Bestest Buddy Chapter 11-b: Play Date
Bestest Buddy Chapter 11-b: Play Date
unbetaed and so forth...
Liz Chu arrived at the House/Wilson home at 4 PM sharp. She didn’t expect Sammy to be waiting for her on the front porch, and of course, he wasn’t. Of course. She had to smile. Her little tornado-child was rarely where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there, except when it worked to his own advantage. She put the Jeep in park, and slid out of the vehicle.
The front door opened just as she was about to knock. James Wilson, David’s handsome “other daddy” grinned at her with those adorably odd front teeth. “They’re packing up now.” He pushed open the screen door and ushered her in to the great room.
“I hope he wasn’t any trouble,” Liz said, bracing herself for a litany of offenses.
Wilson shrugged. “No…” He gave her a puzzled look. “They played the whole time. I actually had to stop them to give them a snack. Oh - I hope that was okay.”
Liz’s eyes went wide. “Oh, I meant to mention - I packed a snack for Sammy in his knapsack. Damn!”
Chuckling to himself, Wilson shook his head. “No, you didn’t have to do that - we…we actually keep food … you know, in the house?”
Liz rolled her eyes at Wilson’s joke. “Oh. No - you see, Sammy’s got a lot of food issues. He’s ADHD, and he goes nuts when you give him sugar. And the little weasel didn’t offer any information, did he?”
Wilson raised an eyebrow. “Really? Are you sure?”
Liz nodded.
“’Cause the boys must’ve eaten half a dozen cookies each.”
“Really?” Liz gave Wilson a bewildered look. “Usually, he’s bouncing off the walls after he gets into the cookies. His dad’s got a sweet tooth, so we keep a stash in our bedroom.” She smiled slightly. “We’ve taken to it keeping under lock and key.”
“Wow - you have to lock it up?”
Liz nodded again. “He’s actually tried to pick the lock.”
“Hypoglycemic?” Wilson knew that untreated hypoglycemics were sometimes known to behave like drug addicts, seeking sugar any which way.
“No, he’s just hyperactive, and sugar sets him off, according to our doctor.”
House limped in from the hallway that led to David’s room with a boy on either side of him.
Liz Chu noticed right away that her little boy was beaming up at Greg House. “That was fun!” He exclaimed. “I had a lot of fun! Can I come back next Saturday?”
‘Awkward,’ Liz thought. ‘He’s gonna wear out his welcome real fast.’ “Honey, we’ve got plans next Saturday. But perhaps we can have David over sometime soon, okay?”
Sammy sighed his disappointment at her, but didn’t dwell on it. “Okay. Anyway, Mom, we had fun!”
“That’s great Sammy.” She leaned down to her wild-child and whispered, “Remember to thank your hosts.”
“Oh yeah!” Perfunctorily, he shook hands with House, Wilson and David, then recited, “Thank you very much for inviting me over to play.”
Wilson’s eyes twinkled his amusement at Liz, and answered, “You’re welcome to come back anytime, Sammy. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”
Immediately, Sammy whipped his head around to peer at his mother. “See Mom, I can come back - why don’t we cancel…?”
Liz turned on her ‘Can it, right now,’ expression.
Sighing, Sammy took the handful of action figures that David was carrying for him. “Okay, okay. Bye David.”
On the way home, Sammy chattered about his visit. Liz was thankful that her son didn’t have a chirpy little voice when he got like this. She could listen to him for hours. “They’ve got a baby grand, Mom. It’s really coooool.”
“Yeah, and House plays duets with David all the time. Really complicated stuff. I wish Dad and I could play duets. That would be fun.” He looked away, out of the window for a moment.
“Well, maybe you will when you’re a little older, you know, once you’ve gotten really good at it.”
Sammy shrugged. “I don’t think I can ever get good enough to play with Dad,” he told her flatly. “Anyway, we only played for a few minutes. Mostly, we did secret agent stuff. House had some old-fashioned walkie-talkies, and we used them out in the back yard. House is cool.”
