Chapter 9 #2
I try to imagine it from her perspective: one enormous Scottish man, fully dressed, wrapped in gray fabric, soaking his arse in an open toilet, brace crooked, phone dripping wet on the floor.
Her lips part.
"Amy," is all I say.
She starts laughing so hard, she can't make a sound. She's turned into a human deer whistle.
My poor wife bends at the waist, clutching the doorframe, tears streaming down her cheeks. The paper bag filled with cannoli crinkles in her hand as she wheezes and then absolutely loses it.
"Stop," I complain. "I am in crisis."
"You are in the toilet," she manages.
"I am in hell."
She slides down the frame to sit on the floor, legs splayed, arm wrapped around her belly as if she has to protect the baby from my stupidity.
"You look—" she gasps, "—I have no words."
"Please don't turn me into a Dadoofsky."
"A what?"
"Ne'ermind. Help me oot?"
"Not until you explain." She crosses her arms over her lovely breasts and I steel myself.
"It involves bad YouTube videos and even worse AI."
"AI?"
Her gaze moves to the phone, lying on the bath mat like a drowned rat.
"Oh, no," she breathes. "Tell me you didn't—"
"Voice ta text. Except Scotland's slackin' on producing coders who can teach these damn systems how to interpret real English."
She scrambles across the floor, grabs the phone, dries it with the towel, and powers it on.
We both hold our breath until the screen lights up.
A wall of notifications.
"Read it," I say, resigned. "It's easier than explaining why I'm arse over teakettle in the worst therapy tub e'er."
Her mouth curls.
"Mum we are now having an infection..."
She can't finish. She's laughing too hard, more tears coming.
"And then—oh, my God—Not having a c section mum. Not resurrection. No party with anal."
"Technology will kill us all," I mutter.
"Did you seriously say anal to your mother?"
"No' on purpose! The AI did it!"
She wipes her eyes, thumbs flying as she replies to Mum: Everyone is fine. No C-section. No infection. This is Amy on Hamish's phone. Hamish is wrapped in a baby wrap and sitting in the toilet and can't type well. Love you!
She hits send, then turns the phone and—och!
Takes a picture.
"AMY, NO!"
She just snorts.
"Please. As if I could not snap a pic of you in this position."
"Ma knee is killin' me. Help me oot of here."
But my dear wife is typing.
"Do NOT send her a picture," I say quickly. "I'm serious. You have discretion. Mum and Da do, too. But ma siblings? D'ye ken what Darren would do wi' that? It'd be all over the internet in three seconds."
Her finger hovers over the phone. She makes the right decision, setting it on the counter, and finally looks at me with real concern.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"I'll live. Ma pride's on life support, but ma knee's fine. I think."
"Good, because I'm about to tug on your leg."
"Pullin' ma wishbone?" I wink at her.
She rises, plants her feet, and starts unwinding the wrap.
"Who designs this stuff? You look like a stunt double in a Mummy movie reboot."
The pressure around my chest eases. She frees my arms, then unwraps my waist, revealing a high-water stripe on my jeans.
"No' a word aboot this," I warn.
"I am absolutely saying everything about this," she replies with a smirk.
She helps me stand. I flush what I don't want to think about, then limp toward the bedroom, unhooking my brace and peeling off my soaked jeans.
"You know this means I get the bigger cannoli, right?" Amy calls from behind me.
"Ye're a cruel, cruel woman," I inform her.
"And yet you married me."
After a quick shower and dry clothes, we regroup in the living room. She hands me the bigger cannoli anyway.
"All right, Toilet King," she says, lips dusted with powdered sugar. "Let's do this together. No YouTube, no AI, and no toilets."
We drag the crib box into the middle of the floor, open it, and spill out a pile of white bars, panels, and hardware that all look exactly the same.
The instruction sheet unfolds four times.
There are no words, just illustrations, apparently created by someone saving money by using an Etch-a-Sketch.
"A," she says, pointing at a piece.
"B," I counter, picking up another.
She grabs sticky notes, labels parts, and within ten minutes, our living room looks like a crime scene in an IKEA store.
We get step one wrong. Twice.
During a break, my phone pings from the counter. It's a group chat between Amy, her mother, and me.
Marie: Just heard from Fiona. She's worried about Hamish and said something about an anal infection?
