Bound by Their Babies

by Caroline Anderson

  And Zach. He couldn’t have loved him more if he’d been his own son. He’d been there for his birth, he’d grown to love him over the months since, especially since they’d moved in with him. He’d do anything in his power to protect him and keep him safe, too, but—marry Em, in the way she’d outlined?

  God, he wanted to. He wanted to so much, but not like this, not with nothing changing and them carrying on as they were, because he loved her, and there was no hiding from it any longer, no pretending they were just very dear friends. He loved her and wanted her with all his heart, and not being able to tell her, to show her that, to hold her, make love to her, share his feelings, grow their family—could he do that?

  Live a lie, every day for the rest of his life?

  It would kill him, but the last thing he should do was come clean and tell Emily how he really felt, because there was far too much at stake for him to upset the status quo.

  But how could he stand up and make those vows when he knew it was just a legal arrangement for the children? Was that really a good enough reason for marriage?

  And round and round and round it went, until he was ready to scream.

  Then on the following Wednesday it all came to a head, because he had a text from Ben to say that tests on the woman who’d been involved in the car accident on Friday had confirmed brain stem death and they were discussing organ donation with her partner.

  Her poor, distraught partner. Not to mention the baby—

  ‘Jake? What’s up?’

  He was standing near the lifts staring out blindly at the car park when Em spoke, and for a moment he couldn’t answer.

  ‘Jake? Jake, what is it? What’s happened?’

  He turned his head and her face came into focus, her blue eyes scanning his worriedly.

  ‘She’s brain dead,’ he said, his voice expressionless. ‘The woman in a coma. The transplant co-ordinator’s discussing organ donation with her partner as we speak.’

  Her face crumpled. ‘Oh, Jake. I’m so sorry. What will happen to the baby?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He might not make it anyway, it’s touch and go, but if he does, her partner’s going to have to fight to be allowed to keep him because he’s not the baby’s father, apparently. He doesn’t have automatic parental responsibility, and he told me the other day that she doesn’t have a will. God knows what he’s going to do.’

  ‘Oh, Jake. Do you need to go and talk to him?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No. No, she was one of Ben’s patients, so he’s got Ben with him, he doesn’t need me.’

  He straightened his shoulders and gave her what he knew must be a rather crooked smile. ‘So, how are you getting on? Any problems?’

  ‘No. I’ve just been to see the lady with twins who Ben delivered. Apparently she chose to come to Yoxburgh when she was in labour because she knew we’d got a multiple birth specialist and her own hospital were very risk averse.’

  He grunted. ‘She obviously isn’t. That was a pretty risky strategy.’

  ‘I think Ben pointed that out to her when she confessed, but she’s singing his praises. She loved her natural Caesarean, said it was amazing, and the babies are both doing well. They’re like peas in a pod—identical boys.’

  ‘They’ll keep her busy, then.’ He glanced at the clock on the wall above the lift. ‘Have you got time for a coffee?’

  ‘Just about. I hardly dare say it but there seems to be a lull.’

  ‘Good. Let’s go. I could do with something to eat before I start my clinic, and I haven’t had a drink since ten.’

  * * *

  They grabbed a coffee and a sandwich from the Park Café and went outside, taking advantage of the late May sunshine.

  There wasn’t a table free, so they sat on one of the benches and talked about the patients in the high-risk prenatal ward, and then his phone beeped and he read the text and swallowed hard.

  ‘What is it?’

  His face looked drained. ‘They’ve taken her to Theatre to harvest her organs.’ He put his paper cup down, turned his head and met her eyes, his own as sober as she’d ever seen them.

  ‘So that’s that. The baby has nobody now. The father’s not interested, her partner’s not down as next of kin so he has no say in any decisions for the baby’s treatment or his future—it’s just a bloody mess, and I don’t ever want that to happen to our children.’

  He reached out and took hold of her hand, squeezing it almost painfully tight.

