Fey laughed, having been in a similar situation herself a time or two. More than once, Buddy or Althea had to manhandle her to get erect when she made the mistake of getting down to check on a patient. She knew better now. She put the delicate glass on top of the dining room table, right in the middle, well away from any edges. Still, it didn’t set well with her, and she hoped they could get it safely under glass. How ironic to put a stained-glass window under glass? Still, they had to protect it somehow. It was far too valuable to leave exposed to dust and the elements after all these decades. She quickly waddled back to help Allyssa up.
“Here,” she said, handing her the rolls of papers first.
“Let me help you up first,” she stated, but Allyssa waved her away and got on all fours to crawl towards the couch and coffee table. Finally, she was able to pull herself up slowly and get her legs under her. She stopped for a moment on her way to the couch before leveraging herself up and getting her balance. By then, Fey had the papers spread out on the dining room table, well away from the stained-glass window.
“Oh, Allyssa,” she nearly cried, realizing she was holding the patent for the original six-hundred and forty acres.
Allyssa looked at it in awe. She was pretty sure she’d never seen anything this old outside of a museum.
“Look at this,” Fey said, displaying Erin and Molly’s marriage certificate, which was signed in Ohio.
“I don’t want to touch it. I’m afraid the oils on my hands will...” she pulled back.
“Oh, yeah. Of course,” Fey said, realizing her own hands were probably oily as well and putting it down. “Do we have any surgical gloves in the house?”
“Come on. Why would we have those?” Allyssa asked in a joking manner, heading for the kitchen and the junk drawer, which held many things, including a box of sterile rubber gloves. She never knew when she would have a need for such things, and they were great for cleaning since they kept the detergents well away from her hands. She pulled out two pair and closed the drawer, heading back and feeling the strain on her back from having been on the floor too long. She handed a set to Fey and watched as she expertly put them on. She hadn’t realized how effortlessly she was able to do that. She admired her wife so much. It took a moment longer, but she too was fully gloved when she reached for the paperwork. “These are the adoption papers for the children,” she said, her voice clearly conveying the awe she felt at holding these documents in her hands after reading about them in the old journals. “Can you imagine? Your last name could have been Harris instead of Herriot.”
Fey laughed at that. She was a Herriot, if not by blood, then definitely by right of inheritance and history. She pulled out several deeds for the additional land her great-great-grandparents had purchased as well as the land her great-grandfather had purchased from her great-uncle. It was all terribly confusing, but she knew that Timothy Herriot, the youngest adoptee of Erin and Molly Herriot, was her direct great-grandfather. “We need to make a family tree.”
“We need to put everything under glass,” Allyssa countered. “I’m going to frame it all and we can put it in the office.”
“Not over at the clinic,” she objected.
“No, I meant here in the house, so we can enjoy your family history. This is too important not to display it proudly.”
They both enjoyed going through the various pieces of parchment and then, they put everything carefully back together, rolling or folding them and putting them into oversized plastic baggies for transport.
“I’ll have Renee drive me up for supplies and we can get these framed,” she said happily.
“We have to put this somewhere safe. Between the dogs and the kids, I worry about something getting damaged,” Fey admitted. “Is that everything that was in the trunk’s false bottom?”
“No, there are all these pictures too. There were some pictures on top with the journals too, remember?”
Allyssa spent the next few days putting all the pictures in order. She’d already organized and labeled the ones that were in with the journals. Now, she incorporated the rest of the pictures, putting them on black backgrounds and using corner holders to keep them in place. She put these sheets of pictures into plastic sleeves, so no one would touch the nearly ancient pictures and damage them further. Renee took her up for supplies, and while there, they found some pre-made frames for some of the documents she wanted to put under glass. She also had them custom make a frame for the stained glass, putting both sides of it under a type of Plexiglas to protect it from scratches while allowing it to shine to its best advantage. A couple of the documents were old and fragile, but their size alone made it impossible to buy a ready-made frame.
“I’m almost afraid to leave these,” Allyssa admitted to the manager she dealt with. The seals of The Organic Laws of Oregon on the official documents looked so impressive.
“I assure you, Mrs. Herriot, we will handle them in the most sensitive way. Our people will wear gloves while handling them, and everything will be locked up at night. I understand how valuable and irreplaceable they are,” he assured her.
Allyssa chose attractive wood frames, so they matched what she had already purchased, but she could already tell the custom-made frames would look nicer than the ready-made frames. The manager promised their order would be ready in a week. The price to frame these things made her heart pound. It was insane how costly the frames were.
Allyssa was exhausted when Renee drove her back to the ranch. The time in the Jeep didn’t pass as quickly as it used to, and she was always uncomfortable. Renee had also taken the women to their last two doctor appointments since both Fey and Allyssa were too big to be behind the steering wheel.
“I’m ready for this to be over,” Allyssa admitted to Renee.
“My mom once told me that God made the last couple of weeks uncomfortable deliberately, so you would want to get that baby out of your body.”
