Adversity, Love, Friends and Family define us.

When we finally returned home from our journeys, Tan seemed strangely preoccupied. Oh, we still slept together and we still... well, you probably know anyway, but he just isn’t himself. After a couple of days of my prodding and poking trying to learn what’s wrong without much success, he finally announced shortly after we were dressed to go in to the studio one morning, that we are going to see his sister... again.

 © 2010 by Lilith Langtree & Rénae Dáºmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the work’s Owner (copyright holder), with the exception of the private and non-commercial viewing by the reader who is also the end purchaser. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this story are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. Any and all images which may be shown within this work are taken through license under Corel with the exception of the title image which is Photo Credit to Irina Sheik. No affiliations, involvement or gender assignations through the use of these or any images of the subject or subjects contained within those posted images is to be implied, intended or inferred.
An Aldoennetti & Langtree Original.

Of course by now there are all sorts of things going through my head. He’s an axe murderer, not likely since he has been vetted by Tony; he has only months remaining to live, again not likely since both the depression and whatever illness it might be would have sapped his energy. I play all sorts of nervous scenarios through my head but nothing makes any sense. What could it be? Why is he acting so strange? I finally just relax and wait to see if the visit to his sister will shed any light. If not then I’ll bring it up while we are there. Surely she would have some ideas since she grew up with him. At least I think she did. I don’t believe he hatched suddenly fully grown. Then again, what do I know? I’m only nineteen now going on twenty (thousand, it sometimes seems). Whatever we are going to see her about must be serious since he didn’t tell me about the meeting until twenty minutes before we were about to walk out the door to go there.

The officers manning the check points passed us without difficulty. The upstairs location found us both on their list and our ID was correct so the only problem would have been my shoes except I’ve learned to take them off before going through that stupid machine. The one downstairs doesn’t beep at me when I’m wearing them.

We arrived at his sister’s office where we were told to wait for a few minutes before I was ushered inside. Tan stayed out in the outer office.

“So where is that brother of mine?”

“He’s hiding outside in the other office.”

She goes to the door, opens it and in what seems like one of Mom’s commanding voices tells Tan, “Get your sorry ass in here. I’m not going to tell her this alone.”

That gets my mind rolling through unpleasant scenarios again.

“Tell me what, Jennifer? What do I need to know which he seems to be unable to tell me? Is he divorcing me?”

“Divorcing? Not at all. He told me about your dream and we think there is something you need to be told again which you seem not to have understood from before.”

Now I’m completely confused.

“Jennifer. Since we returned from this last trip, he has been very distant. I know something strange is up and I want to know what it is. Why are we here and what do you know about his new found reluctance to talk with me?”

She goes back around her desk as if to put some distance between me and herself. As is normal for her, she is considering what she is about to say before putting it into words which could be misconstrued.

Jen goes into the same gobbledygook we covered when this all first started and I was so certain I was going to end up male. Suffice to say I didn’t understand it any better now than I did then until she and Tan patiently explain to me exactly what it all meant in simple English. I don’t believe I’ll ever experience the joy I had when I thought I was pregnant due to normal boy-girl interaction but it might be a close second. Now I need to see my doctors again to get them to ‘nail down’ exactly what the options mean. Right, who has ever ‘nailed down’ a doctor’s statements?

“Tan, you made me think all kinds of terrible things. I worried about whether you were divorcing me and what was going to happen when all this time all you needed to do was tell me I could really become pregnant? That settles it, no cookies for you for the next month.” I don’t know what made me say that. It was the only thing I could think of at the moment which came close to the same seriousness as that which he put me through these past six days.

He looks chagrined and hangs his head. “I’m sorry,” comes out in a voice considerably smaller than he happens to be.

“You better be. Tan, if you do something like this to me again, I’ll do worse than slap you.” I turn to Jennifer, “Thanks, Sis. I’m going to take this big nut home and force him to make wild passionate love to me to make up for the last week. Thanks for everything.”

I reach up to grab Tan’s ear but he has become used to that little manoeuver of mine and covers them as he stands up.

“Thanks, Sis,” he says to her.

She came out from behind her desk and they embraced, which is something I almost never have seen Tan do with her... or any of ‘his’ girls for that matter, with myself being the only exception which quickly comes to mind.

“I mean it, Sis. I just know I would have messed it up completely.”

“You still aren’t off the hook, Tan. She put your cookies off limits for the next month. Kat, if this big lunk gives you any more problems just haul his sorry ass down here and I’ll straighten him out.”

“Thanks, Jen. I think I need to go talk with the doctors. I’d like to know if I could have an egg implanted and then Tan and I could make whoopie and have a baby.”

They both shake their heads.

“What?”

“Never mind, Kat. Maybe the doctors will have better luck explaining it all.”