“Did Dr. House tell you that you could call him that?” Liz wanted to be sure her son was being polite.
“Oh, yeah. House and Wilson. That’s what David used to call both of them. Did you know that David was adopted?”
Liz shook her head. She’d suspected that might be true. But she’d also wondered if handsome Wilson was David’s dad - their hair was nearly the same color - or if they’d managed to adopt the boy as a couple. “No, honey, I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, and know what else?”
“What?”
“He just got adopted in the spring. Just a few months ago.”
“Wow, that’s something.” Liz was surprised. She’d assumed that David and his family had been together for a much longer time.
“Hey Mom, know what else?” Sammy was fiddling with the flap of his knapsack, little brow furrowed in puzzlement.
‘Here it comes,’ Liz thought to herself. “What’s that, honey?”
“He’s got two dads.”
‘Here we go,’ Liz continued in her own mind. “Yes, Sammy, I know.”
“Really? Isn’t that weird, though?” Sammy had thought it was really weird. He didn’t know any kids with two parents of the same sex. Not counting step-parents, that is.
He had asked David while they were having their snack, after Wilson left them at the kitchen bar.
“Who’s the guy with the cane?” Sammy stage-whispered as he twisted apart the two sides of a vanilla sandwich cookie.
“My dad. You can just call him House.”
“Oh, I thought the other guy was your dad.”
“He’s Wilson.”
“Well… who is he?”
“Uh…Wilson lives with us.” David hadn’t given much thought to how he should introduce Wilson to other people. If Wilson had been a woman, well, that would be easy. Nobody cared about that - it would be ‘mom,’ ‘stepmom,’ or ‘my dad’s girfriend.’. But people were touchy about two guys together the way Daddy and Wilson were. Still, David was proud of his family, and he decided on the spot that “being himself’ to Sammy meant not hiding something this obvious and important from him. If they were going to truly be friends, then there was no way he could hide Daddy and Wilson from Sammy..
Then David added: “He’s like my dad, too.” There was a pause during which neither boy spoke.
“What I mean is…Wilson belongs to us. He’s ours.” He attempted, struggling with his explanation. “Like your dad belongs to you and your mom.”
Sammy was frowning, but it wasn’t an ‘I’m disgusted’ kind of frown. It was an ‘I’m trying to understand you’ kind of frown. “So you have two dads instead of a dad and a mom?”
“Yeah.” David held his breath, waiting for Sammy to hate him. When the other boy didn’t say anything for several seconds, he picked up a butter knife and started scraping one of his twisted-open cookies with it.
“Oh… Hey, what are you doing with your cookies?”
“I’m taking out the insides.”
“Why don’t you scrape ‘em off with your teeth. See?” Sammy demonstrated the classic sandwich cookie-eating technique that he thought all kids knew and used.
David wrinkled his nose a little. “Nah, I don’t like to eat that part.”
“You. Don’t. Eat. The insides?”
“Nah, too sweet. Anyway, too much sugar is bad for you. I just like the cookie part.”
“That is the gayest thing I ever heard a kid say in the history of history, David.”
“Is not!”
“Too. You sound like my granddad.” Then Sammy started speaking in a shaky, pretend old-man voice “‘It’s too sweet… I’ll get cavities in my false teeeeeth…’”
David didn’t respond to that. He was hoping that Sammy was just kidding, and not teasing to hurt his feelings. He was never sure with other kids, but he knew it was best not to react until he knew for certain. He picked up the napkin onto which he had scraped the creamy sugar fillings and started for the garbage can.
“Well, don’t throw them away, I’ll eat your insides!”
David snickered as he dropped the napkin on the countertop in front of Sammy. “And you think what I just said was gay?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind…”
Then their conversation meandered onto what they would do after their snack, and Sammy temporarily forgot all about the two dads thing.
“Did you say that to David?” Liz asked, slightly alarmed. “Did you say it was weird that he had two dads?”