“Well, she was right,” Allyssa admitted, feeling ginormous and very uncomfortable.
“Who do you think will go into labor first?”
“Fey,” she answered without a shadow of doubt.
“Why are you so sure it will be Fey?”
“Because I want to be there for her, and if I go first, I might not be there,” she answered as though that made total sense. “I’m sure Fey hopes I go first too,” She commented with a smile.
“Do you think you will have second thoughts about giving birth after seeing Fey have her baby?”
“I actually asked the doctor that very question, and she said we both might not want to give birth if we watched the other. I hope she was joking,” she added musingly.
“Have you and Fey bought any baby furniture?”
“We have the matching cribs, which we haven’t put together yet but that’s about it. We are ready for the birth though—we have our maternity bags packed, and we’ve been going to the Lamaze classes at the clinic. I think the other moms don’t like us much since we are both pregnant and–” she left off, feeling hormonal suddenly.
“And?” Renee pursued it.
“And we are lesbians. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being sensitive,” she lamented, hating the hormone surges that made her want to cry.
“I’m sure the moms aren’t all bad,” Renee consoled her.
“No, they aren’t,” she admitted, then she looked out the window, breathing deeply as the baby stuck its foot in her ribs again and she rubbed it absentmindedly.
CHAPTER NINE
Renee arranged a baby shower, but she had to do it by word of mouth since announcing it on the blog would alert both the doctor and her wife. The women both got email alerts on their phones now when a new blog was up. This allowed them to experience what their subscribers received when they got the email version of their blog.
The 4-H moms were the biggest help in spreading the word, and Renee sent out invitations using a mailing list from the company with her home address as the return address. She hoped Allyssa and Fe
y would not find out, and she hoped neither would be angry when they discovered what she’d done. She even sent invitations to Allyssa’s mother and sister, stressing that it was a surprise.
The party was huge, and the surprise was an absolute success. Like the housewarming the previous year, everyone was invited. Husbands were encouraged to come with their wives. It was a new, modern thing to invite men to baby showers, and they were all amazed how many attended. The community’s affection for the Herriots was obvious. The cars and trucks parked all around the ranch yard, following the new roundabout created by the fountain.
“Mom?” Allyssa said, completely surprised by the sight of her mother followed by her sister carrying her daughter, Melody. Both looked a bit shocked to see her so enormously pregnant. They thought they were just coming for a visit and to support her during Fey’s pregnancy. Discovering that she was also just as pregnant embarrassed them both. For one, they had only brought a gift for Fey, and this only out of a sense of guilt and duty towards Allyssa. Neither woman really understood this ‘marriage,’ but they were trying.
“Allyssa! You should have told us,” Helen said, taking the age-old tone she had used on her daughters all their lives.
“I know, Mom, but when I realized I was pregnant, I worried about another miscarriage like last year. I guess I was unsure how to broach it with you both,” she answered, gesturing for them to come into the house as others were coming from their own vehicles.
“Yes, Allyssa. You should have told us,” Carmen parroted, trying the superior sister attitude.
“Perhaps,” she agreed, trying to keep from snapping at her sister and just be glad to see her. “Hello there, Melody,” she said to the baby, who stared at her. Allyssa would later learn they had taken three days to drive there for the surprise party, taking it easy because of the baby.
Allyssa and Fey, both embarrassed to be the center of attention, sat on the porch in comfortable chairs as they opened their presents. Renee knew better than to make them play stupid baby shower games, and they were grateful for that. The barbeque baby shower was a complete and utter success. Some people even remembered Helen and Carmen from their last visit and made them feel welcome. The number of duplicate gifts was hilarious, but Renee confided she would make the exchanges or returns for them along with Lorna and Gretchen.
Several of the ranchers who attended with and without their wives talked to Fey and Allyssa about the roundup set for the fall after harvest, which she had mentioned on the blog. The two women had put out a call for help to catch the cattle and the horses on their land. “But first, we have to make a couple of deliveries,” Fey quipped, patting her enlarging belly. They all laughed. It was certainly a unique situation.
Buddy and Althea were both in their element, socializing with the farmers and ranchers they had met on rounds with Fiona. She’d allowed them to do more than any other doctor would on any other internship. She’d worried she’d allowed them to do too much but had supervised closely as she taught them valuable skills, and until a few weeks ago, she had been able to show them exactly how to do some procedures. Only a few times, she had to call in another vet because she was unable to do the procedure herself and wouldn’t let her interns do it because of their lack of experience. They were grateful for all they had learned, and in the last month of their internship, they were eager to get back to school to be graded on their journals.
“Was that the intended purpose of your fountain?” her mother asked, watching children playing in it and splashing water at each other. A dog was also barking amongst them, and the ducks and geese were now complaining from the creek that their pond had been violated.
“Nope. It was a project for the 4-Hers, and the artist is a fabulous man, who has gotten three commissions from it as a result.”
“It really doesn’t go with the ambiance of your ranch,” her mother pointed out.
