Two Years Later
“You are not changing a dirty diaper on my brand new countertops. Tell me that is not what I’m seeing.”
“I’m confused, are you asking me to lie?” Tre asked a scowling Celia as he tossed a dirty diaper into the trash can next to him and finished clasping a clean one onto his daughter’s perfect little body.
Celia’s scowl transformed as she turned her attention to Penelope, Tre and Caroline’s daughter, and held her hands out. “Gimme. Hand her over and you’re forgiven.”
“Here you go, over to Auntie CeCe.” He grunted as he handed his rather large, six-month-old daughter over to his best friend. “Did you tell him yet?” he asked quietly.
Celia looked over her shoulder quickly and shook her head. The whole group was visiting Celia and Jean Luc in their newly renovated brownstone in Crown Heights and two days ago, Tre had inadvertently walked in on Celia puking her guts out in the downstairs bathroom. She hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Jean Luc that she’d been the lucky recipient of a positive pregnancy test.
“Not yet,” she admitted, cuddling Penelope’s neck. “I can’t tell if he’d rather I waited until we didn’t have a house full of people or if he’ll be bummed that I made him wait.”
“I vote for you to tell him right away. Caroline made me look at the test for her, so technically I was the first to know about this little peanutty-buddy.” He kissed his daughter’s bright red fuzz on the crown of her head.
The door to the kitchen swung open and Arturo stalked in, looking thoroughly peeved about something. “What is it with mortals and Christmas music? We get it, it’s Christmastime, do we really need to be harmonizing about it for eight weeks out of the year?”
“Um, Arturo, darling,” Celia said, fluttering her lashes. “Might I remind you that you are once again counted amongst the mortals?”
He frowned at her, as if the comment irritated him, but really, it thrilled him to the core. Two years later and he still got a complete kick out of the fact that he was actually aging. A few weeks ago, he’d found a silver hair at his temple and he and Martine had fucked like absolute rock stars, fueled by the ferocious joy of mortal life.
“Christmas is supposed to be a joyful time of year, my friend,” Tre reminded him, crunching on a green and red sugar cookie that had apparently spent a little bit too much time in the oven. “Jesus, I almost cracked a tooth on this. Who baked it?”
“Your darling wife,” Celia told him, one eyebrow raised.
A car rode down the block blaring a punk rock version of Silver Bells, startling Penelope and making her start to cry in Celia’s arms.
“Finally,” Arturo said, leaning forward and whisking Penelope into his own arms. “Someone understands how I feel about Christmas music. Don’t cry, little perfect darling.” Arturo nuzzled Penelope and she immediately stopped crying, grabbing onto the collar of his shirt and giving him a gummy smile.
“I’ll never understand how the prince of darkness is also somehow the baby whisperer,” Tre mumbled, following Arturo and Penelope back into the living room where everyone was lazing around. There was a mile-high stack of presents under the tree and enough decorations to make Santa Claus nauseous. It was Celia and Jean Luc’s first Christmas in their new place and apparently they’d gone a little overboard.
“What were you griping about?” Jack asked as Tre plunked down on the couch next to him.
“How did you know I was griping about something?”
Jack stroked Thea’s silky hair as she lounged against his knee, her eyes closed and her feet stretched out in front of her. “Please, do you even need to ask? You’re always griping about something.”
Tre laughed at himself and leaned back. He raised his voice to make sure that Arturo could hear. “I was just saying that I’m worried about my daughter’s taste in men, considering who her favorite person on Earth is.”
Arturo shot him a smug smile.
Martine entered the room from the other side, a bright red sweater clashing horrifically with her hair—she was dressing quite brightly these days. “Well, I for one am thanking God that he’s so good with babies.” She groaned as she sat down in an armchair, her palm down on her growing belly. “We just found out it’s twins.”
“What?!” Caroline, who up to this point had been snoozing on the window seat in the far corner of the room, sat straight up, dead alert. “You’re kidding! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, ohmyGOSH.”
She danced over to Martine and kissed her full on the mouth. Then treated Arturo to the same experience.
