We're a Wonderful Wife Ch. 14

"Go man," said Trung to his beer. "I had my talk with her back in January. I saw her drop everything and run off to Colorado for Don and Lanh because they needed her." He took a sip but received only silence from Huy and his beer. "She would have done the same for any of you... if you let her."

"Come on," said Huy "let's go back." Being the eldest brother, what Huy said goes, so Bao and Trung rose and pulled on their coats.

"Don and I will catch up with you when we finish our drinks," said Jake. He sipped his whiskey and when he heard the door slam closed, he said to Don. "This morning I had several people come to my house and told me that they were there to clean the house and launder our clothing."

"Isn't that something."

"Later a nurse came by and said she was there to help Tam and myself with our needs. Would you know anything about that?"

Back over at the restaurant, Lanh was still the center of attention. "I don't know what happened," she laughed. "We were treating my endometriosis, but nobody told me this could happen."

"It's that husband of yours," said Kim-ly as she patted her tummy. "Look at me, one time lucky."

"Two times," corrected Lanh.

"It was one time, the first day in the main cabin on the yacht..."

"And the beach," said Lanh. When Kim-ly didn't show a sign of recognition, Lanh tried to remind her, "Honeymoon beach? Our last night there? The moon? The Sangria?"

"Oooohhh yeahhh, that night," grinned Kim-ly. She whispered into Lanh's ear, "he probably got you that night too."

"What! Dish girl! Inquiring minds want to know!" demanded Rosa.

"Speak up!" cried Karole. She was still clinging to Lanh, so excited that her best friend was finally getting her dream come true. "Tell me 'bout that beach. Ah ain't gittin' none, so ah'm gonna live vicariously through yer adventures."

"What's to say?" said Kim-ly. "It was our last night on the island, it was a hot tropical night, there was a breeze coming in off the ocean, a full, silvery moon..."

"The moon!" moaned Lanh dreamily, "it was so bright!"

"...and we were on this tiny, secluded beach..." Kim-ly waggled her eyebrows for effect. "Maybe twenty feet wide, twenty feet deep... there was a wall of brush eight feet high on three sides, isolating us... pure white sand, deep blue Caribbean..."

"The water was so warm," groaned Lanh. "The temperature was so perfect..."

"...it was like a warm bath..." sighed Kim-ly. Unconsciously the women around her crooned with delight as they pictured a hot night on an island beach.

"Ah kin juss imagine," sighed Karole.

"No, you can't," said Kim-ly. "You can try to imagine the perfect night on a beach... we all can try, but it was so much better than anything you can imagine."

"The sangria!" said Lanh almost squealing in delight. "It sure kept Don going." For some reason Lanh was also sure that Don planted his seed in her that night. It had to be the second time, at the edge of the water, face down, ass up, and Don pounding her to ecstasy as Kim-ly watched, her hands roamed over her body...

"You're killing me," moaned Rosa. "I'm not going to get any work done around here."

"I want to hear more," said sweet old Mrs. Terrington, a regular patron of the restaurant and a former teacher at Grant Valley high school.

"Missus Tee!" gasped Kim-ly in false shock. Mrs. Terrington was her history teacher. "Well, let me tell you, Don was a mad man! First me, then Lanh, then me, then Lanh..."

"Ok, enough!" said their mother, hoping her laughter didn't show. "We got to start talking about your future."

"Well..." started Lanh, "I'm hoping to start my own practice..."

"I'm talking about October, November, December..." snarled their mother. Then Mai took Lanh, her baby, into her arms. "Darling, the first one is the hardest, your body doesn't know what to do." Every woman there nodded in agreement, except one year old Krissy, Lanh is the only female there that has never had a baby. Mai held Lanh out at arm's length and stared her little girl in the eyes. "Baby, you're going to be 33 when this little one is born, you were four when I turned 33." She then turned to Tam and said, "You should know better!" then she turned to Kim-ly and sighed.

"I was 33 when Danh was born!" Kim-ly said with a pout.

Mai gripped her middle daughter's chin and said, "Yes, but you were not tiny and just run over by a car!" The grandmother of five, soon to be eight, maybe nine counting Krissy, smiled and said "But I still know what love makes us do..."

"We did have an empty house for a while," said Duong with a smile.

"Hush you." Mai turned back to her girls. "We are going to sit down and talk every time you have an appointment with your doctor, all of us."

"Oh, how sweet," said Karole as she eased her aching body into a chair. "A baby summit."

