Chris and Andre

It seemed we were all awake early on Sunday morning to take Jackson to the airport.

While we were eating breakfast Jackson told us, “Thanks for letting me come up here to visit you. I’ve enjoyed it so much. Being with the awesome4some was an absolute blast. Ollie, I loved helping with your surprise birthday party. It was so much fun.”

Ollie interrupted, “It sure was. Thanks again for helping organize it.”

“You’re welcome champ. I also learnt so much hanging out with Tyron and working with him. Thank you for paying me for that. That was something I never expected.” He paused, “And thanks for letting me stay here with you. You know I was supposed to stay with Uncle Michael but here was much more fun.”

Ollie was smiling ear to ear. “I’m happy you stayed here. I like my big brother.”

I commented, “At the time it felt like you’d enlisted everyone to your side to get us to agree, but really we’ve all loved having you stay here. Next time there will be a guest room and yes, it’ll have a big bed.”

A knowing smile filled Jackson’s face “Thank you. I love you all.” He then hugged each of us.

 

With everyone in the car I turned onto the Central Coast Highway, then joined the M1 and headed south. We turned off the M1 onto the Pacific Highway and followed it through the harbour tunnel and onto the motorway south towards the airport.

I stopped at the entrance to departures, and we all alighted. Jackson pulled his backpack and suitcase from the boot, and we all gathered on the footpath. Jackson thanked us again and hugged us.

His last hug was with Ollie and it lasted longer than with us. Finally, he broke the hug and wearing his backpack he wheeled his suitcase towards the entrance. Inside the doors he turned and waved. Ollie held his hand up in a frozen wave. The doors closed and Ollie turned towards us, his lower lip trembling.

I wrapped my arm around him as he started to cry. “I know you enjoyed having him with us and will miss him but he’s not walking out of your life. You’ll continue to chat and he’ll visit again.”

Andre waved his set of keys. “I’ll drive. You two get in the back.”

I sat with my hand on Ollie’s shoulder and reassured him that Jackson would always be part of his life. They had bonded as brothers during the two weeks they were together.

At Chatswood we turned off and parked in Westfields so we could have some lunch and coffee. We all had burgers, coffee for us and a smoothy for Ollie. The break for lunch helped settle Ollie. It did remind us that Ollie was still fragile and needed our ongoing love and support.

When we were back in the apartment, Ollie received a message from Jackson saying he had arrived home. Jackson’s father, Paul, phoned saying Jackson was back home and thanking us for looking after him.

Then we had a family discussion about having to move to the townhouse so work could start on combining the two apartments. We weren’t as excited as we should have been because we were feeling very settled in this apartment. With all the activity over the past three weeks it had started to feel like home. For Ollie it was convenient for school and close to friends. For Andre and me it was extremely convenient for work. After much discussion we all agreed that we all still wanted the bigger apartment. We made sure to include Ollie in these discussions. We were seeing ourselves as a family unit.

It was a week before Beau had a team that could start on the apartments. We packed everything we wanted in the townhouse into our two cars and transported it across. Beau’s team moved the furniture and remaining items into the meeting room in Andre’s shop.

Ollie loved that he had his own bedroom furniture and that it was furniture he had selected for himself. He even used his desk for doing homework. Importantly he filled the room with all his birthday presents, except of course the bike, and the cinema vouchers, which he had already used.

Each morning the three of us would drive over to the shops in one of our cars. Ollie would catch the bus to school with Riley, Cooper and Sophie. In the afternoons Ollie and Riley would have something to eat and then play and do homework until Andre and I had finished work. It turned out to be a routine we fell into very easily.

One morning in the second week back at school, I received a call from Palmdale telling me that the plaque was finished and had been positioned on the grave. When Ollie arrived back from school, I told him and asked if he wanted to go and see it. His eyes lit up and yes, he wanted to see it.

Riley had listened to the conversation. “Can I go with you to Palmdale?”

“Yes, Dad Chris, can Riley come with us?”

“He can if his mother agrees. I’ll give her a call.”

