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Help[Games] Re: Non-Traditional Family Congrats Round 4 (ridiculously long story added)
in reply to a message by britto08
UN: Siân
Type of Family: Same-sex, polyamorous
LN: Greyson-Abbey
Dbf: Rónán Alexander (40)
Dbf: Leo George (38)
-DD: Mabel Emmeline (14)
Dbf: Murray James Romilly (33)
--DS: Leland Emery (10)
--DD: Philippa Estelle (7)
--DS: Blair Ellis (8)
--DS/DD: Darby Evander & Niamh Eloise (2)
(Don't feel obligated to read this. I've just been having fun with the story. If you do read it, excuse typos. It's 6:30am and I still haven't gone to bed.)
They had just gotten back from a luncheon out together when Rónán pulled the SUV up into the driveway to see a car already sitting by the road.
“Who‘s here?” Murray mused and turned partially to see out the back glass. A woman was getting out of her car and coming toward them as they all hastily emerged from the vehicle.
“Hello, can we help you?” Leo asked the woman before she took off her sunglasses and he got a better look at her. “Rachel?” Almost instantly his defenses went up. He hadn’t seen Rachel since they were in college and he’d taken the child she didn’t want to keep. She’d all but disappeared after that, never wanting to keep in touch with him or see little Mabel. For years, Leo had wondered if it was because of how embarrassed she was when she found out he chose a boy over her. He thought she’d probably blamed herself for that when in reality it had nothing to do with her as a person and all to do with her as a female. He wasn’t sure if Rachel had ever seen the difference.
Rónán walked around to Leo’s side of the car and Rachel pursed her lips. Leo wondered if she still held anything against Rónán after all these years.
“May we talk privately?” she asked Leo. He considered nodded and strolling down the street with her perhaps, but when Murray came around to his side too, Leo held his ground.
“We‘ve been strangers for years, we can‘t possibly have any secrets.”
Rachel gave in and sighed. “I want to see our daughter,” she admitted somewhat desperately.
“Our daughter,” Rónán corrected swiftly.
Rachel placed her sunglasses back on as if she were trying to hide tears.
“She‘s at school right now,” Leo replied. “Why don‘t you come in and we‘ll talk.”
Murray reached for Leo’s hand to ease some of the obvious discomfort the man was showing and Rachel’s brow furrowed. Leo guessed there were a lot of things she didn’t know about him now.
***
“I‘m just afraid she wants to take her back,” Leo admitted almost silently as the three men lay awake in bed that evening. They had made Rachel leave before the children were picked up from school, but she had stayed long enough to declare that she wanted to be a part of Mabel’s life. They didn’t tell Mabel a thing. She didn’t need to know yet.
Rónán reached over, locking Leo in his arms. “She can‘t take her back. She signed her over when she was a baby. I‘ve adopted her since then. She‘s our daughter, Leo.”
“I know she can‘t, but if she wants to, it will still get messy,” Leo acknowledged. “I don‘t want Mabel dragged into this. I don‘t want there to be anything that disrupts her life right now. She‘s twelve and her teen years are ridiculously fast approaching. I feel the best thing we can do for her is try to give her the best home life. Being a teenager is hard enough as it is. She doesn‘t need anything Rachel would bring to the table.”
Rónán just sighed and held his husband. Murray, who usually wasn’t a big fan of physical contact, even curled into Leo’s side for the evening. He figured he needed the extra support.
***
As soon as Rachel found out that Leo worked from home, she was there almost every day while the children were at school.
“Four children,” she commented, looking at pictures Leo had in his small office. “Doesn‘t that get stressful?”
“We enjoy it,” Leo replied, not looking up from the article he was typing. “We‘ve yet to decide how many more we want, but we‘ll probably adopt again eventually.”
“You‘re thirty-six, Leo. How much longer can you afford to wait?” Rachel laughed. Leo shot her a look, but said nothing.
“And a poor little deaf boy. Did you learn to sign to him?” she commented, holding up a picture of Blair from when he was five.
“Yeah,” was all Leo replied. He fleetingly wondered what he had ever saw in her while he went to research the origin of a quote he wanted to use. She must have been more attractive when she was younger. He remembered that she had been a dancer and figured he was just as shallow as any boy at that age.
“And Rónán too?” she asked.
He scoffed and looked up at her incredulously. “Why wouldn‘t Rónán learn too?”
Rachel sat the picture down and gave Leo an unamused face. “And the other boy?”
“Murray,” Leo reminded, .going back to his work. “He learned to sign faster than me or Rónán.”
Another few days of this and he was going to loose his mind, he was sure.
