Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Hamish
I balance the laptop on a stack of coffee table books because the rolling cart Amy bought for our living room "aesthetic" has been replaced with a collapsible crib I bought three hours ago and cannot figure out how to close.
Da told me I slumbered in a dresser drawer or a box in the front seat of his ice cream truck.
I can do better.
If I can figure out how to close the damn thing.
Amy's wee one bedroom condominium had been perfect for my recovery all these months, but it's wee, aye? Not big enough for us and a bairn, and definitely not where we plan to raise a family. This condo is on the second floor, up a short flight of stairs, or one that she claims is short.
She's not the one wearing a knee brace.
It's just after dinner here, right before bedtime in Scotland, and we're telling my parents and Jason and Marie tonight.
Amy wants more time, but I'm about to burst if I don't tell Mum and Da.
The camera catches my face, the edge of our North End skyline through the windows, and a rogue stuffed sheep I bought with the crib and forgot to hide.
"Aye," I murmur to the webcam as the call begins. "We'll keep the shape. Tight lines. Calm possession."
Amy is beside me on the couch, curled forward as if each of her organs has decided to secede in order to escape this video call, her liver headed for Canada, spleen booking a nonstop flight to Iceland.
Her hair is up in that I-mean-business spiral, and when she squeezes my knee, we're a closed circuit.
The tiles on screen populate.
Marie appears first, haloed by a ring light so aggressive, she looks like she's conducting a séance.
"Hi, sweetie! Hi, Hamish!" she chirps, then leans out of frame. "Jason! Jason, stop. The filter—why am I in Paris? I don't want to be in Paris. It looks drafty with all those tall windows. Can you imagine the lead paint? Wait! No! That one's worse! Now I look like a horse in a porn movie."
"How in God's name does yer ma ken whether there's horses in pornos?" I hiss at my wife, but she just stares at a point above the screen, eyes going glazed.
"Marie," Jason says from somewhere behind the camera, practical and unruffled, "you're on Amélie mode. You have freckles now."
"I'm a horse with freckles!"
"You look beautiful no matter what."
"Turn it off! I didn't consent to freckles."
He toggles and Marie becomes a swirling aurora. Taps again. She is now superimposed on a beach at sunset.
Mum joins with a tartan throw positioned over her shoulder in a vaguely adversarial way.
She squints at the screen, scoots closer.
I can see the urge building, her chest rising and falling at a speed I know too well.
She's preparing to either make a snide comment about our wedding last month or press us on our upcoming reception venue.
Or critique my hair.
"Hamish. Amy," she says, voice brisk. "Well, then. What's this all about? Finally come ta yer senses and moving home?"
Da's tile appears—the label just reads Fergus McCormick, audio off. He's on his phone, from a pub. As he fumbles, I can see the dart board behind him. The camera shows his shoulder, a strip of his jaw, and the corner of a picture frame. Present but unbothered.
Go, Da. Nice form.
"Are we ready?" Amy asks, smiling the smile that means she is about to crack a tooth. I press my palm against her thigh and she relaxes almost imperceptibly, but she's still holding her breath.
"We are so ready," Marie says, beaming, but then glaring, at the camera. "Jason, why do I have dog ears?"
"You clicked 'fun.'"
"There is nothing fun about dog ears when my daughter eloped and I didn't get my Farmington wedding. Again."
Amy growls. Mum and Marie flinch a bit.
"Have yer wrists recovered from the handcuff marks after Chief Luview had ye in the back o' his cruiser?
" I ask pointedly, the question purely rhetorical.
The mums know they're walking on thin ice with us, after chasing us out of Boston to flee for an elopement, then tracking us down like bloodhounds.
Marie backtracks a bit. "I just mean, you know, the reception you promised..."
"It's been five weeks, Mom," Amy says gently. "We're talking about today. Today is different."
I clear my throat and take over. "Right. So. First, thank ye all fer joinin' wi' a positive attitude."
Silence. Marie and Mum freeze. Mum's eyes narrow.
"Which," I stress, "we appreciate."
If Mum's eyes narrow any more, her eyelids will fuse together and it'll be my fault that she can't see.
"Of course," Marie says, ring light flaring. "Because we're reasonable women who wouldn't dream of hijacking your wedding reception that we're entitled to because you ran off with no warning and eloped."
"That's the definition of 'elope,'" Amy hisses out of the corner of her mouth.
"Aye," Mum says. "We are statues in a garden. Decorative. Silent. I'm made o' stone and just watchin' o'er ye, Hamish. We—we do whate'er ye ask o'—o' us."
She's trying.
Or she's having a stroke.
