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Wilma is reading the book of Orcish baby names Digby picked up from the library when her mother comes to visit. She’s been expecting this visit (her Ma has always visited when there’s a new baby in anyone’s house, after all), but she didn’t realize it would be today. If she had, Wilma would’ve told her to come by tomorrow instead, when Digby and Gorgug were home and not at the pediatrician. She hops up to open the door, grinning despite this.
“Hey Ma! Oh it’s so good to see you.” Wilma pulls her mother into a tight hug, which she can’t help but notice is returned stiffly. “Come in, come in.”
“Wilma, dear, it’s good to see you.” Ma smiles, but it doesn’t fully reach her eyes. She follows Wilma inside, and refuses to look at the crib taking up a large portion of the living room.
“You sit down, I’ll put on some tea for us! Oh, and there’s fresh cookies, too.” Wilma calls over her shoulder as she steps into the kitchen. “It’s too bad you came by when Digby and Gorgug aren’t here, we’ll have to plan a day for you to meet your new grandson.”
“ Gor… You’ve already named him?” Her Ma calls back. She sounds worried, and Wilma can’t figure out why.
“Well sure! His biological parents named him, and Digby and I didn’t want to change it.” Wilma explains, coming back with a plate of cookies. “I was actually just reading about it, Gorgug is apparently a very sweet name!”
Ma’s face is twisted with worry, concern, and, Wilma notes with confusion, pity. Her eyebrows are knitted together in that sympathetic, almost condescending look mothers sometimes have when their child has made an understandable but ill-advised decision. Wilma remembers seeing it when she said she loved her first boyfriend, when she came home late from a party in high school, when she brought her Ma over to see her first apartment.
None of those choices felt like this choice feels. There is nothing about loving Gorgug, about choosing to raise him, that feels wrong or rushed or anything less than perfect. Wilma sees the way her mother’s eyes slide past the cradle nearly large enough to be an adult’s gnome bed, and she finally realizes what her mother is thinking.
Wilma decides not to mention that the Orcish baby name book says that Gorgug means Precious or Beloved, that this was one of the reasons why Digby and Wilma decided to keep his name unchanged. She doesn’t think her Ma will appreciate what that means. This baby was precious to the parents who couldn’t raise him, and he’s precious to them, too.
She hasn’t fully given up hope that her mother will change her mind. Ma raised Wilma to be kind and smart and strong, and that’s just what she is. But when Ma tries to (gently, sympathetically, condescendingly) convince her that it would be better for everyone if Gorgug was raised by someone (anyone) else, Wilma stays firm, and when Ma leaves Wilma is fairly certain she won’t be back.
Wilma sits back down with the baby book. Gorgug still needs a middle name, after all. The Orcish names sounded harsh and unfamiliar at first, but she’s warming up to them now. She finds one that means Resilience and thinks it’s perfect. The book says it’s a little outdated, but, well, Wilma and Digby are a bit old fashioned as far as gnomish names go, too. He’ll fit right in.
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Digby is in the workshop, sketching out plans to expand the treehouse, when his dad and grandfather stop by. He’s been expecting this (he called them, when they found out they’d be raising Gorgug, when the papers were all finalized, and asked them to come visit), but they’d been putting it off for so long Digby had almost given up on them.
“Dad! Pop!” Digby grins, dusting his hands off more out of habit than an actual need to clean them before jogging over to greet them.
“Hey Digs.” Pop grins in return, and something about it is a little off but he ruffles Digby’s hair just like he does every time, so Digby shrugs it off.
“Hope we’re not interrupting your project time.” Dad says, smiling. His smile is tense, too, and he doesn’t clap Digby on the back the way he normally does.
“Aw, nah, it’s fine. I can take a break!” Digby’s smile is fading, but he doesn’t want to let it go just yet. “Did you come by for any particular reason, or just feel like a visit? Wilma’s just put Gorgug down for a nap, but if you wanna meet him we can go see him. He’s a real heavy sleeper for a 3 month old, so we won’t bother him at all!”
Digby sees his father grimace and scratch at the back of his head. His grandfather smiles, a little sadly, and puts a hand on Digby’s shoulder. Digby lets his smile go. He knows where this is going. Still, he thinks he has to try. They raised him to be this way, they have to understand.
“That’s why we’re here, actually.” His Pop says, voice gentle. “There’s no easy way to say this kid, but…you know that baby’s not going to fit in your home.”
