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David is carefully removing bottles of body milk from a recently-delivered box and displaying them in neat little lines, like soldiers of moistuization, when the bell above the door of Rose Apothecary chimes, signalling the arrival of a customer.
He looks up and sees - no one. The door is swinging closed again, but he’s still alone in the store.
Slowly, he shifts his gaze from left to right, looking for anything suspicious, any sign of a new presence. He’s far happier living in Schitt’s Creek than he ever could have guessed he would be, once upon a time, but if he’s being haunted, he and Patrick are going to have to have a serious conversation about relocating. Possibly to another continent.
Then a small voice says, “Uncle David?” and he takes a step to the left, which gives him a view of his niece, who’s standing next to the organic applesauce, her head tilted inquisitively.
“Hey, Bea,” he says, abandoning his half-completed display. Beatrice is wearing a charming seersucker dress patterned with white and sapphire stripes, which makes her eyes - Alexis’ eyes - stand out in her little face… and a pair of aggressively pink high tops with velcro straps and Paw Patrol characters on their sides. David stifles a sigh before it escapes. At least his sister tries.
She smiles up at him. “I like the birds on your sweater.”
“Thank you,” he responds seriously; one of the things he’s learned he likes about children, or at least about Bea, is that compliments are never insincere. “Where’re Mom and Dad?” he asks, eyeing the door again.
Bea looks down at the ground, her mouth twisting, and David thinks fuck, because that is the exact face Alexis makes before she cries. She scuffs the toe of her sneaker against the floor. “They’re at the café. With Jakey.”
David leans down toward her, hands on his thighs. “Did you tell them you wanted to come over here?”
She lifts her chin and fixes sad eyes on his face. “They didn’t even know I left. Mommy had to feed Jakey and Daddy was talking to Uncle Roland - ”
“We don’t call him uncle, honey,” David cuts in gently, studying her with mounting worry. Alexis might have an almost-infinite history of irresponsible decision-making, but she’s proven to be very good at knowing exactly where her daughter is, always. “You just walked over here by yourself?”
Bea nods, and he feels his mouth slant downward at the corners, taking on the shape of a frown. Twyla’s Café Tropical is only across the street, and Schitt’s Creek is generally a safe place, but there are still cars on the road, and Beatrice is five. He looks across the street, already composing an outraged text message in his head, and that’s when he spots Ted.
His brother-in-law is standing on the sidewalk outside the café, a burp cloth thrown over his shoulder and apparently forgotten there, his eyes glued to the store, clearly having watched Bea make her way across the street and to David. Ted lifts a hand, thumb raised in a silent question, and David gives him a firm nod in response.
Then he crouches down in front of Bea, ignoring the way one of his knees makes a troubling creaking sound, and carefully loosens the grip one of her small hands has on the skirt of her dress, taking the hand in both of his own. “I’m happy to see you,” he says. “Do you want to help me stack some things?”
She nods emphatically, and keeps nodding as her eyes overflow and her face crumples. “Yeah,” she says in a broken-up voice.
“Okay,” David says on a soft sigh. He hooks his hands under her arms, lifting her as he straightens up, and sits her down on the checkout counter. “Hey, Patrick?” he calls toward the back, where his husband is putting together a new shelf for some of their overstock. “Can I get some tissues out here?”
“Uncle David,” Bea says miserably, clinging to his sleeve with one hand, scrubbing at her cheek with the other, “I don’t think I like Jakey.”
He looks at her and he just - loves her, this little person, the new owner of his sister’s eyes and Ted’s wide smile, who’s fallen asleep on him eight different times in her short life, whose slender shoulders are slumped under the weight of the heaviest secret she’s ever had to bear. He wants to wrap her up in cashmere and promise her there will never be anything worse than this. He wants to take the things that are hard for her and hold them in his own hands. With tenderness, he tells her, “I know, Bea.”
“You do?” she asks tremulously, just as Patrick emerges from the back with a roll of paper towels.
“Did you spill something?” he asks. “I couldn’t find - oh,” he says, interrupting his own sentence when he spots Beatrice. “Hey, baby Bea,” he says warmly. “I didn’t know you were visiting us.”
“No Kleenex?” David asks, taking the paper towels.
Patrick shakes his head. “Sorry. It’s kind of a mess back there.” He uses his chin to gesture to Bea and asks, softly, “Everything okay here?” When David nods, he rests a fond hand against Bea’s blonde head and says brightly, “Hey, your dad told me you’re all signed up for softball in the fall.”
Simultaneously, lowly, David murmurs to him, “Just some new-baby jealousy.”
