In This Together

Chapter 1

HANNAH

‘…I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’

Right on cue, TJ’s wide eyes filled with horror, and he started to scream bloody murder in the vicar’s arms.

Hannah thought she would cry too if someone threw cold water over her head when she was trying to nap.

She smiled, pretending all eyes in the congregation weren’t on her as she accepted her baby beside the church font, whispering to him as she bounced him in her arms. The drenched, already thick and unruly mass of black hair on his head served as confirmation that he was now a blessed soul.

She wasn’t sure she believed in God and the bible, but she believed in something.

And she had many blessings to be thankful for.

Luke, her eldest son, who was going through the hormones of a late teenage boy but was a talented, smart kid.

Jackson, her middle boy, who was straddling the age of innocence and pre-pubescence – one minute playing tag with friends and the next sneaking glances at the magazines Luke kept under his bed that Hannah pretended not to know about.

And she had Rod, whom she sometimes referred to as the biggest kid of them all, more affectionately known as her husband.

When they got pregnant in college, it was as if Rod had frozen in time, forever throwing his clothes on the floor to be laundered by someone else, addicted to all sports – watching, playing, talking about them – but the same guy she’d fallen in love with and was still very much in love with.

He was her very good-looking, menace-in-the-bedroom, lazy-ass best friend.

For all their imperfections, including her own, Hannah’s family was her world and it was important to her to have them blessed – just in case.

‘Can I take him?’

‘Sure,’ Hannah said, handing off TJ to the waiting arms of Sofia.

Hannah’s family didn’t stop at her kids and husband. It extended to the three most important ladies in her life – best friends, Andrea and Rosalie, and Sofia, who was biologically Andrea’s kid sister but who felt like a sibling to Hannah, too.

Sofia held the baby’s soaked head of hair against her chest, and her eyes shone as she made faces to TJ. It had been a while since Hannah had seen the sparkle in those beautiful eyes.

The cause of that spark going out was standing right next to her – Jay, Sofia’s husband, whom everyone could see was a waster, except Sofia.

‘It looks good on you,’ Hannah told her, receiving a soft smile in return, but one that didn’t quite reach her cheeks.

‘I’m going to be the best god-mommy you’ve ever had, baby boy,’ Sofia told him, miraculously turning his tears to giggles.

‘I don’t think so. You’ll be second best.’ The voice belonged to Rosalie, who appeared next to them, tickling TJ’s stomach with her perfectly manicured fingers.

Rosalie always looked the part and today was no exception. Her long hair fell in salon-styled curls across her shoulders. Though she was willing to tickle TJ’s tummy, she was standing a safe distance from him in her tailored cream coat, which probably cost more than Hannah earned in a month.

Together, the three women and a baby led the christening party out of the church in New Jersey.

‘I don’t understand why I’m not a godparent. I’m a godparent to Luke and Jackson,’ said Andrea, following behind them.

Andrea was Hannah’s oldest and most loyal friend. She and Sofia had moved with their dad from Nashville to New Jersey when Andrea was a young girl and Sofia a baby. They’d moved into a house on the same street as Hannah’s parents and Andrea had been in Hannah’s class at school.

Their friendship had been formed quickly, when Hannah had shown Andrea the answers to their math homework because Andrea had forgotten to do it. The reality had been that Andrea hadn’t just forgotten, she hadn’t had time. She was a young girl with too much responsibility at home.

‘I thought you said you didn’t want to be TJ’s godmother?’ Rod said, sidling up to Andrea.

‘That’s not at all accurate,’ Andrea quipped, stone-faced. ‘I said, if something happened to you and Hannah, wouldn’t I have to take the kids anyway?’

‘Therefore, you don’t need the title,’ Sofia said across her shoulder. ‘Whereas Rosalie and I haven’t been godmothers before and we need this.’

Secretly, Hannah secretly hoped that asking Sofia to be a godmother to TJ would give the sisters something new to connect over because recently, there’d been tensions between them.

They reached the churchyard, where Rod called to their group to bunch together for photographs.

Hannah, Rosalie, Andrea and Sofia stood in front of the church, with the remaining friends and family gathered behind them. Luke and Jackson stood to Hannah’s left, already looking dishevelled in their school trousers, shirts now partly untucked with skewed ties.

