Chapter 14 #2
Was it okay? Was I okay?
‘It is a lot,’ I said quietly once everyone else had gone back to their conversations, and I was sure only Sofia could hear.
‘I’ve spent so much time by myself lately, and I’m still readjusting to doing things outside my cottage.
Have you ever noticed how loud people are?
They ask questions and notice things like an expensive coat.
You have to manage your facial expressions and eat with your mouth closed.
‘On the flip side, your deductions were right. I didn’t have a baby shower, but I’ve been to plenty of them in the past few years, some unnervingly similar to this. It’s like a weird flashback to my old life, and it might take a few minutes for my brain to place itself, if that makes sense.’
‘Totally. How about I sit here and act as security guard? If you start to get overwhelmed, send me the secret signal and I’ll spring into action.’
‘Is there a coffee mum secret signal? Because I haven’t been through the full initiation ceremony yet.’
Sofia gave me a conspiring glance, eyes narrowed. ‘This is even more secret than the coffee mums. If you… um… ask me where I got my necklace from, I’ll shoo away whoever’s bothering you.’
‘What if you’re the one bothering me?’ I asked, attempting a joke. Even that felt clunky, as though I’d forgotten how they worked.
‘Oh, tell me straight out to go and talk to someone else if I start getting annoying. I’ve got five kids and work for a church, I’m pretty much impenetrable when it comes to being insulted.
’ She sat up straighter as someone approached the chair.
‘First, though, can I introduce you to my biggest sister, Emma? She lives not far from you, on the other side of Hatherstone.’
I ended up chatting to Emma for longer than I’d have expected. She also lived by herself, and enjoyed the solitude of the forest, having moved out from the city a few years earlier.
‘You don’t get lonely?’ I asked.
Emma laughed. ‘I’ve got four very loud sisters, a dozen nieces and nephews, an interfering mother right down the road, and I run my own hectic business, which includes regular meetings and calls with some particularly monstrous brides.
Having my own space where everything’s quiet and organised, and just how I like it – that’s my idea of bliss. ’
‘I’ve never lived on my own until this year. Honestly, not much in my cottage is organised, or how I like it. It’s a lot less quiet these days, too.’
‘I don’t suppose now’s the time to be thinking about sorting your house out,’ Emma said. ‘But the day will come.’
‘In about eighteen years?’
‘I think nurseries accept children a bit younger than that. In the meantime, how about we do a walk?’
We arranged for her to come over and show me one of her favourite forest routes, and I sat back with a second drink, absorbing the fact that I’d potentially made another new friend.
My hand itched to message Beckett and tell him where I was and how well I was doing, but even if I was going to be rude enough to get my phone out in the middle of my own party, that would have been way too overfamiliar.
I chatted to a few more people, someone brought me a plate of delicate sandwiches and a mini scone, then Cheris and Carolyn homed in on me from both sides like lions hunting the weakest antelope in the herd.
They were both wearing red pinafores embroidered with mistletoe over green polo necks, with sprigs of holly pinned to their chests.
‘Congrats on the baby, Mary,’ Cheris said. ‘He’s gorgeous.’
‘Is he a crier?’ Carolyn asked.
‘Um, he does cry, yes. Being a baby.’
‘Yes, but does he cry a lot?’ Cheris squinted at him, currently being cuddled by Patty over by a window. ‘Can he be trusted not to cry, if he’s fed and changed and what have you?’
‘I have no idea what a lot is,’ I confessed. ‘I don’t have any other babies to compare him to. Sometimes he does cry for seemingly no reason, but I’m sure there is one, I just haven’t figured it out.’
The Christmas Day Twins looked at each other. ‘He is still very small,’ Carolyn said. ‘We’ve got twenty-two days until the concert. Babies can change a lot in that time.’
‘Yes, but is that a good or a bad thing?’ Cheris replied. ‘Will he get better or worse by then?’
‘Excuse me, but can I ask where this is heading?’ I asked, although having seen the NLCCCCC cast list, I had a good idea. ‘Because there’s no way Bob is going to play Baby Yoda Santa. He won’t even be able to hold up his own head by Christmas.’
They turned back to me, eyes glinting.
‘Don’t be a sausage, my dad’s going to play Baby Yoda Santa. He was born for the role!’ Cheris chortled. ‘However, if you’re familiar with the nativity story, you may remember that another baby usually features quite prominently.’
‘You want Bob to be Jesus?’
‘That would be Crimbo-tastic! Thank you so much.’
‘We promise to take care of him. He’ll have a lovely time.’
‘No misplacing him right before the dress rehearsal, like last year.’
‘Last year Jesus was played by a doll,’ Sofia said, returning to her position on the chair arm with a plate of food. ‘No one is leaving a human baby in a cardboard box under the stage.’
‘Um. Okay, then, I suppose. Maybe have a stand-in doll in case he does start crying? And I’d like to see the script before I confirm.’
I didn’t trust these women not to strap him onto the donkey or launch him into the audience from a cannon.
I did have a few questions about the costumes, but they refused to answer while ‘civilians’ were in earshot, and at that point Li called everyone together so I could open the presents.
I couldn’t think of anything more awkward than opening gifts from people I’d never met before, but thankfully they must have found the idea of giving someone they’d never met a present just as bad, as most people had clubbed together to give me a voucher, and the actual presents were from Patty, Yara and the coffee mums, which I could handle.
They gave me a gorgeous baby blanket, embroidered with ‘Bob’, which I decided probably sealed the deal with sticking to that name, some tiny clothes that were originally meant to be for Mitch, only he’d been too chonky to fit into them, and some very expensive toiletries with which to pamper myself.
Best of all, Sofia handed me a sign-up sheet with names and meals on.
‘Another thing we always do is a meal train. We’re embarrassingly late, but one of us is bringing you dinner every day for the next few days. If you’re going out or something, you can freeze it. Let me know if there’s any food you hate, or love, and I’ll pass it on.’
What I hated was living off crackers and cereal.
What I loved was the very thought of these women cooking and driving over a hot meal.
So there I was blubbering again, but this time it was for good reasons.
Then I went and thought about Shay, and Kieran, and all the chances to love me that had been taken from us.
They’d have been feeding me creamy pasta and my favourite burritos, adding extra dollops of sour cream because they knew how much I liked it.
They’d have run me baths, then tucked me up in the blanket Shay’s mum knitted for me when we first moved into the tiny terrace, taking Bob out for a walk so I could sleep.
They’d have let me cry, and mourn, and feel scared and lost and angry.
Then they’d have made me laugh so hard my poor post-birth bladder couldn’t take it.
‘I r… really like your necklace…’ I sobbed, confusing everyone apart from Sofia. ‘Wh… where d… did you get it f… from?’
‘I have no idea,’ she said, squeezing my arm, before bundling me and Bob out of the door and driving us back to our blissfully quiet, dreadfully empty cottage.