I phoned Ashley while I walked next door to tell Andre. She agreed and the four of us drove out to Palmdale. We found Dan’s grave easily. The plaque was affixed to a concrete block which was set into the ground, just below the level of the neatly mowed green lawn. It was obvious that it had only happened today as the grass hadn’t settled in around the concrete block and some dark brown soil was still visible.

Ollie looked at the plaque, took a photo on his phone, and read the wording out loud as if to reassure himself that it was real. “Thank you, Dads Chris and Andre. You did it.” His eyes watered.

“Ollie, how about the three of us move over there so you can have a moment to yourself.”

There were tears. “Thanks.”

We moved away and like last time Ollie sank to his knees and lent forward talking into the grave.

Riley turned towards us, “What’s he doing?”

“He’s telling his dad what been happening.”

Riley slowly nodded, “I understand. It must be really bad to have your dad die. I hope my dad doesn’t die. I think it’s good that Ollie has you now.”

 

We dropped Riley off at his home and drove home to the townhouse. Inside Ollie hugged us again. “Thank you for the plaque and for taking me out there. Dad’s happy now and happy I’m with you. He suggested something, if it’s OK with you.” He paused and his lower lip quivered. “He told me that he will always be my father, but now you are really my dads and I should be your son.”

We wrapped our arms around him, “We love being your dads and you being our son.”

He clung onto us and sobbed happy sobs. When the sobs subsided he pulled back a bit and looked at us, “Thanks Dad Andre and Dad Chris. I feel better now.” His stomach grumbled, “But, I think I need dinner.”

Andre and I chuckled. “No problem, son. Go and change out of your school uniform while we get something ready.”

Bedtime rolled around and Ollie came into the living area wearing his pajamas. Yes it was winter. “I’d like you to tuck me in tonight.”

“Sure, we’d love to.” We followed him into his bedroom. He climbed into bed and slid under the covers. I straightened the Log Cabin quilt, ruffled his hair and kissed his forehead before saying goodnight. He smiled broadly as Andre performed the same bedtime ritual. Ollie looked up still smiling, “Goodnight Dads.”

“Goodnight son.”

Our relationship had moved to another level as a family.

 

Ollie was liking school and tests showed he was doing well and part of that was because he and Riley were spending some time in the shops studying together after school.

Andre and I were both working in our shops and getting used to the builders working upstairs. Andre was quickly picking up clients, largely because of it being tax time. He also had clients seeking financial advice. My work was also picking up and I seemed to be busier than before. Tyron was establishing a profile and that helped. I wanted him working for me but I also wanted him to be successful at university. Andre was telling me I could afford to employ another part time person. Another Tyron. I will need to talk to him.

We were all busy with work and almost before we knew it, Lachlan and the others had returned from their European holiday. As expected, that was an excuse for another BBQ. This was just a family affair which included all the grandparents who had looked after William. That meant another round of us being questioned about when we were going to get married. Still no pressure of course!

Standing next to Skye I inquired, “Now that Carol and Helen are back, I suppose we are back to the old babysitting roster.”

“No. Our mothers have taken charge. They want to share the whole five days a week. They said they’ll work out which days between them. They told me they wanted to make sure William was ‘properly’ looked after.” She rolled her eyes.

I laughed, “So Beau, Andre and I don’t get a say in this?”

“Chris you know Carol and Helen. They’ve made up their minds, but I gather that you and Andre could be their backup if needed.”

“I understand what you’re saying, and I’ll drop over William’s quilt. You can use it with him.”

“Thanks. I loved the photo of him on it. The quilt is so beautiful, and William looks gorgeous on it. Please give me her contact details so I can thank the lady who made it.”

 

Strangely I missed looking after William once a week and watching him grow. On the other hand we now had Ollie who was having his own growth spurt which gave Andre an excuse to take Ollie shopping for new clothes.

Beau advised us that work on the apartment was progressing faster than they anticipated but there would be a delay with the deck and the bathrooms. Beau confirmed that the bathroom off our room would have a shower big enough for four.

We were asked if we wanted to paint the apartment ourselves. While we would have liked to do that, we were both far too busy, so again we used the same painter who had painted Andre’s shop.