Sammy merely shook his head. “Nah, I didn’t think that would be nice.”
Liz reached over and ruffled her son’s hair. “Good boy.” She turned into the first parking lot she could find and stopped the Jeep.
Sammy turned in his seat, his eyes wide, eyebrows raised. “Mom? Why did you stop?”
She took a breath. “We have to talk, honey.”
“Oookay.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and swiveled around so that he could look at his mother. They often had talks, usually about his wild behavior. Sammy knew that his record was mostly clean today, so he was very interested in what his mom had to say.
Liz took a breath to compose herself and exhaled it slowly. “You know I don’t like it when you tell lies, right?”
Sammy searched his memory for any possible lies he might have told recently. “Right. And I haven’t told any lies, Mom, I swear.”
“I know you haven’t sweetheart.” Liz patted her son’s thin little knee. “This isn’t about anything you’ve done.”
Relieved, Sammy nodded. “Okay.” He waited for the next thing his mom would say.
“I don’t want you to tell a lie about this, but I don’t want you to tell your dad about House and Wilson right now, okay?”
Now Sammy’s brow was furrowed. “I can’t talk about them? What am I gonna say if Dad asks me where I was all afternoon?”
“No…no, honey, I mean I don’t want you to mention David’s two daddies. That he’s got two men for parents.” She watched her son’s face for his reaction. “Okay?”
Sammy lowered his eyes. Liz was afraid of this. Sammy could lie like a big old dog, but he sucked at keeping track of his fibs, so he mostly didn’t bother. She hoped that he could manage an omission for a short time.
“Why, Mom?”
Liz sighed. ‘Hang in there, girl,’ she told herself. “Well…because some people are very…uncomfortable about gay people.” She watched her son’s face carefully. “Your dad isn’t exactly comfortable, and I need to talk to him about this first, okay?”
Sammy’s eyes went wide again. “Is it wrong, Mom? Two guys, I mean? Is it a bad thing?”
She shook her head. “No, sweetheart. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Nothing.” She took his hand. “Some people don’t like it; some people think it’s wrong, being gay, but I don’t agree, and there are lots and lots of other people who don’t agree that it’s wrong. How can loving somebody be the wrong thing to do?”
Sammy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Did you think that Dr. House and Dr. Wilson were bad people?”
“No!” Sammy shook his head emphatically. “No - they’re really nice. I had a good time!.” He looked up into his mother’s gray eyes. “I like them, Mom.”
Liz reached out and gathered her son into her arms. “You’re a sweet boy, Sammy.”
“Aw, Mom!” Sammy pushed her away and glanced around to make sure no one saw them. “You’re not supposed to do that outside of the house,” he reminded her.
Liz chuckled. “Sorry, Sammy.”
“Mom, you said that they’re gay. Isn’t that a bad thing?” Sammy had just told David that not liking too much sugar was gay. He though the word meant the same thing as ‘lame.’
Liz got serious again. “No, Sam. And I know what you’re thinking. Some kids say ‘gay’ when they’re putting something down, but that’s really a newer, screwy way of using the word. It’s not very nice at all, either. I don’t want you saying that, especially to David.”
Sammy immediately vowed never to use the word ‘gay’ in that way again.
“Mom, if Dad doesn’t like it, does that mean David can’t be my friend? The boy asked.
“You let me talk to Dad about it first, okay? I’m sure I can make him understand about David’s family.”
“But is he gonna be mad?” he persisted.
Liz shrugged, but replied, “I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“But if he says I can’t be David’s friend, I’m really going to be mad at him.” Sammy told his mother. “For a long, long time. Why does he have to ruin everything for me?”
Liz shook her head. She hated that the relationship between her husband and son was so lousy. “I don’t want you worrying, honey. You just let Mommy deal with this.” She turned the key in the ignition and reached over to grab the end of her son’s seatbelt.
