A Balance of Harmonies: Party, part 2

[frogs_of_war]

I am so tired. My next real day off isn’t until Thursday and my last one was a week ago last Monday. I wrote this chapter while talking to my mom who was over for the week.

And for some reason my face feels like it’s burned when I put on sunscreen (to keep it from actually being burned), I’ve tried several different kinds now and the least painful one just makes my eyes water like I’ve been exposed to fumes. So I went out to buy a lotion with sunscreen, in hopes that would be gentler and I had the chose between a gentle one and one used to treat redness. I didn’t have any redness, so I bought the slightly cheaper one. Only this morning in my shower I used my face wash like I’ve used hundreds of times before and my face burned and has continued to hurt more than fifteen hours later. And my cheeks are red.

When I got home from work, I put on the new lotion on one side of my face, just in case it hurt me too, which it did, but oddly the lotioned side hurt less (but still hurt) a half an hour later. So I guess I should have bought the slightly more expensive stuff. Only I don’t want to go back and buy the other bottle. This stuff already cost twice as much as sunscreen. That would be like doubling the price again. And I’m not sure it would soothe anything. Plus I should be saving up for a standing air conditioner. The apartment is getting new windows next month and window a/c units void the windows’ warranty. Just in time for the hottest months of the year.


Title: Party, part 2
Series: A Balance of Harmonies (Three)
Status: Chapter one hundred twenty-five of more than enough
Genre: m/m romance, drama, city life, businessmen
Rating: R
Content: baking, plans, company, mommy time, return, big eyes, love, painting, conversation, truth
Length: about 3,300 words
Summary: Emil plays host and Peregrine reveals that he knows the secret.

Master list


Emil pulled the baking tray from the oven. The little rolls were perfectly brown. He should bake bread more often. It hadn’t even been that hard.

Willow placed a cloth napkin into one of the many baskets she’d brought. That would keep the rolls warm until they needed them.

Olivia bounced at the edge of the counter. “Let’s make cookies.”

“Next weekend.” Emil turned the oven off.

Olivia pouted. “Next weekend Kurt won’t be with us.”

Emil didn’t want to think about the days Kurt would be away. His family would try to make him stay. Was his love for Peregrine and Emil enough to bring him home before New Years? “The weekend after that.”

“But that’s after Christmas.”

Liam lifted Olivia into the air. “We can make cookies anytime. Even in January.”

“But I want the kind with cookie cutters and frosting.”

“Then we’ll have cookie cutters and frosting.”

Olivia was one spoiled little girl. Emil’s life had been much harder, but he was just as guilty of indulging her. “We can make some once Kurt comes home.”

The doorbell rang. Emil left the kitchen to the kids. Diego carried a diaper bag and an infant car seat and Lavender held their little girl. Emil invited them in. “Peregrine and Kurt are walking new acquaintances home.”

Hunter had wanted to see where Lauren and Bhamini lived. Dad had gone with them to give Hunter extra moral support.

“And Zan and Autumn are getting more ice.”

Diego grinned. “Fewer is better right now. Piper just woke up.”

Piper rubbed her face against Lavender’s chest and then peeked back at Emil with her big brown eyes. She was adorable, like every description of a cute kid rolled into one.

“Peregrine is going to want to paint her.”

Diego laughed. “So I’m not the only one who thinks my family is beautiful.”

“Diego!”

Emil grinned. “You’re not. Come on through to the living room.”

“A baby!” Olivia sprinted over and sat by the car seat, her skirt billowing around her. “Can I touch… the baby?”

“Wash your hands.” Willow pointed at the bathroom door.

Olivia looked up at Diego. “If I wash my hands?”

“Sure. That will give me time to get him out of his car seat.” Diego sat in a chair, but Lavender toured the room, murmuring to little Piper about the tree and the view and the furniture.

Emil nodded to the bedroom. “We’ve got a quiet spot in there if she needs to eat.”

Lavender blushed and Piper tugged on Lavender’s neck line. The poor baby needed some Mommy time.

