I found my own phone and dialed my mom’s number. I didn’t know if they would have plans, but I had a sneaking suspicion that my parents would be happy for an invitation to dinner with me and Finn. What’s more, if he’d already made arrangements, then I could be sure that he’d planned on having the night nanny come over.
That was another thing that I was getting used to. I had counted on having to take a year or more away from my career, writing just enough to make ends meet, or putting Claire in daycare while I went to work. Finn had gotten his new agent to find him a personal assistant, and that assistant had found us a night nanny—someone who came maybe two or three nights a week, to make sure that Claire was cared for, and that both Finn and I could get some sleep. It had been a bigger relief than I could have imagined.
“Hello?”
My mom picked up on the second ring, and I smiled across the kitchen at Finn, who had moved on to washing dishes.
“How’s Claire, sweetie?”
I told her about the doctor’s appointment, and about the shots. “She actually took them really well,” I finished. “She’s a trooper.”
“She must get that from her father, because every single time we took you in to get vaccinations done, I could have sworn you were going to hyperventilate and pass out in the office,” Mom told me matter-of-factly.
“Well, whatever it is, I’m grateful for it,” I said. “But that isn’t why I called. Are you and Dad free tonight? I was hoping you might want to go to dinner with Finn and me.”
“Let me ask your father if he made any plans,” Mom said. “Knowing him, they probably involve pizza and watching the neighbors bicker over whose decorations don’t abide by HOA bylaws.” She put the phone aside and I heard a muffled conversation for a few moments.
“You’re taking us out to dinner, sweetheart?” Dad sounded almost concerned. “What about Claire?”
“Claire is going to be in the care of her extremely competent night nurse,” I said. “Finn and I wanted to have dinner with you and mom tonight to sort of bridge the gap between old traditions and new.”
“Well, I’m not about to turn down time spent with you, honey,” Dad said warmly.
I told them where and when to meet us, and then Claire interrupted the call with a cry for attention. Finn went into the living room to get her, letting me have a few moments to myself in the kitchen. One year ago, I was almost as happy as this, I thought, amazed at how much had changed—in both directions—since then.
Finn carried our daughter into the kitchen, holding her like an experienced dad, and we chatted for a few moments until she fell back to sleep, and we both had to start thinking about getting ready to go to dinner.
“It’s weird,” Finn said, as we started gathering up clothes to change into. “I have basically no idea how to act around parents.”
“You’re doing a pretty good job with Mom and Dad,” I assured him. “They’re practically in love with you.”
Finn laughed. “I think that’s more because they don’t have to worry about their daughter being looked after anymore,” he pointed out.
Not for the first time, I thought about how that would have played out. Kent would have loved to find out that Finn had knocked up a woman he’d barely known; it would have been a legitimate scandal for the Inquisitor to cover.
When I’d finally told my parents who the father of my child was, they’d been a little cool with Finn at first; they were concerned—understandably—at the sudden appearance of a man who hadn’t shown any interest in me before. We were slowly, slowly working with my parents to make sure that they understood everything, but I knew Dad still had his doubts.
Finn kissed me on the way into the shower as I was getting out, and I thought to myself that dinner with my parents—just two couples at a table together sharing a meal—would go a long way towards making them understand that Finn was ‘doing right’ by me.
TWENTY-ONE
Amy
“I still can’t quite believe that I’m in my kitchen, cooking a big dinner, on Christmas Eve,” Finn told me the next evening.
Claire was in her carrier, on the table a few feet away from us, struggling to stay awake. She was starting to show more and more personality with every day, and I was looking forward to the time that she would start really interacting with Finn and me. I loved her to pieces, and I knew that love would only grow deeper as she started to understand what was going on around her.
“I can’t believe you’re cooking at all,” I told Finn, grinning from the sink where I was washing cranberries for sauce.
We’d planned a small Christmas Eve dinner with friends for our first Christmas as a real couple—with Claire making an appearance before she had to go to bed—and even if I felt like Finn was going a little overboard, I could definitely understand his enthusiasm. He’d never had anything like this before; he’d spent all of his Christmases either at Maclaren, or on his own.
“Hey—I think I’m getting pretty good at this,” Finn said. He was working on one of the side dishes we’d decided to include; I’d had to convince him to limit the meal to a handful of things, instead of literally every conceivable Christmas dish.
“I have to admit, you’ve done better than I would have expected,” I said. I checked over the cranberries to make sure none of them were spoiled, and set them aside.
We were going to be having a crown roast of pork, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and glazed carrots. For dessert, Finn and I had ordered a trifle—layers of chocolate pound cake, orange liqueur, soft custard, orange segments and whipped cream. It had come that morning, looking beautiful, and gone immediately into the fridge.
