Tori

“Okay, so what did you decide?” I ask Kamala once we get her into the car.

“Umm… Chicken… No… Pizza… No! I don’t know,” she sighs.

“I have an idea,” Serge says, grinning.

We’re just leaving the courthouse and Kamala’s still in her pretty green dress that we adopted her in. I still can’t believe it’s real. It’s been a long road. Between working on the center and the fundraisers, we planned a wedding and went through the whole adoption process. I’m not sure I’m going to remember what it’s like to not have to do six things at once. Then again, I’m a mom now, so I probably won’t get that luxury.

“What have you got up your sleeve, Mister?” I ask, grinning at my husband, taking his hand over the center console. We’ve only been married a couple of months, but it already feels like I’ve been with him my whole life. Like I don’t know how I ever got by without him. I’m pretty sure it’s the same for him.

“Look in the seat pocket,” he says to Kamala. “And the glove compartment,” he says to me. I frown, looking at him confused, but he just inclines his head again.

“Whaaaaat?” Kamala says, pulling out a long black string, frowning and giggling at the same time.

I look in the glove compartment and find the same kind of black string, with a little circle of fabric attached. “What in the— Oh my god.” I burst out laughing, then Kamala does too, because while we were searching, Serge has put on an eye patch and he looks ridiculous.

“You’re silly, Daddy,” Kamala giggles, tying the eyepatch around her head. I see Serge freeze for just a moment — that’s the first time she’s called him that as far as I know. Maybe she was saving it for the adoption to go through. Then he grins at me, his eyes sparkling. I squeeze his hand and smile back.

She’s not the only one that’ll be calling him Daddy soon. Just this morning I took a test that came back with a double line. I told Serge right away, of course, but we’re not telling Kamala yet. We didn’t want to take away from her big day. But I already know how she’s going to react, because she’s already been asking if she’s going to have siblings in her new family. All her other families had siblings. But for now, we’ve avoided those talks by pointing out how cool it’ll be to be the only kid for a little while.

“Where are you taking us, Captain?” I ask.

“He’s not a Captain, he’s a General!” Kamala giggles.

“Yarr, but today, I be a Captain,” Serge says. “A pirate Captain.”

“Should you really be driving with that eyepatch on?” I ask.

“Buzzkill,” he says, flipping it up with a sideways grin.

“But really, where are we going?” I ask.

“Remember when we saw that place online that’s a restaurant inside a big pirate ship? And they do like a dinner theater thing?”

“Pirate’s Dinner Adventure?”

“PIRATES?” Kamala shrieks. She’s been going through a phase. We took her to Disneyland a couple of months ago after we got married and she met Jack Sparrow and fell in love. I’m pretty sure it’s her first crush, and since my first crush was Kurt Cobain I know a thing or two about liking wild older men.

“Did you really?” I ask, kind of surprised he even remembered it. It came up in an article I was looking at of kid-friendly places to go. Most people when they’re parents have years to kind of learn that stuff organically, but we needed a crash course and all the help we could get.

He grins. “Made the reservation two months ago.”

“And you kept it a secret all this time?”

“You really didn’t notice? I kept dropping hints.”

“You were talking about preventing scurvy a lot, but I thought you’d watched another weird Netflix documentary.”

He laughs. “Yo ho, yo ho—”

“A pirate’s life for ME!” Kamala joins.

We sing pretty much the whole drive, turning normal songs into pirate songs however we can just to make Kamala laugh. At the place, they take our picture and give us a souvenir and we watch a fantastic show, eating a scrumptious meal. Kamala feels super grown up with her Shirley Temple and when the pirates need a volunteer, they don’t waste any time singling her out of the crowd.

I shoot Serge a questioning look and he shrugs innocently.

“God, I love you,” I groan. “You’re going to be such an amazing Dad.”

“You know she’s already asking if we’re going to adopt more kids,” he says, chuckling under his breath. The pirate on stage hands Kamala a prop sword and is giving her a dueling lesson. She’s loving every minute of it, looking at us and grinning as she swipes the sword.

“Well?” I ask, nudging him. “What do you say, General? Think we should have a whole platoon?”

He grins. “I’m pretty sure if I had my way we’d end up with about a dozen kids, so you might not want to leave it up to me.”

My eyes go wide, but I think about the life already growing inside of me and it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. “Let’s see how we do with the two… but I’m not opposed.”

His arm drapes over my shoulders and he kisses the side of my head. “I was thinking we could stop by the center after this.”

“Joey wouldn’t forgive you if you didn’t.”

He laughs. “You’re probably right.”

We cheer Kamala on as she fends off a horde of enemy soldiers and then hoists the Jolly Roger on their ship. She tries to negotiate with the poor actor about whether or not she can keep the sword but Serge finally convinces her to give it back.

“I’m pretty sure I saw one just like it in the gift shop,” I whisper.

She sleeps half the drive back home, but when we’re getting close to our exit she wakes up, yawning and rubbing at her eyes.

“Are we going home?” she asks.

“Is there somewhere else you’d rather go?” I ask.

“Maybe to go see some friends or something?” adds Serge.

She narrows her eyes, suspicious of us and too smart to be fooled. “Are we going to the center?”

“Busted,” Serge laughs. He doesn’t work there full time anymore, and neither of us really spends as many hours there as we’d like, but we still try to drop in a couple of times a week, teach a class, hang out, bring pizzas, whatever we can. It’s our family, after all.

“You know, there’s a couple of kids there that could use good families,” Kamala says, a smile in her voice.

“What did I tell you?” Serge says, an exasperated look sent my way.

I just laugh. “But I thought you were looking forward to being the only kid in the house. More ice cream for you, remember?”

“Yeah… But maybe later… I don’t mind sharing.”

“We’ll definitely consider it,” Serge promises, but I know we’ve already decided and Kamala’s probably going to end up with more siblings than she knows what to do with. And it’s going to be crazy and wild and unbelievably chaotic, but in a good way. Not in the way my life used to be crazy and wild and chaotic. Not anymore. Not since I found Serge, and sobriety, and Kamala. Even my relationship with my mom is miles better and Serge’s mom already loves doting on Kamala. Poor kid’s gonna end up with grandma overload if we’re not careful.

It’s crazy how quickly your whole life can turn around. I thought that getting assigned community service at this center was the end of the world. I thought Serge was a complete asshole, and I thought I hated kids.

Guess I was just wrong about everything.

Well, not everything. Serge is still a bit of an ass sometimes, but he’s mine… and I’m never giving him up.

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