The Blessings of the Animals_A Novel

CHAPTER Twenty-Six

DAVY

WHEN DAVY FOLLOWED THOSE PINK HELIUM BALLOONS UP to his classroom, he stood gaping. “Wow. My room,” he said. “Wow.”
The desks were pushed together to make banquet tables, covered in pink tablecloths. More pink cloth was draped from the ceiling in canopy-like loops, the way Bobby hung fabric at Tanti Baci. Baby mobiles hung from the intersections of every loop.
Gabby ran to greet them both with huge hugs. “Mrs. Bair brought in the crib. Isn’t it cool?”
Very cool. Tanya Bair taught science in the room next to his (and he bet it was her oven that was being used by whoever catered the food he’d smelled all the way downstairs). The crib she’d brought was an old, white, sleigh-style one now piled high with wrapped gifts.
His room had been transformed. He looked at David and realized that this shower also transformed the two of them into something else.
The shower was everything their “wedding” hadn’t been. Everyone who’d come to their wedding had known it wasn’t real. They had a nice ceremony, threw a killer party, but it hadn’t meant anything in any legal or societal way. There was no officiant, no license, no announcement in the paper. All during the planning, he’d felt a little like the kid he’d been playing dress-up wedding in the barn lot, just with a grander budget.
But the shower, now, that was real. They’d registered at major no-joke stores. Suddenly, his colleagues—those who’d always been good to them and even those who’d never been good to them (Tanya Bair had displayed a “Protect Ohio Families” sign in her yard, supporting the ban on same-sex marriage, and don’t think he’d ever forget that)—treated them differently. Davy had to admit he loved every minute of the belated acceptance.
Gabby shushed everyone for a toast. She lined up Tyler and Amy, reminding Davy of Cami as a kid—always bossing everyone around, “directing” them. Gabby nodded at Tyler, who said, “This day is to honor you and the important journey you’re about to embark upon—oops, sorry, Mrs. Wilcox: the journey upon which you are about to embark.” Everyone laughed.
Amy spoke next. It touched Davy that they’d rehearsed this. “We know how much Mr. Anderson has affected our lives just in the fifty minutes he sees us each day,” Amy said. “So, we know how the two of you will affect the life of this little girl.”
Davy took David’s hand. We’re going to have a little girl.
Gabby finished the toast: “This little girl not yet in the world—but being awaited by so many people—is one of the luckiest little girls I know. Here’s to her two daddies.”
“Cheers!” “Here, here!” and “To the Davids!” rang out.
“And when is this baby supposed to arrive?” Tanya called out.
In unison, he and David answered, “Friday.” More laughter.
“Not that we’re counting,” Davy said.
But they were. They had been counting for years. Friday. Six days, counting today. Six days and their lives would completely change.
Davy’d known he wanted to be a father since he was a kid—he’d cared for all of his sister’s abandoned stuffed toys, taking them in like foster children. Ever since he’d met David, he’d known David was the one he wanted to have a family with.
Gabby directed everyone to begin eating. The food smelled incredible, and Davy was starving after his eight-mile run that morning. Cami slipped an arm around his waist just as he recognized the Hanky-Pankies. “Look what Mom made! Oh, my God, I love these!”
“Mom didn’t make them,” Cami said as Aurora, Hank, and Helen encircled them. “I did.”
Davy closed his eyes, savoring one. “Remember how Bobby said these look like vomit?”
Everyone laughed.
“Who catered the rest?” Davy asked.
“I did,” Cami said.
His jaw dropped. He held up a Hanky-Panky. “You mean, you made more than these?”
Cami’s chin lifted a little, and he saw the little kid still in her.
“Everything but the cake,” Hank said.
“I had help,” Cami said. “Thank God. What was I thinking? These guys saved me this morning.”
“Nah,” Aurora said. “You had it. You just needed some sous-chefs.”
“Whatever,” Helen said. “We saved you and you owe us.”
Davy thought his sister looked downright giddy. She glowed. He leaned close to her. “Sis, you have something on your forehead.” Some orange smear edged her hairline.
Helen peered at Cami’s face and laughed. “Oh, my God! It’s bourbon wienie sauce!”
Cami almost cried with laughter. She put her arm around Davy again. “It was a little crazy getting this food here,” she said. “My kitchen is a train wreck.” She nodded to the Hanky-Pankies. “So, enjoy it.”
“I am,” Davy said. “I am.” This food, from his sister, was such a gift, it truly touched him in a way not even the pile of pink-wrapped gifts in that crib did. He gazed at her for a moment, thinking what a strong, kick-ass fighter she was.
Before he could figure out how to say this to her without sounding like a sap, Mimi and Olive interrupted them.
“Congratulations,” Olive said, kissing Davy on the cheeks. “My God, it smells favoloso.”
Davy watched Mimi squinting at the tables of food. Davy knew full well that Bobby would’ve made all the food if he and Cam were still married. “Who catered?” Mimi asked.
