In Drummer Heaven

First Word

It's the first week of August and Tommy is home for about a month. I think he missed Avery more than he missed me but he won't every admit to it. I'm happy he's home, Tommy always picks up the slack when he's home and I get more sleep than I usually do. Tommy takes the midnight feedings and when Avery wakes up in the middle of the night so I can sleep and so he can see his daughter. It all works out really well.

I walk down stairs and into the kitchen to see Tommy sitting in front of the high chair with Avery facing him. He's making faces at her, Avery starts to giggle and I smile. I hug him from behind and kiss his cheek.

"Hey babe." Tommy laughs.

"I missed you." I say and kiss his cheek again. "I love you."

"I love you too." He says and kisses my lips. "I missed you so much. I missed you and Avery so much, I've never hated tour so much."

I kiss his lips again and he kisses me back. We only pull apart when we hear Avery making little kissy noises and we start laughing. When I look over at her Avery starts laughing.

"She has your sense of humour, babe." I tell my husband and he laughs.

"Yeah, I can't deny that one." He admits. "But she's beautiful like you."

"Thank you, baby." I grin and kiss his cheek again.

"Mm, I missed you." Tommy mumbles and kisses my lips again.

We kiss for a little while and Avery makes little kissy noises again. This time we don't pull away until we hear:

"No!"

We pull apart and look at each other then look at our seven month old daughter. Avery smiles and we laugh.

"What did you say?" Tommy asks.

"No." She says again.

"Has she ever done that before?" He asks and I shake my head.

"Not once." I assure him.

"So that's her first word?" Tommy asks and I nod.

"Yeah." I admit, kinda in shock.

"No." Avery says again and we laugh.

"She's got your attitude problem, Darc." Tommy tells me with a laugh.

"I don't have an attitude problem." I say and then I hear it a bit.

"No." Avery says again but drags out the 'o'.

"See? Avery agrees with me." I say and he shakes his head.

"Now she's going to stop saying it." Tommy laughs and the phone goes off.

"I'll get it." I say and release my grip on my husband.

Tommy goes over to get Avery out of her high chair while I go to answer the phone. I pick up the phone.

"Hello?" I answer into the phone.

"Darcy! Can you and Tommy and Avery come over?" Dani asks.

"Why? What's wrong, D?" I ask and Tommy looks up.

"Long story, your cousin Amy found a baby girl in the USSR who is about two months old, we're going to adopt her." She explains and I smile.

"D, that's great!" I beam.

"Remember how my dad is old fashioned in a sense?" Dani asks.

"Yeah." I say.

"I'm not sure how he's going to react to CC and I adopting a baby from a socialist country." Dani admits. "And the whole Cold War thing won't help the matter."