As they began to unload, James refused to let Lee carry anything that looked remotely heavy, and so ended up taking most of the things up to Lee’s room by himself. Carrying a cushion that she had been allowed to bring upstairs, she surveyed her now rather packed room.
“Hmm. It didn’t look so much in the house, or in the car…”
“I guess some of it can go around the house?” James suggested. “I mean, I’ve put everything here for now but some of it looks like it could be kitchen stuff, or round the living room maybe?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“There’ll be more stuff soon,” James said with a slight raise of his eyebrows. “From what I’ve heard, babies need a lot of stuff.”
“Yeah…” Lee sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling a slight dizziness that she wasn’t sure was entirely pregnancy related. “I guess I hadn’t thought… I’m going to need to find somewhere to live. I mean, I can’t exactly have a baby in one bedroom of a shared flat. That’s hardly going to be fair on Gina. Although, until the divorce is finalised, I certainly won’t have the capital to buy somewhere…”
“Or…” James began, and Lee looked up.
“Or?”
“Or…you could move in with me?”
“Move in with you?”
“Yeah. I mean…” James shrugged. “We’re having a baby together. We love each other. It seems to make sense, to me, that we live together, that we raise the baby together. I mean, otherwise, what are we going to do? Have two sets of everything? Stay in each other’s places, taking the baby between each?” James gave her that intense look where it felt as though his blue eyes could see straight into her deepest, darkest thoughts - but when she hadn’t responded after a few seconds, the intensity faded a little. “What do you think?”
“I think…” Lee responded slowly. “I think that I haven’t thought any of this through. And I think that I’m going to be sick if I don’t eat something right away.”
“Sit tight, I’ll grab you something.”
“Something very plain!” Lee shouted from the bedroom, taking a few deep breaths to try to abate the sickness that her sudden hunger was threatening to bring about.
In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, James was back with a hastily made cheese sandwich and a packet of ready salted crisps. He perched on the bed too and Lee leant back against him, feeling reassured by his presence as she nibbled on the cheese sandwich and, thankfully, felt the sickness subside.
“That’s a massive step that you’re talking about,” she said between mouthfuls.
“Bigger than having a baby?”
That threw her for a moment, and she ate a handful of crisps to fill the silence. “Okay, maybe it’s not bigger than that, but it’s different. It’s a choice. It’s a life plan. And… and I don’t want a big decision like that to be made because it would be practical. I want it to be because it’s the right thing for us - because it’s what we really want.”
“It would be practical,” James countered. “And it is what I really want.” She felt him press a kiss into the curve of her neck and closed her eyes briefly.
“Can I have some time to think about it?” she asked, knowing that she was in danger of just saying yes because it would be easy, and it would make him happy, and it really did sound like a wonderful picture - James, her and a little baby in that beautiful house, having lunch in the kitchen or lying by the fire in the winter. But she didn’t want to be seduced by his smile or the fanciful images that were already populating in her mind. She wanted to be rational about this, to decide based on her feelings after careful consideration.
“Of course. I’m not trying to rush you, I promise. It just hit me as the perfect solution.”
“And I love that you want to… I just need to think things through, okay?”
“Absolutely. Feeling better?”
“So much better. It’s amazing how hunger and sickness can be so intertwined!”
***
James was working a night shift that evening and so after helping Lee try to rearrange all of her belongings so that she could actually make her way to her bed to sleep that night, he left Lee to enjoy a cup of tea in the bath which went a long way to soothing her aching muscles after the trials of driving, packing, unpacking, walking — all in all a busy couple of days.
She heard the front door opening just as she was getting out of the bath, and shouted in response to Gina’s call: “In the bathroom! Two minutes!”
She wrapped herself in one of the teal towels she had brought back from Bristol with her, and revelled in how soft it was on her skin. She dressed slowly, mindful that the heat of the bath had the potential to exacerbate her dizziness, and once she was in her comfy pyjamas and fluffy dressing gown, she opened the door to find Gina looking irritated.
“What’s up?” Lee asked, concerned - Gina was not usually one to get annoyed over nothing.
“Just had a frustrating Sunday lunch with my parents, that’s all,” Gina said, rolling her eyes and running a hand through her purple-tipped hair. “Anyway, your news is way more important. I presume you were at James’ last night, since you weren’t here? Did you tell him?”
Lee sunk onto the sofa next to Gina. “Yeah, I did. And… and he’s been amazing. He was shocked, but he wants to do this together - oh, Gee, he even asked me to move in with him!”
Gina looked stunned. “To move in with him?”
“Yeah. When I said that I didn’t know where everything was going to fit, and how I can’t exactly keep living here once I’ve had this baby, he asked me. I mean, I said I’d have to think about it, but the fact that he wants to-”
“When was it decided that you couldn’t live here after the baby is born?” Gina asked, a slight edge to her voice that Lee didn’t think she’d ever heard before.