 

Four weeks later we were standing outside the door to our now finished but empty new apartment.

“Well, shall we go and have a look?”

“Dad and Beau said they want to walk through with us to ensure everything is correct.”

“They can still do that later. Besides Beau gave me our new keys.”

Like kids, we opened the door to our apartment. Yes, our apartment was ready for us to move into. I took hold of Andre’s hand and we entered. It was empty and the smell of fresh paint hung in the air, but we could imagine our furniture in each room as we walked through. It seemed bigger than we had expected and we loved the colours we had selected for the walls. Ollie had participated in the discussions about colour and had the final word on the colours in his bedroom.

We stood at the entrance to our bedroom. We had chosen a corner room with windows on two sides. The eastern windows would welcome the morning sun. We checked the bathroom. The shower was a copy of the one I had in the townhouse, except it was bigger and had more shower heads.

Standing in the centre of the bedroom I held both of Andre’s hands and looked into his beautiful eyes. “Well, what do you think about our apartment?”

“I love it. It’s even better than I expected. And it’s ours’. You and me and Ollie. What about you?”

“Same. It’s our place and better than I hoped. I love that we have our home and I love you being here with me. I love you so much, Andre.”

We kissed. “And I love you back.”

We were still holding hands. “I’m so happy. I’m with the man that I love and he loves me back. We have Ollie in our lives and now we are standing in our home. There’s just something else that would make this perfect.”

“Ohh?” He looked at me waiting for me to finish.

“Babe, will you marry me?”

He released my hands and stepped back while maintaining eye contact. Then just as quickly moved forward and wrapped his arms around me in a loving embrace. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Of course I’ll marry you, babe. Nothing would please me more.” We kissed. “Honestly, I’ve been wanting to ask you but hadn’t worked out the best time or place.” He looked around the room. “But what place could be more perfect than our future bedroom.”

“The timing might have been better if the bed was already in here.” We both giggled and then kissed.

“Chris, there’s something else. I want to marry you, really want to marry you. I can’t help wondering if we want to do this now because it is right for us, or are we doing it for Ollie, so we can adopt him?”

I wrapped my arms around him and moved so we could kiss. “Andre, I’ve also been wondering the same thing, so I did some research. We can adopt Ollie without being married. Once we have fostered him for a year we can apply for adoption. Of course, it has to be approved but being married isn’t a requirement. As far as I’m concerned, deciding to marry now is because it is the right thing for us to do.”

This time, Andre gave me a very passionate kiss. I so wished the bedroom was furnished.

“I should have known you’d check that before asking me. I so love you. Yes, I’m ready, and want us to marry.” He stepped back and looked at me. His face developed this playful grin as he held up his left hand. “Did my fiancé forget to get a ring? And I thought you were a romantic.”

I enjoyed this side of Andre, “Sort of. I thought about getting a ring but neither of us are jewellery wearers.” He playfully looked at his ringless hands and put them behind his back. “So, I didn’t have any idea what sort of ring would please you. I couldn’t just buy a ring without you knowing and just expect you to wear it. It didn’t feel right for it to be just my decision. Babe, the rings have to be our decision. Both of us.” I reached for his hands, lifted them and kissed each one, paying special attention to his ring finger. “Now we’ve agreed to marry, we can take our time and choose our wedding rings together. Just like we are together, they will be rings that we agreed together will represent what we mean to each other. And I believe they will be the only rings that we ever wear.”

“I was wrong. Even without an engagement ring, you still have a romantic streak. I love that about you.” We kissed again and then wiped each other’s happy tears.

Andre wiped his eyes and smiled. “We need to celebrate.”

“I put a bottle of champagne in the fridge at home.”

“Oh! So you were sure I’d agree.”

“I was hopeful. Very hopeful.” I kissed him again.

“I suppose we should start telling people.”

“I thought just a quiet dinner with the three of us to celebrate, and then start telling people.”

“If we tell Mum she’ll make sure the rest of my family know.”

“You’re not wrong there. We can then start telling everyone else.” We both laughed.