“Okay,” Sammy replied uncertainly. He flopped back into his seat and let his mother buckle him back in again.
unbetaed and so forth...
Liz Chu arrived at the House/Wilson home at 4 PM sharp. She didn’t expect Sammy to be waiting for her on the front porch, and of course, he wasn’t. Of course. She had to smile. Her little tornado-child was rarely where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there, except when it worked to his own advantage. She put the Jeep in park, and slid out of the vehicle.
The front door opened just as she was about to knock. James Wilson, David’s handsome “other daddy” grinned at her with those adorably odd front teeth. “They’re packing up now.” He pushed open the screen door and ushered her in to the great room.
“I hope he wasn’t any trouble,” Liz said, bracing herself for a litany of offenses.
Wilson shrugged. “No…” He gave her a puzzled look. “They played the whole time. I actually had to stop them to give them a snack. Oh - I hope that was okay.”
Liz’s eyes went wide. “Oh, I meant to mention - I packed a snack for Sammy in his knapsack. Damn!”
Chuckling to himself, Wilson shook his head. “No, you didn’t have to do that - we…we actually keep food … you know, in the house?”
Liz rolled her eyes at Wilson’s joke. “Oh. No - you see, Sammy’s got a lot of food issues. He’s ADHD, and he goes nuts when you give him sugar. And the little weasel didn’t offer any information, did he?”
Wilson raised an eyebrow. “Really? Are you sure?”
Liz nodded.
“’Cause the boys must’ve eaten half a dozen cookies each.”
“Really?” Liz gave Wilson a bewildered look. “Usually, he’s bouncing off the walls after he gets into the cookies. His dad’s got a sweet tooth, so we keep a stash in our bedroom.” She smiled slightly. “We’ve taken to it keeping under lock and key.”
“Wow - you have to lock it up?”
Liz nodded again. “He’s actually tried to pick the lock.”
“Hypoglycemic?” Wilson knew that untreated hypoglycemics were sometimes known to behave like drug addicts, seeking sugar any which way.
“No, he’s just hyperactive, and sugar sets him off, according to our doctor.”
House limped in from the hallway that led to David’s room with a boy on either side of him.
Liz Chu noticed right away that her little boy was beaming up at Greg House. “That was fun!” He exclaimed. “I had a lot of fun! Can I come back next Saturday?”
‘Awkward,’ Liz thought. ‘He’s gonna wear out his welcome real fast.’ “Honey, we’ve got plans next Saturday. But perhaps we can have David over sometime soon, okay?”
Sammy sighed his disappointment at her, but didn’t dwell on it. “Okay. Anyway, Mom, we had fun!”
“That’s great Sammy.” She leaned down to her wild-child and whispered, “Remember to thank your hosts.”
“Oh yeah!” Perfunctorily, he shook hands with House, Wilson and David, then recited, “Thank you very much for inviting me over to play.”
Wilson’s eyes twinkled his amusement at Liz, and answered, “You’re welcome to come back anytime, Sammy. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”
Immediately, Sammy whipped his head around to peer at his mother. “See Mom, I can come back - why don’t we cancel…?”
Liz turned on her ‘Can it, right now,’ expression.
Sighing, Sammy took the handful of action figures that David was carrying for him. “Okay, okay. Bye David.”
On the way home, Sammy chattered about his visit. Liz was thankful that her son didn’t have a chirpy little voice when he got like this. She could listen to him for hours. “They’ve got a baby grand, Mom. It’s really coooool.”
“Yeah, and House plays duets with David all the time. Really complicated stuff. I wish Dad and I could play duets. That would be fun.” He looked away, out of the window for a moment.
“Well, maybe you will when you’re a little older, you know, once you’ve gotten really good at it.”
Sammy shrugged. “I don’t think I can ever get good enough to play with Dad,” he told her flatly. “Anyway, we only played for a few minutes. Mostly, we did secret agent stuff. House had some old-fashioned walkie-talkies, and we used them out in the back yard. House is cool.”