"That includes you," said Mai, "I know what's on your mind, and you're no teenager yourself." She pointed to Rosa and Ahnjong, "And you two are included! We're family, it's what we do."

"Trẻ sơ sinh dễ lây lan," said Duong.

"What?" asked Karole. She's been here weeks and she's having problems with the Vietnamese phrases that get tossed about.

"He said that babies are contagious," said Don. He and the men of the family returned from the Trackside Tap. Don's understanding of Vietnamese was getting close to flawless. Now that Vietnamese speaking women outnumber him 2 to 1 in his immediate family, understanding the language is a survival skill. He wrapped his arms around Lanh and gave Kim-ly a little kiss.

Duong nodded. "Their smiles, their smells, the little sounds they make, the next thing you know you want one of your own."

"It's true!" said Lanh. Year after year in the family support groups on base, young girls brought their newborns to the meetings with them, and Lanh would watch longingly as the girls tended to their infants, breast feeding was the worst. Her small breasts ached to nourish an infant that she knew would never arrive.

Lanh also found that helping young girls with their newborns while their husbands were off serving their country was akin to torture, she wanted a baby so bad, but she knew she would never have one of her own. Holding and cradling a tiny infant while momma ran the older sibling to doctor appointments or grocery shopping was two or three hours of pure bliss for Lanh, but handing those babies back to their parents became so difficult. It was always followed by bouts of depression. But now, she doesn't have to hand any babies back. The excitement of having Don's baby growing in her womb brought tears of joy to her eyes.

Don thought he saw depression setting in on his wife, he didn't know what caused it, but he knew he had to nip it in the bud before it overwhelmed her. He sat down in a chair and pulled her into his lap then he called Danh over with, "Come here, momma needs some sugar." With a huge, happy grin the little boy toddled his way to Don and Lanh, and this always surprised Lanh. Somehow at his early age he realized the difference between "Mommy" who is Kim-ly and "Momma" who is Lanh. As a speech pathologist this was fascinating to her, but then Don said "Nhảy lên!" (Hop up) the little fellow appeared to know exactly what Don was expecting and he placed his hands on Lanh's thigh and started bobbing up and down. Did he understand the words? Or was he used to being asked to 'hop up' after being called over?

Don helped Danh up onto their laps telling Danh "Give momma sugar." Danh responded by placing wet, open mouth kisses on Lanh's cheek. The kisses caused Lanh to laugh, which only inspired more sloppy kisses.

Just then six school age children entered the restaurant, Chau and Sophia Nguyen, Bao and Rosa's girls, were accompanied by Chip and Liam Johnson, Tam and Jakes boys. Also with them was a pair of second graders, Him-chan and Anh Nguyen, Huy and Ahnjong's twins. Their daily instructions are to walk three blocks from school to Grandma and Grandpa Nguyen's house for a snack and to do homework at the kitchen table until parents come home from work to pick them up. Now that Huy and Ahnjong have moved to the Bemidji office they can live in Grant Valley and their kids can go to school with their cousins. Now that Trung has returned and their adopted sister Karole lives here with Krissy, the family is fully united.

"Day-um!" muttered Karole as the Nguyen family filled the restaurant.

"What's the matter?" whispered Lanh.

"A couple-a months ago mah famly was just me an Krissy, now ah don't have a family, ah have a crew!"

"There really is a bunch of us now," said Kim-ly as she gazed in awe of the crowd. Once the Nguyen family was eight people, now when you include Ralph and Sandy the family is over twenty people with three more on the way.

Tam watched the joyful confusion as a few regular customers came in to add to the fun, and she tried to describe to Jake the chaos of the cousins and their surprise to find their entire family waiting for them. "Why is everybody here?" asked Sophia, Bao and Rosa's younger daughter. "Are we in trouble?"

"I wanted to tell the boys quietly," Tam whispered to Jake. "You know, just us. But they're going to hear it here."

"It's ok," said Jake softly and he snuggled his wife close, "let me handle it." He suddenly released an ear-splitting whistle, a whistle the likes of which can only be created by a middle-school gym teacher or the father of three boys. "Alright! Listen up!"

The entire restaurant went silent. Don found himself sitting at attention even though he had his wife and son on his lap.

Jake continued in a voice that his sons and his college freshmen students learned quickly to obey. "Alright then. Will all women in here who are pregnant please raise their hands."

