Chapter Text
A few days before the baby shower for Diana Lynch Belden and Martin Andrew Belden’s first born, James Winthrop Frayne II ambled into the local bookstore.
“Can I help you, sir?” One of the book store employees asked him a few minutes later, apparently noticing that he was wandering somewhat aimlessly.
“Yes, probably. I was looking for a book by Dr. Seuss.”
“Those will be in the children’s section, if you’ll follow me?” She said helpfully, leading the way. “Were you looking for a particular title?”
“I was hoping to find The Lorax,” Jim admitted. “My friends are having a baby, and we guys all agreed we’d get them our favorite books from our childhoods for the shower.”
“It’s not often I meet someone who fully appreciated The Lorax as a kid.”
Jim shrugged. “My dad was an environmentalist, so I grew up around a lot of the concepts. I think he probably started reading it to me for exactly that reason—it was a way to share his passion for his job in an age-appropriate way.”
“He sounds like a great father.”
“He was,” Jim agreed, swallowing down the pain that always bloomed in the wake of thinking about his father.
Jim knew by her expression that the saleswoman had heard the sad note in his voice, but she didn’t press. “Here we are,” she announced, having successfully led them to a shelf full of brightly colored and very familiar books. “The Lorax,” she said, handing him a copy of the book.
“Thank you,” Jim said sincerely, absently opening the book and murmuring the familiar phrases under his breath.
After a moment, he shook himself free of the memories, closing the book. He turned toward the checkout and saw a familiar figure walking his way. He smiled and waved to Dan. “Seuss is over here,” he told him.
“The Lorax,” Dan observed. “Good choice. Very you.” He scanned the shelves quickly and picked up a copy of Green Eggs and Ham.
“Don’t tell me you were so Irish growing up that even your favorite books were green.”
“Not exclusively,” Dan promised. “That said, my mother did tell a story about me throwing a tantrum one St. Patrick’s Day because she tried to read me an Irish St. Patty’s Day tale out of a book that didn’t have a green cover, and I wouldn’t have it and made her stop and read Green Eggs and Ham instead.”
“I believe that,” Jim admitted. “What do you think, are we all getting Seuss books for the parents-to-be?”
Dan shook his head. “Bobby’s going Peter Rabbit—though I think he sprung for a larger Beatrix Potter anthology. Not sure about Brian? I mean, I could see him being a Red Fish, Blue Fish kind of kid, but also Goodnight Moon, or The Giving Tree.”
“That one’s green, too,” Jim told him.
Dan laughed. “They only have to be green one day a year, since Mart and Di’s kid won’t actually be Irish.”
“And everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, so the Belden Juniors’ junior should be all set, right?”
“As long as Mart doesn’t ruin the kid by teaching words like ‘procreator’ before ‘mama’, we all should be all set.”
“I think Di laid down the law when Mart used one too many syllables while she was hormonal,” Jim confessed. “I think I heard something about a syllables-to-years ratio, so I think we’re okay for the first couple of years. By then we should know whether the baby inherited Mart’s affinity for words, or Di’s eye for art.”
“I don’t know if I can handle two walking dictionaries in my life,” Dan told his friend as they walked to the registers.
“All of our kids will do better on their college entrance exams, at least,” Jim replied, trying to look at the bright side.
Dan snorted. “Like any child of yours is going to be a slouch academically,” he pointed out, waving to Brian, who was coming in the entrance to pick up his own book for the parents-to-be.
🔍
Once they’d purchased their books, Dan suggested calling the others and meeting at Wimpy’s for dinner, but Jim shook his head. “Trixie said she wanted to cook for me for our anniversary, and we decided it’d be easier to make a special evening on the weekend.”
Dan shook his head. “You’ve been married a year and you’re already forgetting your anniversary.”
Jim snorted. “Neither one of us forgot anything. We mutually agreed to celebrate on a different day. Like holidays that are observed on the nearest weekday.”
“So, I should add to my calendar ‘Frayne Anniversary (Observed)’?” Brian asked, sounding dubious.