“Cami did,” Davy said. “Everything but the cake.”
Mimi nodded, in a grudging show of approval.
Davy didn’t give a shit if it was petty, he hoped Mimi would give a full report to Bobby. He made eye contact with his sister and tried not to grin as Mimi ate a Hanky-Panky, then put four more of them on her plate.
“These are delicious!” Mimi said.
“These are one of our mom’s old party standbys,” Davy said. “They’re called Hanky-Pankies.” He said the name clearly, hoping Mimi would relay this to Bobby.
Cami looked down at her plate, biting her lip. He could tell she was trying not to laugh.
“Where’s Vijay?” Olive asked, scanning the room.
Cami sighed. “He had to work. Couldn’t come after all.”
“He always has to work,” Aurora said.
Cami looked at Davy and shrugged.
Gabby announced the start of the games. Oh, God, games. They warranted games. Long-standing traditional shower games were being played in their honor.
Gabby supervised a diaper change race and then a series of candy bars crushed into diapers that had to be identified. Davy’s students loved that one and took photos with their phones as people sniffed and even tasted the diapers. Helen won this game in no time flat. “Please. I know my chocolate,” she said. Thank God for Helen. The best kind of straight ally you could hope for.
Davy watched Tyler laughing with Amy across the room. Good. For once, he wasn’t mooning after Gabby. Damn, that poor kid had fallen hard. It had been six months and Davy still caught him staring sadly at Gabby in class.
Recently at cross-country practice—Tyler had quit debate this fall and joined cross-country instead—he and Tyler had found themselves running side by side, the rest of the team spread far ahead or behind them on the loop at Sugar Creek Reserve.
“It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Tyler said of the breakup.
Davy let their footfalls fill the silence. Tyler should count his blessings that that was the worst thing, but Davy knew it wouldn’t help at all to say so.
With each slap-slap-slap of his feet on the dirt trails, Davy’s own tragedies flashed like video clips: His sister starving herself almost literally to death in high school. His father pitching head first into a stone wall and coming to not knowing their names. Being despised for who he loved.
All in all, though, Davy knew he was lucky. Besides, this was his life, not Tyler’s. There was nothing more individual than grief.
Except maybe love.
“Nobody gets the good stuff all the time,” Davy said to him as they ran. “Remember that.”
He wished he knew something more comforting to offer. He wished with the fervor that haunted his entire teaching career that he could spare them, his students; that he could pass them the cheat sheet for their future lives.
He looked around his classroom at them, trying to picture his own high-school class throwing a party for a couple of old fags. These kids were such good people.
Davy started across the room to talk to Tyler and Amy when Gabby called out, “Okay! It’s time to pit the Davids against each other in the ‘Stressed-out Parent’ game. You guys are going to each try to hang as many of these clothes as you can in two minutes”—she pointed to a basket and a clothesline she’d hung up. “You have to hold this crying baby the entire time. I’ll be calling out real-life distractions that you also have to deal with. You can’t put the baby down.”
“I’ll go first,” Davy said. “Gimme that baby.”
The game was ridiculous, set up to be impossible, with the doorbell ringing, a pot boiling over on the stove, and a cat puking on the carpet.
“We don’t have a cat!” Davy protested.
“Mom’s gonna give you one as a shower gift.”
He found Cami in the crowd and pointed to her. “I’ll kill you.”
When Gabby called out more distractions and reminded him, “The baby’s still crying,” Davy cradled the doll in the nook of his arm and pulled out his cell phone. While the crowd hummed the Jeopardy! song, he dialed David’s number.
Big David jumped when his phone vibrated in his pocket. “Hey, can you come home and give me a hand?” Davy asked. “We’re a little stressed.”
“Sure thing.” David stepped into the scene and rocked the baby, while Davy quickly hung up everything in the basket. Everyone cheered.
David pulled out his phone again and said, “Hello?”
Davy wanted to see what game he concocted next, eager to play along, to go wherever he led.
“Okay. Wow. How long?” Davy realized David was talking to somebody for real. “We’ll be right there.” David clicked his phone shut. “Kim went to Miami Valley Hospital about three hours ago. She’s in labor.”
THEY TOOK HER HOME THAT DAY. A TINY, WAILING CREATURE they named Grace. Davy swore he felt his chest crack open to make room for this new love. He had thought he was prepared, but he marveled like a goon at her miniscule toenails, her deep-lake eyes, her chubby thighs, her dimpled knees. Our daughter.
The effect on Ava was amazing. Grace made her happy, lucid. “I’m so glad I lived to see this,” Ava whispered, holding their sleeping Grace.
“I’m glad, too,” Davy said. He was glad she got to see David have a family, have such love.
And then, two days later, it was over.