“Maybe in the off-season I can take cooking classes,” Finn suggested. He stirred the potatoes boiling on the stove, and I got one of the pots down from the rack hanging from the ceiling.
“Are you sure you want to commit to that?”
Finn shrugged, stepping away from the stove to wrap his arms loosely around my waist from behind. I poured the cranberries into the pot and started adding the other ingredients from the recipe my mom had given me: sugar, a cinnamon stick, orange peel studded with cloves, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt.
“I figured that eventually, you’re going to want to spend more time away from the house,” Finn said. “That, and it might be fun. Maybe we could take the classes together?”
He kissed the nape of my neck and I felt a little shiver go through me. It was still new to me, in a way—having Finn close, enjoying the feeling of his body pressed to mine.
“That’s going to depend on what’s going on in my life by then,” I said. Claire would be seven months old then—probably starting to move around a lot more, and starting to eat real food.
Finn nuzzled against the base of my neck and let me go, moving back to the stove to check on the dishes that were in progress. “Just have a think about it,” he said, grinning.
We’d spent the morning of Christmas Eve almost the same way that we had the year before, only this time I fed Claire before we’d shared eggnog and cookies on the couch. We’d managed to get just enough time while Claire slept to make love, and Finn let me take a short nap while he watched her, before it came time to start working on dinner.
“Who do you think Claire looks more like: you, or me?” he asked.
I gazed at our baby as I considered the question. Her eyes were still dark blue, and I thought she was probably going to grow up to have my eyes, instead of her father’s. But her lips and nose were unmistakably smaller versions of Finn’s features.
“I think she looks like both of us,” I replied. “I think she’ll look more like me when she gets older though.”
Finn smiled broadly as he emptied the boiling potatoes into a colander in the sink, shaking them to get as much water out of them as possible.
Dinner the night before had gone so well that I was really looking forward to seeing my parents on Christmas morning. Finn and Dad were starting to
like each other more and more, and Finn had promised Dad VIP tickets to the next Magpies game, so he could bring his boss with him.
I put the TV on when the Christmas music playlist started to repeat, and went back to work, checking on the cranberries and the roast.
“I will never understand how women seem to have this, like, instinctive ability to cook,” Finn said, when I took the roast out of the oven and set it aside to rest.
“It isn’t instinctive,” I told him. “Believe me—I ruined more than a few good hunks of meat before I figured out how to do it right.”
“Oh, did you?” Finn kissed me on the cheek, looking down at the beautiful pork roast.
“One time, I ended up smoking out my entire college apartment,” I told him. “It was bad.”
“I managed to set a fire on my stove once, trying to boil water to make macaroni and cheese,” Finn countered.
“Okay,” I said, laughing at that mental image. “That definitely takes the cake.”
On the TV, I heard something that took my attention off of the conversation; I didn’t catch the beginning of the sentence, but when I heard the words “Kent Lambert,” I pulled away from Finn and turned the volume up a little bit. I glanced at Claire, making sure she was still asleep. She was; she could sleep through just about anything but a wet diaper. On the screen, I saw my former boss walking outside of a courthouse, a file folder held up to try to cover his face.
“Rewind it,” Finn suggested, and I did, until it looked like the beginning of the story.
“In other news, Kent Lambert, editor-in-chief of the Inquisitor, appeared in court today on phone hacking charges…”
I knew it was probably wrong of me, but I couldn’t help laughing. “I knew it,” I said.
I’d kept in touch with a few people from the paper—mainly Malcolm—and I’d heard rumors that something was going on, that the questionable ethics that Kent had imposed were starting to come to light.
The story had started coming out in the press just before Thanksgiving: Kent had put several of my former coworkers up to hacking the voicemails of some people involved in a kidnapping case, for the purposes of getting a scoop on it. As the police had started investigating the issue, they’d found out that Kent himself had been involved in hacking the voicemails of a few celebrities that the Inquisitor had profiled since I’d left.
“Couldn’t happen to a more deserving asshole,” Finn murmured.
I glanced at him; I knew that he believed me when I’d told him that Kent had written the hit piece on him all on his own—but still I felt vindicated.
“Lambert was escorted out of the courtroom and back to a holding cell…”
I smiled with satisfaction. From what I’d read, Kent had been charged with civil and felony charges alike, and even if it took months, he was going to end up paying dearly for the crimes he’d committed.
“What a terrible place to spend Christmas Eve,” Finn remarked, giving my waist a quick squeeze.
“Can’t think of a better place for him,” I countered with a grin.
Finn pulled me into his arms and kissed me on the lips, pressing my body against his. The first few times that we’d been together since I gave birth to Claire I’d been more than a little self-conscious—I knew that my body wasn’t exactly the same, that I had stretch marks and that parts of me weren’t as firm as they’d been before. But Finn had surprised me, kissing my belly, caressing me as if he didn’t notice the difference in me.