“If that’s what it takes to get me home to my wife before the dinner she’s making gets cold, then you do what you have to do,” Jim said, his words sounding harsh, but his tone playful.
🔍
Honey lay back on her bed. Just for a minute, she told herself. She had a few more things to finish up before changing into sleeping clothes and actually going to sleep, but right now she needed to pause, breathe, and just acknowledge the whirlwind her life was at the moment.
Had it been just February when she’d been a hair’s breadth from breaking up with Brian because she felt he didn’t or couldn’t make the time in his life she needed him to make for her? Had it been only three months after the trip to Australia during which they’d rekindled their faltering romance that she’d not just acquiesced but encouraged Brian’s plan to uproot his life and job to half way around the world? And it wasn’t any half way around the world. If he were going to some major metropolitan area half way around the world, given the resources at her disposal, she would be able to visit him any time she was able to carve out a three-day weekend. It’d be worth the jet lag to see him. But it wasn’t some major metropolitan area half way around the world. Even with the use of her father’s plane, she couldn’t get all that close to where he’d be by air, which meant she’d spend more of a three-day weekend in transit than she would with Brian. She’d at least need four days to break even, and at that point, she’d talk herself out of it, and wait until she could carve out a whole week or ten days. She wasn’t going to see much of him in person while he was over there.
Of course, that required getting him over there. She and Brian had spent the evening curled up in the library as she tried to help him wade through the legalese to figure out what sort of visa he needed, and what the rules would be. Open-ended visas weren’t, generally speaking, a thing, but there were renewable options, and some visas allowed him to work while others didn’t. They’d sorted that out, filled out the forms, printed copies, and requested an appointment at the consulate office in New York City. That had been a relief for Brian; he’d wanted to get his visa arranged far sooner, but when he’d gotten his passport out to begin the process, he’d realized it expired in nine months, so he’d had to renew that first.
They’d started to look at what the licensing requirements were in Myanmar for him to practice medicine, but Honey’s United States legal education had begun to falter as the hour grew later and they tried to interpret the intricacies of the Burmese laws. She’d documented a list of questions for Brian to take with him to the consulate to hopefully ask someone better versed in Burmese law.
And that will successfully get him into the country. How he was going to get his possessions and any medical equipment or supplies he hoped to take with him through the border was an as-yet mostly uninvestigated question. Honey knew she would want to send things to Brian while he was abroad, and couldn’t imagine a world in which Moms didn’t send care packages. Her father had let slip that Dr. Ferris was talking to a number of people around Sleepyside, and Honey suspected he was quietly working up a plan to keep Brian’s medical supplies stocked. If she sorted out what the rules were, there were plenty of folk in Sleepyside who would coordinate the logistics.
Honey stretched her arms above her head and then forced herself to get up off the bed. Di’s baby shower was in two days, and she had yet to wrap her gifts. Fortunately, the event planning had not fallen to her this time, though she’d helped as much as she could. Mrs. Lynch and Moms Belden were both thrilled nearly to death at their impending grandmotherhood and had taken full responsibility for the event. With cases picking up at the Frayne Wheeler Detective Agency, Honey had been happy to leave it to them and focus on her day job and her rekindled relationship with Brian, especially now that they were trying to make the most of the remaining months they’d have together in-person before their relationship became long distance and in person time once again became scarce.
🔍
As soon as the Bob-White men had finished setting up for Di’s (and Mart’s) baby shower, Mart flopped down in one the chairs. Chuckling under his breath, Dan leaned against the wall next to him. “Worn out by arranging some chairs?” Dan asked. “What are you going to do when baby D. M. is running circles around you?”
“Convince him or her that Uncle Dan is the best baby-sitter in the whole county, if not the whole state,” Mart replied promptly.
“Sure, that’s fair,” Dan replied good-naturedly. “I’ll just have to teach the little one to count back from a July birthday, 1, 2, 3…9 months would be, oh, say October. And since Mommy and Daddy’s first anniversary is after baby’s birthday….”
