playing catch or tag, since she was only supposed to play those outside too, in case she broke something or got hurt by running into the furniture.

She thought about the butterfly net that Cousin Shiya had bought her.

Then she thought about the bubbles, and her eyes went wide.

“Bubbles!”

“Bubbles,” her Daddy repeated, before nodding. “We can blow bubbles. Let’s get your shoes on.”

He led her to the front hall and made her sit down, while he knelt to slip her shoes on, the blue and purple ones that had the flower on the toe; those were her favorite.

Finally, they were on tight, and he let her stand up. “Let’s go,” he said, and she ran ahead of him to the door.

Fortunately, his long stride made up for his lack of youthful exuberance, and he caught her easily after donning his flip flops. Vermont in the summer was hot and humid, and so they forwent jackets, although he made her put on a wide-brimmed hat to protect her eyes. He followed suit.

Once outside, she ran for the porch where they kept her outdoor toys and grabbed the big bottle of bubbles she’d gotten as a Purim present. She struggled with the cap, until her Daddy took it from her, twisted it open, and then handed it back. “Be careful,” he warned her.

She only giggled in response, too busy dunking the wand in the bottle and then pulling it out. She blew too hard, and so the bubbled popped before it could float free.

Not discouraged, she tried again, and, again, she didn’t have much luck.

Her Daddy watched her struggle for a few minutes with many unsuccessful attempts, and then, finally, he stepped in. “Let me try,” he offered, reaching out to take the bottle.

“We do it like this,” he explained, dunking the wand carefully before he pulled it out slowly. “See the layer of solution?” It glistened in the sunlight, making a wavy, liquid rainbow fall.

Eleanor nodded.

“Then we blow not too hard and not too soft.” Daddy demonstrated for her, and the bubble managed to float free of the wand, but it didn’t make it far before breaking apart.

The telepath frowned; he knew how to blow bubbles.

Trying again, this time it resulted in lots of tiny bubbles that popped almost immediately.

This was a cheap solution, probably too diluted.

“I’m sorry, Honey,” he told her, as he passed the bottle back to her. She didn’t seem to mind, which was what happened with toddlers.

Instead, he took the wand back, dunking gently as her Daddy had demonstrated, and then tried to blow. She still blew too hard, but no correction followed this time.

Eventually, she grew bored. “Let’s play chalk,” she suggested.

“That’s fine. Give me the bottle back and then we can get your chalk.”

Yet, somehow, when she handed the bottle over, her arm shook and she managed to spill the solution all over the front of her shirt and overalls.

And on her Daddy’s pants.

He took the bottle without complaint, tightening the lid carefully. “We’re going to change first,” he told her, and he grabbed her hand to lead her back inside. “We can play with the chalk after we get nice and clean.”

She didn’t complain, since she didn’t like being sticky.

She took after her Daddy that way.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#30 – Teamwork

“I think it’s so great that you’re willing to go out in a group costume like this, Mister Bernstein.” Shiya took out her compact and adjusted her dress in the mirror.

“I’ve been doing group costumes like this since college,” Josh retorted, at the same time that Sean replied, “Shiya, we’ve been over this: you’re family. Given names are fine.”

It had taken her a long time to adapt to calling him “Sean” even though he had introduced himself as such, and Ryan called him “Uncle Sean.” Ryan’s parents expected to be called “Mister and Missus Finnerty”, and her parents were the same way, as were most of the adults in her life growing up.

Most of the adults in her life growing up didn’t identify as hippies or, in Josh’s case, also come from liberal backgrounds themselves.

But Josh and she had only met after Eleanor’s birth, at her Naming Ceremony. They spent more time together since then, but since she was in graduate school, such gatherings were limited primarily to holidays and birthdays, with the occasional vacation.

That made today special.

“I told you they were cool when they were our age,” Ryan said, and he fiddled idly with the giant wooden crucifix around his neck.

Josh elbowed Sean gently and whispered. “I told you that you were cool when we were that age.”

Sean only smiled and unfastened the safety buckle on Eleanor’s car seat. “And what does Robin Hood think? Does she think we’re all cool?”

Their daughter was dressed head to toe in green, complete with the famous cap that had a long brown feather sticking out the back. Her hair was done up in an uncomplicated ponytail, mostly to keep her hair out of her eyes. She smiled a big toothy grin as she hopped down from her seat and stepped out of the car. “We’re all cool.”

Ryan grinned as well. “Our leader has spoken; we’re all cool.”

Sean took his staff in one hand, using it as a walking stick, while he took Eleanor’s hand tightly in his other. Josh, meanwhile, picked up their backpack filled with gear (since one couldn’t take a kindergartener anywhere without snacks, drinks, wipes, and a change of clothing) and slung it over his shoulder.

Shiya held her elbow aloft to Ryan, who took it like a gentleman. “Have no fear, Maid Marian. Your honor is safe with Friar Tuck her beside you.”

