Sophie's Encore (2 page)

“As if you’d know,” Rachel grunted back.

“He does, actually,” I offered gently. “He’s seen me through labor, remember?”

Dan and I exchanged a wistful look. Emily had been born a little over two years after her older brother Josh, but just four weeks after I lost Steve. I was at the height of grief then; I was angry and lonely and very confused. Dan helped me through her birth and didn’t once bat an eyelid when I cursed him for not being Steve. He was the first person to hold Emily, and the bond of love between them had been instant.

I forced myself to abandon that train of thought and focus on the present.

“Do you want something to eat before it’s time to go to the hospital?” I asked quietly. Rachel pursed her mouth and mimed being sick. “I couldn’t possibly.”

“You should keep your strength up,” I persisted.

“I got pizza,” Dan offered helpfully.

“I don’t…want…to eat….
Owww
!” Rachel barely managed to register her protest before the next contraction swept her up. I consulted my watch.

“That’s every five minutes,” I announced. “Time to go.”

Rachel looked at me with wide, scared eyes and sank onto the sofa. “I’m scared. I want to stay here.”

“Time to go,” I reiterated. “Come on, Dan, help me get her up and into the car.”

Dan obligingly held out his arm and carefully pulled Rachel to her feet while I gathered up her things and led the way to my little Golf, parked—for once—conveniently right outside the house. I opened the passenger door and Rachel let herself be settled in the seat. I closed her door and allowed myself a brief moment of catching my breath while I leaned against the car. In truth, I dreaded the trip to the hospital with all the memories it would bring, but I didn’t have a choice.

Seeing me hovering, Dan frowned and made shooing hand gestures. “What are you still doing here? Get going, there’s a baby waiting to be born.”

“I—”

“I know,” Dan interrupted me and took my hands in his. “I’ll go check on Josh and Emily in a minute. If you’re not back by morning, Josh…” he petered out. “Actually, I can’t remember what Josh needs to do, or Emily, but I know you’ve got their schedules stuck to the fridge and we’ll all be absolutely fine.”

I surrendered and let the moment go, not knowing what I had intended to say in the first place.

“Are you sure this is all okay?” I asked instead. “Only it’s too late to call an agency sitter and the kids will be much better...”

“…with their godfather. Yes, it’s absolutely okay,” Dan assured me. “Now go and take care of Rachel before she sprogs in your car.”

Chapter Three

Dan was asleep on the sofa when I arrived back home at six-thirty, bone weary, but somehow exuberant. I crept into the kitchen to brew a pot of strong coffee. There was hardly any point in going to bed as the kids would be up shortly, and besides, I was too wired. I had finished setting out the cereal and fruit on the table when I heard the soft pitter patter of bare feet coming down the stairs. Josh was an early riser and, having found my bed empty, would be searching excitedly for me, thinking I had staged an unexpected game of hide-and-seek. Gleeful shouts of “Dan, Dan” indicated that he had ventured into the lounge first. The tableau that greeted me in the living room was as familiar as it was bittersweet. Josh was astride Dan’s tummy, playing jelly-on-a-plate, while Dan flopped about like a stranded jellyfish.

The squeals of laughter from both boys had woken Emily, who started shouting for Dan before she had even made it down the stairs. Dan’s face lit up like a Christmas tree when his favorite goddaughter hurled herself at him, covering his face in smoochy kisses. Why this man, who so clearly adored children, had never managed to create a family of his own was a mystery.

Finally Dan noticed me standing in the doorway and flashed me one of his happiest smiles. “Good morning, lovely,” he managed between gulps of laughter. “How’s Rachel? Is it a girl or a boy?”

“It’s a boy.” I smiled. “Born at four a.m., healthy and happy. Henry, she’s called him. Alex didn’t make it, obviously, but he’s on his way.”

“That’s wonderful.” Dan huffed and puffed and gently disentangled himself from my children. He sat up, rubbing his face, and tried to smooth his unruly hair. “Shall we have some breakfast?”

“Oh, yes pease,” Emily chanted. “Dan stay for brekkie, Dan stay for brekkie.”