Bea nods at Patrick, swiping at her nose with the back of her hand, which is disgusting, but David manages not to make a face. “I’m gonna be on a team and have a uniform.”
“No way,” he says, sounding genuinely amazed; it’s always been both impressive and endearing to David, the way Patrick takes in everything Bea says like he’s right on her level. “That’s awesome.”
She nods again, sniffling, and David rips off a sheet of paper towel and begins dabbing delicately at her face. Patrick’s hand lands on his back and rubs briefly, and David draws in a deep breath, bracing himself before he presses the paper towel to Bea’s nose and orders, “Blow.”
She does, and it’s snotty and wet and terrible. David removes the paper towel, making absolutely certain not to look at its contents, and tosses it into the waste basket behind the counter.
“I better get back to feeding the monsters we keep back there,” Patrick jokes, tilting his head toward the stock room, making Bea giggle. “I’ll see you soon, Bea.”
“Bye, Uncle Patrick,” she says, lifting her hand to wave like he’s going off on a months-long voyage to sea. It’s undeniably precious.
“Bea,” David says when they’re alone again. “Do you want to know a secret?”
Eyes wide and eager, she nods.
“When your mom was a brand-new baby, I didn’t like her at all. I told your grandparents to take her back to the hospital.”
“You said that?”
She looks so appalled he has to press his lips together to keep from smiling - that’s got to be Ted, that somber shock. “I did. I didn’t like living with her. She cried all the time, and because she needed so much, she took up a lot of the attention. Whenever I wanted to spend time with… my parents,” he edits, for her sake; he imagines Alexis hasn’t let her five-year-old know that they were effectively raised by Adelina, “it seemed like they always had to be with your mom instead.”
“Did you have to share your teddy bears?”
“Yes,” David says, even though Alexis didn’t start stealing his shit until they were both older. “Do you share your teddy bears with Jacob?”
“Mommy says some things are just mine, but last night - ” She wells up again. “Last night he wanted to see Paddington Bear? And he was crying a lot so Daddy asked if he could and then - and then he put Paddington Bear’s paw in his mouth and I don’t think Paddington liked that very much - ”
“I’m sure he didn’t appreciate being drooled on,” David agrees.
“Yeah!” Bea says indignantly. “And Mommy and Daddy used to read to me together, always, and they would both do the voices, but now Jakey always needs something and usually only Daddy can read the story, and he’s better at voices but I - I - ”
“But you want your mom, too.” He smooths down a few stray wisps of Bea’s hair. “I know.”
“Yeah,” she says, with much less heat and significantly more dejection.
“Younger siblings are annoying sometimes, Bea,” he says with a sympathy he truly feels; Alexis spent a decade exasperating him before spending the subsequent decade getting herself into dangerous situations she treated too casually for his comfort. “Jacob’s probably going to do more things that you don’t like. But in a couple years you’ll be able to tell him you don’t like something, like when he touches Paddington Bear, and he’ll be able to understand a little better.”
Her head tips to one side, her ear almost touching her shoulder, as her lips purse thoughtfully. It’s fucking insane, truly, the way little pieces of his family suddenly seem to burst within her sometimes; right now, she reminds him of his mother. “I get to tell Jakey what to do?” she asks, slow and contemplative and just a little bit wicked.
David laughs and decides to avoid answering that directly. “Jacob’s going to do some things you don’t want him to. He might even try and drool on more of your teddy bears. When you’re both older, you’ll probably argue sometimes, because that’s just what happens with brothers and sisters. But I know you love him,” he adds, because he does - he has the video of Bea meeting her little brother for the first time on his phone, and okay, he may have possibly watched it more than once, to see the awe in her bright eyes as she peered down at the baby.
“And you,” he informs his niece, “are amazing. You are sensational, Beatrice. Your brother’s not going to have any choice but to love you so much right back.”
She beams at him, shoulders lifting upward in some sort of childish gesture of inarticulate modesty.
“One day, Bea, when you’re older - ”
“Old like you and Mommy?”
David’s mouth flattens. He’d forgotten that children are equally candid in both their adulation and their slander. “Like… me and your mommy,” he agrees grudgingly. “When you and Jacob are - not old, but older than you are right now - he is going to be your very best friend. And you’re going to be so grateful to call him your brother. To… share your life with him.”
“Mommy’s your best friend, Uncle David?”
She looks so entranced by the idea that he immediately wishes he hadn’t put it in her head. “Are you going to tell her I said that?”
Bea nods vigorously.
“Of course.” He breathes out through his nose. “Right. Yes. Your mother is… one of my best friends.” Aiming to get them back on track, he says, “And she’s one of your best friends, too, right? And so’s your dad. If you need something from them - if you need both of them to do the voices in your stories - you tell them, okay? They’ll listen.”
