My wife, Sara, loved her birthday gift from me this year. It meant a lot for me to give it to her, I knew how much she loved Ann and I. Who knew all it took to finally get Sara pregnant was a threesome with her ex girlfriend? I’m not complaining at all, I have a beautiful baby girl, a loving wife and I just got promoted to Chief Petty Officer at work. Things are really going my way these days, I don’t think I could want anything else, well, maybe one thing. Ever since that night, I sometimes catch myself drifting back to it, mostly when I am standing duty or giving a test for the class I teach on Naval Nuclear Chemistry. I can’t get over the feeling of another woman other than my wife, it was so different that it was intoxicating, almost like a drug. I’ve always been 110% faithful to Sara until that night and I knew when Sara saw Ann it was acceptable if I slept with her. I don’t think Sara would ever approve of anyone else, ever.
When Lakota was born, Ann gave birth to my son, Jackson, up in Norfolk. I’ve never seen him, and I doubt I ever will with the way Ann’s husband Kyle is. Kyle is what we call in the Navy a “prick.” He’s jealous of anyone that looks at Ann, male or female. He keeps her on a tight leash, I nearly had to beg to get her down here to Charleston for Sara’s birthday. Now, she has my son, the only other than Lakota to share my blood. Sara can’t handle another pregnancy, this one almost took her from me, why take the chance again?
It’s been a long day at work, I had OOD duty last night, having to stay and keep watch over the Nuke school kids on duty. I just want to go home, hold my daughter, kiss my wife, and go to bed. I turn onto our street, seeing an unfamiliar Chevy Avalanche in my drive, I get a little hesitant. I don’t want my loser of a mother and father in law here upsetting Sara. They don’t claim her or come see her unless they want money. I pull in the drive, parking in the Chevy with my Dodge Ram full-size. If this joker wants to leave, they have to ask me first. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the Virginia plates on the truck, it’s not my in-laws, they would be coming from Kentucky. I get the feeling it’s someone we know from our time up on the Eisenhower in Norfolk, I hope I’m right.
I unlock the door and take off my boots at the door, the house is strangely quiet. I step through the foyer and see Lakota lying on the floor on her blanket asleep, and a little boy next to her also asleep. I look over at the sofa, and much to my surprise there is Ann, asleep in Sara’s lap. My wife looks up at me, with a worried look I’ve only seen a few times since we have been together. She carefully replaces her lap with a pillow, slowly getting up as to not wake Ann. Sara comes to me, wrapping her arms around me, and I can feel the sorrow in her, something has happened today, something big, to bring Ann all the way from Norfolk to Charleston. Sara beckons me into the kitchen, and I follow with a questioning look on my face.
“Why is Ann here with Jackson all the way from Norfolk? What happened today?” I question her, as silent tears fall down her face. “Kyle threw her and Jackson out, all she has is what’s in her truck out there. He filed the divorce papers while she was visiting her parents in New York. When she got back to Norfolk, all that was left in the apartment was the divorce papers and what he let her have. She showed up here this morning shortly after I woke up. She has nowhere else to go, she can’t go back to New York.” I nod, I’ve been in that situation before with my ex-wife, Dawn. She cheated on me while I was out to sea, when I finally caught wind of it, I was nearly broke with no home to go home to. Not long after my divorce was final, I met Sara and things began to turn around.
“Alright, they can stay as long as they need to, but you know we only have another year left here and then we’re moving home to Montana for my recruiting duty before we go to the West Coast. I hope by then things will be cleared up enough that they don’t have to go with us to Montana, how in the hell would I explain to my family that I have two women living with me and that both kids are mine?” Sara sighs and hugs me, she is weary, taking care of two babies for just today alone has taken quite a toll on her, I don’t think she has quite recovered from her complications with Lakota yet. “Go to sleep, I’ll be up after I put the kids down.” She breathes into my chest. “No, I’ll help you and we’ll go to bed together.”
She knows better than to argue with me, she walks back into the living room, picking up Lakota, heading off upstairs. I lean down, picking up the fragile, yet so familiar body of my son. I look into his face, his eyes open for a brief moment and I realize I’m looking into my own eyes. He is mine, there is no doubting that, the black hair, the hazel eyes, but most notably, he has the same dark skin as Lakota. Both my son and daughter are darker than my wife and I. My daughter is half Native, my son only a quarter, but they are both equally dark. I hold him to my chest, as if he has always been in my life, what I would have gave to been there the night he was born. When Ann wakes, I’ll have to ask her about it.