“It’s hardly a secret that the baby was conceived on our honeymoon,” Mart said. “What’s your point?”
“My point is, you clearly left out all the good parts when I asked how the trip was!”
Mart rolled his eyes. “I am not discussing the ‘good parts’ of my sex life with you, Mangan.”
“And that’s why I’m going to be the fun uncle,” Dan said smugly.
“You’re also going to be the age-appropriate uncle,” Mart informed him firmly.
Dan smiled angelically.
“Oh, I’m not worried,” Mart told him. “I know you’re a smart guy. What do you think Di’ll do to you if you’re not the age-appropriate uncle?”
Dan winced. “Okay, that’s a valid argument. Still doesn’t mean I’m going to stop teasing you about continuing the Belden tradition of honeymoon babies into another generation.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Mart agreed drily. “Do you think Uncle Andrew or Uncle Harold teased Dad about Brian?”
Dan considered for a moment and then shook his head. “I’m not sure they had that kind of relationship.”
“Who had what kind of relationship?” Brian asked, joining them after retrieving a cold soda.
“Mart was just wondering if any of your uncles teased your father as much as I tease him about the honeymoon of it all.”
Brian shook his head. “Uncle Andrew, maybe, but I doubt it. Uncle Harold? No way. Or if he did, it wasn’t friendly, like when you give Mart a hard time.”
🔍
“I may have gone a little overboard in the fabric stall at the market in Australia,” Honey confessed as Di unwrapped Honey’s baby shower gifts, a wrap/sling and a ceiling canopy for the nursery. Di was wearing the maternity dress Honey had made and gifted Di for her birthday, also made from fabric purchased on that vacation.
“The truth of it is that we couldn’t decide which of the fabrics to buy,” Brian admitted. “All three just called to us as being very ‘Di’.”
“They are perfect,” Di agreed. “Thank you both!”
Brian shook his head. “I don’t deserve any credit. At least not for anything other than failing to help Honey select one fabric from her three choices.”
“Well, and agreeing with me when I came up with the three ideas for the three different projects.”
Mart picked up the wrap and put it over his own head and shoulder. “Oh, I like this one. Most of the ones Diana’s looked at have been unnecessarily convoluted.”
“By which he means he gets tangled up in them and can’t figure out how to get them on, or off once I’ve untangled him,” Di explained.
Trixie picked up the next present, from Dan. Dan reached into the pile and picked out the presents from Jim, Brian, Bobby, Larry, and Terry as well, making a stack on the table next to Di. “You should open these six as a set. We men decided not to expect creativity of ourselves, so we consulted each other for an idea.”
Di opened Green Eggs and Ham, the Lorax, Goodnight Moon, and then Bobby’s Beatrix Potter anthology. At that, Mart groaned. “Bobby, come on!”
“Reading is important to childhood development,” Bobby said solemnly.
“Of course I want our child to learn to read, and am happy to read to him, but haven’t I read Peter Rabbit enough for one lifetime?”
“You’ve never read Peter Rabbit enough times,” Bobby declared passionately.
Di smiled and opened the two from her brothers, revealing Where the Wild Things Are and Corduroy. “Thanks, guys.”
“Now that we’ve had this terribly uncreative idea, you and Mart should probably let us know when the nursery bookshelf is full, because otherwise I’m thinking The Snowy Day is a perfect Christmas present for our nephew,” Terry confessed.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Di promised. “But I won’t argue against another round of books at Christmas. It’ll keep us from having to reread the same story over and over, at least until he’s old enough to ask for a favorite story.”
“Read! Read! Read!” Bobby snickered.
Mart glared at his brother, but it lacked heat.
“I think you should open this one now,” Trixie said, putting a present from one of Di’s coworkers in front of Di, to distract Bobby and Mart before they got into it over Peter Rabbit.
🔍
Jim moved his arm so that Trixie could curl up beside him on the couch. “I can’t believe Di’s due in just a week,” Jim admitted.