She’s regarding him curiously, now, her bout of heartache firmly in the past. “Can you do voices, Uncle David?”
“No,” he says resolutely. “But I have another secret. Do you want to hear it?”
“Yes,” she says, “please,” and leans in like she thinks he’s going to whisper it in her ear.
He can’t help but lay a kiss against her temple before divulging, quietly, “Besides your mom, I was the first person in the whole world who knew that you existed. That’s a special bond we have. You - ” He hesitates, pulling his mouth slightly to one side. “You’ll always be special to me. And you can always talk to me.”
“We’re special,” she says, her voice hushed, her eyes sparkling.
“You and me, baby Bea,” he agrees. He holds his pinkie finger out to her, and she’s just hooked her small pinkie around his when the bell above the door peals again.
“Hey,” Ted’s voice says warmly. “You’re not old enough to get a job yet!”
Bea giggles. “Uncle David said I can stack!”
Ted’s wearing a baby bjorn, in which Jacob appears to be fast asleep, his chubby cheek resting against his father’s chest. Ted puts a steady hand against the baby’s back as he eases an arm around Bea’s shoulders and kisses the top of her head. “How’s Trix?” he asks her teasingly, as he so often does, but the inquiry on his face is real, and it’s directed at David.
He blinks purposefully, heavily, and nods as subtly as he can at the same time, hoping to convey all good with his body language alone, and he must be successful, because Ted smiles and gives him a grateful nod in return.
Alexis swoops in then, one arm around David as she kisses his cheek, her other hand running down Bea’s arm. “Uncle David tried to ban me from here once, you know,” she tells her daughter. Her hand presses hard against David’s spine, a gesture that feels meaningful but isn’t quite comprehensible, before she lifts her daughter into her arms, settling Bea against her hip. “He’d never let me stack things.”
“Your mother was banned for a very good reason,” David says, his eyes narrowed on Alexis’ face. “And she knows that.”
Bea nods, resting her cheek against her mother’s shoulder and snuggling in close. “You took his teddy bears, Mommy.”
Alexis’ expression goes soft, almost pained, and she tilts her cheek against Bea’s hair. “Paddington Bear is all yours tonight, Bea-Bea,” she promises.
David clears his throat. “You know,” he says, “Paddington and I have actually been texting? And he said something about how he really likes bedtime stories when both his mom and dad do the voices?”
Bea frowns faintly. She looks tired now, heavy-lidded, worn out from her mini-meltdown. Her arms are locked tightly around Alexis’ neck. “Paddington doesn’t have a phone, Uncle David.”
He smiles at her sleepy eyes. “My mistake, then.”
“Thank you,” Alexis whispers to him, her heart in her eyes.
David shakes his head; he doesn’t need to be thanked. “Only another firstborn could really understand.”
“He’s been so colicky,” she says, nodding to Jacob. “It’s just been tough. And I know - ” She and Ted exchange quick, weary smiles. “I know there’ll be hard days for a while. Years. Whole, entire years. But I - ” She swallows. “I don’t even know who I’d be without my brother.” The shoulder that Bea’s not sleeping on lifts and falls. “I didn’t want her to miss out on that.”
“Hmph,” is the only sound David manages to make, on an exhale. He presses a hand into the air in front of his body, fending off an invisible rush of emotion. “There’s a one-cry-per-day rule in the store and Bea already claimed it, so - ”
“Hey!” Patrick says, emerging from the stockroom, looking a little sawdust-y. Alexis sends one of those sharp, mildly frightening shushes in his direction, as she and Ted both frantically try to draw Patrick’s attention to their sleeping children. “Wow, sorry,” he says in a near-whisper. “Didn’t realize it was naptime.”
“Hey, man,” Ted says. “Are you building something back there?”
“Just a shelf,” Patrick says, brushing at his thighs to dust off his jeans before sliding an arm around David; David’s arm slips automatically around his shoulders in turn.
“I also had a very productive afternoon,” David announces. “I helped Alexis and Ted through their child-rearing crisis.”
Alexis scrunches up her nose at him and rolls her eyes, but Ted says, “Hey, you know, Lex and I were thinking about getting a drink at The Wobbly Elm tonight. We were going to ask Twyla to babysit, but since you’ve got such good child-rearing skills, maybe you guys could watch the kids?”
Patrick is sort of vibrating with his effort to hold in his laughter while David raises his eyebrows at Ted, who just looks back at him with his typical thousand-watt smile fixed in place. Ted’s assertive side is usually pretty dormant, its periodic appearance often still a surprise - and apparently a pleasant one for his sister, who is looking at Ted, revoltingly, as though she’d like to eat him.