  ‘Let’s just do it, Em. Let’s get married. Life’s too fickle, too fragile to leave anything to chance. As you said, nothing needs to change, but at least this won’t be hanging over us, all the what-ifs. We will have done everything we can for the children, and for each other. We’ll sort our wills, decide what to do with our property, our bank accounts—all of it. Just in case.’

  Her heart was thudding in her chest, but there wasn’t a glimmer of anything but despair in his eyes, and the tiny shred of hope she’d cherished shrivelled and died.

  She nodded.

  ‘Yes. Yes, let’s do it. As you say, it doesn’t have to change anything.’

  He held her eyes for an age, then nodded, let go of her hand and picked up his cup as if nothing had happened.

  ‘I need to get back. I want to pop up to SCBU before I start my clinic. I’ll see you later. Are you OK to get the children?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, her voice hollow. ‘I’ll see you at home.’

  He nodded curtly and went, leaving the second half of his sandwich untouched on the bench beside her. She threw it in the bin and went back to work, feeling curiously flat.

  She’d just had a proposal of marriage. It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, wasn’t it? But it hadn’t been, either now or when Pete had asked her twelve years ago.

  Then, it had been after his initial cancer diagnosis, and then, too, it had been after her initial suggestion.

  ‘Let’s get married,’ she’d said. ‘We’ll fight this thing together. You won’t be alone.’

  He’d resisted at first, just as Jake had, although for different reasons, but when he’d eventually said yes, lying in hospital after surgery and facing a bleak future, his eyes had been as dead as Jake’s had been just now.

  She felt her own eyes fill.

  Once—just once—it would have been nice to have someone propose to her because he loved her, passionately and irretrievably, for herself. Not necessarily on one knee, or in a fancy restaurant with a diamond ring hidden inside her dessert, or on a tropical beach under the rays of a setting sun, but for the right reasons.

  Just a simple, ‘I love you, and I want to be with you. Marry me,’ would be more than sufficient, but it wasn’t going to happen, and certainly not now, now she was marrying Jake for all the wrong reasons—

  No. Not the wrong reasons. Just not for the right ones, too. And she was old enough and wise enough to know that fairy tales didn’t exist and there was no such thing as happy ever after, and she knew he did love her, in his way, but it would have been so nice...

  ‘Emily.’

  She turned and fished out a smile from the dwindling stock. ‘Hi, Ben. I’m sorry about your coma lady.’

  His mouth compressed. ‘Yeah, me too. It’s awful, but hey. That’s why we’re here, to pick up the pieces. Look, it probably seems a bit trivial, but I’ve spoken to Nick about dinner, we’ve looked at the on-call rota and we’re either talking about this Friday, or Saturday in four weeks’ time, if either of those are any good to you? Otherwise it has to be a week night.’

  ‘Ah. I can’t do four weeks, that’s Zach’s birthday, but as far as I know we’re not doing anything this Friday. Do you want to go for that?’

  ‘Sounds good. Are you two OK with seafood? Daisy wants to do her crab and crayfish thing, and we’re br
inging some nibbles as well, and she said Liv’s doing the desserts and cheese.’

  ‘Sounds gorgeous. And we both love seafood.’

  ‘Great. Shall we say eight o’clock? Oh, and don’t forget it’s the ball the following weekend, so keep that free. I’ll bring you tickets.’

  Ball?

  ‘What ball?’ she asked, but he’d gone.

  * * *

  He felt flat, curiously deflated.

  It should have been a moment of joy, but instead it was all about safeguarding the children and mitigating against disaster.

  Ridiculous. He was too old to be chasing romance, too old to believe in happy ever after, and she would have had a fit if he’d gone down on one knee—although what would he have said?

  ‘Marry me so when one of us is hit by a drunk driver it’s not a total disaster’?

  Or the truth, ‘Marry me, because I love you’?

  No. It was what it was, and he just had to suck it up and get on with it, because at the end of the day there were worse things than being married to a funny, sassy, intelligent and beautiful woman, especially one who could put up with his untidiness and bad habits with—mostly—good grace.

  So they weren’t sleeping together. So what? He could live without sex, but he couldn’t live without Emily, and this way he wouldn’t have to.