Kim-ly reacted like the class nerd who knew the answer when no one else did. "Ooo! Me! Me!" she held her hand up high and waved it as her nieces and nephews laughed then realized it wasn't a joke.

"Come on, there's more of you," growled Jake like a drill instructor, "I know there's more." He knew because he could feel Tam's arms had remained at her side.

"Oh, you dick," she muttered into his arm trying not to laugh and without looking up she raised her arm and they both heard their boys gasp "Mom?"

"Is there any more of you?" snarled Jake and soon he heard what he was expecting to hear, Chau and Sophia gasping "Aunty Lanh?"

The restaurant became a cacophony of surprised young voices and Jake laughed at his creation. Chip and Liam ran up to hug their mom as Chau and Sophia peppered their Aunt Lanh with question after question like, "I thought you weren't going to have a baby, what changed your mind?"

As Don laughed the questions off, his mother-in-law Mai turned to Tam and Jake and said, "And I always thought that Don was going to be the one to make trouble."

"You really don't know your other son-in-law at all, do you," said Tam with a chuckle. She cupped Jake's chin, her signal that a kiss was coming, and gave her husband a kiss that daughters rarely give their husbands when mom is standing right there. Even though they have a house full of boys, the thought of adding one more to the family was such a blessing. She was moved to tears every time she realized that Jake agrees with her.

"We need to get going so somebody can get back to work," called out Kim-ly.

"Ok," then Don looked at his watch, it was chirping out a timed alarm, this only said Cows! "It's time we get back to the farm, who's going to help me with evening milking?"

Lanh and Kim-ly looked at each other, they realized why they both had queasy stomachs when it was time to work around the cows lately. "Not it!" they both cried.

"Lanh said it first, Kim-ly you help RJ and me while Lanh gets dinner started."

Ralph put his hand on Don's shoulder. "I will help with milking," he said forcefully.

"Dad, you're retired."

"I'm not retired, and I'm not dead. There's no such thing as a retired farmer."

Sandy grabbed Don by the arm and dragged him away then whispered in his ear, "Either he does it or I will do it, but those girls do not go anywhere near those cows."

"What do you mean?"

"The most dangerous time for a miscarriage is in the first thirteen weeks. She doesn't need to be slipping and falling in cow shit! You've already lost one, maybe more..."

Sandy said shit?!? It had to be serious, and the unspoken consequence of losing this baby hung in the air, unspoken but deadly. "But... I've always heard of farm wives helping with the chores when pregnant..."

"We were in our teens and twenties, we were broke and stupid, but we had years ahead of us," Sandy snarled. "Your mom lost two before you, I don't think Ralph even knows. Lanh is tiny and, in her thirties, she shouldn't even be going to work. Besides with your settlement you can hire a dozen hands."

Don thought for a moment, now it was about saving face for his dad. He turned back to his father and said "Dad, we agreed that I'm managing the farm now... right?" This was a conversation they had weeks ago and Don didn't want to sound like he was "pulling rank" on his dad.

"Yes, we agreed, you and Kim-ly."

That was a stipulation that Ralph would not ignore, he admired Kim-ly's financial skills so much that he insisted that Kim-ly manages the financial side of the operations. Don realized that Ralph looked hurt so he tread lightly. "... so... look... this is... I guess... what I'm trying to say is that you're hired. You can do whatever you want around the farm, set your own hours... we'll talk pay later but you're my head mechanic, ok?"

Ralph chuckled, he just got hired on to his own farm! "Yes sir... boss."

Don couldn't believe that he just hired his father. "Let me know what you're up to... for insurance an' stuff, ok?"

"That will be just fine," Ralph sighed happily and hugged Don.

"I don't want you wearing yourself out before you move into your new house," said Don. "So, make sure you train the new hand properly."

"New hand?"

Agronomist Dr. Trung Nguyen stood behind Ralph and cleared his throat. "I specialized in poultry and row crops but I think I can handle four or five dozen cows."

"Four or five dozen?" Things were changing too fast for Ralph.

"We're keeping the girls," chirped Lanh. She and Don decided to get the herd back up to 50 cows or maybe more, so they plan to keep all females from the annual calving. She had trouble getting her announcement out because Danh was still giving her kisses and she and Kim-ly were being overwhelmed by questions from Chau and Sophia.

"What about their retirement gift?" Kim-ly asked.

"Let's give it to them now," said Lanh as she wiped Danh's slobbery love off of her cheek.

