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“Is it– is it on? Is it working?”
Poe fiddled with the tiny mic on his shirt flap.
It was as lowkey as you had hoped. Just the reporter, her cameraperson, and an assistant. No makeup, no training, just a conversation.
The interview was divided into three segments. Both your individual one on one interviews, and then the joint interview, your answers to be cut together later.
Poe went first. He was in a great mood.
It was early afternoon, natural light sweeping in from the bay windows to the back yard, a back yard lined with tall, billowing jungle trees.
The breeze made the light ripple through the back kitchen and dining room.
“How many kids do you want?”
“That’s the first question?” Poe asked to confirm.
“As many as she wants.” He nodded confidently from where he sat on his living room couch, arm over the armrest. The seating area around them was round and warm, handmade furniture and textiles, local wood, cloth woven in every color of the rainbow.
“As many as he wants.” You shrugged, unknowingly in the same spot Poe had been a half hour ago, one leg up to spread your lap comfortably.
“I was an only child, and I hated it. I just want my home filled with joy. I don’t wanna say there’s a limit to how many I’ll have. Whatever feels right. Have one, have another, keep going. I love kids.” Poe chuckled, genuinely warm at the thought of a baby in arms, toddlers underfoot, children in the yard and teens picking up their studies and interests, needing the speeder. He wanted all of it.
“Haven’t been around too many. I wanna prosper, y’know?” He continued. “I try to excel at everything I do. I need to have things to do with myself. This is my next mission, in a way. I try not to think of it that way, but it’s how I see life. You gotta be doing things to have done things. You need a plan. Or to wing it. Gotta pick one and go!”
“Poe and I waited so long for this. I mean, we can’t keep off of each other. I think we’re going to end up with a ton just because we’re not against it. We want it together.” A smile pulled at your mouth.
“I… it’s like, we work so well together. Our kids are going to be real stubborn.” You were trying not to smile too big, thinking about Poe, working with him, what your babies will be like is distracting, you want to go on about how headstrong and exuberant he is.
“Someone tells me they think I can’t do something, that it’s half baked, I’ve gotta do it, now. I’ll find out for myself. I always go for it.” You said.
“Thoughts on gender? What do you think your having right now?” The next question is answered very quickly.
“Definitely a girl. And I’m not just saying that because she thinks it’s a girl, I genuinely think it’s a girl.”
“Poe thinks it’s a girl.” You rubbed your bump. “I told him my mom craved sour stuff when she was pregnant with me and a couple months in– well a couple months after we found out, so three months along– I asked for lemon ice, and he just got convinced. He won’t be disappointed, but…”
“I would be content if they were all girls.” Poe said, a chuckle in his tone. “I know most people want it to be like the Force, or something, they want balance, I think that’s not a comparison. I don’t care. All girls.”
“We’re gonna raise them the same. Same skills, same opportunities, same respect, safety, education.” You nodded. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I think society is women. Men live in it, but if you actually look at what builds and binds and creates; it’s women. And that’s as much of a responsibility as it is a privilege, to raise. Sexism is still a thing even if we continue to pretend it isn’t and no girl should be raised with that. It should feel like the slap to the face it is the second someone tries to reduce her to her gender, her femininity, any of that. It’s strength. It’s real strength and it’s something, y’know, men just don’t have. They should, I think they can, that it’s possible, but they don’t.”
“It doesn’t make a difference.” You shrugged.
The interviewer hummed.
“Did you plan for this before the war was over?”
“Yeah, you know, this was kind of always the plan? It was always a goal. Meeting my wife just made it possible.”
“Oh, gosh no.” You shook your head, twisting his mother’s wedding band around your finger. “I couldn’t have even thought about it until it was over. He talked about it so much, I think it– it got him through some times. But I wasn’t ready to make it happen until that day. It was one of the things that made it so special. I mean, I probably would have gone on with it eventually anyway, but it was celebration; we’re gonna have that baby now!”
“It was never hypothetical. Both my heroes were mothers. They both turned out very differently. There’s no world, win, lose, where I don’t have a kid. I’d do it all myself if I could. I feel a responsibility to.”
“This is like– we did it. I’m not trying to say it’s like a reward, it’s an honor, it’s something we can have, now.” You laughed a little. “That’s what winning gave us: life.”
