Bound by Their Babies

by Caroline Anderson

  And looking as sexy as hell.

  ‘Tea?’ she asked, and he nodded, his head draining of coherent thought.

  ‘Please. With caffeine. Why are you up?’

  ‘To help you? I heard you go downstairs, and I had an idea you’d be doing this while the children are still asleep.’

  He gave a wry grunt. ‘Absolutely. If we can, I want to give it to Ben today for his thoughts so we’ve got time to tweak it before he puts it to the Board tomorrow. Are you OK for me to go to work tomorrow, by the way?’

  ‘Of course I am. I have to be. It’s the new reality, Jake.’

  She filled the kettle and came and sat down next to him, the drift of warm, Emily-scented air and the crazy pyjamas doing nothing for his concentration.

  ‘I’m a bit worried we might have a timing problem. I have to give eight weeks’ notice if I’m not going back to my old job after mat leave, which means by the end of next week, but if I hand in my notice there and they say no to the job share here, I could end up with a break in my continuous NHS employment and have to give back my maternity pay, and I just don’t have the money.’

  He stopped thinking about her pyjamas and let his breath out on a long, low whistle.

  ‘I hadn’t realised you were so near the end of mat leave, but you’re right, that could be tight. I’ll make sure Ben knows, but as we don’t have a female consultant or anyone wanting to do more sessions, it’s a golden opportunity for them and they’d be mad to turn us down because some women really need a female doctor. It’ll take the pressure off our female registrars, and I can think of at least one patient I’ve seen in the last week who I’d want to hand over to you for just that reason and I’m sure there are others. We just have to sound convincing.’

  He sat back and stretched out his shoulders. ‘Has that kettle boiled yet? This is making my head hurt.’

  * * *

  He went off to see Ben later that morning, armed with their draft proposal and suggested timetable split, and she girded her loins to deal with another joyous day of tantrums from Matilda, but there were none—or at least not on the scale of her previous efforts.

  Instead she ate her breakfast nicely, then lay on the floor with Zach and built a tower of cups for him to knock down, and built it again, and again, and again, and every time he knocked it down she giggled, and so did he.

  Emily was stunned, and when Jake rang in the middle of it, she held the phone out so he could hear.

  ‘Is that Zach laughing?’

  ‘It’s both of them. It’s delicious. I don’t know what’s got into them, but I’m all in favour of it. Have you spoken to Ben?’

  ‘Yes. He’s taken it all away to read through a bit more thoroughly, but he seems more than happy. He was talking about the Board contacting your referees before they interview you, so you might want to OK that with them before tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ve done it—or at least the ones I could get hold of. I’ve emailed the CEO but my clinical lead’s going to have a word. He was brilliant, so supportive. They’ve been amazing to me, and I feel bad about not going back, but—I just feel this is right for both of us.’

  ‘You and Zach, you mean?’

  ‘No! You and me. Well, and the children, on current form, but I won’t hold my breath,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Any ideas what I should do with them next when this all falls apart?’

  ‘Matilda likes cooking. We make rock buns sometimes. It’s hard to ruin them.’

  She chuckled. ‘What, even for you?’ she teased.

  ‘Very funny. I’m on my way, but you’ll find everything you need in the cupboard next to the fridge. Don’t eat them all before I get home.’

  ‘You know what? It’s a gorgeous day. Why don’t I make a picnic instead and we could go to the beach? They’d love that, and maybe what we all need is some time together just having fun.’

  ‘That’s a brilliant idea. Want me to pick anything up?’

  ‘Sandwiches? I think we’ve got everything else.’

  ‘OK. I’ll see you shortly.’

  * * *

  She was right, the children had a wonderful time on the beach, and so did they.

  They found a nice flat area in the shelter of a breakwater and had their picnic, then they built a sandcastle just below the high-water mark where the sand was still damp enough to stick together.

  ‘It needs a moat,’ Emily insisted.

