Memory Thirteen
MEMORY THIRTEEN
MARIE
I looked around the landing of the fourth floor and considered what it was going to have to become. We’d lived in the house for eighteen months now; the older children were settled in school and doing well. Callum was at nursery four days a week and with me or Grant for the fifth. We’d decided not to employ a nanny, but we did have an au pair to help with mornings and school runs and after school, although the older boys were in clubs most evenings, rugby, football and martial arts. Claire had made friends and liked to play at their houses, or they would come here, but her favourite thing was meeting me at the office and asking about my work.
It was family law now. I’d switched over when we’d began the merger of the two firms, Callaghan and Green’s becoming simply Callaghan Green, both in London and in New York. Our fathers were still involved, but they’d both reduced their hours in the office, taking their pick of big cases and leaving the rest to a new generation.
A new generation that was about to grow.
I put a hand on my stomach that was still pretty flat. I’d had confirmation today that I was indeed with child, as my mother would put it, so tonight I would be telling Grant the news.
We’d discussed it. I’d come off the Pill and we had kind of been trying. He was worried I’d be depressed afterwards like Rachael was, so that had taken some work to talk him off that ledge. It was a possibility, of course it was, but it was unlikely. Bernadette would stay with us after the baby was born for a couple of months to help out with the older kids and she wasn’t likely to let me trouble into any dark place. This baby would also be born in London, where I was surrounded by people all the time. I wouldn’t be isolated at the Oxford home, although we’d still be splitting our time there now the house was finished.
The fourth floor had been decorated and carpeted but it was unfurnished. There were three bedrooms and a large landing with a huge window that let in so much light. The ceilings were high and I loved the brightness of the room.
The time had come to furnish it. Upstairs would be the nursery. One of the bedrooms would be for us, with a crib in there for the first few months, and then the baby would have a bedroom here. Eventually this would be their floor, or maybe Claire would move up here if it was a girl, or Claire might swap so we had a boy floor and a girl floor. Those were all decisions for later.
Footsteps behind me caught me by surprise. A scent I recognised that still made my heart flutter filled the room.
“I didn’t think you were home until later.” I turned around to see Grant, tie already off, head tipped to one side, eyeing me like a bomb that was potentially about to go off.
“Your secretary told me you’d gone for an appointment. I figured it wasn’t a massage.” He folded his arms. “Care to tell me?”
“I had an appointment at the doctors and I had confirmation of what I thought.” I smiled at him, trying hard to maintain some composure.
“Really?” He raised a brow.
We’d been trying for three months and he’d been surprised when I hadn’t got pregnant straight away. Then worried. Then upset on my behalf even though I was confident that it was just taking time rather than there being an issue.
“Really. I’m pregnant. Congrats. More mouths to feed.” It’d been a standing joke. Max had grown a lot the last six months and was eating enough to fill two children as it was.
He moved to me, pulling me into his arms, which was my favourite place to be, no matter where in the world we were.
“We made a baby.” His words were rough, emotion weaved into them. “When’s your next appointment?”
“A scan in six weeks. Do you want to come with me?” I wasn’t sure if he would.
He nodded, holding me tighter. “Damn right. When shall we tell the kids?”
“After the scan. Let’s keep it to ourselves until then. Do you think they’ll be pleased?” I was nervous about this. I didn’t want them to think we were trying to replace them or they’d be pushed out of the way.
“Yes. I do. I think they’ll be fine on the whole. Callum will have to get used to not being the baby.” He looked wistful, his mind elsewhere for a moment. “And it’s going to be different this time.”
“It will be different. None of us are the people we were when you first came to New York. The kids included.” They’d changed, grown up a little. Max was more independent, still terrible at accepting help. Jackson was more confident, talkative. Claire was fully adept at holding her own with two big brothers who would happily gang up on her but then she got her revenge, which was quite scary actually.
And Callum. Callum would always be my baby, even if I hadn’t birthed him. I was his favourite person in the world, and when he was home he’d forever be wanting to show me what he was making or playing with. We were working on patience at the moment, always a difficult thing to learn.
His father was still at the beginning of learning it.
“The next time will be too.” Grant’s eyes twinkled.
“Let’s put a next time on hold until this one. Increasing to five’s going to take some adjusting to.” I patted his chest. “I think we should go and look for furniture for this room.”
He frowned. “Really?”
“Really. I’m going to make the most of you not being in work and your parents picking the kids up from school. Come on, make me happy.”
He shook his head slowly. “There are other ways of doing that.”
“If you’re lucky, I’ll let you try those too. Chop chop.”