"Fuck me," I groan.
She adds: Also, I found a GREAT prenatal yoga class lesson plan on using local beeswax to loosen your perineum during birth with partner finger massage.
Amy immediately replies with: MOM DO NOT
Marie: Ha! I promise I won't boss Hamish around more than usual.
I hand the phone to Amy like it's radioactive.
"I love her," she says, typing fast, "but I am not doing warrior pose while Mom gives a TED Talk on perineal massage and bees."
"Thank ye. Ma pelvic floor is in yer debt."
We go back to the crib. Something clicks on the frame and in my brain at the same time. The pieces start to make sense. Side rails, end panels, slats. My knee aches, but this ache feels earned.
We slide the last support bar into place and push.
Click.
We both freeze.
"You heard that, right?" Amy whispers.
"Aye," I say. "The sound of victory."
We sit back and stare at it: a real crib. In our real living room. Where our real child will actually sleep.
My chest tightens.
"That's where she'll be," I say quietly, picking a girl to try on for size as a future da. "First nap. First night home. First time she screams fer a tit."
"First time she stands up and yells for us at three a.m." Amy's eyes are shiny.
"She'll want her Mum more then. Ye've got the tit."
"Absolutely," she says as I eye her lovely ones. "But you're not getting out of night duty. I'm feeding, so you get diaper duty, burping duty, and soothing duty, while I get lying-there-like-a-chew-toy duty."
"Yer comparing these," I murmur as I cup her breasts, "with dog toys?"
Amy gives me a kiss and an arm squeeze before picking up the trash. The giant plush in the corner catches my eye.
"We need ta deal with that," I say. "I dinna want it looking into the crib at night and summoning the fae."
"Turn it around," Amy shudders. "And cover its head. I don't want to feel it staring when we're... you know."
"Existing?" I ask.
"Kissing," she corrects. "And other things. I cannot make out under the gaze of Giraffe/Cow Demon thing. It looks like something a K-Pop group should be hunting to fulfill a prophesy."
I drag the plush into a corner, turn it to face the wall, and toss a throw blanket over its head. Somehow this makes it both better and worse at the same time.
Amy makes a face. "If it starts humming lullabies, I'm moving back in with my parents."
We order noodles from the place down the block. The snow thickens outside, muting the city. We eat on the floor, cartons on the coffee table. Amy keeps glancing at the crib, a little smile tugging at her mouth.
"No wedding reception," she says suddenly, firm. "Not now, not later. We eloped to Love You, Maine—even though our parents found us—and got married in the hot springs. Now it's time to do the baby thing."
"Aye," I say.
"Good. I keep worrying you secretly want one and you're just being nice."
Mouth full of noodles, I shake my head and she looks relieved.
She tells me how Carol and Shannon made bets in a group chat on when I'll cry over our daughter for the first time.
"What did ye say?" I ask.
"That it's already happened," she replies simply. "You cried when we heard her heartbeat."
I look down, throat tight, pretending to focus on untangling a noodle.
"It did sound like a tiny drum," I say. "Inside you. Like she was playing a Celtic war chant fer us."
"You're going to be a great dad." Amy leans her head on my shoulder.
"I sat in a toilet today," I remind her.
"Yeah," she says softly. "But it was because you wanted everything ready for when I got back. That counts more than getting it right the first time."
On the sofa, Amy stretches out, hand resting on her lower stomach. There's barely a bump there. Soon, though, the curve will be unmistakable.
"That plush is still in the room," she says.
"It's blindfolded," I reassure her. "If it starts making suggestions, I'll rip out the insides and throw them out the window."
"That's hot." She smirks.
"Of all the things I have said and done today, that's what gets ye going? Threatening to disembowel a stuffed toy?"
Her fingers hook in the front of my shirt. I kiss her, slow and deep, her lips tasting like noodles and sugar and home.
"This feels so... real," she says. "You and me. Our little condo with a crib and a cursed cow and knowing that next year when it's snowing like this, you'll be pacing the hall at three in the morning, singing off-key lullabies."
"I sing on key," I protest, offended.
"No, you don't," she says fondly.
I kiss her again.
Outside, the snow keeps coming down.
Inside, there's no reception, no guest list, no wedding announcements.
Just us, our future bairn's brand new crib, and a baby wrap that's going straight in the bin tomorrow.