“Mart’s going to be a daddy. Who would have thought?” Trixie agreed.
Jim chuckled. “I don’t think Mart has any intention of being a ‘daddy’. I think ‘esteemed male progenitor’ is more his speed.”
Trixie laughed. “That poor child.”
They snuggled in comfortable silence for several minutes before Trixie said, “You want kids.”
“Last time we talked about it, so did you,” Jim replied, reminding himself to listen and not jump to conclusions before Trixie had even said anything.
“I do,” Trixie agreed. “Someday.”
“But you’re not ready yet, which is why we aren’t trying. Mart and Di are ready, which is why they’re having the first Bob-White Junior. We both sacrificed a lot for our careers, and there will come a point where the business you and Honey are building is stable enough to survive a maternity leave, but it’s probably not there yet. When it is, and we’re both ready, then yes, I want kids. That’s no secret. Someday is soon enough for me, right now.”
Trixie was silent for a minute and then whispered, “Thanks.”
“Did I do something that warranted a thank you?” Jim asked.
Trixie shrugged, burrowing deeper into Jim’s side. “In my head, I know that we’ve talked about all this before, and you really are okay with waiting a little bit to have kids, but, sometimes, especially lately, with watching how excited Mart and Di—and all of us, honestly—are about the baby, I get to feeling like I’m not exactly holding up my end of the agreement. Like we’ve been married—”
“Not even a year and a half, but of course we should have a whole nursery full of babies already,” Jim finished for her, brushing the stubborn curl that never stayed out of her eyes aside. “You’re too hard on yourself sometimes, Shamus. And, I can promise you, I don’t see any part of our relationship or marriage as an agreement you have to hold up your end of. It’s not one of Dad’s contract negotiations.”
Trixie nodded against his shoulder. “I know. Really, I do. Sometimes I just need to remind myself.”
“I’m happy to help remind you as often as it takes,” Jim promised.
🔍
Trixie’s phone rang just as she arrived home on Friday night. “Hello,” she answered, distractedly, more of her attention on getting in the door and greeting Jenna, who had bounded down the stairs to welcome her home.
“Trixie!” Mart cried enthusiastically. “You have to come to the hospital right now. Di’s having the baby!”
“She’s in labor?” Trixie clarified. Her due date was the following day, so Trixie wasn’t exactly surprised.
Mart huffed. “The biggest word I used was three syllables, Trixie. Keep up!”
Trixie laughed. “I understood what you said, Mart. But I thought the hospital said Di could have the dad-to-be and one other person in the delivery room, for moral support, and I thought that one person was going to be Moms.”
“Yeah, and I called her first. She’s on her way, like you should be!”
“And,” Trixie continued, ignoring her brother’s impatient interruption, “I thought first babies usually took a while, so we all agreed we were going to wait a while and make our way over slowly so that the waiting room isn’t flooded with the extended clan for hours upon hours. So why the sudden urgency for me to get over there?”
“Well…, um, you see…” Mart stammered, unnaturally tongue-tied.
Trixie started to laugh. “You’re ecstatic but also petrified and about as far from a calm, supportive presence as a loving father-to-be could be, and Di’s threatening to kick you out, before she even has a room to kick you out of, and you don’t want to get relegated to the waiting room alone,” she deduced.
She could almost swear she heard her almost-twin blushing. With a grin, she promised, “I’m on my way. Just let me bring my better half up to speed.”
Trixie hung up and gave Jim a kiss in greeting. “Mart?” Jim guessed when they separated, with a nod to her cell phone.
Trixie nodded. “It’s time.”
“The baby’s coming?” Jim said, a smile lighting up his face.
“The baby’s coming,” Trixie confirmed. “And Mart’s making Di crazy. Can you call Honey, and your folks, and Dan? I’m sure Di called her parents. I’ll check with Mart when we get there and call Brian and Bobby, if he hasn’t, and they weren’t home when he called Moms.”
Jim nodded. “It is kind of the baby to have waited for the weekend to make an appearance.”
