Honor Thy Mother & Thy Father Ch. 14

"Patty, are you trying to scare me off?"

"Would I do that to someone whom I just met, and has mentioned grandchildren three times in the last 5 minutes?"

"I just want you to know I made of stronger stuff than that, and I do not scare easy. I will be here at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. I will be wearing a jockstrap, cup, and full protective clothing. We should have a fun day together."

"Okay Brad, I will be here; don't forget your computer."

Brad reached behind her to grab his computer. Patty turned for a second to see what he was doing. When she turned back, he kissed her. He said, "I knew you were too shy to kiss me, so I kissed you."

"Get out of here while you can still walk Brad. I will have my gun with me tomorrow, and I have a Federal Firearms Permit to carry it."

"Patricia, when I see something I really want, I don't scare easily."

She climbed into her bed, but her mind would not let her rest. His words kept rolling around in her head. He had only known her for a few hours, how could you say, "...when I see something I really want, I don't scare easily." He doesn't know anything about me. I doubt if he knows about my mother, or what has happened to me over the past year. He knows I am good with computers, because of what I did on his. He does not know how good I am with them. I wonder how he is going to react when he tries to make a move on me and I tell him no. I am going to have to explain to him why, and he is not going to like it. No man does, but that is the way I am, and I not going to change for anyone.

61. Let's hear It for the...

Sergeant was pacing back and forth in the radiology lab of the Verde Valley Regional Hospital, with Alan mimicking his every move, three paces behind him. Susan sat reading her magazine, looking at the two adult children playing with each other.

Sergeant said, "Alan, if you don't stop this, I'm going to break your neck."

"Oh shit, not again; Callaway tried and just missed."

"I promise Alan, I will not miss."

"Sergeant, you are no longer a police officer. You will go to jail."

"Idiot, I am on accrued leave for the next 43 days. When I use up those days, my retirement becomes official."

Alan said, "Great! If you kill me, Susan can sue the city also. She will make a bundle of money, and you will still be in jail."

"If you two boys don't stop it, I am going to sit you down in opposite corners of the room."

Alan pointed, "He started it."

Susan pointed to a chair and said in a stern voice, "Alan sit."

"Sergeant, move your ass and sit down. Both of you are worse than Callum."

Doctor Linda Oliver walked into the waiting area looking for Sergeant. She said, "Cassie would like to see you now."

He saw the noncommittal look on the doctor's face, and was worried. "Is she alright?"

"Yes, Cassandra is fine."

"The baby?"

"Cassandra wants to talk to you about that herself."

The doctor walked in to the room ahead of Sergeant and found Cassandra dressed, and sitting on the examining table. "Cassie, do you want me to leave you two alone, or do you want me to stay?"

"Leave us alone, Linda, but if you hear a loud thud, come back to see if he split his head open."

The Doctor left the room and Cassandra hit the switch to turn on the machine that showed where the little life forms were.

"Sarge did you ever dream about having a large family? I mean a really large family?"

"Cassie, I never thought I would get married, no less have a family. I hit the jackpot with you. Anything that comes afterwards is icing on the cake."

"Sarge, I love you, and I hope you like a lot of icing on your cake. Let me show you your children."

She took the red marking pencil and circled a blip that was on the screen, then a second, a third, and a fourth. She chanced a look up into his eyes and saw wonderment in them. There was no fear or foreboding, there was just awe.

"Those are our babies?"

"Sarge, they are definitely not someone else's."

"Do we know what they are?"

"Yes, we do."

"Do I have to play a game of 20 questions with you to find out the sex of my children?"

"No, here is daughter number one. Here is daughter number two. Here is daughter number three. And here is...oh gee, what was this one?" Cassie turned towards the door and yelled, "Linda, what was the fourth one?"

Doctor Oliver yelled back, "It's different than the other three."

"Thank you. Oh yes, I remember now. Here is your son." The look on his face didn't change. He was going to have four children, and the sex of each of them didn't matter to him. She had married one hell of a man.

"Linda believes I am any place between 15 and 17 weeks along. She will be doing a C-section, when the time comes, because they will be so tiny, when they are born and there are so many of them. Oh, just for your information, I am having her tie my tubes, to make sure this does not happen again."

"Madam, you told me you could not get pregnant. I asked you that question several times, and you assured me that it was impossible, even for a Marine, to get you pregnant."

