[After Lunch] [Pritchett House]
Lunch had ended almost twenty minutes ago, although nobody seemed particularly interested in leaving.
Jay was relaxing on his lounge chair with Stella next to him. Mitchell and Cam were talking about the cat and how to make Lily forget about Larry, while Alex had settled under an umbrella with her book.
Jack was back in the pool beside Luke, floating lazily with his sunglasses on while Haley sat on the edge with her feet in the water. After talking about the plan with Jack, she'd realized she liked his alternative considerably more than her original idea.
Haley looked toward Claire. "Alright, major trip update from me and Jack."
Claire glanced up from her iced tea. "You mean the top-secret mission you've been vaguer about than your college major?"
"I told you things!"
"You said you wanted to go somewhere before you got huge."
Haley pointed at her. "Which is a very specific timeline, thank you."
From the pool, Jack lifted his sunglasses slightly. "She's right, Mrs. Dunphy. That was exactly the PowerPoint presentation I got."
Haley twisted around. "You figured it out eventually."
"Yeah, I did."
Haley ignored him and turned back toward everyone. "Whatever. Point is, we were aiming for Europe. Paris, Rome, London... the classic romantic checklist."
Gloria immediately smiled. "Ay, Paris! Pregnant in Paris is a dream! The little cafés, the chic maternity clothes, the croissants!"
Jay looked toward her. "We have croissants at the grocery store."
Gloria gave him a pitying look. "Jay, please. A glazed donut from Ralphs does not compare to a buttery pastry under the Eiffel Tower."
"I like Ralphs."
"We know."
Haley continued before they could derail the conversation. "But then I did the math on the flights. It's like, a twenty-hour ordeal with layovers."
Jack corrected her from the pool. "Some routes would be shorter, but we're now measuring every international flight as twenty hours."
"Because I'm carrying a human and twenty hours is torture!" Haley held up both hands as another realization struck her. "Oh my god, wait. Double that because we have to fly back!"
Alex lowered her book. "Welcome to the concept of a round trip."
Haley stared at her. "How am I supposed to worry about coming back when I haven't even packed yet?"
Alex slowly raised her book again. "Every day I set the bar lower, and every day you still limbo right under it."
Claire covered a smile with her glass.
Haley turned back toward the family. "So Jack suggested we stay closer to home and do a road trip instead. We can travel around, eat wherever we want, go shopping, see different places, and Jack knows people who can get us into concerts and stuff."
Phil's head lifted from his lounge chair.
Claire noticed immediately.
Haley continued without realizing she'd awakened something dangerous. "We're thinking Palm Springs first, then Joshua Tree, maybe Sedona after that, and then Austin. We could take about a week, maybe eight days, and actually enjoy the drive instead of spending half the trip sitting in airports."
Phil slowly removed his sunglasses.
Jack saw him from across the pool and immediately became suspicious.
Haley smiled as she pictured it. "We'd stop whenever we want. Jack said we could find some really good restaurants along the route, maybe do a private dinner somewhere in Sedona, and Austin has tons of music. There's shopping everywhere, which is obviously important."
Claire nodded. "Clearly a priority."
"Plus, Jack's off set for a while, so we're not rushing. Right babe?" Haley looked toward him.
Jack gave her a thumbs-up from his inflatable. "Totally free until January."
Phil sat completely upright. "Road trip."
Claire closed her eyes.
Phil looked between Haley and Jack as though they'd just announced the discovery of a new continent. "You two... are taking a road trip?"
Haley nodded cautiously. "Um... yeah?"
Phil stood. "By what means?"
Haley blinked. "In a car?"
Phil's excitement grew. "What kind of car?"
Jack glanced toward Claire, who had already recognized where this was heading.
Haley shrugged. "I don't know, an SUV?"
Phil placed both hands on his hips. "A Recreational Vehicle."
Claire sighed into her drink.
Phil's face transformed into the expression of a man whose dormant childhood dream had just received federal funding. "It's staring us right in the face. You need an RV."
Luke immediately paddled his float toward the edge. "Dibs on shotgun!"
Haley frowned. "Luke, no. This is a romantic babymoon."
Phil walked toward the pool, his enthusiasm increasing with every step. "Just picture it! The majesty of the open highway. A rolling fortress with its own toilet. The great American landscape as your personal TV screen, waking up to a brand-new horizon every single day."
Jay looked over from his chair. "You sound like a guy trying to sell me a timeshare in Reno."
Phil spread his arms. "Because timeshares are investments in memories, Jay. And RVs are freedom."
...
//Phil Commentary//
Phil sat forward on the couch with the solemn excitement of someone discussing an ambition he'd carried for decades.