***
It didn’t take too many more days for the truth to come out.
“I need to talk to you both,” Leo said almost as soon as Rónán got home one evening. Mabel gave her father a quizzical look, but he smiled at her. “Could you get everyone a snack and watch them a few minutes please?” he asked. Mabel nodded and Leo kissed her head. “You‘re a blessing.”
Once alone in the bedroom, Leo sat down on the edge of the neatly made bed and put his face in his hands. Rónán and Murray stood watching him. “She‘s pregnant,” was all she said.
No one spoke for a second, just trying to figure things out. Rónán found his words first. “What‘s she doing here? It‘s not ours.”
Leo found his sarcastic face quickly. “She thinks it would be ‘nice’ for her children to be together. In the same family.”
“She hates our idea of family!” Rónán pointed out swiftly.
“We‘re not an orphanage,” Murray spoke just as quickly and it said more than that coming from Murray because Murray loved children -all children, everyone‘s children, even the ones other people thought of as nightmares- Murray loved them.
“She wants us just to take her baby? She wants to dump another child off just like she did Mabel? Leave it with us and just forget about it? Or is she serious about this whole ‘I just want to be close to her’ bullsh*t that I haven‘t bought from the beginning?”
“Where‘s the father?” Murray asked.
“Apparently, he said if she keeps the baby, she looses him so guess which one she‘s choosing?”
They were all quiet for another moment before Murray looked down. “I would kill,” he spoke seriously, “to be with those children in there. I can‘t imagine giving my child away. Even if I did it out of love for them, it would be too much. How does she even think she can just hand her baby off and not look back?”
“She‘s done it before,” was all Rónán replied.
***
Rachel made herself more scarce, but she was still obvious she was there. She left rambling messages on Leo’s phone about being happy for him and his family, bringing up multiple times how he had said they wanted to adopt again. She taped ultrasound pictures to the door of their house. She even sent the boys a bottle of wine for their anniversary. Leo doesn‘t want to know how she found out it was their anniversary, but it was obvious she was trying to appeal to them in different ways now- like if she was nice enough they’d do her a favour. Leo thought doing someone a favour meant feeding their dog when they were gone on holiday, not adopting their child. Besides, Leo didn‘t drink and he thought she knew that.
“You guys drink after you finish a successful production, right?” he muttered, sliding the bottle to Rónán that evening. “Here.”
Rónán shrugged and put it up in a cabinet, out of the way. Leo didn’t want to see it; his father had been an abusive alcoholic until he‘d died of alcohol poisoning some twenty years ago. It still wasn’t a welcomed sight. The next day, Murray took it and gave it to their young newlywed neighbors.
***
It was a month of little gifts and rambling voicemails before an e-mail showed up in Rónán‘s inbox. He’d gotten up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep so he had just decided to check them quickly. He opened it on his phone. He‘d left it on the screen until the phone died. He went on to work, leaving a message that he had to go in and work on some things for an upcoming production. It was so out of character for him. Why had she sent the message to him? Why not Leo? Where had she gotten his e-mail? He sat down in the office in the back of the theatre and looked down. His e-mail glared back at him from his business card. He figured it was on the website too and shrugged. He pulled up the picture on his computer. It was black and white- from an ultrasound. Two tiny unborn babies fit so close together. The last time he’d seen pictures like that had been when he’d come across ancient ultrasound pictures from his own mother’s pregnancy with him and his brother Colm. Then it all made sense why she’d sent the pictures to Rónán.
***
“I feel like I‘m being emotionally blackmailed,” he told them at first after showing them the pictures.
Then when they’d found him awake late another night, he’d simply replied, “We have to adopt them.”
***
They adopted Rachel’s babies, but not without many restrictions. She was to sign them over completely. It would be a closed adoption. She was to stay away from the entire family- that included Mabel. Weeks later, she was gone for good. Mabel still didn’t know Rachel was her biological mother and Leo figured he wouldn’t tell her till she was older and it seemed more relevant. It wasn’t like Rachel gave Mabel anything potentially motherly to look up to anyway.
***
They named them Darby and Niamh. As infants they looked lot like Mabel had when she was small, but the more they grow the less they tend to remind Leo of her and he figures he’s okay with that.
At first, Leo was a little distant with them until one night he commented that he felt like they’d taken them in out of obligation and manipulation rather than because they really wanted them. Murray had held Darby close and protectivly before replying with a strong, “Leo, we rescued them!”
Leo had smiled and Rónán had flat out laughed. Leo guessed it was a bit infectious because soon he was laughing too and he picked up little Niamh and held her close. Rescued was an okay way to think of it, he figured.
