Good Man

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
- Kahlil Gibran



Caroline was back on a plane again.

No, not like that. This time she had nothing to be fleeing from.

Okay, so, yeah, maybe she couldn't have left the sunshine state any faster if she owned her own plane, but this time she had a good reason. A happy one.

There was a charming purpose, if you will.

There was a birth of new life to be greeted for the first time she wanted to experience.

With Chloe walking hand in hand with her mother through airport after airport, to their connecting fights' gates and then cutting through the clouds after takeoff and prior to landing at the next location, the 19th of September was nothing more than a travel day.

Caroline was actually having a good time, too, where dragging one's ass around airports always seemed to be a hassle. During her last layover to Buffalo, waiting for their Northwest flight out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Caroline spent the free time they had, walking hand in hand up and down the long, wide walkways near their gate, popping in to the stores and boutiques, buying cheesy Minneapolis and St. Paul souvenirs, like refrigerator magnets and T-shirts.

Which, in retrospect, she probably could have just asked Billie Joe to pick up for her any time he and Adrienne and their sons came to Minnesota to visit Adrienne's family.

"Mommy, I'm hungry," Chloe spoke up, squeezing her mother's hand lightly as she held onto her brunette Barbie doll with the ratty hair, due in part on the doll's many trips into the swimming pool and bathtub.

Either that, or Caroline was unaware that Mattel had put out Lack Of Personal Hygiene Teresa.

"There's a Pizza Hut right there," Caroline pointed to the pizza outlet. "Want some pizza?"

Chloe nodded happily. "Extra cheese, please."

"Alrighty then."

Caroline led her daughter over to Pizza Hut and ordered two slices of pizza, extra cheese on Chloe's slice, and two small Dr. Peppers. She then led her over to a small sitting area where they sat down at a table; their carry-on luggage at their feet...and Ratty Haired Teresa draped precariously across Chloe's lap.

As they ate, Caroline couldn't help but smile a smile that warmed her heart.

She never had times like these. Times to be just one on one with her little girl. Especially with the twins. This was probably the first mother-daughter 'vacation' Caroline and Chloe would ever have and she was rather fortunate to be able to do it at all.

She just thanked her lucky stars she had great friends in Billie Joe and Adrienne who had offered to help take care of Mikey and the twins for a few days so Caroline could head to Morristown, New York to see Michelle, Seth, her father Alexander and her new niece. Who had been born the day before.

Since Adrienne got up early in the morning to see Jakob, her only child still matriculated, off to school, it was no problem to do the same for Mikey. Except that she would be driving Mikey to school in the morning and then picking him up at the end of his school day. Adrienne was also happier than a pig in shit to attend to the twins full time. With two kids nearly out of the house, and only getting her hands on her goddaughter Chloe not as often as she'd like, empty nest syndrome was starting to rear its ugly head. Having the twins in her house would be the fix she needed.

The only thing Caroline was worried about was Billie Joe and his reeling mind and his curiosity as to whether he could be the twins' father or not.



At the same time that Caroline and Chloe were dining at an airport Pizza Hut in Minnesota, Adrienne, a Minnesota native, was walking around her kitchen with a six-month-old Lakota on her hip as she stirred some noodles in a bubbling pot of water on her stove. The baby gurgled and jabbered happily away, chewing on his hands like they were the tastiest thing ever.

The drool and general baby slobber covering his fists? Not as cute as he was.

It was just after four in the afternoon in California, and in her head, Adrienne figured that with the two hour time zone change from California to Minnesota, which was in the Central Time Zone, it was just after six in the evening there, and Caroline and Chloe were still at the airport. She knew they had a two and a half hour layover and wouldn't be leaving for their flight to Buffalo until 6:50 on the dot, Minnesota time...er...Central Time Zone, whatever.

Adrienne's head was a chaotic mess. She was beginning to think taking all three of Caroline's children, sans Chloe of course, might have been biting off more than she could chew.

But, Adrienne lived with Billie Joe and two sons and their circus act of a lifestyle for so long, it really wasn't a big deal when she thought about it.

At least I have the quiet, happy baby, Adrienne thought with a ghost of a smile, craning her dreadlocked head downward to place a kiss on top of Lakota's head.

Adrienne smirked.

Oh, you smell so good, little man.

In the living room, Billie Joe was struggling with a very ornery Rhiannon who was flopping around in his arms like a fish out of water. She was wailing up a storm, one fist in her mouth and her face beet red.

