17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Jack was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open, but he did regardless. He didn’t want to miss a second of his children’s new lives.

“Rest, Jack. I’m right here with them,” Maltin urged.

“What if…what if you fall asleep?”

“We’re surrounded by nurses and doctors, not to mention a doting grandmother and uncle.”

“Where are they?”

Maltin sighed, “The gift shop, where else?”

“Ugh, they’re relentless. It’s sweet.”

“Wait until you’re cleaning up all that mess.”

“With your help,” Jack countered.

“I’ll hire someone. Maybe from Hands-E-Men.”

Jack waved a fist at him. “You have all the handy and all the man you need, Maltin Theodore Graves!”

Just then, a nurse came in with an announcement of visitors. “Your parents are here to see you, Misters Graves,” she said, and Jack looked over to her after hearing a familiar voice.

As Maltin started to argue that Jack’s parents couldn’t come from Canada for another week, Jack smiled at the nurse, whom he knew better as a librarian.

She smiled back and gave him a wink. “Your babies are beautiful, by the way. Would you like me to bring them in while your parents are visiting with you?”

Maltin was still trying to argue, but Jack and Ms. Tisiphone Tempest didn’t pay him a bit of attention. “Yes, nurse. Thank you so very, very much.”

“It was you, Jack. I just…helped.”

As she left the room, Maltin just stared at him for a long time. “What was that all about? Was she one of your…your clients or something?”

“I had no female clients, Maltin,” is all he would say.

The real shock for him, however, was who came through the door next. It wasn’t his biological parents. It was the Pengroves.

Jack sat up a little straighter, though the move hurt his abdomen and balls something awful. “Mother? Father?”

“Jack. We came as soon as we heard,” his mother said before tentatively taking a step into the room. “We…wanted to say…to say that…”

“What your mother…I’m sorry, Jack, what my wife is trying to say is that we wanted to tell you congratulations. We’ve been wrong, about, oh, so many things. When you came to confront us, it made us see how unfair we were to you.”

Jack’s mother came to him and took his hand, and he was too surprised to pull away. “I’m so very sorry. You should never have been taken from your real mother and given to me. Never. I treated you badly, and I’m sorry, Jack. We’re sorry.”

Maltin was growling low like he was ready to attack, but Jack reached for his hand and took it. “It’s okay, Maltin.”

“Thank you,” his mother said. “We won’t stay long. We just wanted to wish you and your family well.”

Ms. Tempest, disguised and dressed in pink scrubs, pushed the wide hospital bassinet into the room. “Here they are,” she announced.

Jack watched his parents get on either side of the bassinet, and Maltin tensed beside him until Jack’s mother began to cry. “They’re just beautiful.”

“Thanks, Mother. Father. I’d…I’d like you to come visit, often. Maybe we can start over, as friends, if not family.”

Jack’s mother rushed over to him and kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry, for everything, Jack. You are a brave and wonderful son. Your real mother is lucky to have you back in her life.”

When they left, Jack lay back on the pillows, smiling as Maltin took one of the boys into his arms. “That was a surprise.”

“Yes. I’m glad, though. Maybe people can change after all.”

“I would have never believed it, Jack. Not in a million years.”

Home with the children was hectic, as they had so little sleep. Jack’s real parents and sisters came, helping them get a couple of hours of sleep here and there.

Trudy and Rodney left to let the other grandparents enjoy their time, but they came back quickly, unable to stay away from the babies for long. So, to solve the problem, Trudy did what she said she’d never do. She moved to Valleywood.

And what’s more, she moved right down the road.

Maltin groaned and complained, but Jack saw how happy he was that his family, their family, would be so close. No matter which set of Jack’s parents were in their lives, Jack felt as if his first real mother had been Trudy.

So, the first day they brought home the babies, he’d asked Trudy to name their daughter.

After flooding two handkerchiefs with tears, Trudy came up with a name that made Maltin and Jack the next two to cry.

Jacklyn Malti Graves.

After that, giving the boys their names was a two-night ordeal. Of course, they’d thought of names before the children were born. They’d gone over names they loved; names with meaning and more, but none seemed appropriate once they saw the babies.

Finally, what they did was to name one Beck, the nickname given to Maltin’s father by his mother, and Benji, like Jack’s real father. Their middle names, however, were the same.

Rodney.

Life with triplets kept them busier for that first year than they could have guessed, but they quickly got the hang of it. Maltin worked on his scripts and Jack began to study for college. He wanted to become a writer, like Maltin.

The happiness each smile from their children granted them couldn’t be measured. They’d been lost and alone for so long; the continuing gift of their family gave them both a lasting gratitude that showed each day they were all together.

A family.

When Jack shifted again, it wasn’t until the children were nearing their eighteenth month. It was dark, and the rest of the house occupants were asleep. He got up to relieve himself and suddenly felt his body begin to change.

He hadn’t felt it for almost two years, so it caught him by surprise. When he figured out what it was, he felt a stabbing of fear that left as soon as his clothes were in torn strips on the bathroom floor, and he saw himself in the mirror, with glowing red eyes and curled horns on each side of his head. Busting through the door, he felt himself running so fast he knew he’d be a blur to anyone who could witness.

A crack of breaking wood sounded loud to him as he escaped the house and began to run north, away from the city lights that lit up the sky to the south of him.

Away into the night, he ran, knowing the name of the man he’d fetch to the underworld. Fenton Moorehouse, a fabled mystique, selling his wares on one of the cable channels local to Valleywood. One of those late-night infomercials that he’d watched a thousand times, it seemed, when the babies kept him up most nights.

That wasn’t why he was being taken, however. He was a hellhound, created by the avenger of murder, and in his youth, Fenton Moorehouse murdered seven people and used his petty magic to cover up the crimes. It was time for him to pay for those crimes and for Tisiphone to have vengeance.

As he ran, he saw it, saw himself busting through yet another door, bounding up a flight of stairs to snatch the man’s leg between his jaws as he heard the piercing scream from the man’s terrible awakening.

A lighted circle appeared, and he saw her, the young figure of Ms. Tempest, the fury, beckoning him to enter the doorway. He dragged the man with him past her into the red light that awaited.

Awaking the next morning to his mate tapping his shoulder, Jack came to and noticed he was naked. “Were you taking advantage of a sleeping man, my love?”

Maltin’s cross stare told him that wasn’t the case. “Would you like to tell me what happened to two doors of our home?”

Jack’s smile was quick as he said, “It wasn’t a dream. I really did that.”

“That’s not an explanation, Jack.”

“It’s a good one. Care to let me tell it over a cup of coffee, dear?”

Maltin sighed heavily. “I may need to add a jigger of scotch to it but come on.”

The end