“Not that recently,” Tim replied.
“Leave her alone,” Richard said in a tone I’d previously only heard him use when one of the kids was misbehaving.
Tim dismissed him with a wave of his hand and stood up. “C’mon,” he said, turning to me. “You can introduce us.”
“MJ can introduce you.” I was comfortable in my sand chair and had no desire to move.
Tim placed his hands on his hips. “Have you ever seen MJ do an introduction?”
I laughed thinking back to the day he’d met Olivia. I’d had to do all the talking for the first ten minutes because neither of them would say a word to the other. “Okay, okay,” I said, pushing myself upright. “Just promise you won’t embarrass me.”
“Now why on earth would I do that?” Tim said.
The sand scorched our feet, so we ran down to the ocean. But as soon as the water splashed onto my calves, I jumped back. Even at the end of summer the Pacific Ocean was chilly. Tim called out to MJ, who was twenty feet away, and both he and Mr. Guardia turned around. They waded out of the ocean and joined Tim and me on the wet sand.
The last time I’d seen Mr. Guardia was in Principal Ramirez’s office the day MJ got suspended for fighting in school. Mr. Guardia had been wearing pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Today all he was wearing was a loose-fitting bathing suit. His skin was golden brown, and his bare chest was covered in a smattering of dark hair that winnowed to a thin line down his torso before disappearing into his waistband. Yes, I noticed.
“Ms. Hughes?” Mr. Guardia seemed genuinely surprised to see me.
Tim didn’t wait for an introduction. “Tim Chase,” he said and extended his hand. “I’m one of MJ’s foster dads.”
“Daniel Guardia,” he replied, shaking Tim’s hand. “I was MJ’s math teacher last year.”
“Grace told us,” Tim said, then pointed back to the canopy. “That’s my husband Richard in the shade. When you’re done in the water you should come and join us.”
Mr. Guardia shook his head. “Thanks, but I can’t.”
“Why not?” Tim asked. “We’ve got plenty of room. You can bring whomever you’re here with. The more the merrier, we always say.”
I turned to Mr. Guardia. “It’s true. He does always say that. That’s how they ended up with six kids.”
“Six?” Mr. Guardia replied, as shocked by the number as I had been.
Tim rolled his eyes. “Please tell me you’re not another only child.”
“No,” Mr. Guardia said. “I have a brother. But I’m here alone.”
“Alone?” Tim’s voice rose as if coming to the beach by one’s self was the most outrageous thing he’d ever heard. “Then you must join us. I insist.”
MJ said, “Yeah, Mr. Guardia, you should come.”
I felt bad for Mr. Guardia. He was trapped and he knew it. I smiled and said, “The food’s gone, but we still have some drinks. If you ask Richard nicely, he might even share his adult beverages.”
Mr. Guardia smiled back. “I guess I could come for a little while.”
Mr. Guardia sat with us for the rest of the afternoon. MJ had already told him he and Sofia had moved out of my aunt’s house. I explained they’d changed foster homes after their mother reappeared. Tim and Richard picked up the story from there.
The group of us spent the rest of the afternoon playing Frisbee, building the sandcastle, which had expanded into an entire kingdom, and swimming in the ocean, although they could only get me to wade in up to my knees. It wasn’t until the sun started its slow descent in the sky and the kids started whining about being hungry again that Mr. Guardia said, “I really should be heading home.”
“Me too,” I replied.
“You’re not coming back to the house for dinner?” Tim asked.
I shook my head. “Sorry, it’s laundry night.” I was on my last pair of clean underwear. I was also ready for some alone time. I didn’t know how Richard, who was an only child too, managed. He’d told me more than once that although he loved their large family, he missed spending time alone. Tim was the youngest of five siblings and had always wanted lots of children of his own.
“Not so easy to make happen when you’re a gay man,” he’d confided to me one night over vodka martinis after the kids had gone to bed.
“You could always hire a surrogate.” I’d worked with a gay couple in LA who’d ended up with twins that way.
“Do you know how expensive that is?” Tim had said.
I’d admitted I didn’t but imagined it wasn’t cheap. The couple I’d worked with were both partners at my law firm and surely made at least mid-six-figure salaries each. Probably more. “That’s why you and Richard decided to become foster parents?” I’d often wondered.
“That was part of it,” Tim had said. “Richard was on the fence about having kids at all, so I convinced him to foster as a sort of trial run. He’s open to kids now, but he still wants a baby.”
“And you don’t?” I asked.
“No, I do too. But it’s a lot harder to find babies who are up for adoption than older children.”
Between the six kids and four adults we managed to haul the cooler, canopy, beach chairs, sand toys, and boogie boards across the hot sand and out to the parking lot. Tim and Richard had arrived early, so their minivan was parked close to the entrance. Since I hadn’t shown up until noon, my SUV was at the opposite end of the parking lot.
“Do you want us to drive you to your car?” Richard asked as we loaded everything into the minivan’s trunk.
“No, I’m fine.” All I had to carry was my beach bag and my sand chair.
“I can walk you to your car,” Mr. Guardia offered.
“Thanks, Daniel, but I’m good.” I called him Daniel now because he insisted, but in my mind, he was still Mr. Guardia.
