Happy News and Sad News

It was in the middle of May when Lily called me. "Guess what!" She was so excited she was practically shouting. "I'm pregnant!"

"You're sure this time."

"Positive! I just had my first ultrasound!"

"Wow, congratulations! I'm so happy for you! So it worked out with Ilya?"

"It sure did! He came over the same evening you called and told me Maxim couldn't make it. It was a little awkward, but in the end things worked out just fine."

"Did you tell Ilya and Misty yet?"

"I was gonna call them right after I got off the phone with you. I wanted you to be the first to know."

"Aw, I'm honored! So you've actually seen the baby on ultrasound?"

"Yep. Well, really it's still so tiny it looks just like a peanut. That's what Chad nicknamed it, Peanut."

"How does he feel about this?"

"He's every bit as thrilled as I am."

"He doesn't even mind that another man is really the biological father?"

"Not at all! His name will be on the birth certificate, not Ilya's."

I wondered how Misty would really feel about Ilya's having fathered Lily's baby and couldn't wait to ask her. I got my chance when I ran into her at the supermarket that weekend. "So how do you feel about Lily being pregnant?" I asked her.

"I'm thrilled for her. She's been wanting a baby for so long. And guess what - I'm pregnant too! My due date's only a week after hers."

"Congratulations! Ilya must be over the moon!"

"He is, and so am I!"

I was genuinely happy for her, as I concluded that news of her own pregnancy must have softened any blow that might have resulted from Ilya's sperm having gotten Lily pregnant.

After all the happy news, sad news wasn't far behind. One evening Maxim and I were relaxing at home when he received a telephone call from his family in Russia. I heard him talking in Russian for a long time, and when he hung up, his face held a grave expression. "My father's been diagnosed with cancer," he told me. "He has to have surgery in a few days, and the doctor told my Mom there's no guarantee he'll survive. I have to go to Russia right away. I have no idea when I'll be back."

He called the police department and explained the situation to them. They were very understanding and told him to take all the time off he needed to. Next he went into the bedroom to pack. I called Seth and Morgan from their play and told them what was happening. "Your Daddy's father has to have an operation, and your Daddy has to go to Russia to be with his family," I explained. "I don't know exactly when he'll be back, but Seth, you'll have to be the man of the house for me while he's gone."

"What's Russia, Mommy?" asked Morgan.

"It's a country a long way from here, on the other side of the world. It's where your Daddy's family lives," I told her.

"How long will it take for him to get there?"

"Only a few hours by airplane." While we'd been talking, Seth had found Maxim's police uniform hat and put it on. "Good boy," I laughed.

"I'm not a boy, I'm a man."

The following morning, I gathered up all the kids and took them to the van. After the twins had been born, we'd had to swap our car for a van so there would be enough room for all the car seats. The twins woke briefly when I took them out of their cribs but quickly went back to sleep when I fastened them into their car seats. At the airport, I put them into the double stroller and wheeled it into the airport with Seth and Morgan walking alongside me, each of them holding one of Maxim's hands.

"Well, I guess this is good-bye," he said before boarding the airplane. "I love all of you and I'm going to miss you very much. I'll be in touch as soon as possible." He lifted each of the twins and kissed their tiny cheeks, then told Seth and Morgan to be good as he kissed them both good-bye. Lastly he turned to me.

"Most of all, I can't bear to say good-bye to you." He held me tight as he gave me an open-mouth kiss. "My bed will be so cold without you there to warm it. I'll be counting the hours until we're together again."

We watched until we couldn't see him anymore and then, feeling very alone, I loaded the kids back into the van and started home. Morgan cried so hard that I had to stop by the dollar store to buy her a toy to cheer her up. While there, I picked up some household stuff as well as make-up, several romance novels, and ponytail holders and barrettes for Morgan. While standing in the check-out line, I met up with Erin. "Would it be OK for me to bring Morgan over for a play date with Mason this afternoon?" I asked her. "Maxim just had to fly to Russia, and she's pretty heart-broken about it."

