Chapter 22 #2
Amy is watching all this from the kitchen table, eating and glaring, eating and glaring.
She takes a bite of tattie scone and her eyes close in involuntary pleasure, then snap open again to glare at me.
She picks up a piece of bacon and chews it aggressively while maintaining hostile eye contact.
She stabs a piece of Lorne sausage with her fork like it pressed the doorbell itself and interrupted her orgasm.
I mouth "sorry" at her across the table. She mouths something back that I choose to interpret as "I forgive you" but is almost certainly not. One of the words definitely starts with an F, though.
"So," I say to my parents. "Ye flew in last night. Where are ye staying?"
Mum and Da exchange a look. It's the look that precedes information I'm not going to enjoy.
Across the table, Amy catches my eye, mouths "NOT HERE," and slashes her index finger across her throat repeatedly.
"Amy, darlin', are ye all right?" Mum asks, peering at her.
"Fine! Bug. On my neck." Amy swats at nothing and smiles brightly. "Gone now."
"We've rented a lovely wee condo," Mum says. "Just down the street."
The relief hits me so hard, I nearly choke on my black pudding.
"Down the street!" I repeat, giving Amy a look. She just stabs a sausage link meaningfully.
"Aye. Number forty-seven. The one wi' the blue door. Ten-minute walk. Or three-minute run, if the bairn's comin'."
"Fer how long?"
"A month." She pauses. "Or as long as it takes."
Amy's fork stops mid-air. A piece of black pudding dangles from it like a hostage.
"A month," Amy echoes.
"Or as long as it takes. I willna miss the birth of ma first grandchild, Amy. Babies dinna follow schedules. They come when they come. And when this one comes, I intend ta be the first ta hold him."
"Her."
Mum just snorts.
"The first," Amy says.
"Aye. The first grandmother. It's tradition."
"Whose tradition?"
"Mine."
"She's been plannin' this since August," Da says, taking a sip of tea.
"I suggested a hotel. She said a hotel wasna close enough.
I suggested down the block. She said down the block wasna close enough.
I suggested next door and she said if there'd been a flat available next door, she'd have taken it. "
"There wasna," Mum says. "I checked."
Amy puts her fork down. Picks it up. Puts it down again. Picks up a piece of haggis instead, eats it, and glares at me so hard, I can feel it in my kidneys.
"Mum, I appreciate the thought, but I'm flying ta London tonight. The timing—"
"I ken about London," Mum says calmly. "Why d'ye think we came now? Amy's thirty-six weeks and ye're leaving the country. Someone needs ta be here."
"I'm here," Amy says. "I live here. I am the someone."
"Ye're the someone havin' the baby, darlin'. Ye need someone who isna havin' the baby." Mum takes Amy's hand, and the gesture is so unexpectedly gentle that Amy blinks. "I raised seven. Let me help."
The condo goes quiet except for the bacon fat still popping.
Amy looks at me. I look at Amy. We have an entire conversation with our eyes in three seconds that translates roughly to: I didn't know about this / I can see that / She's impossible / She's also right / I know / I hate that I know / What do we do?
/ We eat the breakfast and deal with it.
"This haggis is excellent," Amy says finally.
Mum beams.
After breakfast, Mum does a full inspection.
This takes twenty minutes and involves opinions about everything from the thread count of our sheets ("Department store, I can tell") to the cursed cow-giraffe plush ("What in God's name is that creature and why does it look like it was taxidermied by a serial killer?
") to the square footage ("Hamish, this is nae bigger than yer Auntie Morag's caravan and she was a woman of considerable proportions").
She finds dust on the bathroom light fixture.
She finds a draft by the living room window she swears will give our child tuberculosis.
She reorganizes the kitchen spice rack, undoing Amy's careful Scoville arrangement and replacing it with alphabetical, which Amy will not discover until after they leave.
"This condo," Mum announces, arms crossed, "is no place fer a baby."
"Mum—"
"In Scotland, bairns have gardens. Fresh air. Sheep ta look at."
"Sheep," Amy says.
"Aye. Gordie loves the wee ones. Children need grass. Sheep. Grandmothers."
"Mum, ye canna compare a Boston condo ta the farm in Lanarkshire.
" A few years back, after I signed my second contract, I bought a small farm for Mum and Da.
Being a young numpty, I bought it as a surprise, then was informed in no uncertain terms that Mum would never abandon her neighborhood in Glasgow, and I should have fun with my new sheep.
They go on weekends, and Darren and Cora use it for parties or to escape Mum when she's on a tirade. Now, suddenly, it's the only place in the world to raise our child. Funny, that.
"Yer right. The farm's better. It has proper insulation and a view that isna a brick wall."
"That's a brownstone, Mum. It's historic."
"In Scotland, we dinna call damp walls historic. We call them a problem."
Da clears his throat. "In fairness, Fi, our bathroom ceiling had a leak fer six years and ye called it 'character.'"
Mum gives him a look that could strip wallpaper.
"That was different. That was our ceiling."
She finds the crib—the one Amy and I assembled using a YouTube video, three arguments, and the word fuck deployed as structural adhesive—and tests it with both hands.
"It wobbles," she announces.
"It doesna wobble," I insist.
She shakes it again. It wobbles. Amy glares at me.
"Well, we were just about to fix it, and I hop on a plane soon, so..."