Darby and Niamh
(I think they’ll adopt one more.)
Type of Family: Same-sex, polyamorous
LN: Greyson-Abbey
Dbf: Rónán Alexander (40)
Dbf: Leo George (38)
-DD: Mabel Emmeline (14)
Dbf: Murray James Romilly (33)
--DS: Leland Emery (10)
--DD: Philippa Estelle (7)
--DS: Blair Ellis (8)
--DS/DD: Darby Evander & Niamh Eloise (2)
(Don't feel obligated to read this. I've just been having fun with the story. If you do read it, excuse typos. It's 6:30am and I still haven't gone to bed.)
They had just gotten back from a luncheon out together when Rónán pulled the SUV up into the driveway to see a car already sitting by the road.
“Who‘s here?” Murray mused and turned partially to see out the back glass. A woman was getting out of her car and coming toward them as they all hastily emerged from the vehicle.
“Hello, can we help you?” Leo asked the woman before she took off her sunglasses and he got a better look at her. “Rachel?” Almost instantly his defenses went up. He hadn’t seen Rachel since they were in college and he’d taken the child she didn’t want to keep. She’d all but disappeared after that, never wanting to keep in touch with him or see little Mabel. For years, Leo had wondered if it was because of how embarrassed she was when she found out he chose a boy over her. He thought she’d probably blamed herself for that when in reality it had nothing to do with her as a person and all to do with her as a female. He wasn’t sure if Rachel had ever seen the difference.
Rónán walked around to Leo’s side of the car and Rachel pursed her lips. Leo wondered if she still held anything against Rónán after all these years.
“May we talk privately?” she asked Leo. He considered nodded and strolling down the street with her perhaps, but when Murray came around to his side too, Leo held his ground.
“We‘ve been strangers for years, we can‘t possibly have any secrets.”
Rachel gave in and sighed. “I want to see our daughter,” she admitted somewhat desperately.
“Our daughter,” Rónán corrected swiftly.
Rachel placed her sunglasses back on as if she were trying to hide tears.
“She‘s at school right now,” Leo replied. “Why don‘t you come in and we‘ll talk.”
Murray reached for Leo’s hand to ease some of the obvious discomfort the man was showing and Rachel’s brow furrowed. Leo guessed there were a lot of things she didn’t know about him now.
***
“I‘m just afraid she wants to take her back,” Leo admitted almost silently as the three men lay awake in bed that evening. They had made Rachel leave before the children were picked up from school, but she had stayed long enough to declare that she wanted to be a part of Mabel’s life. They didn’t tell Mabel a thing. She didn’t need to know yet.
Rónán reached over, locking Leo in his arms. “She can‘t take her back. She signed her over when she was a baby. I‘ve adopted her since then. She‘s our daughter, Leo.”
“I know she can‘t, but if she wants to, it will still get messy,” Leo acknowledged. “I don‘t want Mabel dragged into this. I don‘t want there to be anything that disrupts her life right now. She‘s twelve and her teen years are ridiculously fast approaching. I feel the best thing we can do for her is try to give her the best home life. Being a teenager is hard enough as it is. She doesn‘t need anything Rachel would bring to the table.”
Rónán just sighed and held his husband. Murray, who usually wasn’t a big fan of physical contact, even curled into Leo’s side for the evening. He figured he needed the extra support.
***
As soon as Rachel found out that Leo worked from home, she was there almost every day while the children were at school.
“Four children,” she commented, looking at pictures Leo had in his small office. “Doesn‘t that get stressful?”
“We enjoy it,” Leo replied, not looking up from the article he was typing. “We‘ve yet to decide how many more we want, but we‘ll probably adopt again eventually.”
“You‘re thirty-six, Leo. How much longer can you afford to wait?” Rachel laughed. Leo shot her a look, but said nothing.
“And a poor little deaf boy. Did you learn to sign to him?” she commented, holding up a picture of Blair from when he was five.
“Yeah,” was all Leo replied. He fleetingly wondered what he had ever saw in her while he went to research the origin of a quote he wanted to use. She must have been more attractive when she was younger. He remembered that she had been a dancer and figured he was just as shallow as any boy at that age.
“And Rónán too?” she asked.
He scoffed and looked up at her incredulously. “Why wouldn‘t Rónán learn too?”
Rachel sat the picture down and gave Leo an unamused face. “And the other boy?”
“Murray,” Leo reminded, .going back to his work. “He learned to sign faster than me or Rónán.”
Another few days of this and he was going to loose his mind, he was sure.
***
It didn’t take too many more days for the truth to come out.