"Sure! Mason would love to see her again." She frowned. "I hope nothing's wrong."

"Maxim's Dad's just been diagnosed with cancer and has to have surgery."

"Oh, no! I hope he'll be all right!"

"Thanks. I hope so, too."

I drove the kids back home, fed Seth and Morgan, and nursed the twins. "Want to go play with Mason?" I asked Morgan when I was finished.

"No! I want Daddy!"

"Are you sure? Mason's your friend, and he'd love to see you again."

"I don't want Mason! I want Daddy!"

"All right." I called Erin and told her Morgan didn't want to come over.

I didn't hear from Maxim until the afternoon of the following day, when I received an email from him. 'Just got settled in. Dad's in a lot of pain but seems to be in good spirits. Everyone else is fine. They want to know all about the twins, of course. The weather here is really nice, a lot cooler than it is where you are. Give everyone my love. I already miss you like crazy and wish like anything that I was holding you in my arms right now. Lots of love and a great big sloppy kiss, Maxim,' he wrote.

I wrote back to him right away. 'Glad to know everyone's doing OK. We're holding up pretty well, except that Morgan cried for you all evening long yesterday. She was so upset she wouldn't even go on a play date with Mason, and you know how she loves to play with him. I hope your Dad will be OK. Tell everyone I said hello. Lots of love and a great big sloppy kiss back to you, Lacy."

I hit 'send' and watched as my email hurtled through cyberspace toward its target. Then one of the twins started crying so I went to check on her.

The hours felt like days as I waited to hear back from my husband. Although I'd only met Maxim's father a handful of times, he'd always been very kind to me, and it would have been horrible if anything had happened to him. I didn't hear from Maxim for several more days, and then one night I received another email from him. 'Dad's surgery is tomorrow morning. Please pray it will be successful. Mom's beside herself with worry, and my sisters can't do anything but wring their hands and cry. It looks like I'm going to have to be strong for all of us.'

I felt sorry for him, all alone in a house full of hysterical women. I wished that I could be there to offer him my support, but I knew that it would have been next to impossible to have traveled by airplane with two infants and two small children.

As a distraction, Mom and I took the kids to the mall one day. While we were there, she told me about the time Dad's appendix ruptured and he nearly died. "We'd only been married a couple of months," she began. "It was before I got pregnant with you. One day we were hiking in the woods when he started complaining of a severe pain in his side. We came back home, and he laid down to see if it would go away, but instead it just got worse. By that night, he was hurting so badly I got really scared and drove him to the hospital. They told me that his appendix had ruptured and that if I hadn't brought him in right when I did, he would have died. They did emergency surgery on him right then and there, cleaned all the infection out and stitched him back up and put him on massive doses of antibiotics. He was in the hospital for about a week, and was still in a lot of pain even after he came home."

"Wow, that sure must have been scary!"

"It was one of the worst ordeals I ever went through in my life!"

At the food court, I had a salad and baked potato with sour cream and bacon for lunch. Later, we got photographs of all the kids at the photo booth. I kept putting off leaving the mall, because I knew that once I got home, all I'd have to do would be to mope around worrying about Maxim's father. However, I knew that Mom had stuff to do, and I also needed to nurse the twins and give Seth and Morgan their dinner.

When I got home, I immediately dashed to the computer to see if there was an email from Maxim. Nothing so far. I continued to check it regularly during the evening and night and finally heard from him early the next morning. 'Dad made it through surgery,' he wrote. 'They almost lost him once. His heart stopped beating and they had to restart it. He's still asleep, but they say he's out of danger now. I'll let you know when he wakes up."

With a sigh of relief, I finally went to sleep. I heard from Maxim again several days later. 'Dad's finally awake, but he's very weak and can't communicate very well. I miss you and the kids like crazy, but I want to make sure he's really going to be all right before I come home.'