 

We descended the stairs and found Ollie and Riley standing at the bottom. Ollie asked, “What have you been doing?”

“The apartment’s finished. Want to have a look?”

Ollie almost jumped. “Wow, yeah. Can we do it now?”

At the door Ollie went to use his key. I stopped him. “Sorry champ, that key doesn’t work anymore. We have a new lock.” I handed him a key “Try this one. It can be yours.”

We entered and Ollie went straight to his room, followed by Riley. Riley was in awe of the room, and it wasn’t long before we heard “Awesome, you’ve got your own bathroom. I want to have a shower in here. Will you let me?”

“Sure, whenever you have a sleepover, you can shower in there.”

After Ollie and Riley had looked around the apartment, Riley went home and we entered the shops to lock up before driving to the townhouse. It was also our opportunity to tell Ollie our news.

Andre started, “Ollie we’re going to celebrate tonight because we’ve got some really good news.”

Ollie’s face lit up and he waited excitedly to hear the good news.

“Chris and I have decided to get married.”

Ollie nearly knocked us over as he hurled himself at us and hugged us.

“Wow. Awesome. That’s my dads. When? Where? Who’s invited?”

“Slow up champ. Chris and I only agreed this afternoon. We don’t have everything planned yet.”

“Can I video it?”

“Hey, we can discuss all that later. Tonight we want to celebrate.”

He was excited, “Yeah, let’s celebrate.”

I added, “Ollie, Andre and I have a bottle of champagne to celebrate with, and you can’t have any, so how about if you choose what food you’d like to have to celebrate.”

Ollie thought and then said, “You won’t laugh at me, will you. I like all the food you cook but it’s been a long time since I’ve had a ‘snack pack’. I know it’s silly but I like them especially with cheese and BBQ sauce, and I’d like one tonight to celebrate. Oh, and can I have a Viennetta ice cream cake too?”

I looked at Andre for an explanation.’

“You haven’t had a ‘snack pack’ have you.” He was enjoying this.

“No, I haven’t, but if that’s what Ollie wants to celebrate with, let’s do it. What will we have?”

“We may as well have doner kebab wraps, then we can purchase everything at the same time. I think we’ll need two Viennettas. I like them as well.”

Back in the townhouse I opened the champagne, Ollie opened a coke and we sat around the table eating our doner kebab rolls and ‘snack pack’. It wasn’t the celebratory dinner I envisaged but what the heck. We were all happy with our decision, and we were enjoying ourselves.

After handing each of us a serve of Viennetta, Andre put his phone on speaker and called his parents. His mother answered and after we all called out our greetings, Andre told them our news. They were both thrilled and congratulated us. Of course, Lachlan had to call out, “Chris, you did it. You’re getting him hitched,” which had us all laughing. That is after I explained it to Ollie. After we clarified that we didn’t have any wedding details planned yet, it wasn’t long before the call ended.

I called Michael on speaker and told them our news. After Michael and Jamie had congratulated us, Michael asked how we were celebrating.

After I told them, Michael commented, “That’s not like your usual celebratory meal.”

“We asked Ollie to choose.”

Before I could continue Jamie called out, “Good on you Ollie. I like ‘snack packs’ too but my doctor doesn’t want me to eat them.”

Ollie naively asked, “Why doesn’t your doctor want you to eat them, Uncle Jamie?”

Jamie was giggling, “Because he’s my husband and he thinks I’ll get fat.”

Michael interrupted, “Ollie, it’s OK to have a ‘snack pack’ to celebrate but don’t have them all the time. OK?”

“Cool. Uncle Michael I love dads’ cooking so I’d only have them on special occasions.”

“Good thinking, Ollie. We should have you all over to our place so we can celebrate with you.’

“Can we all sit around the fire again? I’ll bring my guitar.”

Jamie responded, “Cool Ollie. I’ll make sure we have the fire going.”

We had just concluded the call when Beau and Skye phoned. Yes, Carol had started telling everyone on her contact list. Skye and Beau were thrilled and congratulated us. They were looking forward to the wedding, which reminded us we needed to start planning for it.