“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed and then grinned. “I’m sure when they first created the Fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde in Paris or the The Mustangs of Las Colinas, they also looked out of place at first. See, I’m encouraging the grass to grow around it a little, creating an island in our driveway.”
“I see where something hit it?” her mother pointed to the glaring patch on the side.
“Yes, our tenant brought a huge plow through and didn’t realize it wouldn’t fit, or maybe he lost track of where he was...Anyway, he comes in the back way now.”
“You need to have a tenant? Do you not have enough money for this?” her mother fretted, worrying that her daughter was starving on that ranch out in the middle of nowhere.
“We are doing fine, Mom,” she answered. The cell phone tower check was due in a couple weeks, and they could use that, but they were doing okay.
“I am upset that you felt you couldn’t tell me about the baby,” her mother admitted, the look in her eye showing her hurt.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I wanted to wait until I was sure the pregnancy was going to take, and I didn’t even know I was pregnant until my fourth month.”
“How is that possible?” She glanced at her daughter’s well-rounded belly then at Fey’s. She didn’t understand these lesbians. She wanted to show support, but it seemed ill-advised for them both to be pregnant at the same time.
“I didn’t have the symptoms I did last year, so I thought the implantation didn’t take.” She would have said more but knew her mother didn’t really want to know how she got pregnant. She could tell by her stance—she was stiffening in fear that Allyssa would continue along that vein of conversation. “And, I had a deep-seated fear I’d miscarry.”
“Are you okay? Are you healthy? Is the baby–?”
“We’re all fine. It’s this crisp, clear, prairie air,” she sing-songed and smiled. “Mom, I’m fine,” she reassured her, smiling. “We’re very happy.”
“Well, Sweet Pea,” she said, using the long ago nickname her father had given her, “I don’t claim to understand what you two want, but Fey has helped you mature, or maybe, this situation has. I can’t say I approve, but I am trying to accept.”
“Thanks, Mom,” she said, trying not to be insulted and just accept her mother’s words at face value. Her conversation with her sister later that day was amazingly similar although Carmen added to it.
“You know, I’ve been through this pregnancy stuff, and I could have helped you,” she said bossily, joggling Melody to keep her from crying. Melody was tired and needed a nap, but they would have to trek back to their hotel since Renee had made certain they understood there was no room for them to stay on the ranch. They’d been there all afternoon and had eaten, but the baby’s tolerance was waning, and while previously, Allyssa would have suggested they put Melody down in the guest bedroom they were planning to turn into a nursery, Althea was staying in there now.
“I think each situation is unique. Thank you for the offer,” she said to avoid the argument she could see her sister was angling for. “With my miscarriage last year and this surprise pregnancy I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“It couldn’t have been that much of a surprise if you were trying,” Carmen pointed out.
“My pregnancy tests showed a negative result. I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was four months along.”
“Oh, come on! Surely you noticed some changes?”
“Nope, not one until I got the results of the second pregnancy test. We thought Fey was the only one pregnant and that was it.”
“So, you were trying to get pregnant at the same time?”
“Yes,” she answered, feeling uncomfortable once again at her sister’s nosiness. “We’re very happy,” she pointed out.
“How in the world are you going to cope with two babies?” She knew her sister knew nothing about babies.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, feeling even more uncomfortable as her sister pointed out the very thing that had been worrying her. “We’ll cope when we have to.” She wasn’t confident about her answer,
but she wouldn’t let her sister know how it was making her feel. Her sister wasn’t someone she would choose to confide in. “Oh, I see some of our guests are leaving, and I want to say goodbye,” Allyssa excused herself to get away from her sister.
Allyssa’s mother and sister both came back each day for the next three days, spending time with Allyssa and driving her up the wall. They did help her hang the framed glass and documents, and they were truly impressed with them when Allyssa explained their importance. They were a little rude to Buddy and Althea, referring to them as the ‘help.’ Apparently, they resented their presence on the ranch because they were using the rooms that Allyssa’s family could have used had they been empty. Still, they had traveled a long way to be with the two women for the baby shower, and Allyssa tried to feel grateful for their presence.
“We could help you put together your cribs,” Helen offered, which surprised Allyssa.
“Oh, thank you, but we are waiting until after Althea goes back to school, so she doesn’t feel we are pushing her out the door. The next interns will stay in the mobile home and the cabin. I really want more separation of home and business here. Also, with two babies in the house, the interns wouldn’t get much sleep here.” She was also anticipating the lack of sleep and was not looking forward to that aspect of having a child, much less two, in the house.
“Why do they keep asking weird questions?” Traci asked one day as she followed Allyssa on her daily walk. The dogs, two cats, and the donkey also joined her as she walked for exercise. Helen and Carmen had declared it too hot and buggy to go beyond the comfort of the air-conditioned living room.
“Weird questions?” Allyssa asked, but she already knew some of them.
“Yeah, like do we have enough to eat and do we need anything?”
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