“Are you planning to raise them here?”
“Yeah. I grew up here. I love the greenery, we’re gonna be outside a lot. My dad lives just across the way, my mom passed when I was a kid, so, y’know– I still want them to have a grandparent nearby. Her parents aren’t uh… well they were never big fans of her joining the Resistance.” Poe frowned. The idea of the grandparents of his child never meeting them really got to his heart.
“Yep, right here, this house.” You said, patting the couch next to you.
Yavin was gorgeous. You wouldn’t want them to be anywhere else.
Poe pulled his earphones out and sat beside you, immediately putting his arm around your waist.
“Having fun so far?” He asked.
“Easier than I thought.”
“Yeah? Same here. I thought they’d be more existential or we’d be getting into the war, service, but it’s all basic stuff.”
Stuff anybody knew. Obvious stuff. You were an open couple, always had been.
He sat up straight when she gestured they were rolling, pulling his hands to himself.
The interviewer adjusted her notes, looked nervous for just a split second before it disappeared behind abject professionalism.
She asked the first question.
Your husband’s eyes met yours just as briefly.
“Are these the same questions we already answered?” Poe asked.
“Yes. You’re going to answer them jointly now.”
You were suddenly very hot and disoriented, already blanking on your answers. You had felt completely free and comfortable thus far, now it felt like a test.
“How many kids do you want to have?”
“Two?” You answered, hand on your belly.
“Like, two.” Poe cleared his throat, hands folded over his lap.
“Two.” You nodded. That was respectable.
You took his hand to stop him picking at his nails.
“What do you think you’re having right now?”
You took as deep a breath you could.
“It’s a boy.” You said.
“It’s a boy??” Poe shifted up in his seat, he furrowed his brow at the interviewer before turning, you could feel his eyes going over your expression.
“The student messed up, they thought I already knew, they were so embarrassed I couldn’t even be upset.”
“What the hell. We– it wasn’t—” Poe wiped his eyes and inhaled. A boy. You weren’t pulling his leg.
“Are you okay?” You said while adjusting your mic.
“Of course. Of course it is.”
It had been a girl. He was certain of it.
The interviewer looked between you both.
“Can we—”
“Yes! Continue,” Poe all but snapped, leaning up in his seat, pulling himself back into it. He couldn’t place how he was angry. Why was he angry? There was nothing to be upset about.
You were having a baby boy and that was wonderful news.
“Did you plan for this before the war was over?”
“No,” Poe said, anticipating your answer.
“Yes.” You said, anticipating his.
You made a face and Poe scratched above his ear.
This had always been the plan. Since you met, started dating, got married.
Would it have been if you didn’t win?
He pulled his hand from yours.
“Okay. Last question. Are you planning to raise your children here?”
“Poe was born here. It’s really important to him his family’s here.”
“I mean– I’d be fine moving closer to– to your parents.” He said. “I mean if you wanted.”
“My parents?” You were too stunned to say anything more.
He couldn’t be serious.
You just looked at each other.
“And that’s everything. Thank you for your time.”
“We’re having a boy?” Poe asked as soon as the door shut.
“Yeah.”
It was getting on in the day. Almost evening.
It was sperm that determined the second X or a Y chromosome. So it was him, really. He made the baby a boy.
“I know you wanted a girl—” you started and Poe couldn’t even let you.
“No, no, oh my goodness… no, it– it doesn’t make a difference. I’m being ridiculous. I’m just happy you’re pregnant.” He meant it, even if he felt about it.
There was nothing wrong with it, no one had done anything wrong.
Boys were alright, he was a boy. His love for his kids would never, ever be conditional.
“I’ll love a boy just as much.” He promised. Sincerely. He would. “I just have to get used to it.”
“We need to talk more.” You said.
“We do.”
You thought you talked a lot.
Food, bills, pensions, utilities, correspondence. Maybe you just exchanged information. You hadn’t really sat down together for more than a couple minutes since your wedding, now you think about it. Where had all that time gone? Where had you both gone?
“You want to be closer to my parents?” You could barely get the words out.
Closer was a reach. Know at all was closer.