I filled Dan in on developments in the hospital in between feeding Emily her cereal and buttering toast for Josh. Dan made bacon and eggs for us, and I ate greedily. The kids paid no attention whatsoever to me, focusing entirely on the only man in their lives. Dan basked in their adoration, and he lapped up the unconditional love bestowed on him by my brood. But he had also learned to be a practical godfather, and at eight o’clock, he whisked Josh and Emily upstairs to get dressed and washed while I tidied up the kitchen.

“Why don’t I take Josh to playschool and Emily to her playgroup while you catch up on some sleep?” Dan suggested once the three of them were back downstairs, brushed, dressed, and ready for action.

I suppressed a mighty yawn and put up some token resistance. “Are you sure? Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, back in the studio, say?”

A belly laugh greeted this inane question. “Sophie, I very much doubt that any other members of Tuscq will surface before midday. I’m due back in the studio at two this afternoon, so I can easily spend some time with my loan family this morning.”

I hugged him tight, leaning against his broad shoulder for a second. “Why you guys don’t get up early and work normal hours like normal people is beyond me,” I mumbled. “If you got in there before nine, you could easily put in a twelve-hour day
and
get some sleep.”

“True,” Dan concurred. “But we’re not normal people, and we like working through the night.” He squeezed me gently before letting me go. “Off to bed with you. I’ll bring the kids back at twelve.”

The front door slammed behind the three of them before I could raise any further objection, and the house turned eerily quiet. It wasn’t often that I had three hours to myself, and I was tempted to get dusting and cleaning, or dig out a good book from somewhere. But I was absolutely dead on my feet, so I had a quick bath instead and snuggled gratefully under my duvet.

When Dan returned with the kids at lunchtime, he looked distinctly worse for wear. His very short night was beginning to take its toll, and I suggested it was his turn to have a nap before going back to the studio.

“You are a rock,” he told me gratefully and gave me a hug that lifted me clean off my feet.

“How was playgroup?” I asked by way of response to his affection. “Did Ella’s mum make moon eyes at you again?”

Most of my mum-friends had taken it in stride when Dan had started helping out in my life nearly three years ago, putting in appearances at play groups and acting as devoted babysitter. Many of them knew vaguely of our history, and it was no secret in Barnes that Dan used to hang out with the Jones family when we were still complete. Yet the occasional acquaintance here or there couldn’t quite reconcile the image of Dan-the-rock-star with Dan-the-almost-family-man.

“She did,” Dan chuckled. “It was quite entertaining. I made meaningful eyes back at her over the teapot song.” He cleared his throat and erupted into song. “I’m a little teapot, short and stout…”

I burst out laughing. “You never. Poor Ella’s mum.” Ella’s mum was a little on the short and stout side herself. “She’ll be upset.”

“I don’t think she got it,” Dan mumbled and yawned. “I think I’ll repair to your guest room for forty winks, if the offer still stands.”

“‘Course it does,” I declared, “and thank you for giving me a morning off.”

While Dan took himself upstairs, I had lunch with the children. Afterwards, I took them to the hospital to meet Rachel and her new baby.

My best friend was still in the first twenty-four hours of full-on hormonal glow and overdrive. Baby Henry was installed in a crib by her bed, looking very tiny and very peaceful, until my own kids blundered in, full of excitement at seeing this brand new life. I shushed them, but Rachel was serene and forgiving.

“Come here, my little darlings,” she cooed, and invited Emily and Josh for a big hug each. My children mollified, she carefully lifted a now screaming Henry out of his crib and settled him on her lap for my children to admire.

“He’s quite red and ugly,” Josh observed with the deadpan nonchalance of his four years.

“Why baby sad?” Emily wanted to know.

“Because you startled him awake,” I explained. I looked at Henry’s beetroot face, screwed up in indignation and bordering on incandescence. So tiny, and yet so powerful.

Rachel’s cheerful serenity crumbled as she failed to calm her unsettled infant, and I deftly took Henry off her, settling him on my shoulder and patting his bottom. He snuffled and continued protesting, but as I had comforted both my kids through endless colicky nights, a tiny newborn wail was water off a duck’s back for me.

“He doesn’t need feeding,” Rachel supplied before I could ask. “And he’s had a new nappy. I don’t know what else to do.” Tears shimmered in her eyes, and I remembered the bewilderment and uncertainty that came with being a first-time mum.