"Taking the family cross-country in an RV has been my Mount Everest. It's pure magic. You're traveling, but you never leave the couch. It's a turtle shell made of fiberglass. It's real estate that refuses to be tied down!"
His smile faded slightly.
"I've brought it up for years, but Claire always vetoes it. 'The kids have school.' 'Gas is too expensive.' 'Phil, a thirty-foot land-yacht won't fit through the Lincoln Tunnel just so you can get a slice of pepperoni.'"
He looked toward the camera.
"That was one time."
Phil paused before his expression brightened again.
"But look at the stars aligning! Haley and Jack want the open road, Gloria's expecting, schedules are magically clear, and Jack has VIP access to the whole country."
His voice lowered with reverence.
"The universe isn't just knocking... it's honking a very large, pneumatic horn."
//Commentary End//
...
Back beside the pool, Claire watched her husband pacing around the patio while mentally calculating how quickly she could stop this before he began printing itineraries.
She was already too late.
Phil pointed toward Jack. "I call Captain's chair."
Jack nearly dropped his juice box. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"The early bird gets the steering wheel, Jack."
Haley started laughing. "Dad, it's a babymoon. As in, just the two of us."
Phil's face fell just enough to make her immediately feel guilty. "No, totally. I get it. A romantic getaway... Intimate... Exclusive- message received."
He turned away slowly.
Claire narrowed her eyes. She knew that walk.
Phil made it three steps before Gloria spoke.
"I am coming too."
Jay sat up. "Say what now?"
Gloria came through the patio doors carrying a bowl of fruit. "A babymoon is exactly what I need! Haley and I can be pregnant together on the open road."
Jay stared at her. "Pretty sure babymoons aren't a group activity."
"And why is that?"
"Because they usually involve one couple and one baby."
Gloria gestured between herself and Jay. "We are a couple having a baby."
Then she gestured toward Haley and Jack.
"They are a couple having a baby."
Her smile widened.
"Two babies, two moons. It is simple math, Jay."
Alex lowered her book. "You just broke the laws of astronomy in one breath."
Gloria ignored her and looked toward Haley. "We will shop, we will eat, we will look at the gorgeous scenery. Ay, Sedona! I need to go to Sedona. They have the healing crystals and the vortexes!"
Jay frowned. "We have rocks in the driveway."
Gloria stared at him.
Jay sighed. "Alright, fine. Sedona has magic rocks."
Haley looked toward Jack, visibly warming to the idea. "Wait, a double babymoon actually sounds kind of amazing."
Jack pushed his sunglasses onto his forehead. "And there goes the romantic getaway. Time of death: six minutes."
Phil immediately stepped back into the conversation. "So... I'm hearing the guest list is flexible?"
Claire pointed at him. "Don't even think about it, Phil."
"Just seeking clarification!"
Jay rubbed his forehead. "What about Manny? Isn't Manny going to Colombia for a couple of weeks?"
Manny, who had been sitting at the patio table writing something in a notebook, looked up sharply. "Excuse me, since when am I being exported?"
Gloria frowned at Jay. "Manny is coming with us on the trip."
Jay gestured toward him. "He loves visiting Colombia."
...
//Jay Commentary//
Jay sat back in the chair with his hands resting comfortably across his stomach.
"Look, if I'm gonna spend some quality time with Gloria before the baby comes, sending Manny to Colombia isn't exactly a punishment. Her family's expecting him, and it's been a while since he's visited them."
Jay nodded as though the arrangement made perfect sense.
"I just gotta get him on the plane somehow."
He paused, his expression becoming considerably more serious.
"Because if Manny doesn't go to Colombia, Colombia comes to me."
Jay stared at the camera.
"That's happened before."
After another beat, he shook his head at the memory.
"I had forty people in my house. I knew four of them."
//Commentary End//
"I love Tuscany too, Jay," Manny replied. "But that doesn't mean I want a surprise one-way ticket there."
"It's a vacation, not a deportation."
Manny's expression remained deeply offended. "My emotional trauma says otherwise."
..
Cam suddenly sat forward. "Mitchell."
Mitchell didn't look up from his book. "Whatever it is, absolutely not."
"I haven't even opened my mouth yet!"
"You made your 'whimsical travel scheme' face. I can feel the incoming financial ruin."
Cam turned toward him. "We haven't taken Lily anywhere culturally enriching in ages! And given the recent chaos, getting out of town might be exactly what the therapist ordered."
That made Mitchell finally lower his book.
Cam's enthusiasm softened. "A genuine family excursion. We need to build real core memories, Mitchell. Not just the ones involving endless adoption paperwork or us emotionally scarring the volunteers at the pound."
..