I gave myself up to the kiss, enjoying the feeling of having him close to me, the certainty that he wanted me, that he cared for me, above and beyond the fact of us having a child together.
Just as things began to heat up, I heard the doorbell, and I broke away from Finn, giggling. I could feel the desire in his body.
“Let me get the door,” I said. “You cool off for a bit.”
“I’ll stick my head in the freezer,” Finn said, and I giggled again as I turned to leave the kitchen.
I reached the door before our first guests had a chance to ring the doorbell again. Coach Simmons and his wife were dressed up, and when I greeted them at the door, they both hugged me quickly.
“You’ll have to excuse how messy I look,” I told them, leading them into the house. “Finn and I were just finishing up dinner and I haven’t had a chance to change into real clothes yet.”
“Sweetie, you had a baby three months ago,” Mrs. Simmons told me. “You could answer the door in sweats and I’d claw the eyes out of anyone who dared to look at you funny.”
I grinned at her; the coach’s wife and I had gotten almost as close as the coach and Finn were in the months since I’d given birth to Claire. She had understood immediately; as soon as I’d told her what Kent had done, she’d hugged me and said that it was beyond easy to imagine the position I’d been put in.
“I still want to look nice,” I admitted. “So you might have to put up with me leaving you alone with the baby for a few minutes while I freshen up.”
We got into the kitchen and Finn stepped away from the fridge with two beers in his hands, grinning at his coach, who glanced nervously at Claire.
“Oh, don’t worry about her,” I said. “If we somehow managed to have an earthquake I’m convinced she wouldn’t wake up for it.”
Finn handed Simmons one of the beers, and I watched the two men clink their bottles together before taking their first sips.
“What did the doctor say about alcohol?” Mrs. Simmons asked.
I shrugged. “As long as I’m not downing cocktails left and right, she said it should be fine,” I said. “I try and make sure to pump as much as I can before I drink, though.”
We got to talking about Claire’s latest checkup as Finn and I worked on the last touches to the meal, and when Claire did wake up—in a better mood than I would have gambled on—the Coach and his wife were more than happy to dote on her while I dashed off to change into something a bit more presentable. Finn was content in his jeans and sweater; I went up to our bedroom and put on one of the more comfortable dresses I owned.
By the time I left the bedroom, my hair pulled back into a bun, feeling a little more like a competent hostess, there was another knock at the door. Finn and his coach were still chatting in the kitchen, so I turned to answer it.
It was our other guests for the evening; Jen had accepted our invitation on the grounds that she could bring a date: the guy she’d met at the hospital, the day I’d given birth to Claire. I hugged her and her new boyfriend, Josh, kissed me on the cheek.
“We brought a couple of little things to put under the tree for Claire,” Jen told me, showing me the gift bags.
“And something for you, too,” Josh added, holding up another bag. I led them over to the tree in the living room; there were tons of presents under it, but only a dozen or so were for me, Finn, or Claire.
“Wow. You two really went all out,” Jen said, giving me a sly look.
“Most of these are going to be delivered to the orphanage tomorrow,” I told her. “I just thought it might be festive to have them under the tree.”
“Finn is still doing that?”
I nodded. “We talked about it, and I wanted to make it a family thing. Even if Claire isn’t old enough to even remotely remember it, it’ll be nice, don’t you think?”
“That you’re giving back to the orphanage? That’s great. When she is old enough, she’ll learn to think about other people, which is a great lesson.”
Jen put the presents that she and Josh had brought under the tree, tucking them in next to the others marked for the members of my small, new family.
We went into the kitchen and I opened a bottle of champagne, catching up with Jen on her current role.
The house was filled with amicable chatter while we waited for the last few dishes to come together; I had never really done anything like this for Christmas Eve—I’d always just spent it with my parents—but Finn and I both had decided that we wanted to spend the evening b
efore our first Christmas together with the friends we cared about most.
“You know, I don’t think anyone ever told me the story of how things came about between the two of you,” Josh said, gesturing with his beer between Finn and me.
“Oh God,” I said, shaking my head. “I think dinner might be too short a period of time to go through that story.”
“It’s not fair that Josh is the only one here who doesn’t know all the details, though,” Mrs. Simmons pointed out.
Taking turns, we filled Jen’s new boyfriend in on everything that had happened: on how I’d bluffed my way into spending a night in a motel room with Finn, the fling we’d had, the terrible article that Kent had put out under my name, and the discovery of my pregnancy. By the time we got to explaining how I’d finally reconnected with Finn, dinner was on the table and Claire was in the living room, fast asleep, the monitor set up to let us know if she needed us.
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