“I should hope so,” he replied, before her expression melted from royal calm to a more mischievous one. “At least for now. Of course, if Robin doesn’t mind if we have an open marriage...”

Eleanor was oblivious to what they were saying, since she wrote it off as grownup talk and therefore boring. Instead, her eyes were wide as she took in the other people in costumes and the giant entrance to the faire grounds which looked like a castle.

Josh handed over their four tickets (Eleanor was still young enough to get in free) and they stepped through the gates. Instantly, they were greeted by the sights, sounds, and aromas of the medieval fantasy.

“What should we do first?” Ryan asked, as he scoped out the area for a flower vendor. As soon as he found one, he wanted to buy Shiya a rose.

Eleanor looked around, and then she squealed in delight. “Face painting!”

Sean and Josh exchanged fond smiles.

“You heard Robin Hood,” the telepath said, as he began to walk with his daughter in the direction of the face painting booth. “It’s time for the Merry Men to get their faces painted.”

Knowing his daughter and his nephew, they would both have absurd finished designs. For himself, he thought he and Josh could get matching hearts.

He thought his partner might appreciate that. After all, it was the Renaissance Festival.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#50 – Complaint

Sean loved being a father.

Two of his happiest memories were finding out that he was pregnant – despite the confusion about how such a thing was possible, he adapted quickly to the reality of the situation – and holding Eleanor in his arms for the first time after his C-section.

Likewise, he had no regrets about raising a child with another man. Josh was his partner and the love of his life, while not the only person that Sean had loved, he was the one he had loved most and had loved longest. Josh was Eleanor’s Papa, as much her father as Sean himself and equally responsible for bringing her into this world. For that alone, the telepath loved him; he could think of nothing he wanted more than raising a child, a child he had waited his entire adult life to have, with the other man.

Yet, there were aspects of being a father – not a parent, but a father specifically – that Sean could do without.

The assumption that, as a cisgender man all but married to another cisgender man, he was incapable of raising children generally, and a daughter specifically. As though his daughter’s second X-chromosome and her anatomy were beyond his comprehension. As though his own inability to (and disinterest in, if it had been an option) breastfeed meant that he could never bond with her, because the thousands of hours they had spent during her first year of life alone, feeding her, setting her down to nap, holding her, talking to her, playing with her, reading to her, dressing her, changing her, bathing her, and taking her for on trips somehow didn’t count because of gender mismatch. As though the countless hours, days, weeks, months, years since then didn’t count for the same reason.

Related to that was the idea that, depending on the particular social circle, fathers were only capable of being the disciplinarian (the “wait ‘til your father gets home” threat) or the “fun parent” who undermined the actual parenting of his wife - and due to the stereotypes at play, this made no room for same-sex couples – by goofing around or suggesting ice cream for supper, the person who babysat his children once a week for a couple of hours while his wife ran errands.

The fact that so many Daddy-Daughter activities and relationship role models were terrible. As Eleanor got older, he found this more frustrating than the assumption that a neighbor did her hair, since he couldn’t possibly have done so (or, conversely, that he was capable of brushing and braiding her hair entirely because he shared a bedroom with another man). Those remarks and assumptions came fewer and farther between given how active he was in her school, how active Josh was in the Temple regarding services, holidays, and Hebrew school, and how obvious it was to anyone who saw them as a family that nobody could love her more if they tried.

Sean loathed the fact that every time they went to the store and saw a shirt in her size that mentioned a father, it invariably had some sexist remark about not letting his daughter date. Of course they wouldn’t let her date right now, but that was because she was a little girl, so many years prepubescent that dating was as far from her mind as filing taxes. Sean had no qualms about her dating as a teenager, just as he calmly accepted the fact that one day, she would be an adult and responsible for making all the decisions in her life. But the idea that he would raise his daughter to conform to the rigid binary and gendered double standard, when he would be lax with a son, frustrated him.

Worse than those were the outfits that blurred the lines between parental affection and romanticizing the Jungian Electra Complex. A couple of years ago, Sean had invited everyone in Eleanor’s daycare to her birthday party. One of the parents meant well, surely, but bought her a toddler top that read “My Daddy is My Prince Charming.”

That was one of the only times that the telepath had donated a gift without first using it. He refused to go along with those implications, the idea that a father was supposed to act as a romantic surrogate to his daughter rather than being her parent. He would never try to foster that within his child.

This was why he preferred the activities with local LGBT organizations to those set up for, presumed, fathers in opposite sex relationships. While he didn’t identify as part of any particular gay or bisexual male subgroup (apart from being a parent and a bisexual man in a relationship with a gay man), no member of the Green Mountain Bears had expressed surprise that he and Josh could raise a daughter. Nobody they met through the Tri State Gay Men’s Network obsessed over the notion of a child’s purity or believed that either he or Josh had an obligation to protect it by redirecting it towards either of them. Those roles and stereotypes didn’t matter there.