Completely flustered, the 42-year-old man didn't have the clear enough mind to spend comprehending if this was his flesh and blood at the moment. Though, that's not to say he didn't consider sticking a q-tip in the baby girl's mouth earlier when she was quieter and saving it in a plastic baggy and taking to some lab somewhere with a sample of his own DNA for a paternity test.

But when he even let the idea coast into his brain, he became paranoid about if the test came back positive. He began to run over all the reactions, especially Adrienne's, and not to mention how betrayed she would feel.

And he also didn't want to go behind Caroline's back to do it either and out her as a liar to her friends and family, and whoever had since gotten wind that her twins were Mike's children, posthumously, via in vitro.

Billie Joe sighed as Rhiannon wiggled some more and flashed him a puss.

He had to give it to Caroline. She knew how to create a story that was viable and believable. If he had not have slept with her more than a year ago, even if just one time out of grief, he would not have really doubted her claim.

He knew Dave, Caroline's former bandmate and boyfriend, was curious about if he was the father, but he apparently knew Caroline a whole hell of a lot better than anyone else because he kept his distance and respected her wishes. How he did it, either, was beyond Billie Joe.

Wasn't Dave just dying to know if he was the baby daddy? The twins would be his first children. The younger man was unmarried and without children even now, at thirty-six years of age. But, then again, the man was also up to his ears with the new reconstruction of The Sinners who were recording in Los Angeles with their new lineup.

And then there was Gerard who had also kept his distance but mostly because he was in the midst of a grueling world tour with his band My Chemical Romance which, from what Billie Joe understood, would be wrapping up by the middle of next month. So, who knows where the MCR frontman stood with his own line of questioning, if he even had any.

Right now, it was Billie Joe who was in the thick of it. Or, in the lion's den, as Tre had joked. However, the older man wasn't sure he got the metaphor, while at the same time he did...

"How much longer till the spaghetti's ready, babe?" Billie Joe called out above Rhiannon's cries.

"Still another thirty minutes yet. I just started the noodles and then I gotta rinse and drain them afterward...so..." Adrienne's voice trailed for a moment. "Why? Got somewhere you'd rather be?"

Billie Joe smiled at the sound of jest in his wife's voice. "Yeah. I was thinking maybe a quiet, padded room for two. Interested?"

Adrienne's laugh bubbled over the noise of the female twin fussing like there was no tomorrow. "Oh, you're just going crazy 'cause I got Lakota and he's the complete 180 of his sister."

"Yeah, about that...wanna switch?"

"No, I'm good."

Frowning at his wife's response, Billie Joe looked upward to his right when he noticed Jakob leaning against the door frame with Mikey leaning into him. The sixteen-year-old Armstrong raised an amused eyebrow at his father and shook his head.

"I'd offer to drive you to the asylum, but maybe it's the tortured artist in me that prefers to see you suffer," came Jakob's quip.

Billie Joe scowled at his youngest son. Er...youngest that he was aware of. He threw a casual look over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen, then back to Jakob. He noticed the keys dangling from the teen's fingers. "Going somewhere?"

Jakob straightened up his posture and placed his free hand on top of Mikey's blonde head. "Yeah, was gonna take MJ here to Blockbuster and let him pick out a movie or two, but I need your card."

"Why?"

"I'm not eighteen. I can't get my own Blockbuster card till then. But I have my own car now, thanks again, by the way," Jakob beamed. "So now I can go to Blockbuster, but I can't rent...with my own card. Yet."

"And you're paying for these movies on your own?" Billie Joe inquired curiously as Jakob patted his front right pocket with the hand holding his keys. "Awesome," the 42-year-old grin, despite Rhiannon's temperament grating on his nerves. "Pick something up with lots of explosions or a lot of sex in them for me, will ya? I'm gonna need something to distract my mind from all these babies, later tonight when they're in bed."

Jakob raised an eyebrow again. "And babies don't have anything to do with sex? My god, dad, where did you learn the birds and the bees from."

"Your Uncle Tre," Billie Joe laughed, to which his son also laughed. "Alright, well, drive safe. Although, technically you're not supposed to be driving without a licensed driver right now, dude."

Jakob turned on the heels of his feet, ushering Mikey out of the archway. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Add it to the list of things I can't do yet."

"I'll make a mental note of it," Billie Joe quipped in return as both his son and godson disappeared from view and the sound of front door shutting followed. Turning and looking back at Rhiannon, who was thankfully starting to calm down, Billie Joe sighed a sigh of relief. "How much longer did you say till the spaghetti's ready?" he called out to Adrienne once more.

"About five minutes less from the last time you asked, Billie," Adrienne responded with an exasperated sigh. "Did someone just leave?"

"Jakob did with Mikey. They went to Blockbuster."