“I just thought - I mean, you don’t want - Gina, I-” Her mindless babble was cut off by Gina standing up and turning to look down at Lee.
“Maybe you should have asked me what I wanted, before just assuming.” And with that she walked into her bedroom and closed the door. It wasn’t quite a slam, but Lee got the message.
For a few moments, Lee sat and stared at the door Gina had disappeared through. It was like she couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened; she had known Gina was in a bad mood, so perhaps that was it.
A few more moments, and it began to dawn on Lee how insensitive she had been. Moving out would, of course, be a massive change in Gina’s life - and Lee realised she had very definitely been viewing it from her own point of view alone.
She moved towards the door, and took a deep breath before knocking. “Gina? Gina, can I come in?”
There was a noise of some sort from the other side of the door, and Lee took it to mean she could go ahead. When she entered, Gina was curled up on the bed, on top of the black and white spotted duvet cover, and the lights hadn’t been switched on.
Gina didn’t look up, not even when Lee sat on the bed.
“Gina… I’m really sorry. That was a really insensitive thing to just blurt out, and I’m so sorry.”
For a tense minute, Lee didn’t think Gina was going to respond. She let out a quiet sigh of relief when her friend rolled over and faced her. Although the room was dark, enough light was coming in from the living room to show Lee that Gina had been crying.
“I’m really sorry, Gina,” she repeated, feeling terrible that her words had caused so much pain.
“It’s okay,” Gina said quietly. “I know you didn’t mean to be an insensitive bitch.” There was a half-smile there, and Lee took it as a good sign.
“I really didn’t,” she said. “I’m just completely thoughtless.”
“And… it’s not just you. I’ve had a crappy day all round, so this was just the icing on the cake, really.”
“What happened?”
Gina pulled herself up so she was sitting and leant over to flick the switch on her bedside lamp. “I had Sunday lunch with my parents, and a
couple of aunts and uncles,” she said. “And, as usual, it starts down the route of ‘why don’t you have a boyfriend yet?’ and ‘When will you settle down and live an adult life?’” Gina sighed and shook her head. “What part of helping run a cafe and paying rent and bills isn’t living an adult life, I don’t know. Anyway— my dad starts joking that at least I’ve moved on from my ‘phase’ of dating women.”
Lee could feel her eyes widening slightly - this was news to her.
“You knew I was bi, right? No, I guess not. Well, I am, but I haven’t dated a woman in a couple of years so obviously it was a phase and it’s perfectly acceptable to joke about ‘silly little Gina’ and how she ‘just needs to settle down with a good man’. I swear he’s from the middle ages.” Gina took a deep breath, her first in a while, and continued. “And then I get home and you’re talking about moving out. It was just the last straw - and I’m sorry for going a bit mental at you.”
“No, it’s not something I should have just said like that. It’s not even something that’s agreed - I was as shocked when he said it as you were. And I’m sorry you’re having a crappy time with your parents. I would say that - even though I know from experience that it doesn’t make it any easier - they probably do mean it from a good place — they just don’t know how to show it.”
“I know they’re not evil or anything,” Gina said with a bit of a sniff. “But to be laughed at like that in front of everybody… I can only assume they don’t know how much it hurts.”
Lee laid a hand on Gina’s. “I bet they don’t. Again, it’s a lot easier to say when it’s not you, but maybe talk to them in private when you’re calm, and let them know how it makes you feel. You never know, they might lay off.”
Gina shrugged. “You’re probably right. Anyway, I’m really pleased that James is on board with everything. I always thought he would be - seems like he’s one of the good ones.”
Lee couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
Chapter 10
“I need your help.” It was ten o’clock on Monday morning, and Lee had to admit she had been daydreaming a little while nibbling on a cracker - something she found was handy for keeping the sickness away - when Shelley approached the counter. While she didn’t know Shelley particularly well, her job as the receptionist at the doctors’ surgery meant she had spoken to her on a handful of occasions now - and, of course, she had thrown up outside Shelley’s grandparents business. Not the sort of thing that was easily forgotten.
“What can I do for you?” Lee asked, brushing off a few stray crumbs from her apron and trying to avoid showing her surprise at the blunt request.
“I’m pregnant,” Shelley announced, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that the whole cafe could hear her. “And my job - not the doctors, I work in a bar in the evenings - have conveniently decided that my services are no longer required. Anyway, I heard you were a lawyer and could help me out.”
“Well, I was a lawyer - back in Bristol.” It was only a few short months ago, she mused, that she had been in court picking apart complex custody cases or acrimonious divorces. While this certainly wasn’t her area of law expertise, it sounded like a fairly cut and dried situation - if Shelley was telling her all the facts. “But I’m happy to help, if you want me to.”