‘Plus,’ Rosalie said, already smiling as Rod handed his camera to another churchgoer and offered instructions on focusing the lens, ‘I buy the best gifts.’

‘That isn’t true,’ Andrea said through her own tight smile, her eyes squinting against the sun’s rays as Rod slipped into the row between her and Hannah. ‘What about the drum kit I bought Jackson for Christmas? He said that was the best gift anyone has ever bought him.’

Rod held out his hands from his side and turned to Andrea. ‘And she wonders why we didn’t make her godmother?’

Just as Andrea retorted, pointing a finger at Rod, TJ started to cry, Luke pushed Jackson and the stranger sent the camera flashing.

Hannah laughed. A perfect picture of her family.

Her oldest boys fighting. Her baby crying. Rod bickering with Andrea. Rosalie posing as if she was on a red carpet at a movie premiere, oblivious to the world around her. Sofia trying to appease TJ.

If this were Hollywood, the four women might be referred to as the ditzy rich one, Rosalie, the bitchy promiscuous one, Andrea, the three-times mom (one accidental) who married the college jock, Hannah, and the slightly quirky, quietly bitter younger sister, Sofia.

On the face of it, Hannah, Andrea and Rosalie might have seemed unlikely friends, and heck, they could drive one another up the wall at times, but they shared a bond as strong as any family.

* * *

Hannah’s small yard wasn’t really big enough to host twenty adults and countless kids after the christening, but the other options had been expensive.

She and Rod were far from flush at the best of times but things were tighter than usual whilst she had been on maternity leave.

When she’d go back to work next week, they would get abundantly worse, thanks to childcare bills.

That was the thing about three kids with large age gaps between them. Just when she thought they could start to get on track financially, another kid would come along. Her boys were the loves of her life, but they weren’t cheap.

So they had a questionably safe bouncy castle in the yard, Hannah had made party food, Rosalie had generously decorated the place with blue bunting and balloons, and Andrea had supplied a bar load of alcohol.

Happily, the sun was shining. Though it wasn’t the warmest of spring days, sitting directly in the sunlight with a sweater, it was warm enough to have the party between the kitchen and outside.

As people started to arrive from the church – kids making a dash straight to the bouncy castle and adults making a dash directly to the drinks table – Hannah fussed around her kitchen, uncovering bowls of dips and chips and laying them out on the bunting-trimmed kitchen table.

‘What can I do to help?’ Sofia asked, appearing at the kitchen door.

‘There’re a few pizzas in the freezer in the garage, if you wouldn’t mind grabbing them and popping them in the oven?’

‘Sure thing,’ Sofia said, knowing her way around Hannah’s house well enough to get on with the task.

Hannah took a stack of three trays of sandwiches she’d prepared the night before from the fridge.

‘Can I help?’ Hannah’s mom lifted the top two trays from Hannah and set them down on the countertop.

‘Thanks.’

She had a strained relationship with her parents.

They’d never approved of Hannah dropping out of college to have Luke. After his birth, everything they said had felt like ‘We told you so.’

Whilst Rod was away playing football and finishing college, Hannah had struggled to bring up Luke alone.

Night after night and all day long, he screamed through colic.

Then one night, when Luke was only weeks old, she heard her parents having a blazing row.

Her father – her own father – gave her mother an ultimatum.

Either he left, or Hannah left with Luke.

Though they’d all agreed to move on from what had happened after Luke was born, things had never been the same between them.

Hannah would always invite them to birthdays, christenings and her annual Christmas gathering, and they would spend too much money on gifts for the kids as a way of making amends for the past, but she would never be able to get past the fact that the people who were supposed to love her unconditionally had kicked her out of their home with her newborn baby.

One thing it had taught Hannah though was that unlike her own mom, she would always put her kids first.

‘You look pretty,’ Hannah said, nodding to her mom’s peach dress and jacket combo.

‘Thank you. You, too.’ She gestured to Hannah’s blue fitted dress, which she’d bought for a friend’s wedding about five years ago and that she had only just managed to squeeze into. She still had a few pounds of post-baby weight to move before she would be back at her happy weight.

‘She always looks pretty,’ Rod said, swooping into the kitchen and planting a kiss on Hannah’s cheek as he snuck his arms around her waist, stole a sandwich, then left again.

‘A little help might be appreciated, Rod,’ Hannah called after him.