Next, we called my parents. It was a surprisingly short call because my mother wanted to start calling everyone she knew with the news. What is it about mothers and impending weddings?

By the time all that was out of the way, it was time for bed. With Ollie safely asleep in bed after having his dads’ goodnight tuck in, we had our own dads’ good night celebration, starting with a joint shower.

 

As the apartment was finished and approved by Beau and Lachlan, we were able to move in. We had enough experience with moving back and forward and with the help of friends and a removalist we settled easily into our now, permanent home.

Ollie’s friends, including Cooper and Bradley, all rallied around and helped him set up his new bedroom and decorate it with his posters. It was when I found a pile of wet towels in the laundry that I discovered that all of Ollie’s friends wanted to experience his shower. “One at a time,” he assured us.

We all loved the new apartment. We made use of the furniture from the townhouse and from the temporary apartment. There was some surplus that Beau and Skye happily accepted.

 

It was the Tuesday afternoon a week after we moved in when Elizabeth and Ronald knocked on the door to my shop and entered. I looked up from by workstation, “Hi, I wasn’t expecting you, but you are both always welcome. Would you like a coffee?”

Elizabeth responded, “Coffee sounds good.” Ronald nodded. “Is Andre around?”

“Yes, he’s next door. I’ll call him.” I picked up my phone as I went to make the coffee.”

With our coffees made and Tim Tams we all sat in my reception area.

“If you want to talk to Ollie he won’t be home for about half an hour.”

Ronald commented, “We need to talk to Oliver, but we need to talk to you first.”

He was serious, so I was worried. What was going on? Was there a problem with us and Ollie? We were both tense.

“What’s happened?”

Elizabeth answered, “Yesterday, Oliver’s mother died from an overdose.”

Andre and I looked at each other wondering the same thing, “Are the police treating it as suspicious?”

Again, Elizabeth answered, “Not at this stage. It looks to be accidental, but they are still awaiting forensics and toxicology results. This information is just for you. It seems she was at a party yesterday afternoon at a neighbour’s house, involving drugs and alcohol. She was accompanied at the party by her two sisters and the neighbour. When the neighbour’s husband came home, he found three of the women unconscious or comatose, including his wife, and one of the sisters was totally out of it and giggling. He called the ambulance and they were all taken to hospital. Oliver’s mother couldn’t be saved. The other three women are still in hospital. One is still critical.”

We were all silent. A silence that was broken by Ronald. “You understand that we have to tell Oliver. We’ve both seen you with Oliver and believe it will be best if you are with him when we do that.”

We both nodded. “As always, Ollie will have our full support through this.”

There wasn’t much conversation as we finished our coffees, but Elizabeth did comment on my new work office. Andre explained that we had moved into the new apartment upstairs and offered to show them through it. As it was where Ollie was now living they both agreed. They were suitably impressed.

We were about to descend the stairs when we met Ollie returning from school with Riley. Ollie introduced Elizabeth and Ronald to Riley, explained who they were and added, “They’re probably here to check where I’m living and make sure I’ve got a bedroom.”

Elizabeth said, “Oliver’s right that we’re here concerned about his welfare. It’s been nice meeting you Riley, but we have to have a chat with Oliver.”

“OK. I’ll see you later Ollie.”

“Yeah, see ya.”

Back inside the apartment, Elizabeth started softly, “Oliver, we’ve got some bad news for you.”

Ollie defensively moved between us, “You’re not taking me away from my dads are you?”

We held him reassuringly as Andre said, “Don’t worry Ollie, you are staying with us.”

Elizabeth continued softly, “I’m sorry to be telling you this Ollie, but you mother died last night”

Ollie grabbed hold of both of us. “Drugs?” he asked.

Elizabeth was very compassionate. “Yes, Ollie. It looks like an accidental overdose.”

Ollie continued to hold onto us. “It’s his fault. She didn’t really do drugs until she met him.” The tears rolled and his voice quivered. “The fucking bastard. I hate him. I hate the bastard. He raped me and now my mum’s dead because of him.” His crying turned into bawling.