Train Tracks

(This epilogue happened because someone sent me a link to this piece by Thomas Wightman and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Also, I’m a sucker for doubling down on HEAs.)

His name was Hailey and he was almost three years old, with wide blue eyes and brown hair that curled a little bit behind his ears. The first time Martin saw him, in the picture the social worker sent, he stopped breathing and just said, “Oh.”

“What?” Seb’s voice called through the open studio door.

“Email from Cheryl.”

Seb nearly hopped the couch in a single bound. He shimmied next to Martin, making him laugh, before Seb’s eyes centered on the laptop screen and he said, “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Martin was shaking, and glad that Seb had basically wedged him between Seb’s body and the arm of the couch. The sensation grounded him as he looked into the eyes of their son. 

“He’s a bit older than you said you wanted,” Seb said.

Martin didn’t care. They’d told Cheryl that they would prefer a baby, but suddenly the age didn’t matter. Not when Martin stared at the little boy clutching the blue Thomas the Tank Engine in chubby hands. He wasn’t quite smiling, but he was looking directly at the camera in a self-assured way Martin rarely felt in his own adult life.

“He’s ours.”

They said they’d sleep on it, but by three in the morning, as they both continued to toss, Seb growled and got up, stomped out to the living room to grab his laptop and sent a three word email.

Send more information.

Then he crawled back into bed, wrapped himself around Martin, and didn’t let either of them move until the sun came up.

Adoption had been an almost painful odyssey of endless waiting, interspersed by flurries of activity that often ended as abruptly as they’d started. Like the birth mother who had been days away from delivering when she’d suddenly decided she would keep her baby, despite all her previous reassurances to the child welfare team on her case—and indirectly, Seb and Martin—that she had no interest in being a mom. Martin had been grief stricken when Cheryl had called them with the bad news, and Seb had locked himself in his studio for two days, only coming out when Martin finally called Oliver for back up.

But with Hailey, there was no birth mom to change her mind. He’d been in foster care since he’d been born, and while his foster parents loved him, Child Welfare was ready to send him somewhere permanent. And the flurry started all over again. Paperwork, interviews. They’d gone to visit Hailey in his foster home and Martin had been so awestruck he’d barely said anything, while Seb had made small talk with the foster parents. Then Hailey and his foster parents had come to visit Seb and Martin, which had been a whole new level of chaos as they’d come to the realization of how very un-childproof the apartment over the gallery was. Martin had called in Brian and Jess for reinforcements that time. The twins were starting to walk, and Brian had some great tips on how to protect children from themselves.

All in all, it was shaping up like this was going to happen. Seb and Martin were going to be parents.

“What if he doesn’t like us?” Seb said, lying in bed one night.

“Of course he’ll like us.”

“I don’t like my parents.”

Martin rolled his eyes, kissing Seb’s chest and pressing both their hands over Seb’s heart. “You are not your father.”

But when the call came in that their paperwork was going through and Hailey was coming to live with them, Seb’s face went completely pale.

They had ten days to get everything ready, furniture purchased, the last of the apartment organized.

Martin was much calmer than he would have thought he’d be. They were going to be parents. If anything was going to send him spiraling into all the possible worst-case scenarios, raising a child had to be the most likely. And yet, with every drawer and cupboard he put a lock on, and with each of Seb’s delicate pieces that he put up on a higher shelf, out of toddler reach, this grounding sense of certainty came over him.

They were going to be a family. And life as a family would be messy and ugly and they’d feel in over their heads more days than not, but he and Seb and little Hailey were going to do it together and in the end they would figure it out.

Except, as the day for Hailey’s arrival got closer, Seb started to pull away.

At first, it was little things. He came to bed later. Or he wouldn’t leave his studio to eat dinner with Martin. And then Martin would wake up and the other side of their bed was still cold and the sheets unmessed. As the week wore on, Seb spent more and more time in his studio, and became less and less communicative, as Martin tried to run through to-do lists and make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything.

“He’ll be okay,” Oliver said, when Martin called him, worried. “You know how he gets. Once Hailey arrives, he’ll throw himself into parenting with everything he has. Consider this his last artistic hurrah without any preschooler interruptions.”