“That’s just what I was working on!” Digby ignores the second meaning behind his grandfather’s words, decides that if he wants to say something mean about his son, Pop will have to come out and say it bluntly.
Instead, he takes them into the workshop and shows them the plans he’s drawing up. If the Thistlespring tree is too small for Gorgug, then they’ll just have to make the tree bigger. Wilma and Digby had been thinking about adding on a couple extra rooms for a while now, so they already had the basic supplies and sketches. Plans have changed, sure, but that was to be expected. They had a kid now, after all.
His dad gets quieter and quieter. His grandfather gets sadder and sadder. Finally, when he’s finished explaining all the changes they have planned and launched into his child proofing strategies and the practical aspects of keeping Gorgug out of the construction sites, his dad stops him. He puts a hand on Digby’s blueprint, right over the biggest section, the one labeled “Gorgug’s Room.”
“Listen, Digby.” His father says, gruffly. “I…you know, I’m your dad, and I love you, so I get it. I know you love this baby, I’m not asking you to stop loving him. But don’t you think it would be easier, for you and for him, if you let an orcish family take him?”
It doesn’t feel easier to Digby. Let someone take his son away? It feels like the least easy thing he’s ever considered. Besides that, Digby isn’t sure that being easy has anything to do with raising a kid.
“I just don’t see your point Dad, I gotta admit.” Digby says with a frown. “I mean, if I’d been a half-orc instead of a gnome, wouldn’t you have raised me just the same?”
“Of course! Of course, bud, you’re right.” His dad says quickly, but Digby isn’t convinced.
Digby makes polite conversation as he walks them back out, says they should come back soon to meet Gorgug properly, says they’re always welcome to stop by the tree. He knows the offers are empty, that the odds of either of them coming back are slim. When his grandfather gently, always gently, says Digby should really think about what they said, Digby promises he will.
In his mind, he’s already reworking the expansion plans. It turns out they won’t need a guest room after all, which works out just fine. They can use that extra space to raise the ceiling on the kitchen, and make the bathroom bigger. Gorgug’s a growing boy, after all, and Digby wants to make sure his son has as much room as he needs.
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Wilma is building a new mobile for Gorgug when her uncle arrives. She’s so surprised (and confused) to see him at the door, it takes her a moment to set the colorful contraption to the side. She steps out on the porch, doesn’t invite him inside. Her uncle doesn’t seem bothered by this. If anything, he looks a little relieved.
They’ve never been close, Wilma and her uncle. He’s her mother’s brother, and she knows her Ma loves him dearly, but Wilma had always thought he was too strict. So she isn’t sure why he’s there, but she has a theory, one that’s quickly proven true when he starts to speak.
“So, your Ma asked me to come talk some sense into you.” Her uncle says bluntly, sighing. “You know she’s right. The kid’s too big, too strong, too angry. He’s an orc, it’s nothing personal but orcs and gnomes aren’t the same.”
Wilma says nothing. This man doesn’t know her, and he certainly doesn’t know her son. He may be big and strong, compared to a gnome, but he’s still a baby .
“You know we’ve got nothing against adoption. My kids are adopted, that’s why your Ma thought it would be a good idea for me to come over. Vince and Viktor, they’ve never been treated any differently than you or I. The point is, there are plenty of gnomes and halflings that need adopting, even a ding dang elf would be easier than a half-orc.”
Her uncle’s voice is flat, he knows as well as she does that this won’t work. Gorgug is 5 months old now. If she and Digby were going to give him up, they would have already. He’s going through the motions, so he can tell her Ma that he tried his best. Wilma has every intention of just letting him talk himself out, until he says something that hits a nerve.
“I mean, what are you going to do when he flies into a rage and breaks the whole tree apart?”
“I’ll build a stronger house!” Wilma snaps. If he thinks rage is what separates gnomes and orcs, then Wilma is intent to prove him wrong. “I’m a ding dang tinkerer , I build things! Digby and I, we’ll build stronger toys and a bigger house and a better family! So you can march right on out of here mister! If you can’t handle the heat, then that’s just fine, ‘cause we’re not looking for any more cooks!”
Wilma leaves him sputtering on the porch, shutting the door behind her. She takes deep breaths, humming a little tune to cool her head. Maybe her metaphor wasn’t the clearest, maybe her words were a little angrier than she intended, but she didn’t regret them, either.
She sits back down and picks up the mobile. She’d meant what she said, all of it, but she has to smile at how on the nose her reference to stronger toys was. The last mobile had been crushed, Wilma hadn’t realized he could reach up so high. But that’s alright. Her son is curious, interested in the world around him, and she can’t be anything other than excited about that.