  ‘Of course it does, why wouldn’t it?’ he said wryly, knowing what was coming, so he rolled up his jeans as high as he could and took a bucket down to the sea and got predictably drenched by a freak wave.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ he told her, trying not to laugh, but Matilda thought it was hilarious and little Zach joined in, and then when they’d all finished laughing at him they decided—they being Em, of course—that it would be fun to bury him in the sand.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Lie down and stop fussing. You know you want to.’

  So he dug out a hollow and lay down in it obediently and let them cover him in sand. It was damper than he’d realised, though, and by the time he broke free and stood up, he was plastered in it.

  ‘It’ll fall off when it dries,’ Em said cheerfully, and handed him a bucket. ‘Why don’t you go and rinse your hands and feet and bring some water up so we can rinse our hands, too, and then I think it might be time to go. They’re getting tired.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. They’ve shifted about a ton of sand between them.’

  ‘They had help.’

  ‘I noticed,’ he said drily, but he went and fetched water, more cautiously this time, and then they cleared up all the toys and the remains of the picnic and set off.

  * * *

  The children were both fractious by then, so they decided to go for a walk to let them sleep in the buggy.

  Zach was gone in moments and it didn’t take Matilda long to join him, so they went round the point past the sea defences and followed the sea wall along to the harbour, falling into step as they strolled along.

  The sea was quiet, the silence broken only by the sound of their footsteps and the soft slap of the waves on the shingle, the stones settling with a little whisper as the waves receded. Out at sea some gulls were wheeling over a fishing boat, and they could hear the faint putter of its engine in the distance.

  ‘Gosh, it’s beautiful. I can see why you love it here,’ Emily said with a sigh, and he grunted softly.

  ‘Jo couldn’t. She flatly refused to live here with me, even though she hadn’t said anything negative when the job came up and I started looking at houses, and then of course it was too late, I was committed to the move and there was nothing I could do about it.’

  She turned her head so she could see his face. ‘Do you think she really hated it and didn’t want to live here, or didn’t want to live with you because she’d realised she didn’t love you? You’re old enough to be pragmatic, but she’s not, she’s still young enough to be dreaming of a happy ever after, which is probably why she’s gone off chasing rainbows with the dude in the campervan. And maybe you moving here just gave her an out?’

  He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, dislodging the sand that had finally dried in it. ‘I have no idea. Maybe. I knew she was a bit of a hippy at heart, but I wouldn’t have said she was manipulative so I think you could be right. She was probably just out of her depth. You know she nearly didn’t have Matilda? She said at the time she wasn’t ready to be a mother, and judging by the way she walked off last week and left Tilly without a backward glance, she was right.’

  ‘So, what did your parents say about that?’ Em asked curiously. ‘I take it you’ve told them.’

  He laughed, but there wasn’t a trace of humour in it. ‘Nothing new. My mother told me it was no more than I deserved, and my father gave me another lecture on contraception and w
hat he called my indiscriminate sexual habits—What?’ he asked, shooting her a dirty look when she laughed.

  She tried to straighten her face. ‘Well, it was high time someone said it,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re a bit of an alley cat, Jake.’

  ‘I am not!’ Her eyebrows shot up, and he frowned. ‘Seriously, Em, I’m not, at least not anymore, and I have no idea how she got pregnant.’

  ‘You need me to explain?’ she said, and then stopped walking, mostly because she was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ he growled.

  ‘So what did you mean?’ she asked when she could speak. ‘Because you can’t have been that careful or she wouldn’t have got pregnant. Was she on the Pill?’

  ‘No, and we were careful! We used a condom every single time, and as far as I know none of them failed—not that it’s any of your business,’ he added, glowering at her and trying not to laugh.

  She wasn’t even trying. ‘Well, clearly one of them failed—or else she sabotaged you.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  She fell into step beside him again, giving him a disbelieving look. ‘Oh, come on, Jake. You’re a good catch.’

