AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As she headed to the bedroom, my attention turned to Noah, who was in the process of getting comfy on the couch, kicking his feet up. I smiled at him, treasuring his sweet youth. “Hey, buddy, how about some father-son bonding time?” I asked him. “Wanna hang out together tonight?”
Noah’s eyes lit up, and he patted the spot next to him on the couch. “Yeah! Daddy, let’s watch some cartoons. I wanna watch more Adventure Hour.”
It didn’t take long before he crawled onto my lap. I gathered him to my chest and grabbed the remote from the coffee table, turning on the television and scrolling through until I found his favorite show. I chose one of the newer episodes and settled in with him. The animated characters had us both laughing, and I cherished seeing Noah so happy and carefree. Somehow, this show had become a symbol of the two people I adored the most—Marley and Noah. Regardless of its simplicity and the strange humor in each episode, it was hard to do anything but love the show.
During a commercial break, Noah turned to me with a thoughtful expression. “Dad,” he started hesitantly, “can I ask you something?”
“Of course, buddy,” I replied, giving him my full attention.
Noah fidgeted with his fingers and fussed with a button on his shirt. He was clearly pondering his words carefully. “Well, you know how I call Marley Marley? And I call you Daddy?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Marley said I could call her Mama if I wanted to,” he said. “But sometimes I feel kind of funny if I call her Mama. So I switch between calling her Marley and calling her Mama.”
I listened carefully, understanding his uncertainty. “You feel funny? In what way, Noah?”
He shrugged, searching for the right words. “It’s just different, I guess. Calling you Daddy feels natural, but calling Marley Mama feels like I’m not really supposed to. But I don’t know why it feels that way, and I don’t want Marley to get sad that I’m not calling her Mama after I asked her if I could.”
I wrapped an arm around him, pulling him into a warm hug. “It makes perfect sense, buddy. New things can feel strange at first. When I first met Marley, it also felt a bit strange to me. But now, she’s an important part of our lives, and the more time we spend together, the easier it will feel to call her special words like that.”
“Really?” he asked, looking up at me even as the commercial break ended and the show resumed. “You don’t think it hurts Marley’s feelings?”
“Absolutely not,” I assured him, my voice soft and comforting. “It’s okay to feel unsure. But over time, you’ll find that it’ll become more natural. Marley loves you, just like I do, and she’ll be happy to hear you call her Mama whenever you’re ready again.”
A small smile appeared on Noah’s face, and I saw the relief in his eyes. “Okay. I still want Marley to be my mama, but I don’t really know what it’s like to have one, so I think I need to practice at it.”
“That’s all I ask, buddy,” I said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Just remember, we’re a family, and we all love each other very much. Doesn’t matter if we call each other by our names or something else. Family is about how we treat each other, not what we call each other.”
Noah nodded. “Like how I call my gramma and grampa Nanny and Gramps. Other kids don’t call their gramma and grampa those things.”
“Yep, just like that. Remember when you did the family tree at school? No two trees are exactly alike, but they’re all still beautiful trees, right?”
Noah nodded and leaned into me, focusing his attention back on the television. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re a different family, but we’re still family.”
As the cartoons continued to play, we snuggled together. I cherished the bond between us all, the growing connection between me and Marley and between Noah and Marley. In the comfort of our home, surrounded by love and support, I knew our family would only grow stronger and more united. And as Noah grew and adapted to new aspects of our life together, I was grateful for the opportunity to witness his growth and the depth of our connection as a family.
* * *
We allowed ourselves to recover for a couple of days. Then, we started making calls to set up a meeting with our friends and family to discuss how we’d go about forming our pack properly. After a lot of irritating finagling, thanks to Jack and Travis’s grand idea to do Travis’s first injection at the meeting, we got the dates to coincide with the doctor’s availability. Once we got the date set, it was relatively straightforward.
On the day of the meeting, Lana and Marley went to pick up some catered food while Jack, Travis, and I set up the condo to host the rest of the group. Paulette, Ginger, Houston, Rosie, Farrah, and Sylvia would all be in attendance. Noah would be at my parents’ place to keep him out of everyone’s hair. My parents were supportive of me forming a pack, but they didn’t want to be involved with the politics. After their sordid history with my grandfather and, well, everything else, I couldn’t blame them.
After setting the table for our guests, I treated Jack and Travis to a bottle of craft beer from my fridge, cracking open the cold ones and divvying them up. We tapped the necks of the bottles together, and Travis took several greedy gulps. Jack and I both sipped at our beers, watching him with some concern. When Travis had finished half the bottle, he took it away from his mouth and grimaced.
“You good, dude?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he wheezed. “Just really fucking nervous.”
“I thought you were sure that this is what you wanted to do?”
“It is, absolutely, one hundred percent,” he said with a sigh. “That doesn’t mean I’m exactly looking forward to the miserable body aches, nausea, and fever I’m going to experience anywhere from one hour to three hours from the time of the first injection.”
“Don’t psyche yourself out, man,” I said. “For all you know, you’ll have a super-easy time of it.”
“Prepare for the worst, hope for the best,” Travis said, his face paling. “Would rather assume it’s going to suck and be surprised than assume it’ll be easy and be surprised.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Just don’t get drunk. I don’t want your girlfriend to kick my ass.”