“That’s a great idea, babe,” she says, fluttering her lashes innocently at David.
“We’d love to,” Patrick says, wry in spite of the barely-contained chuckle in his voice. “Just text us what time we should be there.”
“Mmhm, we will,” Alexis says sunnily.
“We should trade, sweetie,” Ted tells her. “She’s too big now for you to carry her all the way back to the motel.”
Alexis nods, and then all of a sudden she’s depositing Bea into David’s arms so that she and Ted can transfer Jacob from his chest to hers. Bea’s fingers curl into his sweater and her nose presses into his neck. This marks the ninth time she’s ever slept on him, and it still startles him, the absolute relaxation of her limbs, the absolute trust inherent in someone treating you as their mattress and pillow. It’s been like this since their very first meeting, when she was seven pounds and four ounces in his awkwardly cradling arms, pink and vaguely alien-looking.
It was like Bea knew how much he loved her before he knew it himself.
When Alexis has Jacob’s carrier secured against her chest, swaying and shushing as the baby whimpers softly at having his slumber disturbed, Ted says, “C’mere, bumble-Bea,” and gently eases Bea out of David’s hold.
She sighs contentedly as she settles into her father’s arms, and reaches out a hand, brushing her fingertips against Jacob’s tiny foot, covered by a green sock. “Shh, Jakey,” she says, and to everyone’s surprise, the baby quiets, snuffling against Alexis’ chest before he sinks back into sleep.
“One cry per day,” David whisper-hisses at his sister, whose eyes are glistening dangerously. “Your children have already collectively exceeded the limit.”
Ted collects Bea’s dangling hand, kisses her palm, and loops her arm up around his shoulders. “We’ll see you tonight,” he tells David and Patrick.
“And tomorrow,” Alexis adds. A lone, rebellious tear has escaped and is tracing a lazy, zig-zagging path down one of her cheeks. David decides not to point it out, and Ted reaches over to brush it away without comment. “Still one o’clock at your place for lunch, right?”
“That’s the plan,” Patrick confirms, crossing the store to open the door for them. Ted thanks him and Alexis wiggles her fingers at them in a goodbye wave.
Patrick shuts the door, straightening the open/closed sign that hangs at the center of pane of glass. David frowns at his husband as Alexis, Ted, and the kids make their way across the street, Bea’s head lolling against Ted’s shoulder, a bag packed with baby things bumping against Alexis’ hip. “I don’t do diapers,” he reminds Patrick, in case he’s conveniently forgotten.
“I know,” is Patrick’s easy response as he leans against the display table that still features an unfinished arrangement of body milk. “I also know you’re going to miss them when they go back to the city tomorrow.”
David lines up the edges of the tins of mints that sit next to the lip balms. “Someone saner than my sister would want to raise her children in a sleepy little town, not a grimy city. It’s incorrect to stay in New York with kids.”
“I know,” Patrick says again, his voice brimming with understanding. He pushes away from the display table and takes three steps, stopping right in front of David and pressing a kiss to his mouth, his hand cupping the back of David’s neck, silently supportive.
David can’t quite look at Patrick directly when they pull apart, unable to bear the commiseration he knows he’ll see in his husband’s brown eyes. Instead, he looks at Patrick’s shirt, and lifts a hand to pick a larger wood shaving off of it. “How did this happen to you?” he asks. “You said IKEA was the simplest solution.”
“It is. I just - I put one of the screws in the wrong place, and then I really had to fight to get it out - ”
He cocks his head to one side. “So, you were just… back there… screwing things?”
Patrick slides him a look that David knows well and loves well: it’s a look that’s meant to be admonishing but that’s been overtaken by amusement and invaded by a curious hint of something that could become arousal. “Come back and help me move the shelf,” he says, stepping backward, putting distance between their bodies slowly. He turns around and adds, over his shoulder, “Then we can have another argument about why Bea’s still too young to watch The Lake House.”
“I’m trying to provide her with a cinematic education,” David says over his own shoulder as he hurries to flip the sign on the door over to closed. “Wait, Patrick - ” He frowns as he moves past the checkout counter. “That was some kind of innuendo, right? The shelf thing? Because you know that - ” He does a brief, dramatic stoop, even though Patrick can’t see him, “You know my back - ”
“Bring those biceps back here, David!” Patrick calls.
“Okay, I’m still unclear on if this is sexy,” David huffs, but he follows his husband into the store’s stockroom, intending to find out.
fin.