So she’ll learn. This one is made of sturdier stuff, and she’ll hang it up higher. And if it breaks, she’ll build a new one. Wilma and Digby, they’ll keep building. It’s what tinkerers do , after all.
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Gorgug is 6 months old, and Digby is actually expecting a visitor this time. His little sister, Edith, is finally visiting. She’s been promising to come see them since the beginning, but her busy life in Bastion City just wouldn’t allow it. Digby is trying not to get his hopes up. So far, neither his nor Wilma’s family have been particularly great, but Edith was always Digby’s favorite.
Edith arrives just before lunch time, and Gorgug is immediately entranced with her. Digby feels a little guilty. They take him to the park and on walks, but he knows Gorgug isn’t getting as much social interaction as a baby probably needs. Digby can admit at least some of this is he and Wilma being overprotective. If their families can say such mean things, what might strangers say? Gorgug is still too young to understand most things, but all the books say babies are constantly learning, and Digby doesn’t want Gorgug to learn the wrong thing from cruel strangers.
To her credit, and Digby’s relief, Edith takes Gorgug’s interest in stride. She’s never really liked kids, but she’s never been mean to them, either. While she doesn’t want to hold him and does make a somewhat impolite comment about him smelling like a baby, Edith also sits next to him on the floor and rolls a ball back and forth for him. When Gorgug babbles at her, she nods and replies as if they’re having a very serious discussion, and when he reaches for her arm, she lets him hold it without hesitation.
Later, when Gorgug is napping, Digby sits with his sister and thanks her for visiting. He doesn’t say that the rest of the family have stopped coming or even calling, or that he’s stopped calling and visiting them as well. He doesn’t have to, as it turns out. She knows.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but they do kind of have a point.” Edith says, casually, as if this isn’t the most important thing in the world to Digby.
“You think we should’ve given him up and adopted a gnome instead?” Digby can’t help the hurt and shock in his voice.
“Woah! Wow, geeze, no way. That’s an awful thing to say.” Edith looks just as surprised. “I’m sorry Dig, they didn’t tell me that part. I just meant about him being way stronger than you. I mean, he could’ve broken my arm earlier. He didn’t, and he wouldn’t have meant to, but accidents happen, you know?”
Digby takes a deep breath. That’s a little better than what he thought she’d meant, but only a little. He doesn’t know how to convince his family to stop looking at Gorgug as something dangerous instead of his son. Edith would probably say he can be both. Digby doesn’t want to hear it.
He changes the topic, and they don’t talk about anything serious for the rest of Edith’s stay.
She returns to Bastion City, and her busy life, and they talk less and less. Digby invites Edith back, knowing she’ll be too busy to come. Edith invites Digby to visit her, knowing that there isn’t room in her apartment for Gorgug. It isn’t the hard and fast break that the rest of the family got, but something a little slower, a little more natural.
After Edith is gone, Digby hears Gorgug wake from his nap. He goes to see him, smiles down at his son. Gorgug reaches up, wraps one hand around Digby’s and holds on. His grip is tight, but he’s as gentle as a baby can be. Digby knows he would love him just the same if he wasn’t.
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Gorgug is 17, and they are expecting company. A lot of company. Digby is laying out platters of food, making sure there’s plenty to go around. Wilma and Gorgug are pulling chairs out of storage, arranging them around the fire pit outside. One of the many benefits of having their son grow through so many sizes is that they have chairs for every size friend he has, and their parents. Only Gortholax will be left without a seat, but he’s assured them he doesn’t mind sitting on the ground.
As they arrive and take a seat by the fire, Gorgug’s friends and their families fill the air with laughter and chatter. Their eyes are bright and kind, and they look at Gorgug the way Digby and Wilma always hoped others would. Not like something to be feared or pitied, not a mistake, not too big or too strong or too angry. Just a friend, a family member, someone sweet and curious and maybe a little awkward. And yes, he’s big and strong and angry, but not too much, just the right amount, because that’s the amount he is. It’s part of him, and his family loves every part of him.
Wilma looks with pride at how well the chairs have held up over the years, comments on her craftsmanship. They’re sturdy, built to last, just like their family. Digby looks up at the tree, thinks about the plans he once had for a guest room. Now that they have people worth having over, he’s finally revisiting those plans. Around them, the night is full of laughter and stories and kind words from their family. The family their precious, resilient son built. He is a tinkerer, after all. That’s what they do.