Mum perks up. "We can help wi' the crib!"
Da gives me a look. "Fiona, they need time together. He's leavin'. Give them some alone time."
"Oh." She looks disappointed. But surprisingly, she does as told.
At the door, coat on, Mum grips Amy's hands.
"Any twinge. Any sign. Any wee feeling that something's happening, ye call me. No' a text, a call. I dinna care if it's three in the morning. I dinna care if it turns out ta be gas. Ye call."
"We will, Mum."
"I'm no' expectin' ta be there in the room fer the birth," she tells Amy, whose expression changes sharply. "Though of course, if I were invited, I'd offer such strong support."
"Shannon and Carol have the support covered," I say quickly. "The grandmums get to swoop in after the baby's born." I catch Mum's eye and hold her gaze hard.
"Aye," she says slowly. "Of course. We want Amy ta be comfortable."
She turns to Amy. "I ken ye're independent. I admire it. But this is ma grandchild and I have waited fifty-seven years ta be a grandmother and I willna be the last ta know."
"You won't be the last to know," Amy says, choosing her words with the precision of a crisis communications professional.
Mum nods. Then her expression shifts to one I recognize from childhood. It's her "one more thing" face, which never means one more thing. It means six more things.
"I've also been thinkin' about installing one of those wee cameras. A Ring doorbell or whatnot. So I can see when anyone comes and goes."
"A surveillance camera. On our door," Amy says, her entire voice turning into a glare.
"It's fer safety, darlin'."
"Fiona, with the greatest respect, hell no. No cameras. No monitoring. No Ring doorbell. This is our home, not an Alaskan bear webcam."
I step in before Amy can deploy the Velvet Woodchipper.
"Mum, we'll call. I promise. The second anything happens."
Mum looks at Da, who raises his eyebrows: Take the deal, woman.
"Fine. I'm keeping ma phone volume on full. Even at night, so I can hear it over Fergus's snoring."
"I dinna snore," Da protests.
"Ye sound like a walrus wi' a sinus infection, Fergus."
"That's just what ye sound like passin' wind, Fiona." He winks at Amy, who laughs despite herself.
They leave. The door closes. Amy turns to me.
"Your mother—"
"Aye."
"Your mother smuggled haggis through international customs."
"Also aye."
"Your mother wants to install surveillance equipment on our front door."
"That one I shut down."
"After she inspected our home like a building code officer and informed me that Scotland has better sheep."
"Amy—"
"I love her, Hamish. I also want to strangle her with a tattie scone."
"Dinna waste a good scone like that. I'll talk ta her." I pull her close.
"You'll talk to her from London. While I'm here. Alone. With her. Down the street."
"Ten minutes away."
"Three if she runs. She said three."
I kiss her forehead. Then her nose. Then her mouth, a kiss that says I'm sorry about this morning, and I'm sorry about my mother, and I will make all of it up to you.
And for forty-five uninterrupted minutes, I do.
That afternoon, I pack for London. One suit. Two shirts. The elastic knee brace. The IFB earpiece I've been practicing with at home, talking to myself in the bathroom mirror while Amy bangs on the door asking me to let her in to pee, for God's sake.
We really need a bigger home.
At the door, my bag over my shoulder, Amy leans against the frame. Thirty-six weeks. My old Scotland top stretched across her belly, her hair down, her back doing the thing she won't admit is hurting.
I kneel, put my hands on her belly, and press my forehead against it.
"All right, wee Bronwyn. Stay put fer forty-eight hours. Dinna do anything exciting. Dinna listen ta yer gran, who will tell ye ta come early because she has a schedule. Yer mum and I have a plan and the plan is, ye wait fer me. Da's orders."
The baby kicks against my forehead. One solid thump, which I interpret as agreement. I stand and cup Amy's face in my hands.
"I'll be back before ye ken it."
"Go be brilliant."
"I love ye, pet. Both of ye."
"We love you, too. Now go before I make you stay."
I kiss her one last time and walk down the hallway. The door closes behind me and I stop.
I stand in the corridor and don't move. The fluorescent light hums overhead. Someone's telly bleeds through a wall. I'm the telly now, I think. That's what I've become. A voice coming through walls, reaching people in rooms I'll never see.
My wife is thirty-six weeks pregnant. My mother is camped a three-minute sprint away with surveillance ambitions. My father is along for the ride, stoic and uncomplaining. My daughter could come any day now, and I'm flying to London to sit in a studio and talk about other people playing football.
Maybe I could do something else. Commentate on MLS matches right here in the States.
Coach a youth academy. I could be the Gillette spokesman for the rest of my natural life, standing in a bathroom in my pants, pretending to shave a jawline that doesn't actually need shaving, and I'd be home every night.
Anything but split this family across an ocean.
But the Str1kecast contract is signed. The money is committed. People depend on me—Mum and Da, my brothers and sisters, the network, Jody, Vince, the whole machine that keeps the McCormick operation running. I can't unwind that in a hallway.
I shift my bag and walk toward the stairs, and with every step, the distance between me and Amy's door stretches into something that feels less like a corridor and more like a decision I haven't fully made.
Forty-eight hours. I'll be back in forty-eight hours.
Amy's words ring through my head: Go be brilliant.
Aye. Brilliant.
I just hope brilliant's enough.