//Cam and Mitchell Commentary//
Cam sat beside Mitchell with his hands folded carefully in his lap, his expression unusually sincere.
"It's been a rough couple of months," Cam said. "We thought we were expanding our family, and when that fell through... I think we got so wrapped up in the loss that we forgot Lily still needs us fully present."
Mitchell nodded quietly. "It has. The last thing we want is for Lily to look back at this year and just remember her dads moping around the house like a pair of Victorian widows."
Cam's eyes immediately watered. "Exactly. I want her memories filled with majestic sunsets, sing-alongs, giant balls of yarn, and her daddy enthusiastically pointing out every single cow on the highway."
Mitchell looked at him. "Wait, why am I the one pointing out cows?"
"Because you thrive on teachable moments, Mitchell."
"Pointing at a bovine and saying 'cow' isn't education, Cam. It's just identifying livestock."
Cam smiled before his expression suddenly tightened. "Plus, after... the cat incident, I think fleeing the county is our healthiest option."
Mitchell nodded. "Highly recommended."
"That poor shelter volunteer will never be the same."
Mitchell stared ahead. "In fairness, we didn't traumatize her. The life-sized stuffed gorilla traumatized her."
Cam sighed heavily. "Mitchell, it was bungee-corded to the roof of our Prius."
Mitchell considered that.
"...Pack your bags, we're leaving."
//Commentary End//
Lily walked in holding a Minute Maid juice box. "Can Larry come?"
Mitchell rubbed between his eyebrows. "We still don't have Larry."
"Because you couldn't get a cat."
Cam looked wounded. "Sweetheart, what did we say about weaponizing our personal failures?"
Lily just maintained eye contact and aggressively slurped her Minute Maid.
Mitchell looked toward Cam again, and despite himself, a small smile appeared. "A vacation might actually be nice."
Cam's entire face lit up.
Claire looked around the patio, watching in slow-motion horror as the supposedly private babymoon gained passengers at an alarming rate. But against her better judgment, she actually felt a tiny spark of appeal.
A whole week away sounded like absolute paradise. There will be no school drop-offs, no endless errands, and no laundry piles magically regenerating five minutes after she emptied the hamper. She pictured a beautiful, fleeting existence with zero responsibilities beyond keeping basic life signs going.
Then her gaze drifted to Phil's unbridled enthusiasm, shifted over to Alex's eye-rolling, and finally landed on Luke.
Just like that, her peaceful fantasy of a stress-free escape quietly suffocated.
Jack climbed off his inflatable and rested his arms against the pool edge. "If everybody's seriously considering this, renting RVs would be kind of pointless."
Phil looked at him. "Why?"
"My family owns motorcoaches."
The backyard became noticeably quieter.
Phil stared at him.
Jack shrugged. "We use them for location shoots and press tours. They're basically rolling penthouse suites."
Phil slowly approached the pool. "How many?"
Jack thought about it. "Enough."
Phil looked like he might cry.
Haley laughed. "Dad, please don't weep."
Jack started counting families on his fingers. "Let's see... One for Haley and me. One for the Dunphy clan. One for Jay, Gloria, and Manny. And one for Mitch, Cam, and Lily. My folks might even tag along. It's basically a rolling family compound."
Cam put a hand against his chest. "Our own motorcoach?"
Gloria clapped excitedly. "Yes! A giant caravan of family! It will be beautiful!"
Phil turned toward Claire with an enormous smile.
Claire tried to resist.
She really did.
Then she imagined Palm Springs, desert sunsets, restaurants, music, Sedona, Austin, several days without normal routines, and the entire family making memories before two new babies changed everything again.
Her mouth betrayed her with a smile.
Phil gasped. "Oh my gosh. You're smiling."
"I am merely acknowledging a proposal."
"No, that is your official 'vacation smile'."
"That's not a thing."
"Nineteen years of marriage, Claire. I know your micro-expressions."
Jay pointed toward Jack. "Who's driving these things?"
Phil's hand shot into the air.
"I claim the helm!"
Claire immediately grabbed his wrist and lowered it.
Jack laughed. "We have professional drivers."
Phil looked personally betrayed. "Jack, how could you?"
"I mean, you can take a shift! Do you really want to stare at asphalt for ten hours a day? We can alternate."
"We can alternate."
Luke climbed out of the pool. "Can we have walkie-talkies between the buses?"
Phil's disappointment vanished instantly. "Luke, that is a non-negotiable yes."
Manny began to walk inside. "Since everyone has decided. I'll start sorting my bathrobes and bath salts."
Haley smiled as she looked around at everyone. What had started as a quiet trip with her fiancé had somehow become four motorcoaches filled with nearly her entire family.
Strangely, she loved the idea.
--
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