Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2015 19:22:15 +0200
From: Nick Brady <y2kslacker@mail.com>
Subject: Marco in the Park - Part 25

Marco in the Park - Part 25

This story includes consensual sex between a teenage boy and a young man,
so you should be 18 to read it. Actually, now that Marco is 19 it is no
longer an adult-youth story. Please send comments to y2kslacker@mail.com
and make donations to Nifty to support the stories you
enjoy. http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html

Copyright 2015 by Nick Brady, all rights reserved.


------------------------------------


My birthday falls on March 1 and Marco had a surprise for me. I came home
from work and there was something standing against the kitchen table with a
sheet draped over it. On the table was a birthday cake with 28 candles
which Marco was hurriedly lighting as I walked in and took off my jacket.

	"Happy birthday to you...," he began to sing with a big grin on his
face.

	"What's this?" I laughed.

	"It's your birthday party," he explained.

	I hugged him close and gave him a big wet kiss. "Thank you!" I
looked at the sheet draped over something mysterious.

	"And what's this?"

	"Look and see," he instructed.

I took hold of the sheet and pulled it away from a framed painting. It was
clearly Marco's work. It was of a pair of Red-tailed hawks, mottled brown
on their backs, the under-body and legs white and the fan of tail feathers
a rusty red. One was an adult, the other somewhat younger although fully
feathered. The younger was crouched as if about to vault from the limb he
was perched on. The older was bent towards him with wings partially spread
and watching intently.

The metaphor was clearly that of an older bird carefully teaching the
younger to fly. It was beautifully drawn in Marco's confident style. The
hawks and branches were detailed, the background only suggested. The
feathers were rendered by colors which blended together into the natural
shades of the feathers. The eyes were intent and finely rendered. It was a
magnificent painting and the realization that it portrayed us and our
relationship struck me like a thunderbolt.

	I pulled up a chair and sat down to look closely. "Oh my God,
Marco. This is incredible," I choked out.

	Marco stepped behind me and put his arms around my shoulders very
affectionately. "I don't need to explain this to you do I?" he asked.

	"No," I shook my head. "No, I recognize these birds," I chuckled in
a trembling voice. It took me a moment to be able to say, "This is the most
beautiful thing I have ever seen."

	"I want to put this up on the wall somewhere, but I don't want to
take down your Indian," I suggested.

	Marco smiled. "There is room for both," He took down his old friend
then arranged them to hang side by side. "I think they'll get along," he
said.

We sat and looked at them and I decided he was right.

	After a minute I mentioned, "We need to talk about Father Hoover's
suggestion."

	Marco sighed. "I know. I keep thinking about that. Knowing Father
Hoover, I bet we end up being foster parents. If so then we will for sure
need a bigger place. There is nowhere to put a kid in here. The sofa won't
cut it."

	"It would be nice to have a house anyway," I agreed. "Maybe we
should do that first and then see what happens. If we end up getting a
foster kid we would be ready. No doubt there will be paperwork and legal
niceties."

The next Sunday after church we told Father Hoover that we weren't sure
about being foster parents but the house did sound like a good idea. He
just smiled and told us he would make the arrangements. Two weeks later we
found ourselves moving with the help of a couple of young men from the
church and their pickup trucks. As if by magic some additional furniture
appeared in the other two bedrooms, a twin bed in one, a set of bunk beds
in the other and chests of drawers in each.

Suddenly we had a three bedroom house with a fenced-in back yard and a lot
more room. Our first order of business was to find the right place to hang
up Marco's Indian and my hawks. It began to look like home.

Sure enough, within the month we were greeted by a smiling Father Hoover
after the Sunday services.

	"Could we chat?" he asked.

	We seated ourselves in his office where he handed us two small
stacks of papers. "You will need to fill these out," he instructed us.

	"What's this?" I asked.

	"Oh, the usual formalities," he told us. "A background check to
verify that you have no legal problems, consent agreements. You know, that
sort of thing. I foresee no difficulty."

	"What are we agreeing to?" Marco asked suspiciously.

	The old priest smiled kindly. "There are a pair of young brothers,
twin boys actually, who are in need of a good home. Of course we will
arrange for you to meet them discretely before you make a final decision,
but I think you will find them easy to love."

	Marco sighed. "This is getting awfully real."