“This way.”

Emil led them to the fireplace corner. “You’ll hear anyone before you see them and they might not see you.”

And then he left them to themselves.

“Where’d she take the other baby?” Olivia wiped her hands on one of the bathroom hand towels and dropped it on a chair. Emil set another in its place on the towel rack. When he came out of the bathroom Olivia was sitting beside Diego on the couch with the baby’s legs on her lap.

Diego looked up. “Thank you. She gets embarrassed.”

“No problem. Babies need what they need, whether that’s convenient for us or not.” He’d been in enough foster families with little ones to know that.

“Exactly. And Piper’s still getting used to her brother and not being an only. I don’t know what she’s going to do when I go back to work.” Diego gazed down at his son. “Paternity leave is heaven.”

Noise came from the entry way and people trickled in. Peregrine looked into the living room and then slipped into the bedroom. Olivia waved at Dad. “Daddy, look. I’m holding a baby!”

“Very cute, Olivia. What’s the baby’s name?”

“I don’t know.”

Diego grinned. “Joaquin, after Lavender’s mother’s father. It keeps the Hispanic names for the male side of the family, and the Anglo names for the girls.”

“That’s a good name.” Keith leaned over the back of the couch.

Olivia frowned. “What if he doesn’t like his name? I didn’t like my name.”

Diego shrugged. “He can change it, I guess. Why didn’t you like your name?”

Olivia crinkled her nose. “I had a boy’s name. They used to think I was a boy, even when I told them and told them I was a girl.”

Diego looked towards the dining room. Had he left anything there? No, the diaper bag was by the door to the conservatory. Emil got it for him. Diego thanked him, but didn’t open it. Olivia, entirely unprompted, gave a complete account of how she was wronged. She deserved every bit of being spoiled.

--

Peregrine set a canvas on his easel and arranged it just right. Then he walked up to Lavender and sat in the chair across from her. “Can I paint you?”

She looked down at her baby. “Emil said you might want to. But you already did once.”

Peregrine nodded to little Piper. “That was before she had a brother. I need all three of you now.”

Piper sat up and stared at Peregrine. He could get lost in her fathom-deep eyes. “Please.”

Lavender moved Piper closer to her knees and adjusted her dress. “If you really want me to.”

“I really do.”

The white rocking chair was perfect. He’d been right to let Zan convince him they needed the extra seating. He gave the wall on his canvas a lilac tint. The baby in the other room cried. Peregrine nodded to the door. “Do you need to get him?”

“Diego will change him first.” Lavender adjusted Piper on her lap.

Peregrine added the basic outline of the chair. The sobs got muffled and then louder. Diego stuck his head in the doorway. Lavender lifted her arms and Piper slid from her lap. And then Piper leaned against the chair arm as she watched her mother feed her little brother. That was the picture Peregrine wanted to capture.

Diego touched his wife’s cheek. “Emil’s little sister is transgender.”

Lavender looked up at Diego and then over at Peregrine.

Olivia bounced in the doorway. “Can I hold the other baby?”

Diego picked Piper up.

No, this was the picture, with Piper watching the baby eat and Diego drinking his wife in. Titled A Family or maybe just Love. He reached for a sketch book and got the just of it down. Diego kissed his wife and carried Piper out.

Peregrine’s goal was now to get the picture down in all its glory. And it would be glorious.

Lavender’s eyes followed her husband.

Peregrine mixed the perfect color of purple for her dress. “That was Olivia. The hair is a wig. Her last foster mother gave her a buzz cut, thinking that would make her a boy.”

Lavender touched her own hair.

“And Willow, one of the young people in the kitchen, goes by feminine pronouns, mostly. Dakota likes things generally regarded as feminine: glitter, make up, pink and doesn’t care that boys aren’t supposed to. And then we have Zan, who is how she feels she should be.”

Lavender wasn’t alone.