  * * *

  Emily spent Friday fielding the children as she tried to prepare dinner for six.

  Good job Daisy was doing the starter and Liv the dessert, or it would have been a disaster, but she’d stuck with simple and gone for chicken and mushroom stroganoff with wild rice and fresh green beans, because she could put it all together at the last minute and fit her prep in during the day as and when the children let her.

  For once, and by a miracle, Jake was home on time, so he took the children upstairs and got them ready for bed while she cleared up the kitchen and started cooking.

  He ran down half an hour later, shot through the shower and reappeared in a pair of beautifully cut chinos and a shirt she’d ironed the other day, and as he came over to her she caught the scent of his cologne, fresh and clean with the warmth of amber coming through to tease her senses.

  ‘Right, I’ll take over, you go and get ready,’ he said firmly, rolling up his cuffs. ‘What do you want doing?’

  ‘Nothing, it’s all under control. Oh, you could get out glasses and sort out which wine you want, and we could probably do with water glasses, too. Oh, and the pepper mill needs refilling.’

  ‘Right. Go.’

  * * *

  He heard water running, then the sound of her hairdryer, drawers opening and closing, and by the time he’d finished laying the table and sorting out the wine and the pepper mill, she was back down.

  ‘Do I look OK? I didn’t have time to straighten my hair, so I just put it up out of the way. Is this dress all right?’

  He ran his eyes over her, over the navy print with a flock of tiny white birds scattered across it, the wrap-over front with more than a hint of cleavage at the top, down to the asymmetric hem above smooth bare legs that ended in strappy, open-toed sandals showing off her painted toenails.

  He dragged his eyes off them and up to her face, framed by fine blonde tendrils escaping from the tumble of curls she’d pinned up at the back of her head. Her eyes seemed bluer than usual, clear and bright, and she was wearing a touch of lipstick, just enough to tantalise him.

  Was her dress all right? Definitely. She looked gorgeous, good enough to eat, and he wanted nothing more than to unpin her hair, peel off the dress and make love to her.

  ‘It’s fine, you look lovely,’ he said, and wondered if his voice sounded as strangled as it felt. ‘I thought we’d have Prosecco to start,’ he said. ‘We should really tell them we’re getting married, and I thought we could do it then. Make a bit of an announcement. What do you think?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it at all. We ought to tell Pete’s parents, too. Perhaps we should go and we see them tomorrow?’ She bit the inside of her lip thoughtfully, then nodded. ‘Yes, let’s have the Prosecco. Do it properly. I don’t think we need to explain our arrangement really, do we, to any of them? I don’t know if they’d understand. It might be better just to let them think we’ve changed our minds and want to get married for the normal reasons.’

  Well, that wouldn’t take a lot of pretending on his part. The difficult bit was going to be remembering that it wasn’t normal. Anything but...

  * * *

  ‘We’ve got something to tell you.’

  They were all standing in the kitchen, glasses in hand, and Jake slid his arm around her waist and eased her up against his side. All part of the pretence?

  ‘We’re getting married,’ he said, and they all stared for a moment, wide-eyed, and then Ben shook his head and laughed.

  ‘I knew it. I knew it! All that nonsense about just good friends—congratulations. I’m glad you’ve both come to your senses. I’m very happy for you.’

  There was a chorus of ‘Congratulations!’ from them all, and Jake turned and looked down into her eyes and for a fleeting second—

  Then his lips brushed hers, light as a butterfly’s wing, and everyone moved in, hugging and kissing and back-slapping, while she smiled furiously and tried not to cry.

  ‘Right, let’s eat. I’m starving,’ Jake said, and Daisy produced her canapés and they moved into the sitting room.

  ‘I’m assuming you two are coming to the League of Friends’ Summer Ball, so I’ve brought you a pair of tickets,’ Ben said, pulling them out of his shirt pocket and handing them to Jake. ‘It’s in aid of SCBU this year so put your hand in your pocket, Stratton.’

