“Are you saying that you’ll stay in the B and B forever with our baby?” Louis asked.
“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “Maybe I am.”
They were silent on the way home, Sophie staring bleakly out the window as Louis drove her car.
“Well, I’m telling you one thing, you’re not going back to the B and B tonight,” he’d said as they climbed into the car. “I want you with me and the girls where we can keep an eye on you.”
“You heard what the doctor said—I’m fine. My blood pressure is fine, the baby is fine. I don’t need keeping an eye on.”
“Sophie, you are having my baby. Bella and Izzy’s and Seth’s half brother or sister. Whatever you decide about marrying me, we are a family no matter where you live, and I love you. I know you’re upset with me and you’re worried about the girls, but for tonight you are coming home with me and that’s that.”
“I’m coming because I want to see the girls,” Sophie told him. “Not because you said so.”
Carmen opened the door and Sophie found herself engulfed in a mass of hugs.
“You’re alive!” Bella cried, burying her head in Sophie’s stomach.
“I told them you were going to be fine,” Carmen said. “But they got themselves in a right state, especially Izzy.” Carmen nodded toward the front room, where Izzy was sitting on the sofa sucking on the sleeves of her pajamas as she watched The Little Mermaid. She didn’t even look up at Sophie standing in the doorway.
“It was the ambulance that scared her,” Bella said, her voice muffled somewhere in Sophie’s middle.
“The ambulance?” Sophie hugged Bella to her ever so tightly and then released her.
“There was an ambulance after the car accident,” Bella said slowly, entwining her fingers in Sophie’s. She looked up at her father.
“I see you are back,” she told Louis as she made her way into the living room.
“I am. And I’m back for good now, I promise,” Louis told her. Bella said nothing, following Sophie into the living room to find Izzy, leaving Louis and Carmen standing in the hallway.
“Come in the kitchen,” Sophie heard Carmen say gently to Louis. “Mrs. Alexander is making us all bacon sandwiches. It was the girls’ special request.”
Followed closely by Bella, Sophie walked into the living room where Izzy stared doggedly at the screen, her knees tucked up under her chin, her toes curled in on themselves as if she were hanging on for dear life.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Sophie said softly as she sat down carefully next to her, Bella sitting on her other side. Izzy didn’t waver.
“Are you okay?” Sophie asked her, brushing a curl from her forehead. “You’ve had a very long and busy day, you must be ever so tired.”
Izzy shook her head from side to side once.
“Did you have a nice time with Seth?” Sophie asked. Izzy nodded.
“You must have been worried up on the cliff when silly Sophie fainted. Were you worried, Izzy?”
Izzy kept her eyes on the screen, but she took her thumb out of her mouth. “They took Mummy in an ambulance. I was in the car still when they took her. I was left behind with the other lady, and Mummy went in the ambulance and she didn’t ever come back. I was frightened.”
Sophie nodded.
“I remember. You must have been very scared when I went in the ambulance, but I was fine. I was just a bit silly and forgot to eat and I fainted. They had to take me to the hospital to check me out, but I was okay. Ambulances help people.”
Izzy turned to look at her, her face still and serious, just like Carrie’s in the few precious moments when Carrie was quiet and thoughtful.
“We’ve got a new older brother,” Izzy explained. “His name is Seth. He came to get me from school and I went with him, and I shouldn’t have, but I did. He bought me a giant inflatable dolphin, but I think I left it on the cliff …he’s going to teach me to whistle.”
“Is he?” Sophie asked. “That’s good. It will be fun to get to know him, won’t it? And I expect that once you know him a bit better, you’ll do all sorts of fun things with him.”
“I would probably like to go to a circus with him,” Izzy said thoughtfully. Then without warning she hurled herself at Sophie, wrapping her arms around her neck.
“You must stay now,” Izzy told her. “And not faint again.”
“I promise not to faint again,” Sophie said.
“Or go away in an ambulance.”
“I won’t.”
“At the circus will there be an elephant like Dumbo with huge enormous ears?” Izzy asked her, quite tickled at the thought.
