Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Leo
“ W hoah!” I laugh, “What’s up, Red?” My smile starts to fade when I see her panting in front of me, fire spitting from her eyes and then fading as the anger that brought her here starts to disintegrate. The expression that’s left behind is one I’ve never seen before, and abruptly it feels like I’m teetering on the edge of a cliff, about to plummet.
Sadie is a live wire. I’ve always known this and valued the way she says exactly what she thinks, in a way that stays true to how she’s really feeling in the moment. But this is something completely different.
She looks at my client, Holly, and flushes with embarrassment, opening her mouth to speak before the words die on her lips. Spinning one eighty, she storms out in much the same way she flew in.
Looking for whatever it was she threw at me, I find it a couple of feet to my right. It’s long, plastic, and white with a blue cap. It kind of looks like a thermometer, or a…
Hang on.
My heart skips several beats and my chest becomes tight as I pick it up and turn it over.
And on the digital screen are the words that shove me off that cliff, sending the air rushing around my ears.
She’s pregnant.
My Sadie is pregnant.
With my baby.
These dopey thoughts tumble through my head like bowling pins getting knocked down one by one.
She’s having our baby. I’m going to be a father.
“Never mind, it’s on me,” I tell Holly before running out of the parlour door, ignoring her protests that she has to pay me something . I don’t need Holly to pay me. I need Sadie, I need to hold her and keep her safe, keep them both safe in my arms.
Both of them.
There’s a both .
Delirious joy like nothing I’ve ever experienced before almost puts me on my knees as I see her speed walking a few yards away, her ponytail swinging this way and that. “Sadie!” I call at her. She freezes, but doesn’t turn around. Don’t tell me she’s nervous about my reaction?! I run over to her, determined to make damn sure she’s not left in any doubt that this is the greatest moment of my life. A daughter, or a son, with her red hair and razor sharp brain, and my…last name, maybe, if she likes, I don’t give a shit if they carry hers instead. I’ll take whatever she’s got and name them Jellybean McMonkey if that’s what she wants; they’ll still be loved with everything in me.
I throw my arms around her, barely able to speak clearly but trying anyway, kissing every inch of her face that I can get to and telling her how amazing she is, how fantastic this news is, and how much I adore her and the little peanut growing inside her.
Because I do. My brain buzzes with so many thoughts, all around the running theme that this child is the best thing that could ever have happened. I know it’s not here yet, and only the size of my thumbnail if that, but it already owns me, my heart and my life.
It takes me a few seconds to realise that she’s gone stiff in my arms and isn’t responding to me. I frown and draw back, and she can hardly meet my eyes. “Sades?” A hollow feeling opens up inside me, and my bones feel cold inside me. “Talk to me.” My throat feels dry.
Finally, she glares at me. “As easy as that? Hooray, we’re having a baby, everything’s peachy?”
I meet her gaze. “I mean…isn’t it?” I swallow. “I know it’s…scary, and…sudden…” Words are deserting me.
“ Scary and sudden ? We’ve been involved for weeks , Leo! I have mail I haven’t opened for longer than we’ve been…doing whatever this is - ”
“What do you mean, ‘whatever this is’?” I burst out, suddenly fully pissed off. “Have I been in any way unclear about how I feel? And you haven’t exactly been -”
“ It’s too soon! ” A few passers by stare at us, but let them. I’ve never heard her yell like this before, and I’ve had some humdinging rows with this woman. “I didn’t…I can’t be… I’m not ready. ” Her shout trails off into a thick, croaky wisp.
My legs start to shake and my throat closes up. I brace myself. “What do you mean?” My own voice is choking and knotted up, tight as a guitar string.
Her fists clench and unclench next to me, and she’s staring at the ground, her lower lip trembling. “I’m…saying I…” She closes her eyes. “I haven’t thought about what I’m going to do about this,” she whispers.
I want to throw up.
It’s absolutely her right to…make this choice, one way or the other. I can’t make myself even think the word right now. I’ve always believed that it’s the person who does the whole giving birth thing that has the ultimate right to make the final decision. It’s a big ask of anyone to go through that, and if they aren’t sure they want to, that’s completely fair and understandable. It’s Sadie’s body, and if she decides…against this…I’m not going to be a hypocrite and say that my ethics on the subject apply to everyone but her because she’s carrying my baby. I’m many things, but I’m not a forced birther.
But my god, my heart just splintered and shattered in my chest, and I don’t know if it’ll ever recover in my lifetime if she...
She takes a step back from me. “I need some time to think,” she says dully, like a robot. “I’ll call you. Just…let me have some space. I’m scared, and I’m shocked to hell, and I need to be alone.” Her eyes flick up to mine for a split second, and then away again, like she can’t stand to look at me. “I’m sorry.” And with that, she walks away in the direction of her flat, her legs visibly shaking.
