Chapter 9 #2
Ash takes a deep breath and I can hear the gears turning, planning the best way of bypassing the doctor’s orders and providing me with the most information.
“We had discussed options, when we got together. We agreed we both wanted a family, and soon. You couldn’t wait to have your own.”
I have known Ash long enough to know how he tells stories: never from the beginning, never linear.
“We looked into a surrogate but it seemed so complicated and then… Winnie came so quickly. And with her birth name, it just seemed too perfect a coincidence.”
“Which was?”
“Sarah.”
“No way I’d let you name your child after that woman.”
As I think of Sarah Bergman, Ash’s mother, I feel overwhelmed with emotions. How many times I’d opened my door to a terrified Ash, how many times I had to live with the silence, with the wincing. I will never understand how a mother can neglect her own children that way.
“That’s what you said back then too. Ashwin was her middle name. Once the adoption is finalised, the names will be switched around.” He pauses for a blink, lost in a memory that I clearly don’t share. “Anyway. You said it was meant to be. Ash three times.”
“Ash is pa!” Winnie slurs.
“You make it seem like this is my fault.”
Ash snaps then—nervous, irritated, almost angry. “You seem to have forgotten something very important alongside, you know, everything else. I’d do anything for you, Ashford. From the moment I’ve met you…”
As quickly as it comes, the frustration is gone. His eyes soften. I’m looking at him now and Ash shrugs, bouncing Winnie in a soothing rhythm.
“I didn’t like it.” He pauses, swallowing once. “But you’re really convincing, especially with two fingers up my arse. And then when we got to meet her, you kept saying she was a mini me. Lots of energy, big personality, obsessed with you. It became an inside joke.”
From his back pocket Ashley extracts a tissue and begins wiping Winnie’s hands. “She’s not my daughter, she’s yours,” he mocks in my voice.
This, I remember: how deeply Ash sucks at impersonations. “You never told me her last name.”
Ash hesitates. I recognise his worry. He’s checking if I’m fine, how my heart and brain are taking this.
So I nod, feeling extremely normal and inexplicably drawn to the baby with huge, sweet eyes. “Sorry. I don’t remember,” I add.
“Do you want to hold her?” Ash asks again, already moving closer. “Today is her birthday.”
Winnie wiggles excitedly, arms stretched out and legs kicked open.
This time, I straighten my back and sit up. “Maybe.” I throw my feet on the floor and stand up, imitating Ash’s posture.
With a swift movement Ash hands Winnie over to me, careful of the brace.
“What if I drop her?”
“You’ve been her father for months, Ford. Don’t be dramatic.”
It’s light. Winnie is very light. She smells… nice. A sweet perfume I recognise as soon as it hits my nostrils: it’s my baby. My home.
“Her birthday?” I ask Ash.
“Yes. Winnie is turning two today.” He looks at her with a smile. Then, he adds, “Bergman-Hale.”
The moment it rolls out of Ash’s lips, it makes sense. Of course. That tip-of-the-tongue sensation is gone and I relax.
“Why both?”
“Because you really wanted her to be ours.” Ash is so close now and I stare at him blankly, Winnie’s weight perfectly balanced at my left side. “I was okay with giving up my name.”
My heartbeat fastens, my hands grow sweaty. Winnie is calm and content in my grip. She’s not falling down. She’s soft and pretty and I can’t stop looking at her.
But at the same time, before me, Ashley’s never looked sexier. His sweats are loose on his legs and tight around his waist. His colourful t-shirt is wrapped around the newly discovered biceps and it makes me wonder what other delicious secrets 2024 Ash is hiding from me.
I close my eyes, once again confused at my sudden interest in Ash.
“So, Miss Ashwin Sarah Bergman-Hale. Winnie. Hello Winnie, happy birthday, Winnie.” I try to keep the conversation going, taking deep breaths.
How can I not remember an entire child? There is no way this is actually my future. “Two years old is a big birthday.”
“To be fair, you never call her that.”
“I don’t?”
