My Little Scribbles

It hurt, every time he looked at them, the pressure in his chest, his beautiful boys, that last connection to his beloved wife. They were his world and he would do everything to keep them safe. They needed consistency and a loving home, and he Would provide that. He could do that. He just needed to make sure they had everything they needed. He could do that.

Juggling Alan on his hip he dragged clean laundry into a basket. Stashing sandwiches into school satchels and dragging a comb through unruly locks. Emails got picked at between diaper changes, meals prep, grocery runs. Video calls were abandoned in favour of rocking Alan to sleep for his afternoon nap. The bedtime routine took three hours with extended bath time because Jeff just couldn’t cut short Gordon’s fun. Bedtime stories were read until his voice cracked. Requests for a glass of water, one more plushie, the light in the hall to be left on? Jeff would sort it. His evenings were filled with folding laundry, emptying school bags, finishing those emails he had started at 6am. He would lay down to rest, but sleep wouldn’t come.

Jeff would wake, with harsh drawn breath, in the middle of the night, to scribble notes on whatever scraps of paper were to hand. The guilt at writing across a school report revisited him regularly.

There was no point, he could be doing something else more worthwhile. Chasing away nightmare monsters, changing bedding after nighttime accidents. Soon the morning light would bleed in, and Jeff could try and get a couple of hours of work done before the morning school run began. So many times that work would be done with Alan curled up on Jeff’s lap. His steady breathing bringing mutual comfort to both parties. His hand would stall in its typing, drawn like a magnet to the downy soft head, “hush little one”.

They would find him there still, his older boys, when they emerged in search of breakfast. Jeff would blink away the gritty sleep from his eyes, wondering how it could even exist when sleep itself had been so elusive. Then it was on with the day, snatched naps, business calls, after school clubs, meals for all. If he just kept moving, then there was no time for doubt.

Scott tiptoed down the stairs, a little earlier than usual, almost not surprised when he found his dad tucked in the big armchair with baby Alan in his arms. Jeff had his head tipped back in a light doze, one had still patting Alans back on auto pilot.

The baby of the family had been particularly clingy ever since…., well, it wasn’t exactly surprising. He would only settle on their father, who would walk miles in circles around the kitchen and lounge seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

Despite all the upheaval, their father had worked himself to the bone keeping as much normality for the motherless family. After school pick up? Jeff was there, home later due to sports practice, Jeff knew, and had a plate of food ready as you walked in the door. 4 bagged lunches were ready each morning, with each kids preferences catered for.

Not that Scott wasn’t grateful, but it was ridiculous. Scott hadn’t been picked up at the school gates in years. Lunches had been one size fits all, or sort yourself out ever since he went to high school. And that had been fine. Why Jeff now felt the need to out perform the stay at home mom stereotype was a mystery. Well, it wasn’t really, Scott could see that their father was just trying to be the best mom/dad possible, it was coming from a place of love. But even Scott could see that it wasn’t sustainable. Their father was trying to be breadwinner, business owner and homemaker extraordinaire all rolled into one. There was no way he could keep this up.

Unread emails flashed from every device Jeff picked up and abandoned around the house. Excess groceries stacked up outside the larder. Clothes got cooked in the over packed dryer. The biggest give away, though, was the physical state Jeff was in. Each child left the house in freshly pressed clothes (Scott had never seen a pair of jeans with a center crease before.) Jeff, though, was living in a tight cycle of the same worn sweat pants. The bags under his eyes had got to the point that even oblivious young teenagers could notice them.

Scott decided it was time for action. Just like his father, Scott's go to solution was usually to throw himself into the problem. That hadn’t been such an instant fix though. The first time Scott had tried to take Alan out of Jeff's arms and help with the bedtime kitchen circuits, Alan had screamed loud enough that everyone had feared for the structural stability of the old beams above their heads. Alan was not having it, he would only be settled by his Dad.

Scott was able to have a little more success helping with the cooking if he was quick enough. On a few occasions Scott rattled through meal preparation only for Jeff to pull out a pre-prepared dish out of the oven, but in a family of five boys nobody ever complained about an extra dish.

John was set to the challenge of doctoring the shopping list, always stuck to the front of the fridge, to adjust the quantities and plotted meals to best utilize what items they had or use up excess from one meal to the next. He saw it like the logic puzzle it was, and quickly found a pattern that worked for the family. They were never quite sure if Jeff noticed the adjustments, he bought what was on the list and that was fine.

Scott set Virgil to laundry duty, and if he was quick enough Virgil was able to drag loads in and out of the machines before and after school, thereby controlling the flow of clean clothes. By cross referencing the family planner on the wall, he mostly kept ahead of the kit requirements for different classes and afterschool commitments. They found that as long as the washing machine was on and the dryer was turning, Jeff seemed satisfied. Probably assuming that he had just forgotten loading it. Scott, John and Virgil set to scooping up clean dry clothes and flinging it into piles on each boys bed before Jeff had a chance to try and impose military creases onto their clothes, thereby removing another job. Sure some times the piles got mixed, but usually they just swapped clothes about until it got to the right owner. Well, everyone apart from Gordon, who assumed anything on his pile was his regardless of appropriateness. He did look adorable in a full button up shirt even if the arms were pushed so far up to allow Gordon's fingers to peek out of the cuffs that it created full puffed sleeves.