Adrienne immediately appeared in the living room with a wooden spoon covered in grease from stirring the meat for the spaghetti sauce in one hand and her free hand cupped under Lakota's butt on her left hip. Her face was that of frustration and shock.

"What? He has to be driving with a licensed driver, Billie, not a five-year-old. What if he gets pulled over? He doesn't take his driver's test till next week and only has his permit!"

Billie Joe made a face and waved his wife off as if it were nothing. "Oh, come on. Jakob is a really good driver and Blockbuster is only a few blocks away or whatever. As long as Mikey's in the back-seat and Jakob obeys the rules of the road, he'll be fine."

"What about checkpoints? Cops do that at random."

"Not in this neighborhood, they don't."

Adrienne flashed daggers at her husband with her chocolate eyes, pointing her wooden spoon at him. "You, mister, officially have Rhiannon duty the entire time we have Caroline's kids. She is your sole responsibility from this day forward until Caroline returns later next week."

"Hey!" Billie Joe whined. "So not fair!"

As Adrienne turned on the heels of her feet and sauntered adamantly back into the kitchen with Lakota on her hip, all that wafted through the air as her response was, "Your punishment for being a dumbass."

Billie Joe scowled as he turned back around and looked down at a now giggling Rhiannon, which was a shock in itself. The baby girl was so rarely giggly. Especially now since only ten minutes earlier she had been crying and whining like the Dickens.

"Masochist. You just love to see me suffer, don't you?" he questioned the little girl, holding her up and pushing his nose against hers, then asking more seriously, "Don't you?" Scrunching up his face, he gave Rhiannon a kiss on her little puckered lips and smirked.

Well, only until her little hand reached out and wrapped its fingers into his hair and she pulled with all her baby might.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" Billie Joe groaned, wincing as he unclasped her tiny fingers from around the strands of his dark hair. "Oh, you don't just love to see me suffer, but you enjoy inflicting pain." He scowled once again only to have Rhiannon let out a hearty chuckle, her hazel eyes glittering. "I see a career in the dominatrix arts for you, Miss Thang."



Later that night, at 9:30-something, Eastern Standard Time, Caroline and Chloe's Northwest flight to Buffalo touched down without any delays and no problems grabbing their luggage from the baggage claim on the lower level. They made their way to the hired car which picked them up outside on the curb and drove them to her house in Orchard Park, getting there just after ten.

Since they were still on California time, it only felt like it were after six, so they were still wide awake, though more mentally tired from all the traveling.

And they were hungry once again, so Caroline made them pancakes and was glad Mike's biological mother Lucy had swung by earlier in the day with her spare key to stock the fridge with a small pint of milk and orange juice, knowing that the mother-daughter duo would be staying the night at the house before hitting the road once again the following morning.

A couple hours later, Caroline tucked Chloe into bed and went to her own room, taking in the surroundings she had just left three months earlier and spent holed up in for nearly a year.

After catching the tail end of Late Night with David Letterman, Caroline turned off the flatscreen TV in her bedroom and slid down under the covers to go to sleep. But she wasn't able to fall right away to sleep because she heard a series of small raps on her door, and then the sound of the door creaking open.

Rolling over onto her side, Caroline peered through the darkness.

"Chloe?"

"Mommy," came the response as footsteps drew closer to the large, king-sized bed which required a step stool to get up into. "Can I sleep with you?"

Caroline reached over to the opposite side of the bed where her daughter was nearing and looked down at the little girl looking up at her. "Did you have a bad dream?"

Chloe shook her head, holding onto Ratty Haired Teresa once again. "No. I wanna sleep in your bed, mommy. We don't wanna be 'lone."

Her heart warming, Caroline smiled and stuck her arms out, grabbing onto her little girl and pulling her up and over onto the bed and immediately bringing her up against her. Both laid on their sides and looked at each other, smiling.

"Okay, go to sleep now. We got another long day ahead of us."

"We gonna see Aunt Timmy's baby tomorrow?"

Caroline nodded. "Yeah," she answered, placing a kiss on her daughter's forehead. "Now close your eyes. Go to sleep."

"Sing me a song g'night, please, mommy?" Chloe whispered.

Bringing a hand up to cup her daughter's face, she ran her finger's through the three-year-old's hair. Letting out a slow breath, and began to sing very low and soothingly.

Hush-a-bye don't you cry,
Go to sleep-y, little baby.
When you wake you shall have
All the pretty little horses.
Blacks and bays, dapple grays,
Coach and six white horses.
Hush-a-bye don't you cry,
Go to sleep-y, little baby.