	Father Hoover laughed. "Yes, well you may remember the story of
Samuel in the bible. When he heard the voice of the Lord, he simply replied
'Here I am'. Sometimes we hear a call and are not sure of the source, but
it is often the work of our Lord. I would suggest that this is such a
case."

	"Boy, you don't give a guy a lot of wiggle room, do you," Marco
protested.

	"I answer to my own call dear boy," he chuckled. "Do you need more
time to think about this? I admit it is a very important decision."

	Marco and I looked at each other and nodded silently. "I think we
might need to see the boys before we decide, and perhaps know something
about them."

	"Of course," Father Hoover answered with the sense that everything
had been decided. "Take care of this paperwork and I will set things in
motion." We were dismissed.

We drove home from church feeling sure that our life was changing
forever. We sat down and filled out all the forms. We used Father Hoover,
Luigi and my boss as our references, attached a copy of our wedding
certificate and then looked at each other across the kitchen table.

	"Are we really going to do this?" I asked Marco.

	He smiled. "Here we are, I guess."

Marco dropped off the forms at the church after school and we waited to
hear from somebody. A week later we got a call from the Oklahoma Department
of Human Services regarding our application. We arranged to meet at their
office on Wednesday afternoon, checked in at the desk and were shown to a
cubicle. A pleasant looking lady stood to greet us.

	"Hi, I'm Cindy," she introduced herself.

We introduced ourselves and took a seat.

	She looked us over and studied our paperwork. "You guys are
married?" she asked.

	"That's right," I told her. "We have been married for about a year
and a half."

	She continued to flip through our forms. "You have nice
references. We know Father Hoover. We have worked through him before. You
are both working, and you are going to TU?" she glanced at Marco who
nodded.

	"This is all sort of general today, but I do wonder," she looked at
Marco again. "Are you Native American?" she asked him.

	"Yes I am, I'm one-quarter Seminole," he told her. "I'm attending
TU on a Seminole tribal scholarship."

	Cindy had a trace of a smile. "That's interesting. We need more
Indians who are willing to be foster parents. Can you tell me what you
would be comfortable with in terms of ages, and gender?"

	We hadn't really talked about that before. I looked at Marco who
replied, "I think an infant would be tough for us right now. Maybe at least
3 or 4? and I could relate better to a boy I think," he looked back at me
for confirmation.

	She looked at her paperwork a bit more, then smiled. "Actually,
your friend Father Hoover has already sort of talked to our supervisor. You
guys look pretty good, actually you look great. How would you feel about
twin 4 year old boys?"

	I was surprised at how quickly we seemed to have been approved. "It
is OK that we are a same sex couple?"

	The girl laughed. "You come right to the point don't you? Well
maybe it's not ideal, but I guess times have changed. We even have single
foster parents. What's important is that you seem to be very stable and
come well recommended," she looked at Marco again. "These boys are Native
American, Seminole even. You might be just the right family for them."

	For the first time Marco broke out in a broad smile. "Really?
That's kind of neat. Can you tell us about them?"

	"Well," Cindy pulled some additional papers from another folder on
her desk. "They are living in a shelter up in Miami right now. Their
parents were a young couple who were killed in an automobile accident about
a month ago and appear not to have had much family. The only living
relative is a maternal grandmother who is er, not suitable. We tried to
locate some other family members but the father has none that we can
find. It looks like these guys are on their own. I don't know much about
their home situation, but it doesn't appear that either parent had a record
or anything. They should be pretty nice kids."

	I could tell that Marco was getting excited. "Actually, that sounds
very interesting" he looked at me for agreement.

	"Assuming that our application is accepted, I think we would like
to have a chance to meet these boys first, or at least see them."

	"Oh yes of course. Give us a week or so and we will get back to
you," she smiled. "I really don't think there will be any problem. You
gentlemen come very well recommended."

	On the way out of the office I said to Marco. "I think that was a
done deal before we ever walked in there."

	Marco shook his head. "Never underestimate Father Hoover," then he
laughed. "But I'm OK with it. I think he knows what we need better than we
do. Let's see what happens."

What happened was that on the following Monday we got a call from DHS
asking if we could be in Miami the next day to see the boys. We excused
ourselves from school and work, and drove to the northeastern Oklahoma town
of Miami to visit the shelter where the boys were being housed
temporarily. We went into the front room and introduced ourselves to a lady
who told us her name was Maria.

	"Yes, we were expecting you," she said. Let me take you out to
where the boys are playing."