Trixie grinned. “Not for those of us who thought his imminent arrival was going to be a perfect excuse to get out of work.”
Jim laughed. “You love your job just as much as I love mine,” he pointed out.
🔍
Mart was pacing in the hallway outside of the delivery ward when Jim and Trixie reached the designated waiting room. Trixie hugged her brother. “I’m so happy for you!”
“You’re the best little sister,” Mart countered, hugging her back.
“Jim’s going to call the Wheelers and Dan,” Trixie told him. “Should I call Bobby and Brian, or did they hear from Moms?”
“Bobby was home. Brian wasn’t, but he and Honey were supposed to have a date, so I’d bet he knows. Thanks for spreading the word,” Mart said, including Jim in his look of gratitude.
🔍
Mr. and Mrs. Lynch were the next to arrive, around the time Mart finally calmed down enough to sit still for more than a few seconds. He greeted them and then returned to his wife.
When Mart had told Trixie that the plan was for Moms to be the moral support in the delivery room, Trixie hadn’t thought twice about it; it made perfect sense. Seeing Mrs. Lynch sitting in the waiting room, Trixie had to revise her opinion. She opened her mouth to ask Mrs. Lynch, but Jim bumped her elbow with his and shook his head. Trixie closed her lips, realizing Jim was right: it wouldn’t have been particularly tactful of her to ask Mrs. Lynch why her daughter had chosen to have her husband’s mother, rather than her own, with her at the birth of their firstborn.
Mrs. Lynch caught her eye and smiled. “You’re curious why I’m waiting with you while your mother waits with my daughter,” she guessed.
Trixie nodded, but hurried to say, “It’s none of my business, though.”
Mrs. Lynch shrugged, still managing to look elegant. “There are two main reasons why I was…invited to remain in the waiting room. The first is that I am not at my best around blood. I nearly fainted when Diana was born.”
“You did faint when the boys were born,” Ed reminded her helpfully.
Mrs. Lynch nodded. “Diana would be worried about me, and I would likely divert at least one nurse’s attention from her.”
“That makes sense,” Trixie admitted. Moms wasn’t queasy about anything biological.
“It does. The second reason is that Diana and I have discovered, through out her pregnancy, that I am not as sympathetic as she might desire at times.”
Trixie felt confused and probably looked it.
Ed Lynch chuckled. “She means Diana threatened her with as much eloquence as she likely levied against young Martin when she threw him out of the room last, if Sherri told her ‘it could be worse; it could be twins’ one more time.”
Trixie couldn’t help but giggle.
“Truly, Helen is much better suited to this task than I,” Mrs. Lynch admitted. “It’s her first grandchild, too, and I don’t begrudge her the honor at all.”
🔍
Honey and Brian didn’t arrive for a couple hours. They had elected to go on their date as planned, knowing that the baby was likely still several hours from making an appearance, and both aware that the opportunities for such dates were rapidly dwindling as Brian’s departure date drew nearer.
“Did we miss anything?” Honey asked eagerly when they arrived.
Trixie shook her head, curls bouncing. “Mart has more energy than a five-year-old on Halloween. He’ll come back out and hang with us again in a little bit. He comes out whenever Di’s glares become threats, because she’s not finding his exuberance particularly helpful.”
“Moms is with them?” Brian confirmed.
Trixie nodded.
“Good, that’s good,” Brian murmured. “For both of them.”
“From what I’ve gathered, everything’s going well,” Jim relayed. “It’s all very dramatic, coming from Mart, but if you press him, he settles down, and he’s said that neither Moms nor any of the medical professionals seem at all concerned about anything, so I think even Di’s threats and kicking Mart out from time to time are still within the norm.”