Tan and I left his sister’s office with me clinging to his arm. We went home, straight into the bedroom (making certain BOTH locks on the door were locked). We definitely made up for lost time. It took me a couple of years after that to fully accept being not just Kat but being capable of being a woman in most respects if not so far as being capable of becoming pregnant. Oh, I only put his cookies on a temporary hold which lasted less than a week. I felt that was partially justified considering my week of torment prior to the appointment with his sister.

It was close to ten years later when I felt strongly enough about wanting to be a mother that I broached the subject of either adopting or trying to implant an egg so we could begin to have children. Tan went into a funk for a couple of days but managed to work his way out of it again, I love it when we make out... I mean, make up.

Since it turned out I couldn’t have children of my own and for some reason neither could he, or so he swears, we opted to adopt and spent a lot of time trying to decide how to handle it. We don’t want to take just anyone but we also don’t want to limit our opportunities. We haven’t made up our minds and are scheduled for yet another session and possible introduction to still another prospective child next week. To kind of help us as well as the children in finding a good medium ground we registered some months ago to take children as a temporary home until they can be actually placed in a fostering home. That way we have the child or children around only for a few weeks, but it allows us to gain a feel for the patter of little feet around the house.

After two times of that I’m certain I want to be a Mom. Tan... I’m not so sure about him. I’m pretty certain he doesn’t want to be a Mom. A joke, a joke for cripes sake. The idea of having kids around seems to be growing on him but he’s concerned about our disappearing on assignments. I’d take them along if they were ours but he seems to feel, and probably rightly so, that they could be in harm’s way should we do that. Our adoption plans once again go on hold as Tony drags us back into his offices to receive yet another new assignment.

Once again we will be headed into Europe then off to North Africa. It seems someone is making noises over there causing some concern that there is about to be some sort of “grass roots” takeover attempt launched upon a government with which we are presumably on friendly terms. Tan and I must root it out, offer and coordinate assistance in terminating it. Nothing too earth shaking. It does, however, place our private lives on hold once again.

Six weeks later we returned home giving all our footage to Sis so she could complete the movie we contracted to produce. It’s kind of nice, Tony pays us to accomplish certain tasks and the client pays us for a travelog promoting their country for tourism. The money Tony pays us is tax free and the travelog money proves we had a reason for going if anyone was watching; especially a certain wolf I could name who is still wandering about the shadows. He has even more of a score he wants to settle with Tan now that he has been kicked out of the agency. The information we brought back these many years ago somehow began to find it’s way into the public eye and the agency couldn’t handle the potential problems so they divested themselves of the potential embarrassment. That didn’t slow Emerson very much since he had a couple of hundred mil tucked away here and there (mostly there) around the world. I think what irritated him the most was he couldn’t put his face in the US any more. Now he was like a rabid dog trying to find the most opportune moment to bite.

While Tan and I were out doing our thing, we also managed to root out and store information about a number of closeted skeletons from the various factions involved in whichever government or faction we are attempting to aid or dissuade. Gathering information is something we do when in each country to which we are sent. That’s just in case we might need some private assistance at some later date; in other words CYA or I suppose, C Our A’es. It never hurts.

Tan and I have been back about a week when we receive a message from Child welfare. They are asking if we might consider adopting a particularly troublesome pair of young children. Neither of us really feels we are up to such a task. Most of the one’s we have had here on a temporary basis have been so shell shocked that it really hasn’t been too difficult. A pair; a brother and a sister, who have gone from home to home to home might be more than we could manage.

Reluctantly we went down to at least meet them. After talking with two of the agents concerning the case, we knew we must take the children but come up with a plan of action to make it look more spur of the moment. Tan and I reasoned that if the children don’t realise we are there specifically to consider them that it might work out better since they possibly would try to convince us.

The Matron listens to the potential plan and makes a couple of small changes and then we go to implement it. She plays her part well saying, “His name is Robert, but he won’t answer to it. The child just behind him is his sister Elizabeth, but she is just as difficult,” when we see the children. I scowl at the Matron before going to talk with the child who is wearing a dirty blue dress. His short hair not helping him look particularly female but the mannerisms were fairly good. With a little training he could likely become a fairly good she, if that’s what she really wants. The sister has her hair cut shorter, probably by scissors in the hands of her brother. She is wearing a tan suit with a terrible choice of tie but, then again, they probably didn’t have much to choose from.

We continued our charade before allowing them to decide they will let us take the two of them home. Once the children learned they were to be kept together and that they would be accepted by us as that which they are attempting to present to the world, they begin to light up as though someone had flipped a wall switch illuminating a dark room. I don’t know, maybe we had.

During the couple of years Tan and I had discussed adding children into the mix, we did some remodeling and now had more bedrooms and baths, both upstairs and down. Mom and Sis were still here, of course, so they could help with the children duties. Mom was especially glad to have more children in the house even if they were crossing the lines so to speak. I suppose my transition paved the way for that acceptance a bit.