It was a pleasant spring day and there were a dozen kids of varying ages in
the back yard. Sitting in a sand box pushing rusty toy cars around were two
small brown boys who looked remarkably alike.

	"That's them," she pointed to the sand box.

	Marco almost held his breath. "What are their names?"

	"Their names are Samuel and Benjamin Crane and they will be 4 years
old on July 12," she laughed then admitted, "I really can't tell you which
is which."

We sat in a couple of folding chairs next to the house and watched them
quietly so as not to draw attention to ourselves. They were engaged in
pushing the sand into little roads and hills and moving the cars
around. They were obviously working together to a certain extent, but we
could not tell that they were speaking to each other. The lady stood with
us for a few minutes then excused herself and went back inside.

	Marco leaned forward with his elbows on his knees to observe them
then glanced over at me. "They're beautiful," he said. "Look at how they
work with each other."

They were in fact very handsome little boys with straight medium-length
black hair and dark copper-brown skin, healthy looking but a little
thin. They were quiet but very alert. They were wearing knit shorts and
clean but dingy T-shirts, their canvas shoes were untied. They were
adorable.

Marco watched them very intently for several minutes. He seemed to be
absorbing something from them, looking at them with the same intensity with
which he usually observed things.

	"I think they're OK," he said.

	"How do you mean?"

	"I was afraid they would be messed up or something. I think they're
alright," Marco observed. "I think we can do this. What do you think?"

	"They look like neat little boys. I have the feeling that you will
be the one they relate to best, but I am fine with this. I could pick them
up and take them home right now," I admitted.

	Marco stood and shook his head slowly from side to side. I could
hear him mutter quietly, "Here I am Lord – here we are."

We went back in the house and told Maria that we thought little Samuel and
Benjamin looked great and we hoped that things would work out with them. On
the drive back to Tulsa we called Cindy and told her the same thing. She
assured us that we would be hearing from her soon.

Things progressed rather quickly after that, maybe quicker than we were
prepared for. Cindy called and told us that our application had been
approved and wondered what we thought about the little boys in Miami. We
said we would love to have them and were told to pick them up on the
following Saturday.

Suddenly realizing that we were not really prepared to take two toddlers
into our home quite so quickly, we did the only sensible thing we could
think of. We called Father Hoover who told us to come right over.

	"We are supposed to go get them on Saturday," Marco told him with a
sense of apprehension.

	"I guess we can put them in the bunk beds but what about clothes?
We don't really know what they will need," I added with concern.

	"Now boys, don't panic. You are not alone here," he assured
us. "Someone is on their way to join us who will be very helpful."

We were describing the little boys at the shelter when a smiling lady
tapped at the door and was invited in.

	"This is Susan and she will be very helpful to you," Father said by
way of an introduction. "Susan is a social worker and has more experience
with these things than the rest of us put together."

	"Oh I don't know about that, but I will help if I can," Susan said
pleasantly. "What can I do for you?"

	"These brave lads are about to take responsibility for twin
toddlers. This is their first time as foster parents and their experience
is limited. They are wondering what they need to acquire in order to
provide for these youngsters. Do you think you might advise them?"

	"Oh my, you are in for an adventure aren't you? Do you have beds
for these boys?" she asked.

	"We are in a 3 bedroom house and have a pair of bunk beds and a
dresser, but that's about all," I told her.

	"How old are these boys?"

	"They will be 4 in July," I said. "We may have bitten off more than
we can chew," I admitted.

	Susan smiled. "Father has told me that he has great faith in you
fellows and that is good enough for me. Let's see if we can make a list of
what you will need. How about car seats? You will need those to get them
home, and probably a pair of high chairs if they are little
fellows. Hopefully they are potty trained but you will need a potty chair I
imagine. Will they have some clothes to bring with them?"

	Marco and I looked at each other with some concern. "Probably none
of that," Marco guessed.

	Susan was making a list. "I can help with those things I
believe. Do they have any special dietary concerns?"

	Marco paused. "Not that we know of. They look pretty healthy
though."

	"Oh my, you boys are brave. I suspect that you will be informed of
anything that the shelter knows about when you pick them up, but it will be
best to schedule them for a physical as soon as you are able. I believe I
can help with that as well," she added another item to her list. "When will
you be picking them up?"

	"They said to come get them on Saturday," I told her.

	"This coming Saturday?" she asked with surprise.

