The good thing was that it was "just" next door. The bad thing was that half the time, one place or the other was sitting empty. Usually I'd get up on Saturday mornings and have to clean house -- actually finding everything dustier than when I'd lived there all the time. Living all the time we brush or dust or wipe things down, at least a little, all the time. Coming home after being away for several days, everything always seemed a little dusty or dirty.
I knew that Jessica and David were trying to live quite frugally, although in this town -- that's hard to do. I had never inquired directly about their finances, at least not since David had gotten his job. But I didn't realize how expensive their apartment and living was. When we're not pressed for money, we all have a tendency to ignore costs. Sure Jessica also had a job, but when I inadvertently saw their rent notice while visiting, I realized that what must have been 100% of David's expendable income, and a portion of Jessica's, was going to rent, disappearing for all time, so that someone else was getting the benefit from their expenses. They couldn't have had much left for everything else, and when Jessica's car died and they spoke about having to get another, it seemed obvious to me to pass on Marilyn's car which had sat virtually untouched in our garage for several years now. About once a week I drove it -- just so it didn't deteriorate any more than needed, but in no way did it look or act as old as it was.
"Hey David, have you got a dollar?" I asked the next time they were over. He looked puzzled, but reached in without questioning and took out his wallet. Looking in he confirmed it. "Give it to me." I held out my hand
Again, he looked puzzled, but did as I'd said without questioning. Taking the dollar, I handed him the papers from my other hand: a bill of sale for $1 and the title for the car, and two sets of keys. "Congrats! You now own your mother's old car." It might not have been exactly what they would have purchased if they'd shopped -- but it was hard to turn down the price tag. And, it got an unwanted car out of my garage, at least for a while, as well as removing a car from my insurance costs.
Unfortunately, despite the gift of the car, they were still living beyond their means. Sure, they could have quit paying off student loans, essentially mortgaging the future for the present, the mistake which in my opinion is what so many new grads and newlyweds do. I was so proud of them for trying, but I knew it just didn't make sense economically for them, or for me. It was perhaps two months later that they were over for a weekend swim that I brought it up. "Hey Jessie, what do you say that you and David move back home?" David was out by the pool with Virginia, Jessie and I had gone inside to make lunch.
"Here?" She asked, glancing around inside her mother's house, her childhood home.
Moving back to her mother's house hadn't really crossed my mind, I was thinking of her and David moving back into
my
house, but it really didn't matter which. Virg and I were at her house more than mine and it wouldn't take that much to combine households. I explained that I had really been thinking of them moving into my house, that my remaining mortgage payment was just a fraction of what they were paying in rent -- and if they wanted to take that over -- they could cut expenses considerably. It didn't take much explanation to her, and my explanation that I was essentially living with her mother anyway made perfect sense. Virginia was all for it, having her daughter living next door. Jessie was all for it, living in the house and saving money and having her mom next door and having a swimming pool next door. David took a little convincing, however. The idea of moving back to his childhood home, again mooching off of the Bank of Dad.... I had to explain that it wasn't mooching, it was a good deal for both of us. If Virginia and I were really together, we needed to either get rid of one of the properties, or turn it into a rental, so renting to them sounded like a good deal to me. His response made me proud, "How about we come up with a co-ownership deal? If we're paying you rent, it's not much different than the apartment, just cheaper -- but if we were co-owners, we would be able to share in any future appreciation? How about we get it appraised now, we'll take over the mortgage payments, and if we ever sell it in the future, we'll share the difference between today's valuation and the sale price? That way we get some equity too?"
I just stuck out my hand, first to Jessie and then to David, and said "Done." We eventually had to visit a real-estate lawyer to make it all legal and tie down the distribution of future values, but essentially, we did exactly what we shook hands on.
It took a little bit to work out the exact details for the home we now both "owned." I ended up moving my bedroom to the far end of the house into David's old room (I really didn't want to take
everything
out of the house since I was just next door) while Jess and David moved into the master suite. I wasn't spending that much time at the house anyway, but all of my lifelong collection of tools, books, games -- what we all have accumulated from life, was still essentially there. And of course, there were the nights, most weekends, that I left Christine and Virginia alone, and slept in my room. Occasionally I'd go over other times, always discretely trying to not just intrude unannounced if the kids were home, but it
was
still my house too.
As we had thought, having the kids living next door couldn't have been any better. I don't even remember what it was that I was going over for, perhaps a year after they moved in, and just after their second anniversary. I thought that nobody was home, David's car wasn't out front, but as I stepped in through the side door, I heard something in the living room. My call of "anybody home' elicited an "Oops! Just a minute Dad!" from Jessie, and moments later I saw her from the backside running toward the bedroom wearing only panties. In that respect she was very much like her mother who also liked to be naked. She reappeared moments later wearing a robe, but I knew that was all she had on. What stopped me was the red around her eyes and I knew she'd been crying.