“I need to talk to you both,” Leo said almost as soon as Rónán got home one evening. Mabel gave her father a quizzical look, but he smiled at her. “Could you get everyone a snack and watch them a few minutes please?” he asked. Mabel nodded and Leo kissed her head. “You‘re a blessing.”
Once alone in the bedroom, Leo sat down on the edge of the neatly made bed and put his face in his hands. Rónán and Murray stood watching him. “She‘s pregnant,” was all she said.
No one spoke for a second, just trying to figure things out. Rónán found his words first. “What‘s she doing here? It‘s not ours.”
Leo found his sarcastic face quickly. “She thinks it would be ‘nice’ for her children to be together. In the same family.”
“She hates our idea of family!” Rónán pointed out swiftly.
“We‘re not an orphanage,” Murray spoke just as quickly and it said more than that coming from Murray because Murray loved children -all children, everyone‘s children, even the ones other people thought of as nightmares- Murray loved them.
“She wants us just to take her baby? She wants to dump another child off just like she did Mabel? Leave it with us and just forget about it? Or is she serious about this whole ‘I just want to be close to her’ bullsh*t that I haven‘t bought from the beginning?”
“Where‘s the father?” Murray asked.
“Apparently, he said if she keeps the baby, she looses him so guess which one she‘s choosing?”
They were all quiet for another moment before Murray looked down. “I would kill,” he spoke seriously, “to be with those children in there. I can‘t imagine giving my child away. Even if I did it out of love for them, it would be too much. How does she even think she can just hand her baby off and not look back?”
“She‘s done it before,” was all Rónán replied.
***
Rachel made herself more scarce, but she was still obvious she was there. She left rambling messages on Leo’s phone about being happy for him and his family, bringing up multiple times how he had said they wanted to adopt again. She taped ultrasound pictures to the door of their house. She even sent the boys a bottle of wine for their anniversary. Leo doesn‘t want to know how she found out it was their anniversary, but it was obvious she was trying to appeal to them in different ways now- like if she was nice enough they’d do her a favour. Leo thought doing someone a favour meant feeding their dog when they were gone on holiday, not adopting their child. Besides, Leo didn‘t drink and he thought she knew that.
“You guys drink after you finish a successful production, right?” he muttered, sliding the bottle to Rónán that evening. “Here.”
Rónán shrugged and put it up in a cabinet, out of the way. Leo didn’t want to see it; his father had been an abusive alcoholic until he‘d died of alcohol poisoning some twenty years ago. It still wasn’t a welcomed sight. The next day, Murray took it and gave it to their young newlywed neighbors.
***
It was a month of little gifts and rambling voicemails before an e-mail showed up in Rónán‘s inbox. He’d gotten up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep so he had just decided to check them quickly. He opened it on his phone. He‘d left it on the screen until the phone died. He went on to work, leaving a message that he had to go in and work on some things for an upcoming production. It was so out of character for him. Why had she sent the message to him? Why not Leo? Where had she gotten his e-mail? He sat down in the office in the back of the theatre and looked down. His e-mail glared back at him from his business card. He figured it was on the website too and shrugged. He pulled up the picture on his computer. It was black and white- from an ultrasound. Two tiny unborn babies fit so close together. The last time he’d seen pictures like that had been when he’d come across ancient ultrasound pictures from his own mother’s pregnancy with him and his brother Colm. Then it all made sense why she’d sent the pictures to Rónán.
***
“I feel like I‘m being emotionally blackmailed,” he told them at first after showing them the pictures.
Then when they’d found him awake late another night, he’d simply replied, “We have to adopt them.”
***
They adopted Rachel’s babies, but not without many restrictions. She was to sign them over completely. It would be a closed adoption. She was to stay away from the entire family- that included Mabel. Weeks later, she was gone for good. Mabel still didn’t know Rachel was her biological mother and Leo figured he wouldn’t tell her till she was older and it seemed more relevant. It wasn’t like Rachel gave Mabel anything potentially motherly to look up to anyway.
***
They named them Darby and Niamh. As infants they looked lot like Mabel had when she was small, but the more they grow the less they tend to remind Leo of her and he figures he’s okay with that.
At first, Leo was a little distant with them until one night he commented that he felt like they’d taken them in out of obligation and manipulation rather than because they really wanted them. Murray had held Darby close and protectivly before replying with a strong, “Leo, we rescued them!”
Leo had smiled and Rónán had flat out laughed. Leo guessed it was a bit infectious because soon he was laughing too and he picked up little Niamh and held her close. Rescued was an okay way to think of it, he figured.
Darby and Niamh
(I think they’ll adopt one more.)
This message was edited 7/24/2010, 3:35 AM
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