	"Yes Ma'am," I replied.

	"Very well, we can probably get Brad to do the physical at the
clinic, don't you think?" she looked at Father Hoover.

	"I will call him. They have 24 hour coverage at the emergency
clinic," he agreed.

The calm deliberate way that Susan ticked though the things that we would
need, and her comment that resources were available gave us some
reassurance that our situation was perhaps not as overwhelming as we
feared. There was more discussion, mostly between Susan and Father Hoover
and by the time we parted we had a list of those things that we would need
to procure, most of which was a grocery list. To our surprise we were told
most of the other things could be provided. Susan promised to get back to
us very soon.

	When we concluded, Father Hoover walked us out with his hands on
our shoulders. "Fellows, I realize that I am partly responsible for getting
you into this challenging situation and you may be sure that I will not
abandon you now. St. Jerome's is a community of good people and we have
many resources to draw from here. Have faith. This will all work out."

	On Thursday I got a call on my cell phone from Susan. "Will one of
you be home at 6:00 this evening?"

	"Yes, we should both be there," I assured her.

	"Take courage," she told me. "Help is on the way."

Promptly at 6:00 a large van pulled up in front of the house and a pair of
young men knocked to be sure they had the right address, then began
carrying in all the things that a pair of small boys would need to set up
housekeeping. There were car seats, high chairs, potty seats and several
boxes of toddler size clothing. Also included was a box of toys and some
nice storybooks, something we had not thought of but Susan had
remembered. The young men not only carried them in but helped us put them
away and straighten out the place to make it kid inhabitable.

	I recognized one of the guys as from our church. I thanked them and
tried to tip them but was laughed at for my efforts. "We are glad to help,"
they told us. "Good luck. You guys are going to need it."

We sat down in the living room and looked around at the assortment of
toddler stuff that had suddenly appeared in our home.

	"Wow, this is crazy," Marco sighed. Then he shrugged. "Well, are
you ready to go shopping for our little family?"

I pushed the shopping cart as Marco went through the list of kid friendly
foods. There was soft sandwich bread, smooth peanut butter, grape jelly, a
container of honey that looked like a little bear, macaroni and cheese
dinners, hot dogs, baloney, sliced cheese, crackers, sugar cookies, fruit
flavored yogurt, milk, eggs and cheerios. We added a package of carrot
sticks, a package of frozen green peas, a can of beets, a couple of sweet
potatoes, and fresh fruit – apples, oranges and bananas.

	"I hope this works. Actually it looks pretty good," Marco said. "We
can all live on this."

	"I just hope these kids don't have any special allergies," I
fretted.

	"Nah, these are little Indian boys. I bet they're tough," Marco
guessed.

Friday afternoon we heard from Susan and were given the address of the 24
hour clinic where we were to take the boys for an introductory physical
examination on Saturday afternoon. That evening was spent giving the house
a good cleaning. We didn't need for them to get sick from our sloppy
housekeeping.

Saturday morning we tried to think of what else needed to be done but went
blank. We buckled the car seats in the back of my Camry and took off for
Miami. The great adventure had begun.

We arrived in Miami about noon and Maria ushered us into the dining room
where the kids were eating lunch. I noted that it looked like baloney
sandwiches, carrot sticks and milk. All items on our list. So far so good.

After lunch she had us sign some papers then invited the twins into the
living room and introduced us.

	"Samuel and Benjamin, this is Marco and Marty. They are going to
take you live with them. You will get to ride in their car and do lots of
fun things!" She tried to be enthusiastic but the boys looked suspicious. I
felt nervous.

	Marco stepped up to the boys and squatted down to be at eye
level. "Hi. My name is Marco. What are your names?" he asked quietly. The
boys stood closer together and did not respond.

	"I know that one of you is Samuel and one of you is Benjamin. Are
you Benjamin?" he poked one of the boys in the tummy and grinned.

	The boy who had been poked gave a shy smile and the other said
crossly. "No!" then pointed at himself.

	"OK then, you are Samuel and you are Benjamin," giving each a
gentle tummy poke while smiling in a friendly way. We both tried to
remember who was who by memorizing the T-shirts. The boys seemed to relax a
little.

	Maria appeared again carrying two little knapsacks with Sponge Bob
on the back. Inside I assumed was whatever the boys had for
possessions. "Look what you have! Look, it's Sponge Bob and you get to keep
them." The boys looked interested but not totally convinced.