Another shake of his head but he went along with it anyway.
The scan rocked our world and tilted it on its axis when it came. We’d both taken the whole day off work, walking the children to school and taking Callum to nursery, giving our hard-working au pair the morning off. Then we’d walked along the river towards the hospital, enjoying the feeling of being deaf because no one was shouting at us or shouting at each other or Claire trying to murder her brothers.
Grant hadn’t been to a scan before. Rachael had gone with her sister as he’d been in London at work, a mistake he knew he’d made and didn’t want to repeat. That lack of prior knowledge and just being an oblivious male meant he didn’t see what I saw when the scan appeared on the screen.
“Holy fuck.” There were no children to hear my swearing, and I was sure the midwife had heard those words before.
“What?” Grant said, looking confused. “What is it? Is the baby okay?”
I looked at the nurse and exchanged a smile, my own heart pounding a concerning amount.
“The babies are fine.” The nurse nodded reassuringly.
Grant looked at me, then back at the screen. “Babies? Don’t you mean baby?”
“See here,” the nurse pointed to the scan. “That’s one head. This over here,” she moved her finger. “This is the second baby. They don’t appear to be identical. They’re both in different sacs. In a few weeks we might be able to tell the gender.”
“There are two in there?” He was looking at my stomach. “How will two fit?”
“I’ll end up being huge.” One of my cousins had twins. She could barely walk by the end of her pregnancy, but she was keen on the attention. “That’s two sets of furniture then.”
“Jesus, fuck. Twins?”
“Yes, Grant. Twins. Two of them. So you’ll have gone from a father of four to a father of six.” I was highly amused with his reaction.
He found a chair and sat down, head momentarily in his hands.
“Are you okay, Mr Callaghan?” The nurse crouched down in front of him.
He nodded, moving his hands away. “I wasn’t expecting twins.”
“You still aren’t.” I pointed at my stomach. “I’m the one expecting them. It’ll be me doing the work growing them.” The devil got into me. “And pushing them out.”
He got up out of the chair and moved so he could see the screen again. “I hope one’s a girl or Claire will never let us hear the end of it.”
“One of each will be nice, but as long as they’re healthy - ”
“And you’re healthy.” He took hold of my hand. “That’s the most important thing.”
“Thank you. I’m sure we’ll all be fine. As my mam will tell you at least a dozen times while I’m pregnant, women have been getting pregnant since time began. And my father will assure you that flu is much worse, especially when a man gets it.”
Grant laughed, nodding. “Your dad is on the dramatic side.”
“It runs in his family so one of these little ones might end up with that streak too.”
The twins were born in the early hours of the morning, exactly on their expected date, with as smooth a delivery as I could’ve hoped. It ended up being a home birth, which terrified the other residents of the house, except Bernadette who’d been present at a couple of births before.
Grant paced. Max sat in a corner and hid his head in his hands. Claire took vigil outside the bedroom door and Jackson slept through it all.
Callum was either also asleep, or with Grant or Bernie or our au pair, who was more excited than any of us at the prospect of twins.
I had no idea what anyone was doing until afterwards when I enquired as to my family’s whereabout while I’d been labouring times two, slightly concerned that there had been a lack of sleep throughout the house, other than Jacks who’d slept straight through.
In fact, that’d been my first question, while Grant was still in a daze of looking from the baby in his arms to the baby in mine.
“Everyone’s fine. Desperate to meet the twins.” He’d slipped out a couple of times, probably to get himself a cup of tea, while I was in labour. “Have you thought about names?”
“I thought you’d made your mind up about names.”
He shrugged, staring at his new son. “You pick. You did all the work.”
I smiled, the little girl in my arms stirring, probably in shock at meeting the world. “Payton. I know it’s an American name but it’s unusual and my favourite.” And she looked like a Payton, the name suited her. “And you promised my father we’d call a boy Joseph.”
“I like the name Joseph. That’s the one I wanted.” That’d been his top pick, although he'd wanted Marie for a girl. I'd shot that down straightaway. The world didn’t need another Marie Callaghan. One was plenty as it was.
“We have names then.” I relaxed further down into the pillow, aware that I was absolutely exhausted and that I was going to need some sleep soon. “Let’s introduce the first four to the next two.”
“Can we not mention the word six? It is rather a lot.” He stood up, carefully holding Joseph. “Or four plus two. That sounds worse.”
“Call it what you like. You’ve still fathered six children.”
Seph made a little babbling noise that could morph into a cry. “Do you want to bring him here while you rustle up the other kids? He might want to be with his sister.”
“Do you think he feels strange not being with her so close?” He placed Seph in my arms.
