Epilogue #2
That woman would like a word with this woman, but this woman is too tired to take the meeting.
I look.
Two pink lines.
A laugh comes out of me. Not a delicate laugh.
A bone-grinding, choking, incredulous laugh that starts in my gut and climbs through my chest, a sound that is part joy, part disbelief, and part a yowl so primal that Hamish instantly stops giving raspberries to the cursed plush, as if it made the yowl and not me.
"Amy? What's—"
I walk out of the bathroom holding the test in the air like a relay baton. Tag, you're it.
Hamish stares at it. His face cycles through four expressions in two seconds: confusion, recognition, shock, and a pallor so complete, he looks like he's been dipped in flour.
"Is that—"
"Yes."
"But—we've only had sex twice, pet!" He holds up two fingers, as if the visual aid will somehow make the biology reconsider. "Twice! And trust me, I've been counting! ONLY TWICE!"
"You thunderbastard."
"NOW ye're learning football terms? NOW?"
"Ye scored a screamer from outside the box," I say in my best Scottish accent, which automatically causes Hamish to make a face.
"If I recall, pet, and I do, because we've only had sex twice in two and a half months—"
"Feels like years, I know."
"And if I recall, it's ye who were doin' the screamin'."
"You may be retired from the pitch, but you're clearly still an active striker."
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Looks at Callum curled on his shoulder like a potato bug. Looks at my belly. Looks at the test.
Then something shifts in his face. The shock doesn't leave, but something else arrives underneath it, pushing through like sunlight through cloud cover.
His eyes go bright. His jaw, that stubborn McCormick jaw that Callum inherited and maybe this new baby will too, sets with a determination I recognize from the pitch, the broadcast desk, the helicopter rooftop and every moment in our life where Hamish McCormick decided that whatever was happening, he was all in.
"Two," he says, his voice gone thick.
"Two."
"A brother or sister fer Callum."
"Apparently."
"Amy." He steps closer, Callum between us, the test still in my hand. "I made ye a promise on that video call when ye were on the shower curtain and I was at a desk. I said I'd be there fer every second I could control."
"I remember."
"This time, I'm controllin' every second. Every appointment. Every craving. Every midnight run fer aloo gobi and Mike's pastries. Every single moment o' this pregnancy, I'm here. In this flat. In this city. In this life we've built out of spreadsheets and Mum's contraband haggis."
"That's—"
"And if Malcolm's replacement tries ta schedule me during the birth, I'll commentate from the delivery room and she can take it up wi' Fiona."
I laugh, and it turns into a sob, and the sob turns into a laugh again, and Hamish pulls me into him with his free arm, Callum pressed warm between our chests.
We stand there in the living room at 5:30 in the morning, a family of three becoming four, the cursed plush staring at us with its marble eyes like it orchestrated the whole thing.
"We're gonna need a bigger flat," he murmurs into my hair.
"We're going to need a bigger everything."
"Good thing our hearts always have room ta grow."
I press my face against his chest. He smells like coffee and baby soap and the faint, clean sweat of shock.
His heartbeat is fast against my cheek, the way it was on our honeymoon when we made Callum, the way it was when I told him the first time, the way it will always be when our life expands faster than either of us expected.
The spreadsheet I made to organize our lives is open on my laptop on the counter, every cell meticulously formatted, every formula perfect, every projection now spectacularly, irreversibly wrong.
Coyote told me I could put the fear down. I did. I picked up something better.
This.
All of this. The mess and the milk stains and the no-sleep and the too-much-love.
The man who can't fold a baby wrap but can commentate a birth from across an ocean.
The boy who sleeps on his father's shoulder and reaches for a plushy cow thing and carries two families in his name.
The grands down the street, already arguing about something, ready to sprint over at the first sign of need.
Carol, who will call me in an hour and pretend she's not thinking about Terry McCormick.
Shannon, who will send a GIF. Dad, who will say nothing and mean everything.
Fergus, who will raise a paper cup of coffee (and always, a pint of beer) and nod.
And now, apparently, another baby.
Another two pink lines. Another round of the wildest, most unplanned, most beautiful chaos I could never have organized my way into no matter how many spreadsheets I built.
Callum chooses this moment to let out a poo so loud and resonant that it echoes off the living room walls like a foghorn.
He lets out a contented sigh, red-faced and relieved. We both look at him.
"Quite the commentator," I say. "Takes after his da."
Hamish grins. The full one. The devastating one. The one that got me pregnant again.
"That's ma boy."
:)
Thank you so much for reading Shopping for a Highlander's Baby.