	"Do you have car seats?" Maria asked and we nodded in the
affirmative. "This works better if we do it quickly," she told us quietly
and helped us out to the car where the boys were reluctantly strapped into
the car seats. She stepped back quickly and waved goodbye. We drove off
feeling like kidnappers.

As soon as we drove away both boys began to squirm and cry.

	"They're scared," Marco said. "Stop at the McDonald's up here."

I pulled in and went to the drive through. The kids continued to cry. Marco
ordered 2 orders of fries and 2 small root beers with lids and straws. As
soon as we left he turned around and waved the fries under their noses.

	"Want some fries?" he tempted them. The crying continued but they
were looking at the fries. Marco took one, ate it and smacked loudly. Then
he took another and offered it to one and then the other, pretending to
snatch it away as quickly as it was offered. They looked somewhat
interested.

On the second pass one of them (we thought it was Benjamin) opened his
mouth and accepted the fry. At that point Samuel opened his mouth. Marco
began to feed them fries, supplementing them with root beer. Soon the boys
were munching on their snacks, wet tears still on their cheeks but no
longer crying. Marco fed them fries until they lost interest then gently
wiped their faces with a napkin. He began to point at things out of the
window until their eyes grew heavy and both little boys sagged down in
their car seats and fell asleep.

	Marco turned to me and smiled. "Round one," he said.

	I looked at him and chuckled. "You are amazing. How did you know
how to do that?"

	He sat back and grinned. "You got to think like a little kid."

We arrived back in Tulsa and drove to the clinic. Each of us took a
sleeping boy in our arms and walked inside. The receptionist seemed to know
who we were and sent us back to an examining room. We were soon joined by a
physician's assistant.

	"Hello, I'm Brad," he told us. "Are these your new boys?"

To our surprise the little guys seemed to be pretty stoic about all this. I
assumed that the combination of fries and a nap had been helpful.

Brad was good with kids. First he got them to 'go potty' for a urine
sample. He made a game out of listening to their heart sounds, allowing
them to first listen to his. He exchanged lion faces with them, managing to
look down their throats in the process. He took their temperature with a
clever gadget that he swiped across their temple and probed their abdomens
while pretending to tickle them. With our assistance he quickly removed
their clothing, inspected their genitals and checked for any bruises or
evidence of abuse while keeping them distracted with a sucker. They looked
great and got a clean bill of health.

	"These guys look pretty healthy," he told us. "It would be best if
we had some kind of a health history for them but your social worker might
be able to find that for you. I am guessing that they don't have any
serious allergy problems. Their throat and lungs seem clear. Common food
allergies would probably have shown up while they were in the
shelter. Watch them carefully and keep track of what they eat."

	We shook hands and thanked him as we got ready to leave. "I will
call your social worker while you are on the way home and she will send
someone to help you get the boys settled. I would recommend that you find a
regular pediatrician for them soon. We normally are only here for
emergencies but were happy to help you today. Best of luck!"

We wrestled the boys back into the car seats where Marco pacified them with
left-over fries. We were home soon to find Lisa, a young nursing student
waiting there to assist us.

Lisa was great. We got instruction on potty training. They were not diaper
kids but would need to be reminded to go periodically to avoid
accidents. She looked over the sleeping arrangements and suggested that the
bunk beds would best be put side-by-side to avoid a fall from the top bunk,
and helped us rearrange them. We talked about a simple diet and the
benefits of soft easy-to-digest foods. She checked our food stock and
approved with a reminder that some green vegetables would be nice. She
basically gave us a crash course in parenting toddlers.

	"We don't know how to thank you," I told her. "Could we talk you
into camping in the spare bedroom?" I asked, only partly joking.

	"Oh you'll be fine," she assured us and was off and away.

And there we were, alone with two little boys. During the time that Lisa
had been instructing us little Samuel and Benjamin had sort of followed us
around out of curiosity. Actually, they had followed Marco around and kept
him in their sight. Now that we were on our own, we sat them down in the
middle of the living room floor and dumped out the box of toys that Susan
had left for us. Marco and I sat and watched them as they inspected the
contents of the toy box, mostly cars, trucks and trains.

	"Well here we are," Marco said while keeping his eyes glued on the
twins.

	I shook my head and laughed, "The first thing we need to do is
figure out how to tell them apart."

	"Benjamin is a little bigger," Marco stated.