“That’d be amazing. I can’t afford to pay for anyone right now…”
“That’s fine. Come back after I close up, we can discuss the details, okay?”
Shelley left looking happier than she had when she entered, and Lee felt a little thrill that she didn’t quite understand. Was it happiness at being able to help someone? Or at being involved in some sort of law dispute, however minor?
She decided to contemplate that later, when she wasn’t faced with a sudden line of customers wanting coffees and cakes.
***
At five-thirty, Shelley reappeared with a few loose sheets of paper and Lee provided the coffees. They sat at a small, round table that Lee had recently wiped clean of coffee spills and cake crumbs.
“So,” Lee said. “Tell me what happened.”
And so Shelley filled her in on her time at the bar and her contract, with a healthy dose of colleague gossip weaved in between. Lee took copious notes, scrutinised the slightly mussed pieces of paper Shelley had brought to her and asked questions - when she could get a word in edge-ways.
“What do you think?” Shelley finally asked as she got to the end of her appeal.
“I think… I think it’s wrongful termination. I think they thought they could get away with it, that you wouldn’t realise, that they didn’t want the hassle of dealing with finding someone to cover you - but they can’t do that. They can’t hire women and just get rid of them because they’re pregnant.”
“So what do I do?”
“I’ll send them a letter, explaining your rights and why they’re in the wrong. I would imagine that’ll be enough - the idea of being sued for wrongful termination will terrify them.”
Shelley grinned. “Thank you so much, Lee, I really appreciate it.”
Lee wondered if Shelley knew about her pregnancy; she guessed that she probably did, but she also knew that her notes were confidential, and if Shelley let on about that she would be looking at termination from that job - rightfully, this time. Lee wasn’t ready to share the news herself yet - not before they’d told their families, certainly - and so she didn’t confide that this case was more personal to her than it may have seemed.
“No problem. If I can keep these documents for now, I’ll get something drafted up and sent over to them tomorrow, and get them back to you.”
Without a printer, it would prove slightly trickier than it would have done in her office back in Bristol, but as she said goodbye to Shelley and locked up she was already thinking of a plan to go and use the one in the library… or perhaps see if James owned one. It seemed likely - he had a decent sized house, and a little room that he referred to as the office. Not that she’d ever really looked in there, but it would seem quite standard to have a printer. That was something she could have brought with her from the house in Bristol - something she hadn’t really considered needing. Business with the cafe was all quite small-scale; handwritten notes or emails had sufficed so far.
As she mindlessly performed the end of day tasks - checking the doors and windows were locked, sockets were switched off, nothing was going to set the place on fire - she began to contemplate James’ house. That perfect little cottage, with its exposed wooden beams and real fireplace. The gorgeous marble kitchen, three bedrooms, one of which she was sure would be a perfect nursery… her hand found its way to rest on her stomach without even thinking about it, and she found herself picturing the three of them in that house. It did make sense, he was right… they could raise the baby together, properly, rather than some strange version of co-parenting that was usually the domain of separated parents, not ones embarking on a new life together. They could share the challenges that a baby was bound to bring - and the joys.
But then… was it all too soon? She wondered if she were dooming this relationship, putting it to the test by living together and having a baby in such a short amount of time.
But if not now, when? When the baby was born? When it was six months, a year? None of this was how she’d planned - and she couldn’t see any perfect timing for any of it.
And he loved her. And she loved him.
As she exited the building and triple-checked the lock, she suddenly saw him unexpectedly waiting there for her, pulled up outside the building in his car. Her heart danced in her chest like a ballerina on the verge of taking flight; her smile was impossible to control. She loved him - and he loved her.
She flung the door open and climbed in, not bothering to do up her seatbelt before turning to kiss him.
“Well, hello to you too!” he said with a smile as wide as hers. “Good day?”
“Yeah, actually. And I’ve been thinking about it all day - I think you’re
right. I think we should move in together before this baby is born.”
“I think you’re right. Today?”
“Whoa, hold your horses.” Lee laughed. “This baby isn’t being born any time soon. I need time to adjust to the idea, and to get Gina prepared for it and probably find her a new flat mate. But once we buy stuff - we’ll just buy one set. Because we’re doing this together.”
He took her hand and kissed the knuckles. “One hundred percent.”
Chapter 11
It was a wet and windy March day, and Lee knew she would remember it for the rest of her life. She wrapped up warm and chose to drive down the hill to work, parking in the car park around the corner and then battling against the wind to get to the front door of Carol’s Cafe. She felt exhausted from the effort of combatting with the elements by the time she’d got through the door, and the business of the day ahead seemed impossible to contemplate.
The South West Series Box Set Page 25
