An inconvenient surprise

Gala?

The only response that he got was Wednesday's death glare and a stuck-out tongue.

"Have you decided yet when you're going to start your maternity leave?" Tyler asked as they headed out to the living room. "I know you were planning on discussing it with Ivory yesterday."

"She said that I can work as long as I want, and we can increase the number of days that I work from home as time goes on and I get too tired to go in to work," Wednesday reported. "And then I think I have to start proper leave three weeks before my due date? That's what we've done the paperwork for, at least."

She made a face. "I feel like I'm going to go either go crazy with boredom or with fussing around to try to make everything perfect. At least I'll have Thing to talk to during the day."

"And you don't have to stay at home," Tyler reminded her, heading into the kitchen and starting to pull bowls down for the cookies. "It's not like you're on bed rest. You can go visit your parents. And didn't you say that Pugsley might be visiting during that time?"

"He might, yeah. He hasn't decided for sure yet."

It didn't take long for them to fall into a comfortable silence. Wednesday curled up with a blanket, a book, and the ever-hovering Masha while Tyler got down to work in the kitchen, tossing chocolate and butterscotch chips at Thing as he mixed up the dough. After a while Sasha appeared, meowing for treats.

"Thing, did you teach her to do this?" Tyler asked with some exasperation as Sasha made an attempt to climb up his leg. "She didn't use to be such a beggar."

"Blame my father," Wednesday called from the other room. "He's been teasing her with table scraps. I've been telling him not to, but he never listens."

"We might have to start shutting the cats up in the bedroom during dinner," Tyler suggested. He scooped Sasha up and carried her out to Wednesday. "I need to put the cookies in the oven and I don't want her tumbling in."

"Double kitty cuddles!" Wednesday snuggled Sasha under her chin. "You get to stay put, my little troublemaker."

Sasha let out an annoyed mmrew but stayed put.

Without a hungry shadow attached to his leg, Tyler finished scooping out the first trays of cookies in no time and put them in the oven. Once the timer was set, he pulled out his phone to check it. It wasn't long before he made a face and let out an irritated noise.

"What is it?"

"Tom just texted. Apparently my father wants to talk to us over Facetime. I'm guessing that not having the option of being able to call us over with a day's notice has been chafing at him a bit." Tyler rolled his eyes as he headed out to join Wednesday on the couch. "Tom quoted him, actually- he said that he wanted to talk since we 'didn't have the chance to properly get together before his departure'."

Wednesday scoffed. "Gee, I wonder why."

"And we might as well do it, or we'll have him pestering us all the time," Tyler said, feeling a bit discouraged. He- well, they- had kind of been banking on the two-month separation (and the couple months of very minimal contact prior) would drive his father into actually honoring their scheduled dinner.

With a Facetime "meeting" mid-vacation, Mr. Galpin would probably consider that enough interaction with his son and daughter-in-law for another couple months.

At this rate, Adrienne would already be born by the time Tyler's father could spare the time to meet with them again.

"Do you want to tell him the news when we're Facetiming him?" Wednesday asked. "Or do you want to do the- what did Tom call it? Malicious compliance?"