Finally, the day before Hailey was supposed to arrive, Martin started to panic.

They were making a mistake.

They weren’t even married. He still didn’t know how they’d gotten approved without being married.

And what did they know about raising children? Yes, they’d done all the adoption classes and spent hours reading and talking to other people in their online adoption support group. But what did they really know about keeping a small human being alive?

And Seb was still shut up in his studio.

Martin hesitated at the door. Seb didn’t usually care if Martin came in to speak to him while he was working, but when he got like this—reclusive, uncommunicative—sometimes Martin felt like he was intruding, even if Seb never said anything to indicate Martin wasn’t welcome.

Still. They had twenty-four hours to go and Martin needed help.

“Seb?” He knocked, feeling stupid.

No answer. 

“Seb?” He knocked again. His heart swelled in his throat. He was alone. Seb wasn’t in there. He was gone. Might not come back. Cheryl would be here tomorrow with a child and his clothes and toys and instructions and Martin would—

The door flung open. Seb’s hair was a mess, and he smelled like varnish and sawdust.

But the second his gaze locked with Martin’s, his focus centered. “What’s wrong?”

Martin opened his mouth, but words didn’t come out.

“Hey.” Seb put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

Martin swallowed. “He’s coming.”

Seb’s eyes widened. “What? Now?”

“No, tomorrow.”

“Right, tomorrow, and?”

Martin picked at the hem of his shirt. He was overreacting. Seb was still here, everything would be fine.

“Are you nervous?” Seb said.

Martin nodded.

Seb kissed him. Really kissed him. Hands on both Martin’s cheeks, lips pressed against his. Their breaths mingled, and Martin wanted to grab onto everything that was Seb and hold on for dear life.

“I’m sorry,” Seb said against his lips.

“For what?”

“I’m nervous too. And I need some space to—It’s a lot, right? He’s going to be ours, no matter what, and I don’t—My dad never—”

Martin laced their fingers together, kissing Seb’s knuckles. Family was such a complicated subject for Seb. “But you’re sure? You haven’t changed your mind?”

“I haven’t changed my mind.” Seb’s dark blue eyes were steady. “We can do this. Together.”

Martin bobbed his head, trying to swallow. He felt better with Seb in front of him, but the anxiety percolating under his skin felt like it could boil over at any moment.

Seb gave him a gentle smile, so at odds with the hard smirk that had been his trademark when they met. He’d matured over the last few years. Softened. He’d never exactly be lovable, but Martin had come to think of him the way most people thought of their cats. An asshole to pretty much everybody, but completely devoted to those they considered their people.

And Seb’s people was Martin.

And tomorrow Seb’s people would also be Bailey.

Their hands were still intertwined, and Seb pulled Martin through the studio door. “Come here.”

“Why?”

“I want to show you what I’ve been working on. It’s for Hailey.”

The studio was a mess. Shreds of paper littered the floor, and two empty varnish cans were in the sink.

But the table was completely clean, except for Seb’s new piece.

Two books lay open, their covers fixed at ninety degree angles. Seb had carved an arch through the vertical pages on each side, like a tunnel.

A paper train, complete with a boxcars and an old fashioned caboose, trundled through the tunnel. It even puffed paper steam from the stack on the engine.

“Oh,” Martin said.

“Is it okay?” Seb said quickly. “It’s okay right? I mean I know he’s little, and sometimes I freak out when you touch my stuff, but it’s supposed to be bookends, right? So we can put it up on a shelf where he can’t reach, but he can look. And he likes trains, so I thought he’d like this. Maybe he’ll like books too.”

Martin might have gotten a little misty while Seb talked. The earnestness, the uncertainty when Seb was the king of bullshitting his way out of an uncomfortable situation, were the best kind of endearing.

Martin turned the book with the engine, watching as tiny lumps of paper coal settled in the coal car. His partner really was a genius.

And this was his way of claiming Hailey as his people.

Martin slid his arm around Seb’s and rested his cheek on Seb’s shoulder. He waited, talking long breaths, while the tension vibrating in Seb’s body slowly settled, taking the last of Martin’s anxiety with it.

“We’re going to be fathers tomorrow,” he said.