“I– I just don’t want… him, to grow up without them. I think we should at least try. If you could call them—”
“Poe—”
“Imagine it was our kid. This kid. We didn’t understand why he was doing what he was doing but he had a baby of his own and we never even knew about it. I mean, wouldn’t you rethink the things you said? Believed?”
You wanted to say yes to him. You did.
“You don’t know them.” You said.
“I want to.”
You let out a harsh, round sigh, an ache creeping though you, stretching your back against the weight of your sixth month bump, bracing your hands on your lumbar.
You cursed as Poe gripped your shoulder and massaged down your back, reliving the tense muscles with his palm one at a time. He kept it up till you were loose and sore.
He put his arm around under your armpit and across to your other shoulder, rubbing your bicep, and the other around your waist, hugging you gently from behind.
“Will you please think about it?”
“I will think about it.” You said, then more quietly, both hands over your son. “Are we really only having two?”
“Kriff no. I want as many as you want.”
“Four?” You said, cautiously.
“Six, eight—” he moved his head from side to side.
“Ten.”
“Ten.” He breathed a laugh, then nodded. “I can make that happen.”
“You wanna see how we feel after? After this one comes, after a few?” You asked.
“We’d need at least one more bedroom.” He’s thinking logistically, strategically. Trying to, anyway. He was stuck on that baby, that little boy, now. What he’d be like when he was out. “We’d need some multiples unless we keep the gap under two years. That’s not exactly within our control.”
“We’d do two as close as we can, then have a gap, than two more.”
You had thought about this. Planned it out in your head. He isn’t sure how to say he wished he’d been in your head.
“Still. Being pregnant for– seven, seven and a half years…”
“Yeah.” You mused. “Honestly it sounds great to get whatever I want whenever I want from you for that long.”
He chuckled low. “Absolutely.”
Your smile faded into the quiet.
“Poe I can’t wait until this baby’s here, and I can hold him. I wanna hold them so bad.”
“How do you think I feel?” He could only hold him through you. He wouldn’t say he was jealous, but, it didn’t feel fair he couldn’t carry them at least half the time. Some days he wanted to so badly it made him sick.
“I wanna hold him in my arms and sing to him. Take his hand and just let him hold my fingers.”
You felt a foot or a hand press to the lower right of your navel. Tiny, firm.
“I’m sorry I acted like that. We didn’t know. I shouldn’t have been so sure.”
“You got excited.”
“I did.”
“Are we like that article about post war families, how they had so many kids because they felt they owe it to rebuild, to be happy?” You stroke up his sleeve, under it, over his arm.
“I want kids because I want the rest of my life filled. I had so little family. I’m having all the kids my parents and grandparents couldn’t. If that’s what that is, I don’t care who wrote what about it.” He said. “It is what it is.”
“I want enough kids this house isn’t so quiet. I wanna fill the couch. I wanna cuddle with all my limbs and spend hours getting one photo for holiday cards.”
He held you tighter.
“Yes,” He said with his whole chest. “I want that so bad.” He pressed his face hard into the side of your neck, eyes watering.
“Wow. This interview got in my head.” He cleared his throat.
“Think it didn’t get into mine?”
“Humiliating.” He stated.
“I think we need to do it more.”
“Huh?”
“I think we need to have like– an interview night, with each other. Once a week?”
“Write down questions and–”
“Answer them. Just us. No cameras.”
“Same time? Next week?”
“I know I want the maximum amount of time to recover.”
“Yeah.”
He moved his hand down, over the swell of your stomach.
“We’re gonna figure this out, and I swear to you, no matter what we’re not getting any sleep for the entire foreseeable future.” He said. “We will fill this house.”
“At least one girl.”
“Please,” he stressed. “If we have any more we gotta have at least one girl.”
“Are we gonna be really indecisive parents?” You asked in almost a whisper. “Like go ask your dad, well what did mom say, I dunno let’s ask her, but last time dad said—”
“Shit. I think so.”
“Agree on one thing?” You shifted your weight back into him, cradling the back of his neck with your hand.
“What’s that?”
“Marrying was our best idea.”
“My idea.” He said flatly.
“You ass–!” You stand up fully and turn around.
“Marrying me was your best i—”
You kiss him so deep, hands in his hair, backing him till he has to brace against the wall, he can’t do anything but shut up.
Interview over.