"Sir, I did not get pregnant all by myself. Whether you like it or not, you assisted me in this process."

The doctor knocked on the door and opened it. "I'm sorry folks, we need this room. I did not hear any crashing sounds, so I guess he took it well, when you told him there were 10 babies inside you."

Sergeant yelled, "10, she only told me about four children."

Doctor Oliver said, "I'm sorry Cassandra, I forgot about our little ruse. You see Sarge, if you thought you were having four, and were able to get your mind around it, in a few months we could've told you about the rest of them, and it would not have been such a shock."

Sergeant looked from the doctor to Cassandra, and back. His face was a mask of indecision. He did not know who or what to believe. Finally, Cassie could not hold a straight face any longer, and started laughing.

Doctor Oliver said, "Cassie, you are no fun. After all these years, I have a man that is like a fish out of water, and you let him go. Shame on you, you are no longer my favorite patient."

"I'm sorry Linda, but the look on his face was priceless. I'll make you my lasagna to make up for it."

"Okay, in that case, you are still my favorite patient. Your friends are still waiting for you. Go tell them the good news. Your blood work will be back in 7 to 10 days. We have to send it to a lab in Phoenix, but I don't foresee any problems with it."

"Thank you, Linda; I will see you in your office, in three weeks."

Susan saw the glow on Cassie's face, and jumped up to greet her. "How many; tell me, I can't stand the suspense any longer, how many babies are you going to have?"

"Four, there are four little ones in here," she said, patting her belly."

Susan grabbed her best friend, and started dancing around the room with her. "We are going to have the best time raising them together. The house is going to be huge."

She stopped dancing suddenly, put her head on Cassie's shoulder, hiding her eyes and said, "Oh shit, is he all right? I'm afraid to look."

Cassandra patted Susan on her back and replied, "Your idiot cousin is fine. He is better than fine, he is very happy."

"He is, really, I thought by now, he would've been admitted to the hospital for heart failure."

Sergeant tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Hey cuz, I am going to be a daddy. Who would have ever thunk it?"

"I knew you had it in you, I just didn't know when you would get it out of you. You could have spaced your children out over 20 years, but instead, you had to do it all at once. I knew you were dumb, but I did not think you were this stupid. You may not sleep for two years after these children are born."

"Who needs sleep, cousin, I am retired, and I have two built-in godparents, as babysitters."

Alan said, "Count me out; I absolutely refuse. Find someone else to pick on Sarge. One baby at a time is my limit."

Susan gave him a look that could kill. "Alan, darling, would you care to repeat that statement?"

Alan saw the look on Susan's face, and said, "What statement? Did I say something? I did not even feel my lips move."

"That's what I thought, because if you did say something, you would have said you were honored that Cassandra and Sergeant wanted us as godparents for their children; isn't that right?"

"Absolutely, you took the words right out of my mouth. I would have been so disappointed if they had chosen anyone else."

Sarge nodded, and looked at Alan. "Isn't it amazing, we can still feel them hanging between our legs, but after we get married, we are emasculated for life."

Amanda came walking down the hallway and said, "I did not emasculate my husband. He is as big, and tall, and as strong as he ever was."

Sergeant laughed. "Who was it didn't talk to her husband for two weeks after they got married; signed the divorce agreement, without thinking about it; and did not go home, until he cried at her feet at the police station to take him back."

"That was a long time ago Sergeant; I am a much more domesticated woman now."

"So is a tigress at a zoo Amanda; but I am not going to feed her by hand, when she has not eaten for a week."

Doctor Oliver opened the door to the Radiology suite, and said, "Amanda, get in here, you are holding up everyone else. I have to see how big that baby is to see if I have to change your medication."

All eyes turned towards Amanda, and she blushed. "You are pregnant?"

"Yes, but don't tell that big lug of mine yet. He will fall over and die on me, when he finds out he is going to be a father. He never thought it would happen to him."

"We will wait for you, just to make sure you are all right."

"Thank you, but what are you doing here?"

Alan said, "They had to x-ray my shoulder, to make sure my clavicle had healed properly."

Doctor Oliver yelled, "Amanda, now!"

After Amanda disappeared behind the door, Sergeant said, "Way to go Alan, you saved the day."

"It's my FBI training. I can lie with the best of them."

20 minutes later Amanda walked out of Radiology, with prescriptions in her hand, and a smile on her face. Cassandra asked if everything was okay with her, and her baby.