Brian nodded. “The doctor who supervised my obstetrics rotation would say there are three types of dads at the moment a child is born into the world—and that it wasn’t our place, as doctors, to rank them. The first were absentee dads, the ones who weren’t there in the hospital when their child was born at all. The second were delivery room dads, the ones who were right there at their woman’s side, holding her hand, getting her ice chips, distracting her from the pain, doing everything right. And the third were the hallway dads, the ones who were just as supportive of their woman and their child as the delivery room dads, but weren’t cut out to be right there in the thick of it. She always reminded us that there were perfectly valid reasons to be each of the three kinds of dad, and one wasn’t better than the others, as long as the mother wasn’t expecting one in a different category than she got. Sounds like Mart might be what she’d have categorized a ‘hallway dad’, and like Di just might have known, hence her request for Moms to be in there with her.”
🔍
Dan glanced up at the big clock on the wall of the precinct for the seventh time in less than thirty seconds. “Geez, Mangan. You’re not usually so eager to punch out the second a shift’s over. Got a hot babe waiting for you?” One of the other officers asked him.
“Hope so,” Dan replied.
Spider looked up from the paperwork he was finishing up, surprised. He was usually one of the first to know when Dan had a woman in his life and Dan had been flying solo for the past month, to the best of his knowledge.
Dan smiled widely. “Di’s in labor,” he revealed, seeing his partner’s curious expression.
“Seriously? Congratulations!”
The officer at the next pair of desks snickered. “It’s not his, Webster.” He turned to Dan. “I mean, unless it is? That not-so-secret secret club of yours turn into something way more interesting when you all grew up?”
Dan frowned at the young officer. “The baby is definitely Mart’s,” he said frostily. “Honeymoon baby.”
The other officer just smiled amiably under Dan’s glare. “Good for them, then.”
Exactly two minutes and forty-three seconds later, Dan and Spider had clocked out and walked out into the parking lot. “Hey, Dan, don’t mind Carter, okay? No one with a lick of sense actually thinks there’s any chance the baby’s yours, or that the Bob-White meetings turned into some kind of crazy orgy after the girls graduated high school.”
Dan sighed. “I know,” he admitted. “About Carter. You think he’ll make it?” The officer who had commented so inappropriately was still in his six-month probationary period after graduating the police academy earlier in the year.
“Not my call to make,” Spider answered evasively.
“No, I know,” Dan said, “just wondered what you were thinking. Curious if you’re leaning the same way I am. First rookie we’ve had since me. Don’t know if I have instincts for what makes a good cop yet.”
Spider nodded but didn’t say anything for a moment. At last, he offered, “If you have to ask…”
“You already know the answer,” Dan finished. So, Spider’s not sold on Carter, either. Dan didn’t dislike the man, for all he was a far cry from politically correct. Carter meant well, he was just a little too quick to jump to conclusions and Dan worried about how that would serve him, and the department, when he didn’t have senior officers watching his every move, or when he was the senior officer. “Night, Spider.”
“You have a good night, too. And tell Mart and Diana congratulations from me.” Spider glanced back at the police department building. “From all of us.” He shook his head. “Can’t believe she’s old enough to have a kid. Either of them.”
“Can’t believe Di and Mart are old enough, or don’t want to think about the fact that Tad’s old enough?” Dan asked with a chuckle.
“Do not give him any ideas.”
Dan laughed harder as he unlocked his vehicle. “He already has them, Spider. Has since high school.”
🔍
Trixie had dozed off, leaning against Jim, but woke at the return of Mart’s excited voice. She yawned, wondering if it was still Friday, or if midnight had come and gone and they were into Saturday now.
She sat up straight at the look of pure joy on her brother’s face. “He’s here? Finally?” She asked.
Mart nodded enthusiastically, turning his attention to Mr. and Mrs. Lynch, and Peter Belden. “Do you want to come meet your grandson, Jonathan Wilson Belden?”
“That may be the silliest question you have ever asked, Son,” Peter told him. “There is no universe in which I wouldn’t want to meet my grandson!”
To the rest of them, Mart explained, “The nurses want us to keep the groups small, and quiet-ish, since it’s late, but Di and Jonny are both doing great, and Moms is still a saint.”
Trixie laughed. “Of course Moms is a saint. She’s put up with the four of us for all these years! Go on, go be with your son. We’ll wait our turns.”