“An elephant that can fly?” Sophie asked. “With huge enormous floppy ears?”
Izzy giggled. “Yes, I’d like to go for a ride on one of those.”
“Well, you never know,” Sophie said.
Sophie sat on the edge of Louis’s bed, fully dressed, and looked around the room. This would be only the third time she had slept a whole night here. The first time she had crept in and taken her clothes off before seducing Louis, the second time she had crashed fully clothed and confused. Now as she sat on the edge of the bed, Louis took off his clothes, set his watch down, and went off to brush his teeth in only his boxers. It was like being part of a couple. A proper grown-up couple, and it felt strange.
Sophie sat perfectly still, fully dressed, looking around the room, the wardrobe that was half empty, the wall devoid of pictures, only the faint ghost of the last owner’s artwork where the wallpaper had faded in the sun, leaving an impression of the past.
“Are you getting in?” Louis asked her, dropping his boxers in front of her. Inexplicably Sophie blushed and looked away.
“Are you shy?” Louis asked her, smiling a little as he knelt down in front of her. “Are you scared seeing me naked? I mean I know that I have an impressive physique, but it’s probably a little too late to be scared of it now.” He put a hand on either side of her on the bed.
“Sophie,” he said softly. “We are okay, aren’t we? I mean, you’re angry with me and I deserve it, and you’ve been through hell all alone these past few days, but we are okay? Aren’t we? Because if I think I’ve messed this up when it’s all almost so perfect, then I’d never forgive myself. I know you said you didn’t want to marry me and you wanted to live in the B and B with our baby and just visit every now and then, but that was crazy talk, wasn’t it? You didn’t mean it, did you?”
Sophie looked up into Louis’s eyes.
“I love you,” she told him. “I want to marry you. I just don’t know if I can. Bella and Izzy are so afraid that something bad is going to happen again. And Seth, he barely knows who he is or who you are, and just as you’re getting to know him, then a baby comes along.”
“Listen,” Louis said, sitting back on his heels. “If Bella and Izzy are afraid that something bad is going to happen, then we have to make them see that a baby is one of the best things that can happen. And the very best thing we can possibly do for them is to give them the stability they need. Get married and live all together here as a family and prove to them that nothing bad is going to happen. And as for Seth, well …I’ll find a path with him. Maybe now is the perfect time for him to join the family, because he won’t be the newest one for very long. Soon there will be this one.” Louis nodded at her belly. “Our baby, yours and mine.”
As he looked at her, his eyes lit up and Sophie felt her heart quicken.
“You really are pleased about the baby, aren’t you?” she asked him.
“Pleased? Sophie, I’m over the moon. You’re having my baby. You, the love of my life.”
He leaned toward her and kissed her.
“Now listen, you’ve had a very long and difficult day and you need to rest.” He lifted the hem of her T-shirt, pulling it over her head, pushing her gently back onto the bed. Sophie did not resist. “You just lie there and I’ll put you to bed,” Louis whispered, unbuttoning her jeans and pulling them off her hips and leg
s. Gently he lifted her legs onto the bed, running his hand lightly over her belly and the tops of her thighs as he looked at her.
“You are incredibly beautiful, you know,” he told her, rolling her onto her side so that he could unhook her bra. Gently he slid the straps off her shoulders, the tips of his fingers running over her breasts as he removed the garment.
“The most perfect being I have ever seen,” he said, kissing her stomach as he eased her underwear off.
Naked in his arms, Sophie looked into his eyes. “I love that you see me that way,” she whispered.
“Well of course I do,” he whispered back. “It’s the way you are.”
Twenty-two
Aunty Sophie, Aunty Sophie, quickly, wake up, it’s an emergency!”
Sophie prized open her eyes to find Bella staring at her, her big brown eyes shining in the half-light, brimming with tears. “Come quickly,” Bella half-whispered, half-sobbed.
“What’s happened?” Sophie sat bolt upright. “What is it? Is it Izzy?”