David not being home... Jessica in the living room crying... I immediately thought of some kind of marital problem. "Hey Punkin," I said, reaching out an arm to her. She stepped forward, snuggled her head against my shoulder as my arm went around her back. "What's going on? Anything I can help with?" I rubbed my hand up and down, her arms went around me and she broke out in tears again. I wrapped my other arm around her and stood there just holding her until the faucets of her eyes slowed down.
"Want to tell me about it? Anything I can help with?"
"I doubt it," she whispered, "I'm just being silly." I understood her answer was to my query of whether I could help. I didn't know if she was going to tell me what was wrong.
"I can't help if I don't know what's wrong," I whispered, feeling her finally beginning to relax in my arms.
She took a shuddering intake a breath, and without raising her head from my chest she whispered, "I don't think it's anything you can help with. We've been trying for a baby for the last year and I just can't get pregnant."
Oh shit. Not nearly the marital problem that I thought it might be.
In my mind it all now made sense. Marilyn and I had been married two years before we'd had David. Virginia had been pregnant when she and Jerry got married but had lost that baby, and it was four years later that they'd had Jessica. It was all in the right time frame... and then suddenly I remembered the most stressful day of my life: Riding in an elevator to the hospital basement with the NICU doctor and hearing him say "abnormalities may show up that we can't see yet such as being sterile, but it's just too early to say." I could hear the voice in my head as if it had been yesterday.
It turned out I was the first one except David that she'd said anything to. Every month when she got her period, she had to confess to him that she'd gotten her period and wasn't yet pregnant. At first it had been laughing responses of "Well, we just need to do it more often!" Later it had been following up on the information on when she was most fertile, checking her temperature, tracking her ovulation cycle, and doing such things as calling David midday at work and saying, "It's time! You need to come home now so we can make a baby!"
Nothing had worked.
I gently inquired about whether they had checked with a fertility specialist and of course they hadn't -- yet. "Making a baby is a two-way street," I said. "You know, if it's not happening, maybe we should get you two checked out?" I hesitated, and then added, "maybe it's not you at all."
Perhaps it was my tone, maybe it was the hint that perhaps it wasn't her fault that she couldn't get pregnant at all -- the hint that perhaps it was David's problem, but somehow I kind of think the thought had already crossed her mind. "What?"
"Maybe it's not your problem at all," I repeated. I went on to tell about David being born, and the one-time comment by the doctor that preemie babies having sterility issues wasn't unheard of. "The only way we'll know," I said (thereby including myself in their pregnancy problem with that "we" whether I'd intended to or not) "is to have yourselves checked."
It was nearly two months before David and Jessie brought it up to her mother, Christine, and me. It was a Friday, we'd just had a later dinner together as Christine had just arrived, being delayed on her commute. Having the kids next door, meals together happened almost all the time. And it wasn't just us having them to our place for dinner, they made dinner as often as we did. Jessica and Virginia were the perpetual dinner planners, usually as one meal was finishing -- one or the other would say something like "Spaghetti at our place tomorrow? You guys in?" Just as in the old days whoever cooked didn't do the cleanup. That arrangement was all for the better - if it was just left up to me to plan tomorrows meal, I usually started thinking about it a half hour before it was time to eat.
I could sense something was off as we sat down to dinner, although couldn't tell what it was. Jessica and David were unexplainedly quiet, although they participated in conversations. "Well, we got the final test results back today," David finally started when dinner was mostly finished, the tone of his voice indicating this wasn't just a continuation of previous conversations. After a short pause, he just blurted it out "I can't get Jessica pregnant. Turns out I'm sterile," he said, his eyes glistening with tears.
It had been years since I'd seen David cry over
anything
. He had spent his life living with his long known physical disabilities and compensating for them, but here was something that, for the first time in his life, he couldn't compensate for. Now in his mid-twenties he had finally run into a physical handicap that couldn't be negated by excessive mental capability. I could tell this was probably the hardest thing he'd ever had to say. Despite his physical hinderances growing up he had, until now, made up for them with mental prowess.
The table was silent; what exactly was there for us to say? "What are your options?" Christine finally asked.
Jessie looked at David, reached over to take his hand and turned back to the table. "We're not sure. We might try adoption. We might try artificial insemination. We haven't decided." Her lower lip was quivering, I could tell this was really difficult for her. David wasn't looking us in the face -- I knew it was difficult for him also. What is it about not being able to get a woman pregnant that makes us men think we're less than a man? I understood this, but there was nothing I could say right now that wouldn't come across the wrong way.