Jeff didn’t seem to notice that they didn’t have many white clothes anymore, or that the kids seemed to be favoring grey and light pink more than they had before. At least they were clean.

Panic ran through all the boys the day Jeff threatened to give them all home haircuts. A bit of rapid problem solving and the boys deployed the only weapon in their arsenal, a teething grouchy baby who couldn’t find his favorite plushie (Scott would feel bad about that for years to come). Jeff was immobilised with clingy offspring, and the bangs got to live for another day! If Scott just happened to have a free period the following afternoon and used it to meet all of his siblings after school and make sure they went home via the barber shop rather than the library, well, they just hoped that no adults would look too closely at that, it was an emergency.

Despite all of their fixes, the boys were still struggling to help with one final load. The rapidly growing youngest brother who still refused to be settled by anyone other than Jeff, which consequently meant that Jeff was consistently running on less than 4 hours of broken sleep.

Scott turned the problem over and over in his mind, there had to be a way that they could offer their Dad some kind of break, without leaving the little dude completely distraught. They had tried bribery with soft toys. Alan had simply clung to them and Jeff, the boy had an impressively strong grip. They tried giving him an extra big drink of warm milk, praying he would be so knocked out by the soporific qualities that they could just peel him off their father and put him to sleep in his cot. Alan had nearly been convinced to have a nap whilst Scott was curled up next to him. Little eyes had started to drift, but when his pudgy little face had gone to snuffle into Scott's shirt, one sticky paw locked into the fabric, his eyes had snapped open again and all thoughts of nap were gone to be replaced by howling.

It was enough for John to suggest a slight adaptation before trying again. Next weekend Scott offered to take Alan while Jeff was trying to fix Gordon's bike. A task that would have been a lot easier without an armfull of baby Alan. “He’s probably going to need a nap in a little while, I’ll be back inside in a few!” Jeff called after his retreating sons. Gordon pulled his Dad’s attention back to the problem at hand by being quite literally the problem at hand and wedging a stick through the rear spokes with a joyful “HI-YA!” Scott made his escape.

Back in the house Virgil handed Scott one of their fathers shirts, scavenged from the laundry pile. John doused Scott with a heavy handed splosh of their Dads aftershave and then had to excuse himself to wash the excess off his own hands, wrinkling his nose at the onslaught. Virgil fetched the warmed bottle that Scott had already prepared, a little fuller than Jeff may have carefully measured out. It was the work of a few moments to have the oldest and youngest tucked up on a couch with plenty of cushions.

Bottle of milk deployed, baby burped and the heavy blinks were coming in thick and fast. Virgil and John looked on, hardly daring to breathe in case they broke the spell. A sleepy little yawn and then Alan was gone, no hint of a fuss, no sudden start and scream of betrayal, 10 minutes later and the older brothers finally felt confident enough to try phase two of the plan.

The old family moses basket had been dragged out of the foot of Gordon's bed, where it has been holding Gordon’s plushy collection for the last few years. It had been deemed a bit past it by the time the fifth baby came along, that, and neither parent had wanted to try and part Gordon from it, who was rather attached. Little did they know that Gordon would be quite amenable to handing over the basket if the right leverage was applied. In this instance, John had repurposed a large cardboard box that had been flat packed in the garage and he and Virgil had cut holes in it and crudely painted it so it looked like a submarine. Sure it still had the branding for the previous purchase running along one side, and the “this way up” arrows. But there was a porthole, so Gordon was sold. The only problem now was that Gordon was determined to sleep in the box and had tried to make a mattress in the bottom of the box out of soft toys and blankets. That was a problem for actual bedtime, right now they were just trying to get through naptime without their father wearing a groove in the kitchen floor.

For phase two deployment, Virgil pulled out another item of Jeff's clothing, this time a sweater. John refused to do the cologne this time, so Virgil just scrubbed at Scott's neck with the sweater, despite Scott trying to bat him away with his one free hand. Virgil then removed a hot water bottle from the basket, checked the resulting temperature before neatly arranging the sweater in the pre-warmed moses basket and with incredible care. Next, with the kind of precision movements more usually seen during brain surgery, the three boys carefully shifted their baby brother into the basket. Scott sat for a few minutes after the relocation, his hand resting lightly on Alan's back, just to be sure he was still settled, before slowly inching away on tiptoes. All three older boys sat in the doorway, watching the sleeping baby for the rest of his naptime, partly to form a physical barrier should Jeff or Gordon try to come this way, and partly so they could continue to watch over the sleeping form. They were all a little shocked that their plan appeared to be working, they didn’t want to jinx it by breathing a single word, it would be sure to break the spell.

When Jeff came hurrying in a few minutes later he nearly fell bodily over his three eldest sat in the doorway to the lounge. He caught himself on the door frame before Scott was on his feet and hustling Jeff out of the room.