Amanda smiled and answered, "Yes, he is just fine."

Sergeant said, "It's a boy! Joe is going to be overjoyed. What are the prescriptions for?"

"They are vitamins for me. The baby is going to be huge, and I am not the biggest person you know."

Susan suggested a C-section, and Amanda said that Doctor Oliver suggested the same thing if the baby was over 6 pounds.

Alan and Sergeant grimaced. Alan said, "Honeydews are 6 pounds. I would not want to give birth to one of them."

Amanda said, "Me neither, Alan. I have to get back to work. I'll see you soon."

Cassie said, "I have to tell you something, before you go. Alan lied to you before. We were not here for his shoulder. We were here, so I could have an Ultrasound. I am four months pregnant, and I am going to have quadruplets."

Amanda launched into a series of questions that had everyone smiling. She was dynamo in every sense of the word.

Sergeant yelled at her, "Amanda, breathe for heaven sakes."

She looked at him, "Is that why you retired, and I have to break in that new idiot, Elmore?"

"Yes."

She smiled, "I can't think of a better reason. Congratulations daddy, it could not happen to a better person."

"Thank you Amanda, when are you going to tell Joe about you and the baby?"

"I have to figure out a way to do it when he is not near the house. He will be so excited he will tear the place apart. I have to get him outdoors someplace, where he is occupied with something else to think about."

"We are going to be building a new house, for Cassie and Sergeant," said Susan. "We could ask you and Joe to come out and look for a good site to put it on. It would save us the cost of clearing the land."

Amanda laughed. "That sounds perfect Susan; would Sunday, after church, be good for you?"

"It would be perfect; we can have a barbecue for lunch."

Cassandra called Joe to set up the meeting for Sunday, so he would not be suspicious. She told him about her babies and he was overjoyed for her. When they got there on Sunday, Joe asked them about plans for their house, and reminded Cassandra that the four children's bedrooms should be downstairs, because she did not want to have to carry them up and down every time they started to cry. She thought it was an excellent idea, but worried about a large footprint the house would have on the land. Joe assured her that he would find the perfect spot, where the land would not be greatly intruded upon. The three men went out to survey the area, and it took them 2 hours to find a spot, not too far away from Susan's home, but an area where too much land would be destroyed from its natural beauty. Joe and Alan stayed behind to stake out the area while Sergeant went back to get the women, and of course, the cameras. When they returned, Alan and Joe were nearly finished, and Cassandra could not believe the size of the downstairs area. Joe used orange Day-Glo paint to mark out proposed sites for the living area of the house. He made everything large enough for a family to grow into. Cassandra hugged him, and told him it was beautiful. She asked him to stand in the middle, with a shovel, so they could take a picture of him, and all the work he had put into it.

As he was standing there smiling, Cassandra said, "Joe, Amanda has something she wants to tell you, but you have to stand exactly where you are for her to do it. Okay?"

"Sure, it's okay with me."

Everyone had their cameras ready as Amanda stepped forward. "Joe, you know, we promised not to keep secrets from one another, but I had to keep one from you, until I was absolutely sure that everything would be okay. I went to the doctor earlier this week, and she told me everything was fine. Joe, honey, you are going to be a daddy."

Joe's world stopped as the words sunk in to his head. He said nothing. He did nothing. Then, suddenly, "The Flying Dutchman," and his shovel fell to the floor, raising a cloud of dust 5 feet high.

Amanda screamed, "Joseph!"

Susan, Cassie, Alan, and Sergeant were laughing, as they realize 'a tree had fallen, silently, in the forest.'

Amanda reached Joe in seconds, and tried to awaken him. She yelled his name, slapped his face, and pulled on his shirt.

Alan pulled her away, and held her, trying to calm her down. He said, "Joe is fine. I have never seen a man fall that far, that fast. Thank goodness it was not a concrete floor; he would have broken it."

Susan took her thermos of water, and poured some on Joe's face.

He sputtered, and return to consciousness. He looked into Amanda's worried face, and asked, "Say that again, please."

She sat on his lap and said, "Well, since you are already down here, and there is no further chance that you will hurt yourself, I said you are going to be a daddy. You are going to have a son."

Joe was a smart man, not brilliant on the IQ scale, but smart, when his brain was functioning normally.

"How?"

