“I see your plan includes a second honeymoon. Smart girl.” I looked over the draft of the plan Nikki made while I was at work. It included making sure she was kept in the loop on band stuff and on Hanson family stuff. It included me letting her know if I planned to spend over 8 hours a day in the studio and either staying home one day a week to give her time to herself or hiring a baby-sitter to help. It also included one date night every couple of weeks, no doubles with siblings allowed. It also required that I have two nights a month for myself. In parenthesis, she explained that she wanted to give me more, but she knew better. The code word was “Family Time.” She was allowed to say that at any point and I would need to drop what I was doing with the band or my siblings to spend time with her and the boys. It all seemed like a fair plan. I did feel like I needed to give Taylor fair warning about family time so it didn’t shock him the first time. Maybe Natalie would appreciate a similar plan.
“Yes. To the beach. In California,” she smiled slightly.
“You know Zac is in . . .”
“I know. That’s why I picked it. I know that I can’t make you not worry about him, so I thought we might go see him in another week or two, then head on out to the beach for some alone time. You travel all the time, I know, but we haven’t been on a trip together without you working since our first honeymoon.”
“I know. That’s true. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize for being you. I knew what I was getting into when I married you.”
“Is that why you said no three times?”
“Partly,” she said with a smile.
“What is the other part?”
“That’s my secret,” she said.
“Well, are you glad you finally said yes?”
“Partly,” she said with a huge smile on her face.
I laughed. “Ok, I’ll have to take that.”
I looked over the rest of the plan.
I noticed she didn’t say anything about whiskey and told her so.
“You are a grown man and you can make your own decisions. I know you enjoy a drink at the end of a long day and I would never want to take that away from you. I didn’t make this plan to control you, but I love and I care about our little family. I know you do, too, but I think you have a hard time deciding how much time to spend with the Hanson family you grew up with and the Hanson family you are making. And, yes, it is a little bit selfish on my part. I moved across the country away from the family I grew up with, and I can’t do this by myself. I need a partner to take care of the house with and to raise our little gentlemen with. You know this town and you have access to resources that could make our lives so much easier and I think it’s about time you use them.”
“But Zac and Tay don’t . . .”
“I don’t care what Zac and Tay do. We need to make our own way and do our own thing.”
I started to protest, but she raised her hand.
“I don’t want to you abandon your family, Isaac. I know you are close and they mean a lot to you. But you won’t abandon this family to chase after all their soap opera drama.”
“Soap opera?”
“Yes. Someone is gay, someone has an eating disorder, someone has a drug problem, someone is in the hospital, someone is cheating, someone has an evil plot to derail everything.”
“Who has the evil plan?”
“That last part is facetious. But, still, there are so many people in your family. You can’t possibly help them solve every single one of their issues. And as far as Zoe and Avery are concerned, they are still young. If they truly reach a point where they need your help, go, help. But right now they are just young girls dealing with young girl problems. They are trying to figure out who they are and how they fit into the family, and the world. It will only help them grow and become stronger women for them to work out some of their problems by themselves. You can’t help them with everything. You don’t know what it’s like to be a young gay woman, from an extremely Christian family, that is struggling with her identity and choosing between embracing who she is and her parents’ acceptance. But I bet you know a lesbian that could talk to her and help her. And I bet you know Christian leaders that can talk to your parents and show them God’s love for their daughter. And Zoe. Zoe is the youngest and constantly feels like she is being left behind by the older members of her family. So help her. Include her at 3CG more. AND introduce her to more people her age so she doesn’t have to hang around your parent’s house all the time. She might have to spend most of her time there for school, but she needs to get out. And I don’t mean ‘field trips’ to help with church functions. I mean after school time out of the house with people her age with no responsibilities but to gossip about which guys are cute and what the girl they hate is wearing.”
I didn’t have anything to say, for once. I was usually the one giving advice, and now my wife was laying out an entire plan to help me figure out who to spend time with when and not feel guilty about it.
“You should publish this,” I blurted out.
Nikki looked shocked. “Well, that wasn’t really the point,” then she lightened up “You can be my guinea pig. How about that? Then I’ll publish it to your fans first ‘How to balance family life and a fandom.”
I laughed. “That’s pretty smart.”
“I try.”
The doorbell rang then, and Nikki let in a teenage girl I had never met before.
“This is Teresa. She is our babysitter for the night.”
“Babysitter?”
“Yes. Remember, part of the plan is that we have at least 2 date nights a month, and there isn’t much time left in the month. So tonight is date night number one. I promise I’ll give you more notice for the other ones.”
“Fair enough. Are you ready?”
“Just let me grab my purse.” To Teresa she said “We’ll be back in a few hours. The boys are playing in their room. These are our cell phone numbers if you need anything.”
“I’ve got it, Mrs. Hanson. We’ll have fun. Your boys are sweet.”
“Yes, they are” she said, taking my hand and leading me out the door.