  ‘So why didn’t she catch me? Why not insist that I marry her? God knows I offered.’

  ‘She didn’t need to. You were supporting her anyway, and maybe by then she’d realised she didn’t love you.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, she’s not like that. She’s not organised enough to be premeditated.’

  She stopped walking again and turned to look at him, thoughtful now. ‘I don’t know, Jake. She stole your money and defaulted on her rent, so she obviously planned that. And if she said it was an accident when she got pregnant, you’d believe her. Accidents happen all the time, and people get carried away in the heat of the moment and fall into bed without thinking. It has been known, and it wouldn’t be the first time you’d done it.’

  She knew that all too well. She vividly remembered the time they’d come really, really close to making love...

  ‘Can we please stop discussing my sex life?’ he muttered, and she wondered if he was actually blushing or if it was just that he’d caught the sun.

  ‘Well, at least you have one. I can’t even remember what it was like,’ she said with painful honesty.

  ‘Ah, come on, Em, you and Pete were married for years!’

  ‘And most of the time he was too busy trying not to die,’ she pointed out.

  All trace of laughter was gone from her voice now, and Jake stopped walking and pulled her into his arms with a ragged sigh, resting his cheek against her hair.

  ‘Ah, hell, I’m sorry, Em,’ he murmured apologetically. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, it’s none of my business. It must have been so tough for you both, living on a knife-edge throughout the whole of your marriage.’

  She eased away from him and started walking again, somehow uncomfortable talking about Pete while she was standing in Jake’s arms. ‘Not all of it. Some of it was OK, especially after he got the all-clear, but I always knew in my bones it couldn’t last.’

  ‘So why did you decide to have a baby if you thought he was going to die?’ he asked, finally asking the question that must have been bugging him ever since she’d told him she was pregnant and Pete was dying.

  She sighed, her shoulders lifting in a little shrug. ‘Because I thought he would live to see it. Pete had always wanted children, so had I, and my clock was ticking. He’d banked some sperm as soon as he was diagnosed, before he had the first chemo, so it was sitting there waiting, and I felt if we didn’t get on with it I’d have left it too late and missed my chance, but I never dreamt it would be over so soon for him. That was a real shock, when he went downhill so fast and I realised we’d left it too late.’

  ‘It must have been. Do you regret it?’

  ‘What, marrying Pete, or having Zach?’

  ‘I meant having Zach,’ he said, although he must have wondered if she’d regretted her marriage to a man she’d known was probably dying, but maybe he felt he’d been intrusive enough.

  She smiled down at the sleeping baby snuggled up in the buggy, her heart filling. ‘Not for a single second. It hasn’t been easy, and I’ve often been scared that I couldn’t cope, but no, I’ve never regretted it. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Well, apart from you, of course, but that’s different.’

  She flashed him a smile, and he reached out and took her hand and squeezed it, but he didn’t let go, just kept her hand there in his as they strolled along side by side, their fingers loosely linked.

  It was only when the path narrowed again that he slipped his hand out of hers to go on ahead with the buggy, and she curled her fingers tightly into her palm and felt oddly bereft.

  * * *

  Jake rang her on Tuesday morning to say he’d had an email inviting him for interview at nine-thirty on Thursday.

  ‘Gosh, that was quick.’

  ‘It was. Ben promised he’d hustle it. Check your emails,’ he said, but she was already doing it and her heart was racing.

  ‘Yes, they want to see me at ten-fifteen. And they said allow until one. Ouch.’

  ‘Mmm. I think that’s because they want us one at a time, and then together.’

  ‘Can you get the time off?’ she asked, hooking Zach out of the bottom pan drawer and sliding it shut with her leg. ‘Because taking these two to an interview could be interesting, although we’ll need cover for the joint interview anyway. What are we going to do about that?’