“He’s fine,” I soothed. “Only a bit disgruntled. He’ll settle in a minute.” Right on cue, Henry gave a contented snuffle and drifted off to sleep. “There, there,” I muttered and transferred him carefully onto Rachel’s shoulder. Henry snuffled again and snuggled down for the duration. Rachel smiled at me and breathed deeply.

“Thank you,” she mouthed and I blew her a silent kiss in return.

Caught up in the moment of pure mummy-bliss, I noticed with only seconds to spare that my own offspring, by now thoroughly bored, had set up camp under the hospital bed and were working up to an enormous fight over Rachel’s fluffy slippers. I performed a swift toddler-extraction maneuver, grabbing a child with each hand and sliding them out from under the bed, before saying a quiet farewell to Rachel and Henry.

“That was fun,” Emily announced when we were back in the car. “I like baby. I want baby.”

I threw her a look in the rearview mirror. She had plugged her thumb in and was sucking ferociously. She would probably be asleep within minutes.

“Where was our daddy when we were born?” Josh piped up from the backseat. “And will he come back from the airport soon, too?”

“Want Dada, want Dada,” Emily chimed in obligingly. As was normal on these occasions, I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I tried to concentrate on the road while summoning up a coherent response. And here I was thinking they had accepted Dan as the substitute father figure in their little lives. Ignoring the real question, I offered an explanation I had given many times before.

“Daddy was there when you were born, Josh,” I said calmly. “He was very proud. And Dan…” I paused. Not for the first time, I questioned whether it was appropriate to bring Dan into the conversation in the same breath as Steve. Yet he connected our past with our present, and that felt right. “Dan was outside the room. He was the first one to hold you after Daddy and me.” I checked his reaction in the mirror. Thumb in, eyes wide open, he was listening.

Taking my grief into the customary stranglehold, I addressed Emily. “Daddy couldn’t be there when you were born.” I swallowed hard and continued with my rehearsed answer. “He sent you a big kiss, and he loves you very, very much.”

“Dan,” Emily uttered around her thumb.

“Yes, sweetie, Dan was there with me when you were born. He was the first person to hold you, even before me. He loves you very much, too.”

“He’s our godfather,” Josh supplied eagerly.

I exhaled. “He
is
your godfather,” I confirmed. “Both of yours. And look—” I launched into a diversionary tactic as I was reeling with pain and reluctant to go any further with this talk. “There’s our favorite pizza place, and it’s open
and
it’s got a parking space right out front. Shall we go there for lunch?” Not waiting for an answer, I had already pulled in and parked.

“But mummy, we’ve
had
lunch,” Josh offered.

Oh yes. So we had.

“Never mind, let’s have
two
lunches today. What do you say?” I turned around to face the kids, and their faces lit up.

Josh initiated negotiations straightaway. “Can I have ice cream for pudding?”

“Cake, me want cake,” Emily piped up predictably.

“Yes,” I laughed, “yes, you can have ice cream, and cake. Let’s go.”

Chapter Four

The rest of the week passed in a blur. Rachel was allowed home on the very day Henry was born, and from that moment on, I was on emergency standby for all the little disasters that befall brand new parents. Alex was back from Dubai, of course, but he was just as bewildered as Rachel. Rach, in turn, developed a bout of baby blues, and by Thursday morning, she was a tearful wreck.

“What is it with these damned nappies?” she demanded as she held a sodden Henry up to me when Emily and I walked through the door, forgetting that a pair of little ears would later seize on the swearword.

“What’s wrong with the nappies?” I took Henry off her and began undressing him while I waited for a clarification.

“They don’t work. The pee seems to run out over the top.”

I suppressed a giggle. Her assessment was spot on, and a quick examination of Henry’s nappy confirmed my suspicion.

“Rach,” I said gently. “You have to tuck his little willy right down, otherwise he
will
pee right over the top.”

Rachel stared at me, aghast. Her bottom lip wobbled and tears seemed imminent, but she snapped out of it and burst out laughing instead. “That’s so
obvious
, now that you’ve told me. Why didn’t anyone tell me before?”

I finished equipping Henry with a fresh nappy and baby suit and joined Rachel on the sofa.

“Rite of passage, I suppose,” I mused. “Nobody told me, either. And you forget about it really quickly. So you leave your best friend out to dry when it’s her turn.”

“Or to get wet, as the case may be,” Rachel offered, a hint of mischief gleaming in her eyes.