'Stay as long as you need to. The kids and I are fine.' I was afraid that Maxim's mother and sisters might fall to pieces if he left too soon, but actually, the twins were both teething and keeping me awake at night almost as much as they had when they'd been newborns. Curious about which one of them would be first to cut a tooth, I watched closely, and it turned out to be Courtney. When she awakened crying to be fed one morning, I saw a sliver of white in her lower gum. "Well, how about that!" I laughed. "Your sister may have been born first, but you've sure got her beat in one area!" Caitlin's first tooth came in a couple of days later.

Maxim finally came home a couple of weeks later, and the kids and I went to the airport to meet him. Seth and Morgan ran ahead, and he lifted them both at the same time and held them tight as they babbled to him. "Hey! One at a time, please!" he laughed.

After awhile, he persuaded the kids to let him put them back down so he could greet me and the twins. He lifted them from the stroller one at a time and kissed their cheeks. "Mama told me you have teeth now. Can Daddy see?" he admired their new teeth, then turned to me. "My Lacy," he murmured, holding me tight and kissing me passionately. "I want to thank you for waiting patiently..." he sang, and I giggled. "I'll make it up to you tonight," he whispered in my ear. I felt myself moisten in anticipation.

We went to the pizza buffet to celebrate his return, and that night, he grinned at me as he reached for the pink paddle. "You were a naughty little girl while I was gone, weren't you?"

"Not very naughty."

"Oh, come on - I know you were! Now it's time for some discipline."

I quickly wriggled out of my pajama bottoms and panties and stuck my butt up high in the air for him. Within seconds, the blows began to fall.

Smack! Bang! Pow!

"Oh! Oh!" I cried, putting my hands behind me to shield my sore butt.

"I told you I would make it up to you." I moved my hands out of the way, and he pounded me some more until I was good and sore. Then he entered me from behind and made mad, passionate love to me, being careful not to touch my aching butt cheeks.

Summer arrived, and I enrolled Seth and Morgan in swimming lessons. Seth had already been taking them for several summers, but this was Morgan's first time, and she was a little bit afraid. "It'll be fun," Seth encouraged. "It's just like playing in the bath, only without the bubbles." He held her hand as they walked to the pool together in their new swimsuits. I sat down in the bleachers to watch beside a brunette who smiled at me.

"Hi, I'm Carly," she told me.

"I'm Lacy," I replied.

She cooed over the twins, who were wearing the same outfit in pastel green and orange this time, and told me how adorable they were, then said her son Adam had turned four and she was trying to get pregnant again. "Where do you go to church?" she asked.

"I don't go," I told her. "I don't really have time."

She frowned her disapproval and told me she'd enrolled Adam in Vacation Bible School, which started the week after the swimming lessons ended. "Why don't you enroll your kids too?" she suggested. "I'm sure they'd enjoy it."

"Perhaps," I replied. She told me about her husband, a deacon whom she described as a 'Godly' man. I told her about Maxim, and she said she'd always held law enforcement officers in the highest of regards.

"They risk their lives every day to make the world a safer place for all of us," she reasoned, and I nodded in agreement.

After the day's lesson ended, Morgan wanted to stay so badly that she was close to tears. "We'll come back tomorrow," Seth assured her. I had to tempt her with a visit to the ice cream parlor to get her to leave without making a scene.

"I'm a mermaid now!" she told Maxim when he asked her how the lesson had gone.

Both children enjoyed the swimming lessons, which seemed to end entirely too soon. Carly invited me to go to church with her several more times, and I brushed her off as politely as I could. Not that I'm an atheist or anything. Her church just didn't sound like the kind I'd want to attend. I did, however, agree for Seth and Morgan to attend Vacation Bible School with Adam.

They were both dressed and ready when Carly arrived to pick them up the first morning. I held one twin in each arm as I walked out to the car with them. "Be good and have fun," I told them as they got into the car. Caitlin and Courtney watched with solemn brown eyes as the car drove away.

Determined to make the most of a morning in which my child care duties had been halved, I dove right into the housework with a relish. Time flew, and I was in the middle of dusting the furniture when Seth and Morgan returned bearing crayoned drawings of Jesus blessing the children. "Look what I made!" Morgan shouted excitedly, practically throwing her picture at me.