Tre reached forward and tugged her down over his lap, laughing with joy at her sweet, happy laugh.
“Twins?” Celia exclaimed, taking a heavy seat herself. It was as if the idea had never even occurred to her. Jean Luc entered through the back door, kicking snow off his boots and hanging his coat on the hook. He looked around at the expressions on everyone’s faces.
“What’s going on?”
“They’re having twins,” Celia said dazedly.
“Twins?! You’re kidding. Congrats, you guys.” Only, the thing was, he said it directly to Thea and Jack.
“No, Jean. Martine and Arturo are having twins,” Celia corrected, confusion in her face.
“Oh.” Jean Luc’s face instantly colored, even his ears going red. “Right. Ah. Wow! Congratulations.” He pulled Arturo up for a hug, careful not to squish Penelope.
But it wasn’t enough to put the cat back in the bag. The group looked around at one another with raised eyebrows, wondering why exactly Jean Luc would have assumed what he’d just assumed.
Thea tipped her head back to Jack. “Go ahead,” she told him. “I know you’re dying to.”
“We’re pregnant!” Jack burst out, as if the words had been sitting on the tip of his tongue for weeks; maybe they had. “I accidentally got too excited and told Jean Luc the other night and then swore him to secrecy. But yeah. There you go! We’re pregnant.”
“WHAT?!” Caroline was looking like she’d just gotten electrocuted. She danced around the room again, doing some sort of happiness jig that had them all laughing.
“Good lord,” Celia said. “At this rate, we’re gonna have to move again just to fit us all in one place.”
Since that night in Utah, the group had trouble separating for long periods of time. They’d spent another week in their strange Airbnb before their bodies relaxed enough to let them realize that the danger was well and truly over.
As strange as it was, they had lives that they had to return to. Or, more accurately, they had lives that they needed to start.
They’d booked flights home. Jean Luc and Celia had returned to her small one-bedroom in Brooklyn, and her huge, querulous family. They’d gone on vacation pretty soon after that.
Caroline and Tre went to the Boston area to pick up her things, swung through Queens to get his things, and then kept on going south until they wound up on the edge of the Everglades. Jean Luc was thrilled when they asked if they could move into his childhood home. It made him so happy to think of them filling it up with love and noise and Penelope.
Thea and Jack had returned to her homestead where they’d picked up on her life. Jack found he rather loved the slow-talking people, the predictable chores, the hard work. And more than anything, he loved that he spent his days at Thea’s side. He wasn’t a rambler anymore. He was building something. Every single day his life got sturdier and more meaningful.
Arturo and Martine had just put a finger on a map and ended up in Des Moines. Living in the ‘burbs and loving every minute of it. They were certainly the strangest couple in their cul-de-sac. The neighbors had not been certain what the hell to think of the insanely hot couple who made out on the front porch, grinned like maniacs while they mowed the lawn and brought the groceries in from the car. But they’d made a few friends.
Still, though, the group had to see one another with frequency—it wasn’t a supernatural need, it was a family-based need. They all convened once a season, in one place or another, sometimes renting Airbnbs. Somewhere that the men and Martine could shift in peace.
“Um, Jean? Will you help me bring some, uh, food out of the kitchen?” Celia asked, realizing that it was insanity to keep a thing like this from her husband.
“I’ll help!” Caroline volunteered but Tre held her fast around the waist.
“Let them go, love,” he whispered into her ear.
Jean Luc followed Celia past the swinging door and there was silence until they heard the tell-tale noises of a former NFL player whooping for joy. Celia was apparently doing something between laughing and crying.
Arturo passed Penelope off to Caroline and crossed the room to smash himself in the chair with Martine. He loved the press of their human bodies against one another. There was no more supernatural energy, that was gone now. But they’d sacrificed it for Martine’s mortality, for his own life. He wouldn’t trade it. Not for a second. He savored every moment on this earth with her because they were constantly changing, constantly growing. He knew, just as the rest of them knew, that life was temporary and precious. One day, they’d pass on from this world like smoke from a fire. But it was worth it to have been the flame, if only for a little while. If only for a single lifetime.
The End