Chapter 6
An Awkward Beginning
When Charles came to pick Tegan up for their first date, she rushed out of the house, head down and her blonde crimped frizzy curls bouncing resembling the long curly ears of a spaniel. Charles took her to a mini-golf course. Tegan hated mini golf but didn’t complain. At one point as they made their way around the course, Tegan got a strong whiff of what she can only imagine is the male pheromone. It was a pleasant musky smell. She had also smelled it when Mike had hugged her.
After mini-golf, they went to the bog behind the high school to walk around. When they came out of the swampy fields, Tegan was walking behind Charles and noticed a bunch of flies on his sweaty back. If she had felt comfortable with this person she may have swiped them away but as it was she was disgusted to touch him.
For their second date, they just walked around Tegan’s neighborhood. Charles did most of the talking and at one point asked something that threw Tegan off guard.
“How many children do you want?”
“What?” She wasn’t sure she heard right. Was he seriously asking how many children she wanted on their second date! She didn’t know what to say. What was he implying!? The question made her think he wanted a lot but Tegan was not as enthusiastic about having children. Children were nowhere on her radar. She wasn’t sure if she even wanted any children at all. Her older cousin just had a baby and Tegan had no interest in it. She didn’t understand the obsession adults have with babies. They aren’t cute and they just cry and want things.
Older children were okay though. She did find herself enjoying the company of children the age of her siblings. Gayle called them “darlings” and wanted many children. Tegan would press her and ask if she also wanted teenagers as well as babies and young children because those “cute” babies grow up.
For Tegan, one or two was the absolute limit if she should ever change her mind. Three, like in her family, was a problem because someone is always left out. In the past, she’d pair up with her sister and they’d leave their brother out because they were the same gender. But sometimes she’d pair up with her brother and leave her sister out because they were more similar in personality. But most of the time, her younger siblings would pair up with each other since they were only 18 months apart and leave her out since she was years ahead of them. This always hurt her and made her lonely. She wanted to be part of their world, too. Maybe that’s what kept her mentally younger than her years.
But back to Charles’s question: Did he want a lot of children and was trying to find out if they’d be compatible? But who does that on a second date? Tegan was far from thinking about marriage and could by no means ever see herself marrying this man let alone have his children. Apprehensively, she asked the question back.
“I don’t know. How many children do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe three.” It seemed like a normal number of children to him. He also came from a three-child household. He had an older brother and his younger brother, Richard. The pairing up problem was not an issue at his house. All three boys had different interests so they always did their separate things. James, the eldest, was into electronics and cars. Charles was into sci-fi and dungeons and dragons. Richard was into finances and accounting.
Tegan cringed. “Maybe one or two,” she said.
“One or two sounds nice too,” Charles said.
Actually, the idea of an only child intrigued Tegan the most. First, it was unusual. Secondly, the only child tends to be more mature for their age and smarter because they have all their parents’ attention. Having siblings was overrated, she thought. It inspired so much competition for attention and approval from the parents and, also, a guilty pleasure when one of them was in trouble. When that happened, she was relieved it wasn’t her head on the chopping block, although, lately she’d begun to see her parents for who they really were. Not Gods whose reign was not to be questioned or challenged. Tegan was beginning to develop her own ideas for how children should be raised and it was very different from how she and her siblings grew up.
For their third date, they went to the wildlife center. Tegan didn’t have a good time. She just wanted to leave the whole time and go home. But back home he stayed and they sat on Tegan’s parents’ front porch swing until it got dark. She thought he’d never leave!
