Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
My twenty week scan includes a visit with a super scanner. You can see the babies’ faces. Jonno cries. I do not. The duct strike is still in force. I touch my stomach. I really can’t stop; there are no words for how wonderful it is.
We get pictures, sending them to James and the family. I send none to Kellen, not a one.
Unfortunately, he sends me lots of pictures, via the press, social media platforms, and gossip sites.
He is everywhere. With them. Where I should be angry, I’m numb. I won’t even allow myself to feel, to waste one iota of thoughts on them. They are not worth it.
I move back to my apartment. It’s time to go home and move on. I don’t want to live with my brothers again. I tell them over dinner and I can see how worried they all are. They’ve seen the pictures. But I need my own space to be able to sort myself out and, besides, Tommy is with me.
“But there will be more paps due to you being here and pregnant and him over there and a dickhead.” Jonno is trying to talk me out of it, worry oozing out of him.
“You know my building is mega secure. I can use the basement garage to get in and out of the car. I’ll even get another security guy if you want. Do you have any women on payroll?” I’m placating them, but I’m going regardless.
“Yes, Lily, she’s really good actually. That’s a good shout. She can go with into toilets and everything.” I can see Jonno’s eyes light up as he thinks about how he can get increased security.
“Great, even more places to be scrutinised by you.” I smile at him through my sarcasm.
He’s been a great partner so far. Never moaned once at the length of time things can take—Dr. Theodore is very thorough. And I am high-hormonal maintenance.
The pictures just keep coming. I limit my already very limited eating out time, as we get hassled everywhere. Apparently, the delightful Lauren has posted on her blog that the babies ‘may not’ be Kellen’s—untrue. She’s gone further, stating we were not married when I got pregnant—true.
I’m getting a lot of hate for cheating on my poor husband. Who, due to his unfair treatment, is sinking into the depths of depravity, for all the world to see, daily.
It’s not his fault he’s taking so many drugs and drinking himself into oblivion.
It’s not his fault he’s staggering out of nightclubs, women hanging off him.
It’s not his fault, it’s mine—what a lying, cheating, lowlife I am.
James comes home for a couple of days. He takes one look at me and starts to cry. His tear ducts are not on strike.
“What’s the matter, James?” I hold the man in my arms.
“You look sad, Mum. So fucking sad. I hate him for that.”
My tears finally start to fall. Strike over. I smile at him through them.
“I am sad that he’s not here to see everything, to hear them when that heart monitor goes on. But I can’t change that, it has to be him. I don’t think he’s strong enough yet. Maybe in a few weeks, when they would have a chance to survive even if they were born early. But who knows, maybe in eighteen years.”
My heart aches with the loss. But what can I do? I have to carry on.
“How can you be so nice about him. Those fucking pictures, especially with who’s in them. And have you seen their hair? Talk about scary stalkers. I told you they wanted your life.”
I look out the windows to the Thames. “They wanted him, but they haven’t got him. They’ve got a shell, a husk of what he is, and they are so welcome to that. If that turns up here, now, I wouldn’t have it. I’ve said it before, I want it all, everything or nothing at all.”
James wants to hear the heartbeats, I know we could do it at home, but he wants to get the ‘full experience’. So we troop down to the doctors’ and pay for an extra scan. Dr. Theodore must think we’re definitely insane.
James insists on seeing the babies’ faces as they sleep peacefully in my tummy. He’s struck dumb by the images, as the detail is so amazing. I think he and Jonno think if they get their faces up to the screen the babies will look back at them. James is talking to the screen, taking pictures on his phone, as if he’s having a conversation with them.
He turns away and wipes his tears. And as the doctor prints off the pictures, he tucks them away in his wallet.
He decides I need to measure my stomach against a wall. The same way we used to measure both Bucky’s and his height when they were little. We still have the wall showing the marks at Greystone house and farm. We decide to start afresh and start a new wall at my apartment at the Docklands. Old building, new life. But then he insists we need to start one at Cornhill as well. New babies, new starts, new memories to make.
