just one more little thing

 Mario couldn't help but smile when he got the news from his dad about Caitlin. Finally, it was official. She was having a boy.

"I'm glad you got to see the sonogram first," Mario said. It was good to hear the laughter in his father's voice. 

"This means you need to give this child a cousin," his father was brazen to say and Mario only laughed. Why was his Dad like this? In all the years he'd spent with him this was the first time he'd put him on the spot like this. Granted, he knew neither of them was getting any younger.

"I guess it could happen," Mario wanted to give his Dad a little hope.

"Oh, when did that happen?" His dad wanted to know.

Mario couldn't help smiling, but then he hoped his dad didn't bring it up around Bren.

"Don't even ask," was all Mario had to say. "Let's just be happy for Caitlin and Deano and hope it all goes well."

"She never liked needles, you know."

"Well, who does?" Mario shot back.

"I know, but she isn't one who has much of a threshold for pain," he remembered.

"What is it they say? Every day makes you a little stronger or something like that?" Mario assured him that Caitlin was a lot stronger than they even knew. "She'll probably even surprise herself."

"Let's hope so." But his dad remembered stories of her when she was young and how she couldn't do a thing the time she sprained her ankle. He'd had to carry her on his back everywhere.

"You're a better Dad than you know," Mario told him.

"I wouldn't say that," he still regretted not spending more time with her and of course with Mario and Rico too. 

"Stop talking that way, " Mario said. "I love you and you've made me feel loved."