Chapter 15
LIV
Back at home that evening, Jay placed three plates of steaming bolognese down on the table and we all sat down around it.
‘How did the playdate go?’ Jay asked as he grated some Parmesan over his plate.
‘It was bad, Daddy. Elliot was mean to me.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘He wouldn’t share.’
‘He was a bit territorial with his toys,’ I explained as I cut up Finn’s spaghetti.
‘Oh no,’ Jay said. ‘That doesn’t sound like much fun.’
‘Well, I enjoyed it.’ I passed the plate back to Finn. ‘It was good to get to know Maya a little better. You should see their house; it’s like something from a magazine.’
‘Mammy and Daddy?’ Finn piped up as he filled his mouth with a forkful of the bolognese.
‘Yes, love,’ I replied.
‘How do you know if you’ve a baby in your tummy?’
I lowered my fork and winked at Jay over Finn’s head. Here we go, I thought. We had reached this famed parenting milestone.
‘Well, your tummy starts to grow and gets really big and so you go to the doctor and they have a machine that can look inside your tummy and it tells you if there’s a baby there.’
‘Wow, that’s cool. Can we go to the doctor and check if you’re getting a baby?’
‘Well, no, my tummy is just a food baby.’ I laughed and patted my belly.
‘But how does the baby get in there?’ he went on.
I made eyes at Jay in a manner that told him it was his turn now.
‘Well… ehm…’ Jay fumbled. ‘The mammy and the daddy have… a-a…’ he paused for the right word. ‘They have a chat… yeah, so they have a chat… and then they decide if they want to have a baby.’
‘So can we get one?’
‘A baby?’ I asked incredulously.
He nodded, his beautiful, innocent eyes so full of hope that it almost broke me.
‘Well, it’s not that simple…’ Jay jumped in.
He screwed his face up in confusion. ‘Why not? Why don’t you and Mammy have a chat?’
‘Why all this talk about babies?’ I asked to deflect attention away from his question.
He twirled his fork around in the air. ‘Brody in my class is getting a new baby brother or sister.’
‘Aw, that’s nice.’
‘If we gotted a baby then I can play with it.’
‘But we play with you,’ I said, somewhat childishly. I knew we were a poor substitute for a brother or sister.
‘I want someone to play dinosaurs with and you and Daddy aren’t very good at dinosaurs.’
‘Yeah… I get that…’ Jay agreed.
‘So can we get a baby then?’
‘Me and Mammy will talk about it, is that okay?’ Jay said to appease him. ‘Now eat up, little man, before your dinner goes cold.’
‘Okay,’ he said, bringing a forkful of spaghetti towards his mouth.
After we had tucked Finn up in bed, we came back downstairs to the kitchen. Jay began making the tea while I reached up to the overhead cupboard where we kept the biscuit tin and took out the last remaining packet which were Fig Rolls.
‘No choccy ones?’ Jay asked.
‘Sorry, this is all we’ve left.’
Jay shook his head and laughed. ‘This evening has gone from bad to worse.’
When the tea was made, we went into the living room and flopped down onto the sofa.
‘Where did all the baby stuff from Finn come from earlier on?’ Jay asked.
‘I don’t know.’ I tucked my legs up beneath me and dipped a biscuit into my milky tea.
‘I was starting to sweat. I wasn’t expecting to have to explain the birds and the bees over dinner tonight.’
I laughed.
‘What are we going to say if he asks again? Because he will ask again.’ Jay groaned.
‘We’ll just have to tell him that we’re still talking about it, which is the truth anyway.’
‘He really wants a brother or sister…’ Jay went on, leaving the statement dangling there. I knew he was waiting for me to react.
‘I know…’ I felt myself bristle. ‘But it has to be our decision.’
‘Well, I think we need to take his feelings into account too. I don’t want him being an only child and now he’s telling us that he doesn’t want to be either.
I loved how boisterous and chaotic my house was growing up and although we fought like cats and dogs, we always had one another’s back when things went wrong. I want that for Finn too.’
Jay was one of five and they were all really close despite now living all over the world.
I only had my sister Linda but she was eleven years older than me, so growing up, it always felt as though we were at different life stages.
We had got closer since I had become a mother though and she had supported me a lot during the early days with Finn when my depression had been a weight pulling me down and I felt unable to cope with it all.
‘I’d love to be able to give him that too,’ I cried, feeling tears press forward in my eyes, ‘but unfortunately, it’s not that easy.’
‘Hey, love,’ he said, putting his arm around my shoulder. ‘Don’t get upset; I know this is tough on you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, wiping away tears. I hated when we argued. ‘I would do anything for him, you know that.’
‘But just not that…’ I heard Jay sigh under his breath.