“No,” Bella said, dragging Sophie out of bed where Louis was still asleep. “It’s Artemis, I think Artemis is dying.”
Sophie grabbed a dressing gown from the back of the door and wrapped it hastily around herself as she followed Bella into her bedroom.
“Dying? Bella, what do you mean—where is she?” Sophie asked her, the last dregs of sleep trickling slowly away.
“She’s under my bed.” Bella knelt on her carpet and pointed underneath her bed, her face stricken with fear. “I knew it was strange because she doesn’t usually come in at night, she’s usually out killing things. I was just going off to sleep when I heard her coming in, but she didn’t say hello, she just went right under my bed. I heard her scrabbling about in my spare blanket, she must have dragged it under there, and then she went quiet and I must have gone to sleep but I shouldn’t have because …because I woke up and she was crying …I looked under the bed with my Barbie flashlight and I thought I could see blood. So I tried to fetch her out and see where she was hurt but she scratched me.” Bella offered Sophie the back of her hand where four long and painful-looking red welts were forming. “I think she must be dying because she’s never ever hurt me before.” Bella let out a sob. “She can’t die, Aunty Sophie, please don’t let her die. I need her.”
Sophie put her hand over her mouth and took a breath to compose herself. In her head she had visions of Artemis hit by a car or a truck, crawling in and up the stairs in the night to find a safe place to lick her wounds. Just as fearful as Bella of how badly hurt her precious cat might be, she braced herself and, taking Bella’s flashlight, knelt down on the carpet and peered under the bed. Artemis was breathing heavily, lying on her side, her head toward Sophie, so Sophie could not see the bulk of her body.
“Hello, girl,” Sophie said. “You’re not looking too good there, are you? I’m just going to see if I can get you out and we can have a look …” But the second Sophie’s hand approached Artemis, the cat lashed out, her panting and distress apparently increasing.
“What shall we do?” Bella asked Sophie, gripping her dressing gown with clenched fists. “What shall we do to save her?”
Sophie fought to control the tremble that shook her voice, desperate not to show Bella just how afraid and upset she was. “I’ll just see if I can feel anything one more time, so we know where she’s hurt, and then we’d better call the vet. Go get my phone from the bedside table. Go on, quickly.”
Carefully Sophie took the flashlight and on her hands and knees peered under the bed, but this time instead of approaching Artemis directly she tried to look at her from a different angle. She blinked, trying to make sense of what she was seeing amid the rucked-up blanket that Artemis had ensconced herself in.
“Hang on a second,” she said as Bella arrived back with the phone book and phone. “Something’s happening, she’s …what is that?”
Sophie stared wide-eyed as Artemis half sat up and began licking something soft and slimy. At first Sophie thought it might be a dead mouse or a bird, but she had never seen her cat be so gentle with another living thing. And then as Artemis licked away the slime and gunk from the tiny creature, Sophie realized it was furry and orange. For a second she thought the injured animal had taken comfort from Izzy’s toy cat, but then the tiny creature stirred, wriggling closer to the cat. Sophie stared at Artemis as she continued to lick the little creature, tenderly, lovingly, washing its face clean of any muck as it took its first breath.
Sophie gasped, clasping her hand over her mouth, tears springing to her eyes. She sat back on her heels and handed the flashlight to Bella.
“It’s okay,” she told Bella, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s fine, Artemis isn’t dying. Oh look, Bella.” She hugged the little girl hard. “Artemis is having kittens!”
“Right,” Sophie said, coming back into the room armed with supplies. “The vet says we should have towels in case she needs a bit of help with rubbing them awake, dental floss in case Artemis doesn’t cut the cords properly, and some yogurt. He says she might fancy a spoonful of yogurt to keep her going. Oh, and a big box to put them all in once she’s finished. I thought that old packing box in the shed would do. We have to line it with shredded newspaper.”