Mart hugged her exuberantly, and then the rest of the extended clan that had taken over the waiting room, before he all but skipped down the hallway in the direction the Peter and the Lynches had done a few minutes earlier.
🔍
Brian held his nephew in his arms, smiling gently. Mart was so excited to be a father. As excitable as both of his brothers were, Brian knew Mart would settle down to be a good father. That wasn’t what concerned Brian as he held the newborn. His concern was for this little baby’s first sibling or cousin. He had no doubt that Mart and Di planned to have more than one child, and he knew Jim wanted children, so he doubted it would be long before Trixie and Jim brought their own bundle of joy into the world. But what if that next bundle of joy arrived while he was in Myanmar? Could he live with not meeting his next niece or nephew until the little one was already walking?
This so wasn’t The Plan. Brian still felt the same conviction he’d felt from the first time Sarai called him to confirm that Phil hadn’t survived the earthquake and tsunami that had devastated his village, but as his departure date grew closer, he was realizing more and more things that he was going to sacrifice to that conviction. Sarai had been right when she’d told him he was crazy. Tanner had been right when she’d agreed.
Brian treasured the moments he had right now, to hold his newborn nephew in his arms. The boy would be walking, maybe even talking, by the time Brian returned. His nephew wouldn’t remember him. Brian wasn’t sure he was okay with that, but there was no way around it. It was one of the costs of what he was going to do. He’d asked himself if he could live with not meeting the next little one within hours of their birth, but he had also asked himself on multiple occasions over the past several months if he could live with letting Phil’s dream die with him. Now he had to determine for himself which “no” was the louder “no” in his heart, and he’d have to hope that he actually could survive the other one, if it came to pass.
Mart took his son back. “There now. We don’t want you to learn to be too serious too soon. Uncle Bri’s a bad influence that way,” Mart teased, smiling at his boy.
🔍
Even with Honey’s approval, it wasn’t as easy as Brian had expected. Planning to spend at least a year, but not a concrete span of time, in southern Asia, was not as simple as a weekend in Canada. He filled out all the paperwork to obtain his visa, only to find the Myanmar consulate wouldn’t issue the visa until he had an arrival date. Once he had plane tickets, they pointed out that his passport expired seven months after his arrival, so he had to renew his passport, as policies required his passport expired at least six months after his undetermined “return” date.
At last, he had a renewed passport, a valid visa, and plane tickets. Then he turned his attention to packing. Despite numerous conversations with both Sarai and Tanner, he found it almost impossible to pack. A year—or more—was such a long time, and it wasn’t like he’d be able to just stop by the nearest Walmart, if he needed something.
“I don’t mean to sound unkind,” Tanner told him at last, in exasperation, “but, Brian, you’re not going to last three weeks, if you don’t give up holding on to First World conceptions of what’s required. Pack what you need. In a single suitcase. And then take half of it out, and don’t put it back.” And then do it again, and again, she wanted to suggest, but she didn’t. She really was thrilled that Brian was taking on getting the clinic rebuilt. She didn’t want the dream Phil had been so passionate about to die with him, but she knew without a doubt that she couldn’t do it all on her own. Phil could have, if he hadn’t been able to talk her into helping, but she wasn’t Phil. After the initial excitement wore off, she began to realize how little Brian understood what he was in for. Her fear was that Brian wouldn’t last long enough to bring the clinic to a point where she could carry it the rest of the way.
Her worry only grew when Sarai reminded Brian that he had to get his medical license recognized in Myanmar before he could practice, and that bringing any medical equipment through customs would require some additional forethought.
With Sarai and Tanner urging him on, Brian managed to get packed, and all the paperwork in order to bring his medical license and some supplies with him across international borders. Everything was settled in Sleepyside as well. There was only one more thing to do before he left: say goodbye. Naturally, his mother and the Bob-Whites organized a big party at Crabapple Farm, and invited nearly the whole town, and everyone else Brian had ever known that they could reach.