The younger sister had not been influenced by the older brother and she really did want to be a boy. His mannerisms were quite good, better than those of his older sister who also began to improve once we obtained a wig for her to wear so she could go out without feeling terribly self-conscious. Her mannerisms began to immediately improve and in less than a month you would have thought we brought a magpie home rather than a young girl.

When we shopped for the wig we explained to the store clerk at the time that it was to provide a covering while the child’s hair grew back in. The loss of which was the result of a permanent gone particularly bad and which was of particular distress to our daughter who had enjoyed having longer hair. The clerk sympathized.

Two years later our daughter had her own head of hair and was happily contemplating letting it grow down to her waist. She’ll learn soon enough. Meanwhile she’s learning to cook simple things under the tutelage of my Mom, grandmother Phillips, and is generally becoming a help in the kitchen and around the house. Her favorite preparations are cookies and eggs. No, not together; please don’t make that suggestion to her a cookie omelet is not too appealing to me.

Mom was, as I mentioned, like a grandmother to her and our daughter was quite happy to be a part of a three generations family. Aunt Tashia was a favorite as well. School... Well, she loved school, especially recess when she and the other girls could play jacks and other games designed to increase dexterity. She was no slouch in the mental department either and proved it on many occasions, both at school and at home, much to our dismay. As a precaution we finally had a lock placed on the secret door to the basement.

Her brother was just as happy and intelligent. He had trains and boy toys to play with and Tan would take him out to baseball, football, and soccer games. He was in school and just like his sister had skipped a grade after spending two, bored out of his skull. They are considering advancing him one more just as they did with his sister but I’m afraid of how that will affect him in the long run. Being two years younger than your peers can be difficult, three might be the straw that broke the camel’s back. We compromised and when he reaches seventh grade I will allow him to advance directly to eighth if he is still doing well; meanwhile he has reached a level of reading that has him consuming everything he can get his hands on. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, be cautious about providing a complete and unabridged Encyclopedia Britannica for your child to read. OH, and hide all of the medical journals... preferably under lock and key.

About the fifteenth year into our meteoric rise to fame, Tan and I have been offered posts at the farm which after a great deal of soul searching and discussion we decided we will take them up on it. During all this time we managed to continue the photo business and handling the girls but now we will be away from the mainstream too much to be value to them. While some of them have ‘retired’ from modeling, others have appeared to take their place so we still had around fifty we were handling.

We have had several planning sessions with the girls, a few more of whom have decided to retire, so we are in the process of liquidating all of the investment assets for distribution to the girls. They may move them into 401k accounts thus continuing to put off their taxes until retirement. Irina had a small nest egg to which we contributed bringing his ‘net savings’ up to a little over two hundred and ninety thousand, also now rolling over into a 401k account. We also provided him with Tan’s ‘new’ beemer which was in excellent condition despite being four years old. He has a choice of three job offers, just as the girls have had great references and most who are remaining in the business have found new homes. Tan spent plenty of time getting them good deals with their new employers. Everyone seems to be happy.

Oh yes, shortly before we moved back to begin our new roles in the grand scheme of things, we adopted two more special needs children; another ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ for whom we played a similar game before taking them under our wings. Mom and Sis stayed with us during the move. Mom still runs the house. Sis, Tan and I are starting another business together which will pretty much do the same things we did here but at our new location and on a much smaller scale. What? Well, we still need a cover for our occasional field trips and we still have all that nice equipment we collected over the years. Pam went to work for the Agency itself and we still meet up with her once in a while. I would really...

“Mommm, Johnny won’t let me play with the train set.”

It never ends...
~O~
“Hey Kat, you home?”

“DADDY!” The thundering herd collides, Jonathon and Darlene.

“Hi Tan. Kat isn’t back yet. She had a special to teach today. She should be home by seven.”

“Okay. Thanks, Tashia.”

“Hi, Dad.” Richard is more subdued than the younger pair, after all he is nine now.

“Hello, Daddy. Guess what? I got a ninety on my arithmetic test today.”

“Good show, Cynthia. Be sure to tell Mom when she gets home.”

Cynthia turns and returns to her bedroom all smiles over the praise. She and Richard have now been with the family for four years and have settled in well. Jonathon and Darlene are relative newcomers but they are rapidly adjusting to having parents who care, as well as an older brother and sister who understand and help with tips and occasional support after a particularly trying day. Hurtful comments at school are not entirely gone but all four children know they will be protected and loved at home.

Sometimes Uncle Tony drops by the school or the house and that is always a special time. The teachers all seem to know him, but the children haven’t been able to learn why that is. It’s a little like Santa Claus, you just have to believe and accept.

“Well. It’s about time you chose to come home. So where is Kat, already?”