	"Really?" I looked again and couldn't see the difference.

	"I was looking at them when Brad had their clothes off," Marco
explained. "Samuel is a little shorter and more slender. Benjamin is just a
little bigger."

	"Well that only works if they are both naked and standing
together."

	"True," Marco laughed. "But it's a start. At least they know the
difference."

	"They are beautiful," I said. "They were following you around like
puppies."

	"Yeah, they seem to like me. I guess I am the right color."

	"And you fed them fries," I suggested."

	"Can you tell them apart right now?" I asked.

	"Well yes, but only because I remember what color shirt they are
wearing. Maybe we should just let them run naked."

	"No, really. I need to tell them apart. We will confuse them if we
don't get their names right," I insisted.

	Marco looked very thoughtful. "You're right. That is
important. Maybe we could give them different haircuts or something."

	I laughed then thought about it. "Actually that might not be a bad
idea, at least until we get used to them."

	"We will figure this out," Marco had scarcely taken his eyes off of
the boys as they inspected their toys. "What do you think Marty? Is this
going to work?"

	"It just has to. I don't think there is any turning back now."

	"Nope," Marco got up and went to the kitchen. "I need to feed these
puppies."

Marco diced up some hot dogs and quickly made a mac and cheese dinner while
I set up the high chairs. We put some milk in a pair of tippy cups and
dished out their dinner. We decided to watch them eat and feed ourselves
later. Marco supervised while I put sheets on the beds.

They pretty well fed themselves, ignoring the small forks that were
provided and ate with their hands. Marco helped with the milk and they
seemed to get a fair amount of food inside themselves. The greater portion
went on the table and on the floor, but it was a start.

	Marco looked over the cheesy face and hands and said, "OK
boys. It's bath time. Marty, you run the tub and I'll get them undressed.

I started running warm water into the bathtub, not sure of the temperature
but being careful not to let it get too hot. While I was bent over Marco
tossed a couple of empty plastic containers into the tub then retreated to
the living room. After a minute I heard loud giggles then he entered the
bathroom with a naked squirming boy under each arm.

We put them on the little potty chairs and encouraged them to 'go
potty'. First Samuel pushed and his face got red and he dropped his little
deposit inside. Not to be outdone, Benjamin followed suit. We were generous
with our praise and more than a little grateful. We each wiped a small
bottom as the boys leaned forward and stood on their heads.

I squirted in a little dab of bath gel and swished it around to create some
soap bubbles then we put the boys in the tub. Marco splashed them gently
and poured water over them with the containers. They seemed to like that so
we watched them closely and let them soak and play with the plastic tubs.

	Marco looked at them with an expression of pure joy. "Wow, they are
such cute little fellows."

	"They are beautiful," I said. They look like miniature Marco. They
even have their foreskins like you."

	Marco smiled. "They need to know how to keep themselves clean but I
can show them how. I understand about that."

I sat on the toilet lid and watched while Marco sat on the edge of the tub
and cootchie-cooed them while he swished around on them with a wash
cloth. They did fine. Marco pulled first one and then the other out and
handed them to me to be wrapped in a clean towel and patted dry. We took
them into what was to be their bedroom and got out some underpants and a
clean T-shirts.

	Marco looked them over and pointed to the one he declared was
Samuel. "Put the yellow shirt on this one. Benjamin gets the blue shirt."
We had them sorted out for the first night.

We put them in separate beds and stood back. Samuel almost immediately
scooted down and got in bed with his brother then they looked a little more
content.

	We stood and admired them for a minute then turned out the light
and started to leave. There was an immediate protest.

	Marco disappeared and returned with a copy of 'The Cat in the Hat'
by Dr. Suess. "I need to read to them," he said.

I sat on a little side chair while Marco kicked off his shoes and snuggled
into the bed with his little puppies. He began to read, slowly and with
expression, holding the book so that they could see the pictures. Probably
they did not really understand the words, but they like the sound of them,
the rhythm of the simple rhymes and the warm sound of Marco's voice.

I sat and watched as they grew quiet and fell asleep. Marco lay very still
and waited for ten minutes or so, then gently slid out of bed and pulled
the covers over the sleeping children. He turned to me and I saw that his
eyes were wet. He nodded his head and gave me a silent thumbs-up.

	"Round two," he whispered.



TO BE CONTINUED


--------------------------------

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I wish to thank Matr Dontelli who patiently edits this story.

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