  Jake looked at her searchingly. ‘We haven’t talked about it. It’s—when? Next Saturday. Is that OK, Em? Can we go?’

  How could she lie? The only reason she didn’t want to go was that after their news got out—and it would—they’d be under the intensely curious gaze of all the women in the Tuesday coffee group, and their probably equally curious husbands, and she’d have to pretend that it was all hunky-dory when it actually wasn’t. But she couldn’t tell them that, and she couldn’t lie and tell them they were busy, because they weren’t, so she just nodded, sprayed on another smile and said yes.

  * * *

  It was a good evening. If it hadn’t been for the fact that his cheeks ached with pinning that smile in place, it would have been a great evening.

  Maybe telling them they were getting married had been a mistake—or at least, pretending that it wasn’t an ‘arrangement’. If they’d been up-front about it, it would have been easier, but the lie had been told and they’d have to live with it.

  Well, one thing was certain. They weren’t lying to Pete’s parents when they saw them tomorrow. No, make that today, he realised, checking the clock on the chimney breast before he turned out the kitchen light.

  They were leaving right after breakfast in the morning, and the last thing they’d need was to come down to chaos so he’d sent Em to bed and spent the last half-hour clearing up the kitchen. Still, it was done now, and hopefully he’d be tired enough that he’d be able to sleep instead of lying there thinking about the soft, yielding warmth of Emily’s lips as he’d kissed her.

  Only fleetingly. He regretted that. He happily—very happily—could have lingered a great deal longer, but he wasn’t a masochist and that way lay madness.

  * * *

  They were in Jean and Duncan Cardew’s garden sitting in the shade of a pergola and sipping coffee after lunch when Emily finally made herself broach the delicate subject of their marriage.

  ‘We’ve been talking,’ she said, ‘Jake and I, about the children—their futures, about what would happen to them if—well, I don’t have to underline it, we all know life’s not something to be taken for granted, but we’ve been to see a solicitor, talked t
hrough our situation and we’ve decided the best and safest way to secure the children’s future is if we get married.’

  ‘Married?’ Jean said, her eyes widening. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful! Congratulations!’

  ‘No, Jean, it’s not like that,’ she said hastily. ‘Nothing’s changed, nothing’s going to change. We’re still friends, that’s all, nothing more. This is just for the children,’ she lied, half expecting lightning to come out of nowhere and strike her down, or for her nose to grow like Pinocchio’s, but neither happened.

  Jean looked at her husband Duncan, looked at Jake, and frowned.

  ‘Jake? Are you sure about this?’

  ‘Absolutely. She’s right, Jean. We’re both going into this with our eyes open, and we know exactly what to expect. Neither of us has anyone else in our lives, and we’re not expecting happy ever after, we just want to take care of our children as well as we can. That is and always will be the most important thing for both of us. It’s just a legal arrangement, nothing more.’

  Odd, how crushing those words were to hear. And Jean was giving Jake a strange look, as if she was trying to work out whether or not to believe him.

  Then Zach started eating grass, and Em took the chance to escape from the conversation to rescue him.

  * * *

  Jake watched her as she scooped him up, fishing grass out of his mouth and making a game of it.

  ‘She’s a good mother,’ Jean said quietly, as Duncan went to join them.

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘Look, there’s a butterfly—isn’t it beautiful?’ Duncan said, pointing one out to Tilly. ‘Can you see that spot like an eye on its wing? It’s called a Peacock butterfly.’

  ‘I got butterfly wings.’

  ‘I thought they were fairy wings?’ Em chipped in.

  ‘Butterflies are fairies,’ she said with exaggerated patience, and Jean smiled tenderly.

  ‘She’s a sweet child. She’s very good with Zach and she seems to get on well with Emily.’

  ‘She does—well, she does now. At first it was a bit tricky, because her mother had just left her, but she’s started calling Emily Mummy sometimes now. I don’t know if it’s because Em calls herself Mummy to Zach, or if Tilly’s just switched allegiance, but we seem to have gelled into a real family, and it’s all down to Em.’