We laugh as I strip my top off and stand side on, looking big, but compact. I’m carrying in front, and, other than my bump, don’t seem to be anywhere else. Jude and James faff about and take lots of pictures and put the measurements on so that when the babies are born they can see how big they were.
I have gone off tea, clearly some pregnancy foible. Jude is beside himself, and is stocking up on the flavoured water I seem to be hankering for, along with anything with pickle in it. I’ve stocked the apartment, and am back at work, my team rallying around me. And for the first time in a few weeks, I feel normal.
But, I still decide to head down to Devon. It may be easier to avoid people there, or only see who I want. I can move around the farms via the fields. Although that may be too uncomfortable as I’m getting very large, it’s still better than hiding out in my apartment and working.
The Purcell’s turn up in Devon the following week. Bug sits with me in the kitchen, whilst the kids are out with Orla at the stables.
“I’ve spoken to Marcus and told him we’ll be seeing you and will not be stopping. I’ve told him not to ask me to choose a side, he might not like the answer.” The big Irish man looks determined, and emotional, tears edging the corners of his eyes.
“You don’t have to do that. It’s not worth the risk to your home, your job. He hasn’t asked you to stop, has he?” Surely he hasn’t sunk that low. My heart rate picks up at the thoughts.
“No, far from it, seems totally oblivious. Was talking about the estate, never mentioned anything at all. Rowena’s being a pain, but nothing new there.” He’s rubbing his hands on my stomach, touching his cousin”s sons.
“Yes, I’ve heard she’s jumped on the theory that they’re not his babies.” I smile and shake my head, typical Rowena behaviour. “What is wrong with people?
“Well, I won’t be doing any paternity tests, that’s for certain. I’ll just say they’re not his and he can carry on killing himself. In fact, I could let him off the hook and put out a statement to that effect. Maybe he’ll stop drugging himself up then.”
It still breaks my heart to know he’s not strong enough to support me, but I can’t stand to see his self-destruction in the name of denial.
Bug shakes his head. “He knows they’re his, he knows. I just don’t understand him. After everything he’s been through, now, at this point, why doesn’t he come?”
“Scared to hope, scared he won’t survive, he’s protecting himself in a weird way. I’m not a psychologist, and you’d have to ask him, but I’m not sure he could explain it either.” I shrug, understanding I’m in the same boat—scared to hope he’ll come, worried he really won’t.
“Aunty Kitten, where are you?” Eamonn comes in, holding the tape measure in his little hands, James on the phone, telling him what to do. “It’s time for your measuring.”
Bug gets me set and we’re outside in the sunshine, painting lines on the walls. Eamonn, who is more or less level with my boobs, bends slightly and kisses my stomach right where the babies are. They move and he squeals in delight.
“They’re telling me they love me,” he says, throwing his arms in the air in excitement.
He shouts to his brothers and we get photos of them kissing the babies. All three at once, me laughing at the camera.
“They’ll want to play with me, won’t they?” Eamonn asks later as he’s curled up with me. “I’ll be their favourite cousin, won’t I?” The boy is obsessed, and he sits with his hands on my tummy talking to them for hours.
“You sound like your Uncle Jonno,” I tell him.
“Good, I like Uncle Jonno,” he says, satisfied.
Kasey Becker calls, asking to come stay. He’s doing re-shoots in London in about two weeks, at the end of August, and prefers my apartment to a hotel. Wants to know if I’ll be in London to see him.
I tell him he’s welcome to stay, but I won’t be there until the week after as we’re down in Devon.
“I’m on my way,” he says and hangs up.
I look at the phone. “Kasey just hung up on me. He says he’s on his way.”
Jonno starts to laugh. “Well that will cause a stir in LA circles if he comes here. Maybe those babies are Kasey’s. You have had him stay a few times.”
“Oh my god, Jonno, do not say that, even as a joke. I had a girl in the shop in town ask me how could I cheat on Kellen? He’s so gorg. If anyone hears you say that, it could start a serious issue for me.”
“I won’t. There’s only us here in our own home, but I reckon Kellen could do with a few issues.”
“He’s probably got enough going on, to be honest.”
