Straight No Chaser

(Just) Another Boring Dialogue Chapter

"So you took her away to punish me. You damn near gave me a heart attack, a stroke, just because I had pissed you off."

"Actually," says Shannon, laying the child in question along her pile of blankets, "I took her away so you wouldn't have a stroke when you woke up and found her floating face-down in the ocean. You were completely asleep when I walked back to the shelter. She was awake and unattended."

He trails her outside and collapses on the sand, lungs like whoopie cushions, intensely frustrated when she doesn't do the same, but keeps circling his prone form. Fidgety. "Well," he mutters. "She was asleep. Maybe you woke her when you came in, or something. Anyway, though, why the hole? Or--better question: why disappear like that in the first place? That was to punish me. And you know we promised we'd never play games like that."

She glances down at him, then returns her gaze to the direction of the setting sun. "Wasn't a game. I needed to be alone with--" She breaks off, touches her belly, slides her hands around into a deep hold. "What I mean is, you were--you remember. We infected each other, last time. And we almost poisoned our baby, and I wasn't risking that again. I had to get out for a little while, before someone needed another you-know-what. With the berries."

He stares at her from his strange vantage point, beneath; watches the rise and fall of her blushing chest, the curvature dipping low beneath. "Off your feet," he commands suddenly. "You're--how fucking far along are you now, anyway?"

She scowls at him.

"It isn't a stupid question. You're the one who's good with numbers and dates, here. You're the one who keeps a calendar. As soon as you quit having periods, I quit counting. And I'm asking, now."

She doesn't answer. "Twins are often premature," she says instead, as if quoting an obstetrical pamphlet. "And I'm going to sleep."

He props himself up on one arm and watches as she walks back to the shelter. She steps inside and he feels a whoosh of profound melancholy, as though the doors to their home have accepted her while rejecting her residual unhappiness.

*

Sure enough, she is a ray of sunlight in the morning, bright and effervescent even after a too-early bathroom trip with Kailani. They wake him on their way back, two feet--one small, one smaller--toeing his chest, giggles floating down from above. He opens one eye and is rather dismayed to find himself still in the sand.

"Wake up, Daddy!" bellows Kai at the first hint of consciousness.

He looks to Shannon for deliverance, but she just grins at him and offers a hand. "We have things to do today. I thought you could do some upgrades on Kai's old bassinet while I put the finishing touches on the new clothes."

Annoyed, he shields his eyes, thinking of the thicket-turned-makeshift-storage-parlor where the bassinet's been these past two years, assuredly rotting and gathering all sorts of new tenants. "You really want to put someone you care about in that old thing?" he balks. "I don't even think I'd keep my spears in there, as long as it's been sitting without a cleaning."

"Oh, so you--you're saying you'd rather make a new one? Entirely from scratch? And the same with a changing table and some guardrails and a set of shelves?"

He uncovers his eyes. She grins wickedly.

*

They work all day. Kai floats back and forth between the two of them, whining her disapproval of both projects. Bored, and then tired, and then hungry, and ultimately ignored till this last.

"Taking a break to get her something to eat," Shannon announces, rising with Kailani attached to her hip.

Aaron doesn't look up from the strip of wood he's carving down to size, just nods and takes another measurement with his fingers.

They leave; he checks over his shoulder to make sure they're really gone, then stands and walks over to her part of the beach. Surveys her efforts: at least a hundred articles of clothing in varying degrees of teensiness, each in some soothing pastel shade, each more skilled than the last. And, in a separate row, a couple of new outfits for Kai, who must not be made to feel left out in this process. They've talked about this, months ago. Never since.

Back to the infant clothes. He takes up a tiny pair of yellow overalls with a powder blue flower stitched onto the front, lifts it to his face, and begins to cry.

*

Kailani is chewing happily on a coconut-fish concoction. Shannon is sitting back, watching, and then, suddenly, isn't.

A crushing vise of pain grips her lower body, centers itself and throbs dully in her back.

"Kai," she whispers, taking her daughter's plate away.

Kailani whimpers, but only for a moment; when her eyes meet her mother's, they go moon-wide.

"Kai," repeats Shannon, speaking slowly and clearly so as not to alarm her, "Kai, baby, go get Daddy. Go get Daddy, Kai."

*

He is surprised to see his daughter toddling along the beach toward him, alone. He wipes his eyes quickly. There are some things a little girl just doesn't need to see.