“There are two now!” Izzy said, as she lay on her tummy in front of the bed. Louis had taken Bella’s bedside lamp and laid it on its side next to the bed so that they could all get a clearer view without using the bright flashlight. “The second one looks gray to me …oh, they are soooo cute. We can keep them all, can’t we?”
“What I don’t understand,” Louis said, keen to gloss over that subject as he hunkered down next to Izzy, “is how Tango ever got near enough to make this happen, the old dog. The old cat dog. Artemis has hated him from day one, and he’s always avoided her.”
“I told you I saw them hugging,” Izzy said triumphantly. “They are in love!”
“What I don’t understand is that Artemis is a rescue cat,” Sophie said. “She’s supposed to be spayed. I’d never have let her move in with an unneutered tom, even one as soppy and hopeless as Tango, if I hadn’t thought that.”
“Well, someone, somewhere, made a mistake,” Louis said. “Because that cat is most definitely fertile.”
“And now they are married!” Izzy said, clasping her hands together happily and rolling onto her back for a moment. “Married and having babies. Just like you and Daddy are going to, Aunty Sophie.”
Sophie’s and Louis’s eyes met above the girls.
“How many kittens do you think she will have?” Bella asked. “I’m hoping for about twenty.”
“The vet said four or five, most likely,” Sophie said. “He said if she’s still in labor in another few hours, then he’ll come over and check her out, but he expects she’ll be able to manage perfectly well on her own.”
“Look at her, look, Aunty Sophie.” Bella dragged Sophie back down onto the carpet to peer under the bed again. “Look, she loves her kittens.”
Sophie watched as Artemis licked the two kittens that already nestled at her nipples. She looked so gentle and so tender with them, like an entirely different cat from the one Sophie knew and loved. This Artemis knew exactly how to be a mother, how to break the membrane sac so her kittens could breathe, how to lick them clean and bite off the umbilical cord. The fierce, angry loner cat had been transformed into a mother, all of her natural instincts flooding in just when she needed them.
“She’s going to make a wonderful mother,” Sophie said, wincing slightly as she straightened up, her body still stiff and aching from lack of sleep.
“And so are you,” Louis told her, his cooling hand on the back of her neck.
Bella looked up at him sharply.
“What do you mean?” she asked him.
Sophie and Louis looked at each other and Sophie nodded. She didn’t want to keep any more secrets from the girls.
“I mean,” Louis said, reaching out to hold Sophie’s hand, “that
Sophie is going to have a baby. And I’m the baby’s daddy and you and Izzy are going to be big sisters.”
“That’s awful!” Izzy cried out, horrified. “You’re not even married yet.”
Sophie watched Bella’s face very closely as she took in the news.
“It’s okay, Izzy—you don’t have to be married to have a baby.”
“You don’t?” Izzy said. “Tango and Artemis are married. How long will it take for the baby to get here? Will it take longer than the wedding? If I am a big sister, will I get to boss the baby around, like Bella bosses me around? Will I get a bigger bedroom? I want a bigger bedroom if I am going to be a big sister and my own Nintendo DS. Is that why your tummy is so fat, Sophie, because there’s a baby in it? How big is the baby in it now?”
“Just hold on for a second.” Sophie laughed, holding her hand up to stave off any more questions as she kept an eye on Bella, whose gaze was fixated under the bed.
“The baby is going to be here in April,” Sophie told Izzy. “It’s not very big at the moment, hardly anything to see at all, really, although I have got a picture I can show you later if you like. So I’m afraid that all of this”—she patted her tummy—“is mainly cream teas and jam.”
“Can I name the baby?” Izzy asked her. “I would call it Petunia.”
“Oh well …maybe,” Sophie said.
“What if it’s a boy, dummy?” Bella said, her eyes still fixed on Artemis.
“If it’s a boy then I would call it Rufus,” Izzy said. “Like the dog next door, that way when we take it to the park we can call after it, ‘Here, boy, here, Rufus.’”
Izzy giggled, which Sophie would once have found reassuring, but now she wondered if Izzy was really expressing shock and anxiety with her jokes.
The Accidental Family Page 33