He looks at me in disgust. “You’re too easy on him. He’s a total fuckhead. He should be here. James is well pissed with him. I reckon it won’t be long before ‘Dear Old Dad’ starts to get a few missiles thrown his way.”
“What do you mean?” I ask him.
“James. He’s ruthless. He’ll batter Kellen, and I reckon it’ll be in about two, maybe three weeks tops.”
“Why then?”
He sighs at me like I’m being a bit thick, my brain functions on a need to do only basis at the minute. “Because after that time, the twins could come and survive. James’s argument with his Dad is if the phone call is not coming, then you should. If not, why not?
You know he went out there to see him. Caused chaos, by all accounts. Told them all what he thought of them, and then laughed when they tried to argue back.
Apparently Mick told Tommy that Kell was on the floor by the time James left, bleeding from all the punches he landed.” Jonno doesn’t even try to hide his satisfied smirking.
“Still not here though, is he?” I say bitterly, “regardless of what James said. I think I’ve just got to get on without him. Well, to be honest, I have been, haven’t I? Because these two are coming, hopefully in seventeen weeks timeish. I’m sort of prepared, but I have to say I am really scared as well.” My lip is taking the brunt of my anxiety at the prospect of doing it alone again.
Jonno notices and comes over and hugs me, as best he can, then kneels in front of my stomach, and says to us all, “We, I, will be there for everything. Everything. You are not on your own, nor will you ever be, regardless of Marcus fucking Russell.”
Kasey arrives a few days later, bringing a full Hollywood entourage. Marshall nearly faints when he sees everyone in his home.
“Midarlin’, are we having them all?” he asks, incredulous at the amount of luggage they’ve travelled with.
“Seems so. Shall we put some of them in the coach house? I think Kasey wants to be in the house, though. He’s desperate to be ‘part of the family’ and drink whiskey with you and Jonno. You’ll be famous, Marshall, if he keeps insta’ing you.”
“I hope it does not make me out to be rich. I won’t get a discount in the pub, or the horse sales. They’ll up the prices if I’m famous.” He looks put out about both of his favourite places costing him more money.
As it is, Kasey loves Marshall. Calls him ‘Marsh’ from the off, and they bond over whiskey and cards. Who’d have thought that. He even turns Pinky, Crocket, and Tubbs into Internet sensations.
Marshall gets fed up of people turning up at the yard to meet and greet Pinky. Although he loves the free equine equipment that starts to flow his way, knowing as long as Pinky’s seen modelling it, it’ll keep showing up.
The pony loves the attention, as ever. And the more people, the more she plays up, batting her long white eyelashes and flashing her white mane at everyone. Eamonn’s turned into her favourite, since Kellen has apparently abandoned her, too.
He tells me, “She apologised for butting me, and said I’m her favourite, not Uncle Kellen.” He walks out every morning—an apple for her in one hand, a phone in the other—to show her the latest photos and tell her about the comments she’s gotten overnight. Even the security goats get in on the act when a video of Pinky butting them gently goes viral.
I must be getting more emotional by the day. The more my tummy grows, the more I feel. Watching Eamonn reminds me so much of James and Bucky at that age. Will my twins do the same? Love it here? Love the ponies, the farm, the beach and the people?
And how can I feel so alone surrounded by so many people? But I do. My heart aches, it feels like a physical punch. Each beat feels like it’s bruising my insides. At times I can barely stand it. I struggle to stand, to breathe. I swing from feeling the desperation of want—wanting him to come home—to rage that he’s opted out. Taken the easier road, in my view, and numbing it all out.
How would that feel, to not feel. How would it feel to not care?
But that’s not an option for me. Someone has to feel, someone has to care, as these two babies are the most important thing. They need to feel all my love, they need to feel all my care. I won”t let them down, like he’s letting me down, letting us down. Fear is not an option for us.
My tears start as I think about what he’s missing. Why doesn’t he come? I’ve picked up the phone so many times to call, but I can’t break. He has to come because he wants to. Because he wants us. I just hope I’m strong enough for us all.