Jeff found himself shoved, a little forcefully into sitting on the old rocker on the porch. John had swept up a giggling Gordon and hurried him out into the back yard. Virgil had shuffled on his bum until he was sat on the floor next to the moses basket, holding a serious faced vigil.

“What’s going on?” Jeff asked, only to be shushed by his eldest. “Look if theres something you want to talk about, I’m all ears, but can we do it while I get Alan down for his nap, otherwise he’s going to be cranky.”

“No need Dad,” Scott beamed.

“Come again?” Jeff tried to get to his feed, but was shoved back down and this time a blanket was deployed to pin him in.

“Alan is napping, and now you should be too!” Scott was far too please with himself, but then his face took a more serious expression. “Dad, we know how much you do for us, but you’re gonna burn out, you don’t have to do everything at once, we’ve got this!”

Burn out? It felt so strange for such grown up phrases to be coming out of his oldest babies mouth, because they would all always be his babies no matter how big they got.

“Scott, I’m your father, it’s my job to look after you.” he tried to get up again, but then Scott deployed a look that was just every inch Lucy, and the energy drained from Jeff’s limbs.

“ and you do Dad, but like I said, you don’t need to do it all at once. We can help,we want to help, Mom would have made us help.” the last bit was said quietly, but still with just as much feeling.

It gave Jeff reason enough to pause. Scott was right, Lucy had always believed in the whole family pulling together, she wanted her boys to be capable and independent, and Jeff agreed. Just, what with everything that had happened, Jeff had plastered over any cracks with manic productivity, as if he could push grief away with ….with busy work. Lucy had called him out on it enough times. When Jeff was stressed, he found things to do. When they had been expecting Scotty, Jeff had repainted every room in the house. He worked well under pressure, it was what had got him where he was today. Hell, the early plans for what would be come Tracy Industries had been hashed out on a space flight that had gone slightly off plan and required several “Jeff Tracy fixes” and a helluva lot of duct tape to get them home in one piece. But he had never had to run on that adrenaline for quite so long, and it was taking its toll. What could he do though? His boys needed him, and he would always put them first. He opened his mouth to protest, but Scott had raised an eyebrow in just a way to cut through all the arguments, so like his mother, that Jeff had to bite his lip and blink more rapidly.

“Dad, please rest, Alan is fine. We’re tough, we’re Tracys”

“But you shouldn’t have to be tough,” Jeff sniffed, trying to keep his voice level and hopefully with a little authority in it.

“Can’t help that! It's in our genetics!” and with that, Scott shot his father a massive grin, clearly pleased with himself, and turned on his heels sharply, letting the door swing shut behind him.

Jeff was too confused to know what to do with that, the lack of sleep may have played a part in his slow processing speed, Jeff was self aware enough to admit that to himself. Peeling the tightly tucked blanket off himself, he crept to the the front window that allowed him a view into the lounge. True enough, there was Alan, tucked up contentedly in the old slightly holey baby basket, snoozing contentedly….was that Jeff best pullover?! He sighed, it was probably a fair price to pay to get out of pacing the kitchen floor for the next hour. He let himself slide down until his bum hit the porch decking. The sun was warm through the patchy clouds and softly dappled through the old tree on the front lawn. It was enough, and soon Jeffs head was leaning back against the house cladding, and his snores were adding to the white noise lulling his youngest son into a deeper sleep.

Occasionally the sound scape was punctuated by a squeal from Gordon who John was spraying with the hose out back, the theory being it would tire the youngster out and maybe reduce how long bath time took later.

Miss Penny’s Boarding House stood on the outer edge of town. In his mind he could see Miss Penny herself, sweeping the entranceway while her faithful manservant Parker would be in the stable brushing down her pair of white carriage horses.

The Stables and Smith, run by his brother Virgil. As the resident blacksmith he relished the challenge of working both with metal and with horses. He was also something of an artist and occasionally the metal in the forge produced items of far more decorative means than usual blacksmith fare.

The General Store was where their youngest brother would now be. Alan would no doubt be complaining that store work was menial work and not worthy of someone with the Tracy name, to which his Grandma would no doubt reply “if it was good enough for your father then it’s good enough for you!”

The Saloon, where Scott knew at this time of day John would be polishing the glasses ready for the lunchtime rush while Kayo cleaned her guns and her knives in the back, ready to defend the honour of John’s girls. Brains would be out the back cooking up the next batch of meals in an attempt to make them more varied – and in some instances edible.

Scott thanked the day a large fire ripped through the eating house, effectively putting an end to their Grandma’s cooking and forcing her to concentrate on her specialty – between her and Virgil they covered the town’s medical needs.

The sound of dogs barking and hooves on the trail made Scott grin broadly, and he watched as Gordon appeared, his and Scott’s dogs trotting beside him. As Blue saw Scott the dog went mad, his tail wagging his backside faster than ever, and both men paused to laugh at him while the horses greeting each other.

‘Mornin’ Sheriff.’ ‘Deputy. How was it while I was gone?’ ‘Oh, reasonably quiet. Alan blew up the shack again, and Grandma tanned his hide, but beside that there was no trouble. Come on, John’s got a drink with your name on it, and Virgil’s dying to hear the news.’