Leaving me standing here, unable to reach her, icy cold, my face buckling with the worst pain I’ve ever felt…and using every scrap of self control I have not to run after her and beg.
Eli
When Leo failed to show up for his afternoon appointments, and Sadie did the same thing, Em spent the afternoon apologising to the people that had already arrived, who were understandably annoyed at having to be rebooked; frantically calling the others with later bookings; and trying to get hold of them both.
Sadie finally answered, saying that she wasn’t feeling good. We assumed Leo was looking after her, but he wasn’t. When my wife finally got hold of him, Leo asked her not to call or text because he was keeping the line clear for Sadie. “He sounded… God,” Em says, biting her thumbnail, looking fretful, “he sounded ill .”
I kiss her forehead, loving that this can still make my wife smile, however worried or distressed she is. “It’s OK. Dean and I will go check on him after work.”
When we get to his townhouse in the early evening, he won’t answer his door. We can hear him crashing around inside, though. Dean and I exchange a look, and agree wordlessly to let ourselves in. He still has the spare key under a plant pot, and this time I’m glad of it.
“‘S’going on?” Before we’re even in the same room, I know from the slur of his voice that he’s south of the border. I check the time. Six p.m. And when we find him, he’s on the damn floor, sprawled like a drunken spider on his living room rug.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
What the fuck, dude? Dean signs. Leo laughs hysterically, busting a gut, and it’s a horrible, joyless sound.
“Your hands’re swirly,” he mumbles.
Shit. You’ll have to talk to him, Dean says to me.
“I’m not too sure I’ll do much better,” I reply quietly, looking at the empty bottle of Laphroaig lying on the carpet a few feet away from Leo.
“Oh, don’t look’t me like that,” he grouses, struggling to get more vertical and failing. “Got to wet the baby’s head, yeah?” And, to both of our stunned dismay, he bursts into tears, his head collapsing on the backs of his hands, which are clutching the edge of the rug.
Dean moves first, taking one of Leo’s shoulders and nodding me towards the other. We manage to get him onto the sofa, and he barely even seems to notice, sobbing into his hands.
“What in the sam hill happened?” I ask, shaken. I’ve never seen Leo this devastated, even when his father died when he was a teenager. Dean gets him a glass of water, but he gently bats it away, and some of it sloshes over the sides.
“Can’t make her,” he moans. “S’true. Can’t make her, wouldn’t be right…” His face crumples again. “But I want her to, so bad… But I can’t ask it. M’a fuckin’ feminemnist , y’know?”
“Leo, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Her. Body,” he declares, clapping his hands between each word, “Her. Choice. An’ I believe that wiv my whole heart.” He clutches his head. “But I also love her wi’my whole heart. And the baby.”
Oh holy Jesus.
Dean and I stare at each other, at a loss as to what to say.
“So you’re saying Sadie’s pregnant?” I ask, just so there’s no doubt or misunderstanding.
He nods, devastated. “An’ she dun’t know if sh’wants to keep it. An’ I’m not gonna presh-pressure her because I’m a man of prin - princen - pripci - I’m not a fuckin’ hypocrite!” He roars the last part…and then collapses, seeming exhausted, to one side, muttering into one of his throw pillows.
Dean removes Leo’s shoes and lifts his legs up so he’s lying down properly. I place the first waste paper bin I find close to Sleeping Beauty’s face, because I have a strong feeling he’s going to need it.
“You poor fucker,” I murmur.
I’ll stay with him, Dean volunteers.
“You sure?”
Yeah. Liaden’s in London overnight.
I smile. I didn’t even know that. Old Dean would have warned me in advance. Every day, his progress still makes me happy.
“OK. If you’re sure, I’ll get back to Em.”
Leo makes a rumbling noise and mumbles something about red hair. I feel so sorry for him , Dean admits.
“Yeah, me too. It’s a shitty situation.”
I mean, it IS her choice, obviously…but she’s not going to abort their baby, surely? He rubs the back of his neck.
I think about Sadie, and Leo, and how happy they’ve both been since they got it together…and also how fragile that’s seemed, how gingerly our ginger girl has gone into this with him. The surprise and hesitation that still persists in her face whenever I see her look at him. “I don’t know,” I finally reply quietly. “I mean, yeah, on the one hand, it is his baby, too. But on the other, he’s not the one that actually has to be pregnant, to go through all that and then give birth. Fair’s fair. She’s the only one who can decide, and I know he’ll respect it, whatever she says.” I look up at Dean. “But if she does decide to nip it in the bud, damn me if that ain’t gonna break his goddamn heart for good.”