“Did Dr. House tell you that you could call him that?” Liz wanted to be sure her son was being polite.
“Oh, yeah. House and Wilson. That’s what David used to call both of them. Did you know that David was adopted?”
Liz shook her head. She’d suspected that might be true. But she’d also wondered if handsome Wilson was David’s dad - their hair was nearly the same color - or if they’d managed to adopt the boy as a couple. “No, honey, I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, and know what else?”
“What?”
“He just got adopted in the spring. Just a few months ago.”
“Wow, that’s something.” Liz was surprised. She’d assumed that David and his family had been together for a much longer time.
“Hey Mom, know what else?” Sammy was fiddling with the flap of his knapsack, little brow furrowed in puzzlement.
‘Here it comes,’ Liz thought to herself. “What’s that, honey?”
“He’s got two dads.”
‘Here we go,’ Liz continued in her own mind. “Yes, Sammy, I know.”
“Really? Isn’t that weird, though?” Sammy had thought it was really weird. He didn’t know any kids with two parents of the same sex. Not counting step-parents, that is.
He had asked David while they were having their snack, after Wilson left them at the kitchen bar.
“Who’s the guy with the cane?” Sammy stage-whispered as he twisted apart the two sides of a vanilla sandwich cookie.
“My dad. You can just call him House.”
“Oh, I thought the other guy was your dad.”
“He’s Wilson.”
“Well… who is he?”
“Uh…Wilson lives with us.” David hadn’t given much thought to how he should introduce Wilson to other people. If Wilson had been a woman, well, that would be easy. Nobody cared about that - it would be ‘mom,’ ‘stepmom,’ or ‘my dad’s girfriend.’. But people were touchy about two guys together the way Daddy and Wilson were. Still, David was proud of his family, and he decided on the spot that “being himself’ to Sammy meant not hiding something this obvious and important from him. If they were going to truly be friends, then there was no way he could hide Daddy and Wilson from Sammy..
Then David added: “He’s like my dad, too.” There was a pause during which neither boy spoke.
“What I mean is…Wilson belongs to us. He’s ours.” He attempted, struggling with his explanation. “Like your dad belongs to you and your mom.”
Sammy was frowning, but it wasn’t an ‘I’m disgusted’ kind of frown. It was an ‘I’m trying to understand you’ kind of frown. “So you have two dads instead of a dad and a mom?”
“Yeah.” David held his breath, waiting for Sammy to hate him. When the other boy didn’t say anything for several seconds, he picked up a butter knife and started scraping one of his twisted-open cookies with it.
“Oh… Hey, what are you doing with your cookies?”
“I’m taking out the insides.”
“Why don’t you scrape ‘em off with your teeth. See?” Sammy demonstrated the classic sandwich cookie-eating technique that he thought all kids knew and used.
David wrinkled his nose a little. “Nah, I don’t like to eat that part.”
“You. Don’t. Eat. The insides?”
“Nah, too sweet. Anyway, too much sugar is bad for you. I just like the cookie part.”
“That is the gayest thing I ever heard a kid say in the history of history, David.”
“Is not!”
“Too. You sound like my granddad.” Then Sammy started speaking in a shaky, pretend old-man voice “‘It’s too sweet… I’ll get cavities in my false teeeeeth…’”
David didn’t respond to that. He was hoping that Sammy was just kidding, and not teasing to hurt his feelings. He was never sure with other kids, but he knew it was best not to react until he knew for certain. He picked up the napkin onto which he had scraped the creamy sugar fillings and started for the garbage can.
“Well, don’t throw them away, I’ll eat your insides!”
David snickered as he dropped the napkin on the countertop in front of Sammy. “And you think what I just said was gay?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind…”
Then their conversation meandered onto what they would do after their snack, and Sammy temporarily forgot all about the two dads thing.
“Did you say that to David?” Liz asked, slightly alarmed. “Did you say it was weird that he had two dads?”