Holding two new borns was interesting. “Probably. The midwife’s suggested they sleep together in the Moses basket at first, which makes sense.” I stared at my new babies, utterly and hopelessly in love with them, which would be useful as I knew how much tiredness they were going to induce over the next few months.
“It does. Back in five. Will you be okay?”
I nodded, amused at how much fussing he was doing.
He was only gone a minute or two before four very quiet children entered. The room had been cleared up by Bernie and our au pair, so the bloody towels and clothing had been taken away, windows opened for a bit of fresh air and it felt calmer. I didn’t want Max and the rest to realise that giving birth was a bloody affair yet. I didn’t want to put them off.
“Why are they so small?” Max peered at them. “They’re tiny.”
“Because there are two, so twins start off a bit smaller, but brand new babies are tiny anyway. Do you want to hold one?” I looked at Grant who was spellbound with everything around him.
Max nodded. “What are they called?”
“Your brother is called Joseph and your sister is called Payton. Who do you want to hold first?” I sat up further.
Max stared at them both. “I can’t chose.”
“I want to hold my sister.” Claire prowled to the bed. “I finally have a sister. It’s not just me and the boys.”
I laughed even though it hurt and a little bit of wee felt like it came out. “Grant, help Claire hold Payton.”
He got Claire to sit down in the chair and settled her with Payton on her knee, supporting her with the baby’s head and talking her through what to do.
Max climbed on the bed with me, very, very carefully. “So this is Joseph?”
“Seph?” Callum was scrambling up too. “This is Seph.”
Grant and I looked at each other. We’d not thought about shortening Joseph’s name.
“Joseph,” Max corrected. “He’s called Joseph.”
Callum shook his head. “Seph. My brother’s called Seph.”
I guessed that was that then.
Ava was born just over two years later, a surprise and a shock and the source of five months of morning sickness and a complete inability to work for most of it, which I’d accepted with a grumble. She was fair haired, just like my youngest sister, and demanded attention from all of her siblings from day one, mainly because I’d gone into labour unexpectedly when it’d been me and the brood and the phone wasn’t working.
Luckily, Max and Jackson were quick runners and both had decent brains which I credited to having a step mother who oozed common sense. Max had gone to a neighbour and called an ambulance; Jackson had ran to the offices and hunted out Grant, who’d obviously dropped everything to get back at the same time as a paramedic turned up and I was about to give birth in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Fast deliveries could lead to shock for both baby and mum, so my poor children had watched me driven away in an ambulance, following in a car behind while their father somehow held his shit together and drove.
We’d sat together in a little room, three big kids, one middle sized one, two toddlers and a squalling baby, along with the man holding her while I had a cup of tea, that was rather nice and a bit of a relief.
“No more.” Grant said when the kids had been collected by our au pair, who’d been enjoying a well-earned afternoon off.
“I’d quite like another one though.” Despite being rapid, the birth had been a lot easier this time.
“No. We have seven children. That’s seven heads of grey hair. Seven lots of dramas. We need to be done.” He held Ava tenderly. “Besides, I think she’ll enjoy being the youngest.”
I had a feeling he was right.
We got back to our London home the following day, no shock or any other apparent issues. The house was decorated in pink, which Claire was secretly loving despite going through a tomboy stage. Max wore a T-shirt saying ‘biggest brother’ which surprised no one, and Callum had found the biscuit stash and made sure he and Seph were covered in crumbs and chocolate before hugging me and covering me in it too.
Max had sat down next to me, holding out his arms to take Ava, which he was already adept at doing. “Dad says no more babies.”
“He has done. I think seven is probably enough, don’t you?”
He looked at me seriously. “I think two was probably enough.”
“I think seven is just right. I wouldn’t send any of you back.” Most days. Some days it was questionable.
“We fit in this house. Any more and it’d be too small.” He gave Ava a kiss on her forehead, her little hand reaching for him.
“I’m not sure you’re right. One day, there won’t be any of you living here. You’ll have all moved out and maybe have families of your own.” I both looked forward to and dreaded that day when this place was empty. I liked the idea of sustained tidiness though.
“Will you and dad still live here then?” He frowned, glancing over at Callum and Seph who were playing quite roughly as they were wont to do.
I thought about the journey we’d taken to get here, those rushed few weeks and how happy they’d made me.
“No, I don’t think we will. This house will need another family who’ll make more stories and laugh in it.” I looked around the room, full of my babies, all of them. “But that won’t be for a long time.”
“When will it be?”
My biggest boy who always had to know.
“I’ll know when it’s time. You’ll see.”