“Nah. She’s usually ‘Baby’, cause, you know, she’s a baby. Sometimes ‘Angel’, or ‘Honey’. One time she dropped a bunch of your stuff on the floor and you called her ‘Dude.’”
“And you’re okay with me calling our… Hum, ‘dude?’”
Ash shifts his weight from one heel to the other and clears his voice. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on in that pretty brain of yours. But this isn’t some parallel universe you’ve landed in, Ford. This is still us, I’m me and you’re you.”
Ash waves his hand in the air in exasperation. “You call Winnie what you want because it makes you giggle. And if you giggle, she giggles. And if you all are happy and laughing, it doesn’t make me wanna slit my wrists.”
His words are hard, real. They bring me back to a scary past, a time when every day with Ash felt like it could be the last. Sensing my discomfort, Winnie wiggles in my arms and I instinctively start bouncing, like I have seen Ash do.
Then, for good measure, I push out a tentative, fake laugh to soothe her.
Immediately, Winnie looks up, interested.
It’s a couple of seconds before she starts laughing too, and I feel insane as my laugh turns into a real one and then Ash is joining us.
His hand lands on my arm and his fingers twitch at the contact, but he doesn’t move it away.
I imagine what it would feel like if I kissed him.
Annoyingly, as usual, Ashley reads my mind.
“You know you can kiss me if you want. You’ve been kissing me for a while now.”
Suddenly, saliva is hard to swallow and the few inches I have managed to put between us feel like miles.
Winnie is quiet again at my hip, almost as if she was born to be there. Lost in Ash’s eyes, I feel heady.
“Still not sure this isn’t a prank. I wish it wasn’t.”
“Trust me. I wish it was.” Reaching into his back pocket, Ash extracts an object and hands it to me: a phone. He then eyes Winnie, silently asking for a trade. With one last squeeze, I return Winnie and take the phone in exchange.
“I had the store set everything up for you.”
There’s no recommendation to take things easy and remember slowly. No warning, no worry. Only trust.
I’m not sure what to do with it. I hold the device in my hand, new, different. I roll it over and stare at the bitten apple, happy at least this hasn’t changed.
As I look back at Ash and at Winnie in his arms, a warm and fuzzy feeling stirs in my chest. Before I can change my mind, I lean in.
I don’t close my eyes and neither does Ashley and it should be weird, kissing someone with eyes open.
It should be weird kissing your best friend, in a future-present year 2024, while he’s holding his baby. No. Holding our baby.
But it isn’t.
I peck Ash’s lips lightly and they taste like home.
Then, I close my eyes. Because I might not remember much of the past few years but I remember how incapable Ash is of kissing without tongue.
Except there’s no tongue. Ash is moving away too quickly and I wish I’d used lip balm.
“Ford…”
I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to think about it. I chase Ash’s lips and I hug an arm around his neck. Pushing my tongue against Ash’s mouth, he lets me in, deepening the kiss.
It’s minty, it’s explosive, it’s everything. I suck onto Ash’s lower lip and a soft groan escapes his mouth.
“Ford,” he repeats and yeah, right. Winnie.
Clutching the phone in my hand tighter, I take a step back. My memories aren’t back. Whatever true love kiss magic I was imagining is not working.
“Just go,” I urge, seeing how Ash is stalling, licking his lips dreamily.
“Yeah, yeah. Got… got to take… gotta… I’m meeting Sydney and Darshi for… I have to… yeah.” Grabbing his jean jacket from the floor, Ash pirouettes with Winnie and wraps her around his chest, under his jacket.
I laugh. “You don’t need to hide her, everyone knows you’re here, Ash.”
“Oh, I know. This is just extra fun for her.” And for me. Ashley doesn’t say it, but I read him so easily. Always could.
As they leave the room, Ashley whispers to Winnie, “Say ‘goodbye, Dad!’” and a little hand appears.
“Bye Da.”
I wave a little goodbye back, and manage to keep the tears in until they’re both gone.