Lowell

Chapter 2

So, I was thinking," Lowell said to Hanna who hummed back. She was engrossed with the evil of changing a baby's diaper. "We don't want to give him a name that will get him mocked, but what about something sort of evil." Hanna gave him a stern look. "Hannan Lowell. It's a name that has a bit of both of us in it."

For as much as Hanna loved the man, she had always found he was a well of stupidity. "We are not naming him Hannan."

"That's fine!" Lowell chirped. "I thought of others. How 'bout Hank?"

"No."

"Hansel?"

"No."

"Hanford?"

"No."

"Hal."

"No."

"Havoc."

"No! Try something that doesn't have an 'H."'

"Alvin?"

"Alvin? Are you even trying?"

"It doesn't have an 'H'."

She looked at his eyes and sighed. "Did you sleep last night?"

He just grinned that large-lopsided grin of his. "Not a bit! I was too excited trying to think up names."

Hanna laughed and pinched his cheek. "But, obviously to sleep deprived to think up any good ones."

Lowell smiled and looked at his child laid out on the table. He was just so happy. He'd wanted to be a father for a long time. Sure, the circumstances sucked, but he'd take what he'd been given. "I'm going to spoil him rotten once we get to Myorzo." He pulled her in and kissed her. "And once things have calmed down can we try for a daughter?"

She pulled out and shook her head. "Oh, I don't know. Lowell, could you handle having three brats to spoil?" She jabbed at his arm.

He reached for her and swooped her up in his arms. "Well, if we have a daughter I can just spoil her more. That way Isabelle can know she's my favorite."

She laughed. "So, we're just deciding on Isabelle?" And yanked at the red antennae jutting from his head. He yelled out in pain and dropped her.

He pouted and curled into the fetal position on the bed. "You're easily the most infuriating woman I've ever met." Another thought crossed his mind. "I got it! Yurisily Lowell!"

She snorted. "No."

"Why not?" He whined.

"Because it sounds like you're saying 'you're easily Lowell'." She took the baby in her arms. "But, I think we're on the right track." Her eyes lit up. "Yuri! Yuri Lowell."

Their eyes both lit with joy and sleep deprivation. It was perfect. "But his middle name can be Hannan, right?" Hanna caved in and kissed her poor fool.

On the morning after the death of his parents, it was an elderly nun who found him on her steps. "Just because we're a church doesn't mean we take runts off the street." She smoked her pipe and looked over the kid for any sort of identification. The blanket wrapped around the baby was a decent quality and a name was sewn onto the bottom poorly. Whoever did that was dismal with needlework. "Yuri Lowell." Not a name from around here as far as she knew. And the kid was a newborn. Probably, only a few days old. Damn. Couldn't throw this one out. But, hey, babies were good for business. People liked to donate more if it went towards feeding a cute kid. If they were lucky they could unload the child on some poor sap in a few years.

Four years passed very quickly and the nuns who raised the boy came to think of him as a troublemaker not worth it half the time to raise him. He was what many called a boomerang child. Taken into a home only to return in some cases as quickly as a week. The complaints were always the same.