"Yeah, hon, that's real good," I told her. I made grilled cheese sandwiches for both of them and sat the twins in their high chairs to feed them their pureed vegetables. After Caitlin had spit her peas back out at me three times, I gave up and fed her sweet potatoes, which she gobbled right up.

The second morning, it was pouring rain and I halfway wondered whether Carly would change her mind, but she showed up right on time. I put Seth and Morgan's rain coats on them and kissed them good-bye. They didn't come home when I expected them to that day, and after about forty five minutes, I was frantic. I called the police department and asked to speak to Maxim.

"He isn't here right now," the receptionist told me. "He had to go pull somebody out of a mud puddle."

Thirty minutes later, Carly finally arrived with the kids, and I heaved a huge sigh of relief. "Sorry I'm so late," she said. "We got stuck in a huge mud puddle and had to wait for the police to come pull us out."

I laughed. "That's all right. I'm just glad everybody's OK."

Seth's birthday was later that week. He wanted to see a Power Rangers movie, so I took him to that, and we had his party later in the day. He received mostly Power Ranger stuff because that was what he'd asked for. "I'm gonna grow up to be a policeman, a rock star, and a Power Ranger," he announced to me and Maxim.

Maxim laughed and patted his shoulder. "Good luck with that."

Morgan turned four the following month, and I called Carly to invite Adam to her party. "Thanks for the invitation, but we've got an incredibly busy schedule for that day," she told me. "Adam's going to another party that morning, and we have out-of-town family staying with us that week. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to decline."

"That's all right," I replied. Later I told Maxim about the incident.

"Sounds like she doesn't really want Adam to go to Morgan's party," he remarked. "If she really wanted to take him, she would have made time for it."

"I don't think she really wants to be friends at all," I replied. "I think she mainly just wants me to go to her church."

Morgan's party was a blast anyway. Erin brought Mason, of course, Patsy came with Rachelle and Damian, and Chad and Lily brought Luke, who'd grown to be a very active little boy. It was a real job just keeping him from getting into things he shouldn't. Lily's baby bump was barely showing.

"So how's it going?" I asked her.

"I seem to be over my morning sickness, finally!" she laughed. "Now I want to eat everything that isn't nailed down."

"I know the feeling," I sympathized.

"I'm sure you do, with twins! How did you ever control it?"

"I just kept reminding myself of what I'd look like after the babies were born if I wasn't careful."

Looking at her slightly rounded belly, I couldn't help but wonder how I'd feel if that were Maxim's baby growing in there. I suppose it's selfish, but I knew it would have really bothered me.

Andy and Laura arrived, and Laura showed me the diamond ring on her left hand. We both squealed with happiness. "We're finally gonna be sisters!" I exclaimed. "So when are you gonna do it?"

"We're thinking maybe around Christmas."

"That's a nice time to get married. Then you can ring in the new year together."

"That's what we were thinking."

Maxim and I led the kids in playing a couple of games, and then it was time for cake and ice cream. Morgan blew out the flame on her numeral four candle, and then we all sang 'Happy Birthday' to her. Then it was time for her to open her tall stack of gifts. "This one's from me." Mason grabbed one of the presents out of the stack and handed it to her. She ripped into it to find a Barbie hair salon set.

"He wanted to wrap it himself, so I let him," Erin laughed.

"Looks like he did a pretty good job," I told her.

"Thank you!" Morgan hugged her friend.

"Aw," said all the adults together.

The party began to break up not long after that. The guests left one by one until finally only Erin and Mason were left. "Come on, Mason. It's time to go," Erica called to her son.

"Aw, can't I stay and play with Morgan just a little while longer?" Mason pleaded.

"Daddy's taking us all to see a movie tonight, remember?"

"Oh, yeah! Bye, Morgan!" Erin and I both laughed as he dashed to the car. Morgan looked a little disappointed, but I knew she'd get over it soon.