“Tashia told me she was teaching late and would be home around seven.”

“Hmmpt. So no one tells me and I’m the one making supper. Children, go get washed. Supper is ready for the table.” Nora sends the children packing to wash their hands before supper. “Are you going to eat now or wait for Kat?”

I think I’ll wait, if you don’t mind, Nora. Kat would probably like the company.”

“So I’ll keep half of everything warm.” She walks off toward the kitchen, “If it isn’t the one then it’s the other. It’s a wonder that anyone eats on schedule in this house. Jonathan, get away from that table. What did I say about washing your hands? Scoot.”

“Aww, Gramma. They’re clean. I didn’t touch anything dirty.”

“So your toys aren’t dirty? They were on the floor and as much as I vacuum, I still get dirt off it. Go wash; now.”

He rushes off as she reminds him, “and wash your face, too. If everything isn’t clean when you return then I’ll take you out and wash it all for you.”

“Aww, Gramma.” echos back from the bathroom.

She looks back at Tan, “He’s a good boy. He just needs to learn to be a little cleaner than usual when he wants to eat. He could take lessons from his younger sister.”

Tan smiles; at four years of age, Darlene is probably the cleanest of the four children including Cynthia who is now ten years old. It’s hard to believe that the first pair have been with them for four years. The younger pair have been here for three months and very quickly fit right in.

Being a parent isn’t easy but it has its benefits. Kat must have five or six hundred photos of the first pair and she has started at the same pace for the second pair. This Christmas will prove to be interesting. Darlene has been hinting that she would like one of those new walking dolls. Kat looked at them in the store and the doll is easily as tall as Darlene herself. Cynthia wants a doctor’s bag with all the gadgets and stuff that entails. She has her future all mapped out... at least until she happens to discover boys.

Our boys... They are three years apart in age where the girls have six years between them. Footballs, baseballs, toy trains... It isn’t as difficult to buy something to give to the boys for Christmas. Kat basically has made the same comment about the girls since she seems to feel she knows what the girls would like to have and the boys are a mystery to her. We need to compare notes sometime soon. There isn’t that much time left before Christmas, only ten weeks.

The children have finished their supper and the girls helped their grandmother to clean up the dishes then lay out clean ones for when their mother arrives home so Kat and I can eat supper together.

“Nora, aren’t you eating with us?”

“You want I should look like a blimp? I eat as I cook, how else should I know exactly how it will taste? I eat more than enough each day, thank you.”

“But you do all that housework. Doesn’t that use up most of what you eat?’

“For which I am grateful. You pay me to care for the house and watch the children while you and Kat are not home. I have plenty to do to keep me from growing old while I still have a roof over my head and food in my stomach. What else could a grandmother want?”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“You better not. I have only one small request.”

“OH? And what’s that?”

“Four is enough, isn’t it?”

“Four? Ah! I hope so. Four is nice but I don’t think I’m ready for more.”

“Thank the Lord. If they were any younger, I would be so lucky as to keep up with them. Darlene is a budding cook, and I think Cynthia will be a scientist. She says doctor but she is squeamish about blood. When she learns being a doctor is to live with blood then she may change her mind.”

“What about the boys?”

“What about them? They are boys and they want to be policemen one day, spies like their father the next, and then football or baseball heros the next. It will be like this for several more years before they make their first ‘final’ choice.”

“Hi everyone, I’m home.”

“It’s about time, I’ll go dish supper now.”

“Hi, gorgeous. How’d it go?”

Kat looks at the ceiling, “hectic. I swear, Tony better appreciate everything we are doing for him. Where are the chil...”

“MOM!”

“...Never mind.”

“Hi Mom.”

“Momma! Cynthia got a nightie on her aromatic test.”

“Aromatic test?”

“Hi Mom. Guess what?”

“You got a nightie on your aromatic test? Do you mind translating that for me?”

“I got a ninety on my arithmetic test today.”

“Oh, good! That and your spelling test prove you’ve been studying more lately. Just one more and we go get that special something you’ve been wanting.”

“The next test will be murderous, could you help me study the next few days?”

“I’ll try to make time for it, young lady. Have your father help, too...”

Tan gives me a scowl but nods his head to Cynthia.

“He knows a lot about current events. I’ve got to go clean up a bit so I may have my supper. Any other special announcements I should know about other than the Arithmetic test?”

“I got picked for the kickball team, today.”

“Mr. Carson said I could be in the school orchestra if you will sign my permission slip.”

“The school is going to have a field trip in two weeks, can I go?”

“I’m certain if there is a field trip, the school sent something home for me to read and sign, didn’t they?”

“Oh... Yeah. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t rush. I’ll be fifteen minutes or so, then you can come into the dining room and give it to me to read while I’m eating supper with your father.”

“Okay, Mom.”

to be continued