Jason wanders through the background behind Marie, becomes a sepia-toned cowboy, then reappears upside down in a fisheye lens. He places his hand over hers on the mouse.
"Marie. Stop. Please."
"Jason, you love the fisheye."
"You're losing focus." He sits down and looks at us. "Hamish and Amy have an announcement."
"It better be about the wedding reception we're having at Farmington Country Club," Marie says, over-enunciating the last three words. Jason hits mute and the two of them turn into pantomimes, Marie's hands saying more than her mouth, and that's saying a lot.
I can see Mum is texting, and then my phone pings: I put a deposit down at Edinburgh Castle, Hamish. Let Marie think whatever she wants. And don't tell Amy. This can be our secret.
I immediately show Amy my phone screen as Mum watches in horror, my eyes locked on the camera, eyebrows raised.
Amy takes my phone and replies: I hope it's refundable.
I hit mute.
"Just ignore them both, pet," I whisper. "Everythin's about to change, and all fer good."
She nudges me, a reminder to do the actual thing we're here for.
Amy picks up the plastic stick I'd placed on the coffee table and holds it in front of the camera. The word is big, as it should be when a simple act of making love creates a miracle.
She unmutes the call.
"Pregnant," she says, voice steady.
Mum inhales. It sounds like a church door opening.
Marie makes a noise I can only describe as a squeal yawning into a sob, then changing its mind and becoming a squeal again. The ring light sparks off her teeth and I flinch from the glare.
"Is that—" she says, eyes going wide, her eyelash extensions flaring. "No. No! NOOOOOOO REALLLY OH MY GOD!"
My heart tries to fly out of my shirt. I put a hand on it. Making people happy is one of life's truest pleasures for me and right now, our mothers are glowing.
"Wee bairn," Mum whispers. She crosses herself and then adjusts the camera so we can see both her eyes. "A blessing on ye. On the lass. On the wee one."
"Well done." Da's voice floats in, cool and even. He sighs and I see he's holding a half-empty pint glass. "The pair o' ye."
I have played football in front of tens of thousands of spectators, been cheered by crowds so loud the roar carried for miles, but nothing will humble you like your own da saying well done.
Never in my life have I heard those words from him and not had a pitch under my feet, dirt smeared across my face, grass burns on my knees, lungs heaving.
That sounds a bit like sex with Amy, come to think of it.
"Aye. We... ah... scored early."
"Hamish," Amy says under her breath, eyes laughing.
"I mean, right off the kick," I clarify, because that's so much better.
"Pet," Mum says, and I know she doesn't mean me. "How far along?"
"About five weeks," Amy answers. "We only found out this morning."
"Made it in one. Honeymoon baby!" Da lets out a whistle.
"And you called me first," Marie says triumphantly, then frowns. "After Hamish. And each other. And coffee. But still. This is close enough to first. I'm honored."
"Ye kent already?" Mum rears back, eyes blazing, accusatory.
"No," Amy says calmly. "Mom's being silly. We called all four of you for this announcement at the same time."
"The exact same time," I reinforce.
"Well," Marie sniffs, "I intuited this. Amy and I have a special, almost psychic connection. A mother always knows." If Mum's eyes roll any harder they'll turn into golf balls at St. Andrews.
"We haven't told anyone else," Amy says, ignoring that, and I feel her fingers thread through mine. The contact is calm and electric all at once. "We wanted to tell you together."
"Then we shall receive it together," Mum says, eyes going to the side. My best guess is she's glaring at Marie.
"I'm so happy for you," Marie gushes, eyes starting to fill.
"And me, too, sweetie," Jason says to Amy, turning her into Niagara Falls.
"Ye did guid, Hamish," Mum says to me in a tender voice I've never heard before. "Marrit before ye got her pregnant. I'm impressed."
I deserve that. Da is nodding.
"Made it all this way wi'oot havin' an angry da show up at our door like we predicted, aye," Da agrees. "Like the priest predicted. All yer coaches. The teachers in school. The -"
"Yer point's made, Da," I say through gritted teeth. He drinks to that.
"And we can work around the belly at the wedding reception," Mum says, squinting as she looks at Amy. "I'm sure there's ways ta hide the bloat."
"Bloat?" Amy chokes.
Thirty seconds of best behavior. That's how long it lasted. We got half a minute from the mums.
"And it's two weeks to Christmas!" Marie says excitedly. "My baby is pregnant with a baby and we get to have so much fun for the holidays!"
Mum's jaw tightens.
"Aye, ye get this one wi' the bairn in her belly, but next year we get the first real Christmas wi' ma grandbairn. Ma first grandbairn. Ye already have three, Marie. Dinna be so greedy."