Amanda smacked him. "The usual way Joe."

"Oh! Do you want to be a mother?"

"How many times have we discussed this Joe?"

"Oh! You weren't taking the pill?"

"I stopped taking it six years ago, Joe."

"Oh yeah, I remember that."

His mind began to function properly. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, Joe, I am fine. The baby is fine, and he is going to be like his father; huge."

Joe looked worried. "You can't carry a huge baby; you are too tiny."

"The Doctor and I have worked it out. If the baby reaches 6 pounds, I will have a C-section."

"What have I done to you, Amanda?"

"You have made me very happy Joe. I am having the love of my life's baby. What woman could ask for anything more?"

"When are you due?"

"That depends totally on the baby. I am 2 ½ months pregnant, now. If I were to carry to term, it would be 6 ½ months. Neither Doctor Oliver nor I believe I will go that long. I think five months is a better guess."

"I will have to build an extension on the second bedroom."

"Oh, what a shame; you will be busy doing something constructive for a change."

"Be nice, Amanda, or I will spank you."

Amanda laughed, "Like that would be something new Joseph. You will have to become more inventive than that."

"I could always take out the suede flogger, or the riding crop, if you like?"

"Joe, you are embarrassing me in front of our friends. You can't use them, because I am pregnant."

Alan laughed. "Here I thought I was the only pervert in this group."

Susan yelled, "Alan, shut up; what happens in our bedroom stays in our bedroom."

Coyly Amanda said, "Oh really; Alan, I would like to talk to you later."

Susan said, "Amanda, if he talks to you, his jawbone will have to be fixed."

Everyone laughed at this turn of events.

Sarge said, "Come on folks, I'm hungry, and there's a barbecue waiting. We have pregnant women we have to fatten up, a house to extend, and one to build in the next five, or six months. It is going to be a very tight schedule, but I think we can get most of it done by then."

By the time Harold and Callaway returned Callum, late that afternoon, they knew they missed a good time. When Callalily found out why, she got a little misty eyed. However, she was happy for everyone concerned.

Harold did not miss her reaction. He said, "Let's get married soon, and we can work on the little problems quickly."

Callalily looked at him. "Are you sure? This is a very big step for you. I know it is what I want, but it has to be good for you too."

"Callie, look at these people. They are almost 10 years older than me, and they are acting like children. I want to act like a child too."

"Harold you tell me when, and I will be the one white, coming down the aisle to meet you."

"Six weeks, maybe five, if we can pull it all together."

"No one can put a wedding together in six weeks."

Amanda, Susan, and Cassie said, "We can ask your mother and sister, and between the five of us, I bet we can."

Harold took Callalily into his arms and said, "Do you see what I mean baby, where there's a will, there is a way."

"Where will I get my dress?"

Alan replied, "New York, Chicago, Atlanta, or Los Angeles. I will get you there by private jet. Scratch that problem off your list of worries."

"You guys mean this, don't you?"

Alan replied, "If Harold can thaw out your hands, I will pay for the damn dress."

Harold laughed, "Alan, I have tried my best. It just does not work. I have to put her hands in boxing gloves before I go to bed with her."

As soon as he finished saying it, Harold went into a defensive boxing position, because he knew he was about to get hit. He did.

"Harold, I am going to freeze your dick off."

He kissed her and said, "Where will the little ones come from then?"

"Bastard."

"Bitch."

"I love you, Harold."

"Ditto, Callie; I can't wait to see you running around after a little one."

There was a collective groan from those assembled.

Harold asked them why?

Susan asked, "Harold, which child are you going to be running after, Callie, or the baby?"

Harold laughed, but Callaway looked at Susan and said, "Not funny Susan. Remember I am Callum's godmother and I can teach him all the wrong things."

Alan yelled, "Yes, you can Callie, especially after he turns 13!"

That was all it took to light Callaway fuse. She charged at Alan, who took off like a rabbit. "When I catch you Alan, I am going to dig your grave and throw the dirt in after you."

Alan was running around his guests, who were hysterical laughing. Callalily was 10 feet behind him, absolutely furious that she was not able to close the gap. Alan put on a burst of speed, and Callalily did not realize where he had gone, until she came around a tree and he smacked her in the ass. She screamed at the ignominy of her defeat, as her friends laughed at her. She ran to Harold's arms and said, "I have to figure out a way to defeat him. He is just too funny."