Three Couples, Six People, Many Songs(#14)
Song #14 - My Baby You by Marc Antony
James sighed as he entered the apartment that he currently shared with Jessie. Between his being a pretty new teacher, and her being a new nurse, they felt that a house was not practical just yet. Although they had started looking for a nice house, they found their apartment comfortable enough.
"Hey Dad!" Martin ran into his father's room, holding his rat in both hands. "I taught JJ to do a trick!"
James sighed. He really didn't like rodents. Many bad memories involving them... But Martin wanted a pet, and he wanted something small but trainable. So he got a rat, and Jessie came up with the bright idea of naming it 'JJ'. "What's the trick?"
Martin grinned and placed JJ on one of his shoulders, then held his hand over the other and snapped. Immediately, JJ ran across his shoulders and perched on the other side. "Cool, huh?"
"Amazing," James smiled and ruffled his son's hair. "So what are going to do?"
Martin paused for a little while, looking skeptically at his father. Somehow he sensed that there existed a right answer... "Train JJ some more?"
"What about homework?" James asked, an amused expression on his face. He would have thought by now that Martin had caught on that the right answer to "what are you doing?" was always something educational and productive.
"But it's Saturday!" Martin pouted, widening his green eyes.
"And what's happening tomorrow?" James looked pointedly at the suit that he had been ironing.
"Oh right... The wedding!" Martin grinned. "Finally."
"Hey, there's no rush," James said as he continued to iron the suit. "And I strongly suggest that you go do your homework, okay?"
Martin grimaced slightly, but nodded anyway as he took JJ off his shoulder. "Sure thing, Dad!" He ran out again.
"Would've though he'd run out of energy by now..." James mumbled to himself, recalling how sometimes chasing Martin around a little proved to be the best method to tire him out for bed. /He's grown so much.../ James finished off the suit and hung it carefully in his closet. On his way back to his bed, he stopped by some pictures of himself and Martin. Smiling, he lifted the pictures, looking at how much the boy had changed throughout the years. He was still a bit scrawny, but not as bad as he used to be. James kept his hair a little shorter than usual, but Jessie didn't want him to crop it. She liked James's hair, and she liked Martin's hair too. Beautiful shades of blue, she said. Not to be wasted. They still both had the same green eyes too, or at least, relatively the same. Martin's lacked the sharpness that James had. Martin hadn't suffered as much as James.
/And rightfully so./ James set down the pictures and dug around his bag for the assignments he had to grade. As he taught third grade, currently, grading wasn't that hard. The task lay more in reading the writing. /I'm so glad Martin didn't go through what I did... And I'm so glad he's turned out all right./ He sat down at his desk, and ran a hand through his straight blue hair. /He kept me going, that kid did. Made things tough, but he was worth it. He was so worth it./
Considering how much he loved Martin, James really didn't understand how his parents could have kicked him out. No matter how tough things got, he just couldn't see himself kicking Martin out. Sure he got mad at the kid sometimes, because he was a kid, and kids didn't always co-operate. But he'd never hit Martin. He came a little close to it once, but as soon as the thought had crossed his mind he banished it, for he felt physical punishment was ineffective and cruel.
/I can't believe he'll be a teenager soon. Just around three more years... But he'll always be my little baby boy, I just, I can't picture him being any older than the little three year old that followed me around and latched onto my hand./ James sighed and put on his reading glasses, so he could see the papers better. He could only be grateful that Martin was a happy, healthy kid... And he liked Jessie; he liked Jessie a lot. And Jessie liked him too, in fact, legally, she was considered his mother, for she had adopted him officially last year.
Starting to read the papers, James smiled. Kids... He really liked them. Maybe it came from having to spend so much time with Martin, but they had grown on him.
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