"We were going to..." Don started, he wanted to give them their gifts in a more private setting but Kim-ly was digging in her purse. She pulled out two white envelopes then hoisted Danh to the floor. She gave Danh one envelope and Krissy another.

"Give that to Poppa Ralph, you give that to Poppa Duong... go! Give Poppa presents!" The two preschoolers toddled off to the grandparents as best as they could, waving their envelopes as they went. They got the wrong ones, but the gifts were exactly the same. It took some work, but Don, Danh, Lanh, and Kim-ly were out of the restaurant and heading back to the farm before Ralph and Duong realized what their children gave them.

~~~*~~~

Dinner was simple but delicious, pot roast and freshly baked dinner rolls. Lanh and Kim-ly could tell what the topic of conversation was going to be, Sandy was flush with excitement and Ralph looked a bit angry. Ralph was angry because the gift was too extravagant, but they discussed it and Ralph begrudgingly went along with it.

"Why didn't you two go out to dinner? Shouldn't you be celebrating?" asked Kim-ly as they ate. She even planned to sleep upstairs so Don and Lanh could celebrate the good news together.

"We can go out any time," said Don, "lord knows we have the money for it."

"We decided to spend the night where we loved to be the most," said Lanh, "right here."

They finished eating dessert and were ready to clear the table when Lanh's phone rang. They had a strict "No Phones" rule during dinner but Lanh said, "Sorry, but we have to take this, it's Annie."

Ralph nodded, it was still his house for a few more months, but he knew Annie and was grateful to her and Royce for everything that they did for Don and Lanh. "Let's hear what she has to say."

Lanh turned on the speaker function and there was Annie. "Hi darling, how are you doing?"

"What is all this?" Annie demanded. She sounded angry but they could hear Annie's daughters in the background pleading with her to calm down.

"Let me guess, you got your tickets."

"Has your money gone to your head?"

"Yes, it has. Let me spend some on you," Lanh said.

"Sweetheart, this cost a fortune!"

"We get a group discount, don't worry about it," implored Don. Annie knew about Don's settlement, but she didn't know about Lanh's which was huge.

"You can't be spending this kind of money on me..."

Lanh interrupted her mentor, "My folks and Don's folks got the same thing, it's a thank you gift. All of you have done so much for us, so like I told Ralph and Don told my dad, shut up and let us do something for you."

"Oh honey, this is..."

"It's a down payment on what we owe you," insisted Lanh. "If it wasn't for you and Royce, Don and I would be divorced and probably dead. It's a debt we can never repay. Besides you, our folks are all in the same boat together... which isn't a play on words." They had given their parents airline boarding passes for a first-class flight from Minneapolis St. Paul to West Palm beach where they would sail on Andi's Dream to the private island of Nisi Arcadia for a week in the sun and the surf. Annie and a guest were going to fly from St. Augustine to West Palm Beach and board Andi's Dream at the same time.

"You're not going to be alone, and you can take anyone you want," said Kim-ly. "Tiên or Donna or anyone else."

"Both of my folks have been where you are," said Don softly, "they both lost their other half, and they will be there for you."

"I... I don't know what to say..." poor Annie was so confused. Tours like this were for rich people, a cruise on a private yacht to a private island... It was too much for Annie to wrap her head around.

"Annie, this is Sandy, we met when you were here a few years ago at Don's retirement, I'm sure you remember. Please come with us, Ralph and I miss you, and at this point getting away for a little while will be so good for you."

"I don't know," Annie started.

"You've got some traveling to do this year Annie, look at this as a warmup," said Don.

"What traveling?" Annie demanded.

"You need to be here in June for the renewal of our vows," said Lanh.

"I know..." she said reluctantly.

"Then in November or December you need to come and see the babies," said Kim-ly.

Annie paused a moment then she gasped "Did they... did you do the procedure already? Was it a success?" For the first time in over a year Annie felt excited about something.

"No, the doctor wouldn't do it," said Kim-ly.

"Why not?"

"Well, see Tam was on birth control pills, but they gave her migraines, so she went off them, and I had to go off them because of the procedure..." started Kim-ly.

"And I was only on them to regulate my period," said Lanh, "but I was in the hospital for so long..."

"Oh geez," said Don, "here they go again..." and he took off his glasses and began pinching the bridge of his nose, which seems to help the headaches that come on when Kim-ly and Lanh start chattering like that.

"Wait a minute!" cried Annie as Kim-ly and Lanh's chattering became overwhelming. "Who is pregnant?"