Sammy merely shook his head. “Nah, I didn’t think that would be nice.”
Liz reached over and ruffled her son’s hair. “Good boy.” She turned into the first parking lot she could find and stopped the Jeep.
Sammy turned in his seat, his eyes wide, eyebrows raised. “Mom? Why did you stop?”
She took a breath. “We have to talk, honey.”
“Oookay.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and swiveled around so that he could look at his mother. They often had talks, usually about his wild behavior. Sammy knew that his record was mostly clean today, so he was very interested in what his mom had to say.
Liz took a breath to compose herself and exhaled it slowly. “You know I don’t like it when you tell lies, right?”
Sammy searched his memory for any possible lies he might have told recently. “Right. And I haven’t told any lies, Mom, I swear.”
“I know you haven’t sweetheart.” Liz patted her son’s thin little knee. “This isn’t about anything you’ve done.”
Relieved, Sammy nodded. “Okay.” He waited for the next thing his mom would say.
“I don’t want you to tell a lie about this, but I don’t want you to tell your dad about House and Wilson right now, okay?”
Now Sammy’s brow was furrowed. “I can’t talk about them? What am I gonna say if Dad asks me where I was all afternoon?”
“No…no, honey, I mean I don’t want you to mention David’s two daddies. That he’s got two men for parents.” She watched her son’s face for his reaction. “Okay?”
Sammy lowered his eyes. Liz was afraid of this. Sammy could lie like a big old dog, but he sucked at keeping track of his fibs, so he mostly didn’t bother. She hoped that he could manage an omission for a short time.
“Why, Mom?”
Liz sighed. ‘Hang in there, girl,’ she told herself. “Well…because some people are very…uncomfortable about gay people.” She watched her son’s face carefully. “Your dad isn’t exactly comfortable, and I need to talk to him about this first, okay?”
Sammy’s eyes went wide again. “Is it wrong, Mom? Two guys, I mean? Is it a bad thing?”
She shook her head. “No, sweetheart. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Nothing.” She took his hand. “Some people don’t like it; some people think it’s wrong, being gay, but I don’t agree, and there are lots and lots of other people who don’t agree that it’s wrong. How can loving somebody be the wrong thing to do?”
Sammy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Did you think that Dr. House and Dr. Wilson were bad people?”
“No!” Sammy shook his head emphatically. “No - they’re really nice. I had a good time!.” He looked up into his mother’s gray eyes. “I like them, Mom.”
Liz reached out and gathered her son into her arms. “You’re a sweet boy, Sammy.”
“Aw, Mom!” Sammy pushed her away and glanced around to make sure no one saw them. “You’re not supposed to do that outside of the house,” he reminded her.
Liz chuckled. “Sorry, Sammy.”
“Mom, you said that they’re gay. Isn’t that a bad thing?” Sammy had just told David that not liking too much sugar was gay. He though the word meant the same thing as ‘lame.’
Liz got serious again. “No, Sam. And I know what you’re thinking. Some kids say ‘gay’ when they’re putting something down, but that’s really a newer, screwy way of using the word. It’s not very nice at all, either. I don’t want you saying that, especially to David.”
Sammy immediately vowed never to use the word ‘gay’ in that way again.
“Mom, if Dad doesn’t like it, does that mean David can’t be my friend? The boy asked.
“You let me talk to Dad about it first, okay? I’m sure I can make him understand about David’s family.”
“But is he gonna be mad?” he persisted.
Liz shrugged, but replied, “I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“But if he says I can’t be David’s friend, I’m really going to be mad at him.” Sammy told his mother. “For a long, long time. Why does he have to ruin everything for me?”
Liz shook her head. She hated that the relationship between her husband and son was so lousy. “I don’t want you worrying, honey. You just let Mommy deal with this.” She turned the key in the ignition and reached over to grab the end of her son’s seatbelt.
“Okay,” Sammy replied uncertainly. He flopped back into his seat and let his mother buckle him back in again.