He could focus on being Eleanor’s Daddy, on being a proud father, in a relationship with another proud father, in those groups, which was all he wanted to be.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

#40 – Swing

Eleanor’s school was hosting a Daddy-Daughter Dance.

She was both excited and disappointed that it was a Daddy-Daughter dance, because she thought it meant that Papa wasn’t allowed to attend.

Sean spoke to her teacher the next day, under the auspices of checking to make sure that her Papa could attend as well, although, as with most areas of life, the telepath could answer that question for her without consulting with the teacher. Instead, he wanted to make sure that this dance wouldn’t have any of the imagery or messages that he found offensive. The teacher assured him that, aside from the color scheme that would tend towards pink and purple (and Josh would have to cope with that), everything was completely innocent. There would be a mother and son dance the week after, and anyone who didn’t have a parent of one gender or the other was allowed to invite a different family member.

Satisfied with that explanation, Sean told Eleanor that the poster said “Daddy” to mean “father,” and so, of course, her Papa was invited as well.

She nearly squealed with delight; she was so happy that she had two fathers to take with her to the dance, rather than one.

The day of the dance, Sean and Josh both took the afternoon off from work, so that they would get there in plenty of time. One of Josh’s clients, who had a child at the same school, suggested he buy a corsage for her, which he didn’t. He didn’t agree with that, and he knew that Sean so vehemently disagreed that even the thought of it was enough to unleash a wave of anxiety.

He met them at home; Sean had picked Eleanor up after school and had taken her back to the house to feed her a snack, to give her a bath, and then to dress her and brush her hair. While the telepath had suggested that she wear the dress she wore to Temple on Saturdays, she had wanted something pink, since that was her favorite color (much to Josh’s chagrin). In the end, she settled on the pink dress with the red, white, and pink flowers along the top and straps that her Aunt Talia had bought her for her birthday. Then Sean braided her hair for her, using red bows that matched the roses on her dress.

Josh wore a navy blue suit, while Sean opted for black, but with a blue tie, since he knew how much his partner enjoyed when he wore a color that complemented his eyes. The telepath had briefly considered wearing his kilt, but he decided that was overkill for this dance. Josh would enjoy it, of course, but the dance was for their daughter, not for the attorney.

He could always make it up to his partner another time.

Eleanor talked the entire drive to the school, asking what type of music they would play and what the room would look like. After his conversation with her teacher, Sean had a fair idea, and so he vaguely described the decorations, couching them as guesses; he didn’t want to ruin the experience for her by taking away the surprise. For his own part, Josh asked her what type of food she wanted them to serve. Because she was her Daddy’s daughter, half her ideas consisted of baked goods and candy.

They followed the signs that led from the front of the school to the gym. Eleanor’s eyes went wide, since this was her first real school dance, and she was young enough to be impressed by just about anything. Pink, red, purple, and blue balloons adorned the floor and the ceiling. Crepe paper and streamers in similar colors covered the walls. One of the teachers that Sean had only seen before in passing manned the music corner, acting as the DJ, and, thankfully, playing child-friendly music.

Abba’s Take a Chance On Me rant out from the speakers, which was a curious choice given the fact that it was the late 2010s, but the beat was peppy and upbeat. Both Sean and Josh had survived the Swedish Invasion, as well as the popularity of Mama Mia on Broadway.

Along the opposite wall, the school had set up a snack table filled with a big punch bowl, a chocolate fountain, and plenty of sweets like cookies and cake pops. There was also pizza cut into child-size squares and a giant fruit salad. A bunch of goodie bags were lined up at the edge, each labeled with a particular child’s name; Sean would make sure Eleanor took hers before they left.

“Let’s dance!” Eleanor said, grabbing her Daddy’s hand with one of hers and her Papa’s with the other.

Sean wasn’t much of a dancer, in that he didn’t like dancing. He could dance well, and, in fact, he had already resigned himself to teaching Eleanor to waltz if she ever asked to learn, although, unlike with his own parents, he wouldn’t force her to learn any of those skills. He would prefer that she dance with Josh alone.

However, her bright blue eyes held such eagerness that he couldn’t bring himself to suggest that, at least not for the first dance. So he nodded in acquiescence, and both he and Josh walked with her out onto the dance floor.

Immediately, she began to twirl around the way small children do, with utter disregard for formal dancing. Josh did one of the club dances he used to do, before they’d had a child. Sean moved his hips and arms in time with the music.

When the song ended, the teacher put on You Really Got a Hold On Me which was too slow to allow that type of dancing. Sean found it the perfect time to bow out, and so he leaned over and suggested, “Why don’t you dance with your Papa for this one?”

Eleanor didn’t object. Instead, she scrambled over to Josh and climbed atop his feet so she was slightly taller. He grabbed her hands to hold her in place, and then he moved back and forth slowly in time with the music. Both of them had wide smiles on their faces.

So did Sean, while he watched. He only wanted them to have a good time, and, perhaps, to sample the food table.