  ‘I’ll sort it with Ben—he’ll need cover, too, and I’ll talk to the nursery,’ he promised. ‘I spoke to them about Matilda the other day, and they had some capacity then, so hopefully they can squeeze them in. Right, got to go, I’m due in Theatre. In fact, why don’t you come up here and talk to the staff at the nursery anyway, because this is for Zach, too, and it might give the children a chance to get familiarised before we have to leave them there—assuming they still have space.’

  ‘And failing that?’

  She could almost see him shrug. ‘Then I’ll ask Ben’s wife Daisy if she can help out for the interviews as a one-off. She’s lovely and Tils knows her, but in the long term we may have to find somewhere else.’

  ‘OK. I’ll take them up there now and see. I’ll text you the answer.’

  * * *

  She spent the next hour at the nursery, and although Matilda dragged her everywhere she wanted to go, she did at least explore the garden and have a go on the play equipment, and Zach seemed happy in the sandpit so long as Emily sat on the edge. Then she found the water trough, and that was it.

  ‘Right, Tilly, we need to go now and see the ducks,’ she said, and to her amazement Matilda shook her head.

  ‘No. I playing.’

  She was pouring water from one container to another and getting utterly drenched, but she seemed totally content, and Emily pulled out her phone and took a picture and sent it to Jake.

  Hallelujah! he texted back, and she smiled.

  Hallelujah, indeed. For now, at least.

  * * *

  Predictably Jake rang her in his lunch break to find out more.

  ‘It was great,’ she told him. ‘I saw Caitlin, she said you’d spoken to her, which was really useful because I didn’t have to explain anything in front of the children.’

  ‘How about security?’

  ‘It’s excellent, and they seem to have wonderful facilities. And they have space, which is a miracle, apparently, but someone’s just left so we got lucky.’

  ‘What did Matilda make of it at first?’

  ‘She was a bit wary, but after she’d found her feet a little she loved it, and so did Jake. We played for ages, and the other children seemed happy, which was good to see. I’ve been quite worried about it because I’ve neve
r left Zach with anyone except Pete’s parents, and that’s only been for an hour or so to have my hair cut or go to the dentist, but I don’t think I need to worry about him at all or you about Matilda.’

  ‘No, thanks for sending me that photo, it’s delicious.’

  ‘It is, but I had to drag them away. Neither of them wanted to leave. I had to bribe them with feeding the ducks.’

  He chuckled. ‘Yeah, the ducks can be quite handy. Well, that’s brilliant. Thanks. So are we all set for Thursday?’

  ‘Yes—except I need to go home this evening and grab something to wear for my interview that might not be a total disgrace. I can do that after you get home once they’re in bed.’

  ‘OK. I’ll try not to be late.’

  * * *

  It was only a flying visit to collect some clothes, because all she’d brought with her was a few pairs of jeans and an armful of tops, and that wasn’t going to impress anyone. Not that she had much at home to choose from that would still fit her since she’d had Zach, but there had to be something.

  She parked on the drive, went in and shut the front door, and then stood for a second while the silence closed in around her. She realised it was the first time she’d been alone in the house since Zach was born, and it felt odd. Odd, and strangely unsettling. And, to her surprise, although the house she’d shared with Pete for so long was familiar, it didn’t feel like home. It just felt wrong somehow, so she raided her wardrobe and left without lingering.

  ‘That was quick. Did you find what you wanted?’ Jake asked her when she got home—home?—and she nodded, going into the sitting room and perching on the arm of the sofa.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. It’ll do.’ She frowned at the television. ‘Are you seriously watching Titanic?’

  ‘Oh, I was just killing time till you got back, really. There’s not much on.’

  ‘Titanic made you cry.’

  ‘It made you cry, too, if I remember rightly,’ he reminded her drily.

  ‘Surely not.’ She peered at the bag beside him. ‘Is that popcorn?’

  ‘It might be.’

  She felt her mouth twitch and bit her lips to trap the smart retort. ‘What flavour?’