She straightened the baby’s outfit, her skirt, the top of her dress. She had never been this twitchy before. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. But she didn’t need to hide, from them of all people. She had the right to, but Peregrine had lived for a dozen years stifling who he was. He did want anyone else to make the same mistake. “It must be hard though, now that you have you babies, who look so like you that no one would ever guess you hadn’t carried them for nine months.”

He met Lavender’s gaze for a second before going back to his canvas. When he glanced up again, she was looking at her baby.

“I’m not trying to hurt you or anything. I just think you might be hiding from people who would understand and be happy for you.”

Lavender sighed. “How did you know?”

“I wouldn’t have, I don’t think, if you hadn’t looked so very much like Emil.” And, of course, because Lavender ‘s determination to avoid the man Peregrine would die without. But she didn’t need to be reminded of that. “I was fascinated that two people totally unrelated could look so much alike. A photographer takes pictures of people like you two, after he does a family history check to make sure they aren’t related and just aren’t aware. I think you two look more alike than several of his models.”

“My brother doesn’t look a thing like me.”

“Have you seen him lately?”

Lavender looked out the window. “I haven’t seen any of them in years.”

“Not even your mother?” She’d always been most animated when talking about her mother.

Lavender shook her head.

“Tell me about them.”

She pressed her lips together.

“What they look like, or did. What they acted like. That sort of thing.” Peregrine added detail to Lavender’s dress.

“My brother left home when I was four. I remember him being stocky, just like my father. But he might have slimmed out. later. He was only twelve when he left to live with our aunt.”

“Any more siblings?”

“None while I was there. I left at fifteen when my father found work near us. He didn’t approve of me.”

“My dad and I don’t get along either.”

“I made him uncomfortable with my dolls and dresses and the clips in my hair.”

Peregrine added the lilac of Piper’s dress. “You must have been a really cute kid. Emil’s cousin brought over a photo album of Emil as a kid. He doesn’t remember any one in the pictures. He thought he was alone in the world. I wonder if you guys looked alike as kids. As alike as you look now, I mean. Not like twins, though, because Emil looks so much younger than his age. You look old enough to be Piper’s mother.”

“Thank you.”

“And you can count us as family in every way that matters. I’m sure we’re not the only ones that feel that way.”

“Autumn makes dresses for Piper. She must for Emil’s sister, too. Piper has a dress just like that one.”

“Olivia keeps Autumn busy. She wears dresses like this every day.” Good thing Keith’s bank account was big enough to handle that. “Petticoats and all.”

Lavender laughed. “I would have, given half a chance.”

“None of my sisters dress like that. My baby sister wears jeans skirts to church and changes out of them when she gets home. Olivia had to be convinced to wear culottes. She was forced to wear pants for too long.”

Lavender touched her baby’s face. “I hope I’ll be a good mother.”

“I’m sure you will be. You’ve done a spectacular job so far.”

“How do you know?” She looked straight at him until he had to meet her gaze.

A thousand ways. “Take Piper, for instance. She didn’t get all clingy when Joaquin cried and she climbed out of your lap when Diego brought him in. She made space for her brother, so she knew she still had a place with you.”

“She could have stayed. I have room on my lap for both.”

“And she knows that. Your love shows through.”

“Thank you.” Lavender switched her baby to her other breast. “But you haven’t told me how you knew.”

Peregrine had hoped she’s forgotten about that. “I… You are the most feminine woman I’ve ever met. Much more so than my mother and aunts. I would have thought nothing of it, but I’m naturally curious, a digger. My quest is to see what is really here. I saw a woman, through and through, but one who chose strict femininity over a looser definition every time.”

Lavender looked out the window. “They have nothing to prove.”

“You have nothing to prove.” Peregrine added Lavender’s locks hanging in front of her shoulder.

“I have an F on my ID, a real marriage license, and two babies and I still feel I have something to prove.”

Peregrine shook his head. “You have always been a woman, and you’d been one in coverall just as much as in a dress.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m simply speaking the truth.” And he would continue to until she believed him.