Always Alchemy: The Ever After Book (Alchemy #6)

25. And Then There Were Four

25

AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR

DARCY

I thought there could be nothing scarier than a group of medical staff who really ought to know better discharging you from their lovely, serene, staff-heavy private hospital with a real live baby and just expecting you to waltz off into the centre of London with no instruction manual.

I was wrong.

It’s even scarier when your husbands drive you home, and you walk through the front door of a house that was your sanctuary when you left it but now feels like a foreign land, and one husband ushers you gently into the living room and plumps up some cushions before you gingerly ease your banged-up vagina down on the sofa while the other places the car seat carrying said baby on the floor in front of you.

Because then what the ever-loving fuck are you supposed to do?

And this is coming from someone who has not only staff on hand but two actual husbands. How the hell are you supposed to cope if there are only two of you?

And how do single mothers survive even a single day? Dear Lord, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

I stare down at Baby Charlie, fast asleep and so tiny and perfect and astonishing that it hurts my heart. He had very mild jaundice when he was born, an ailment that the hospital managed with light treatment, but he still looks slightly suntanned. His hair is dark. It may be sparse, but it’s the silkiest thing I’ve ever felt.

He smells like vanilla, he’s hungry a lot , and I wouldn’t have needed a paternity test to establish which of my husbands was his father, because the moment he fixed those huge, dark-blue eyes on me, I knew.

Biologically speaking, this is Dex’s son.

Dex settles next to me now, wrapping his arm firmly around my shoulders and tugging me towards him as he gazes down at our son. Max, meanwhile, squats next to the car seat.

‘Do you want to hold him?’

‘Please, honey.’

I don’t want to hold him. I need to hold him like I need my next breath.

Max unbuckles the harness and lifts Charlie out by the armpits, his fingers long enough to support his head. He hands him to me, and Charlie instinctively snuggles inwards with a farmyard snuffle, a soft little comma with his tiny nappy-clad bum under my palm and his breaths feather-light against my neck.

I’m not sure people would describe me as a peaceful person. I tend to be on a lot of the time. But here, in this quiet living room, with the three men I love more than I would ever have thought possible, I may as well be floating in a Caribbean lagoon for the serenity I feel.

Dex has his head on my shoulder. Charlie is snuggled right where he should be, on my breast. I glance up to find Max staring down at the three of us, the love in his blue eyes fierce.

‘Photo?’

I smile. ’Go for it.’

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and aims it at the three of us. I look like shit. The skin on my face is still so red and blotchy. I have burst blood vessels on my eyelids from when I threw up after Charlie came out, and my lips are all chapped. But clearly beauty is in the eye of the beholder, because Max says in a choked voice, ‘I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight in my life than the three of you.’ He puts his phone away. ‘I’ll go put the kettle on.’

‘Stop.’ I hold out my free hand and clasp his. ‘It can wait five minutes. Come and sit with us for a sec.’

I already know Max will be the person who tethers the four of us together, who keeps our heads above water when we’re so sleep-deprived and hormonal and terrified that we don’t know which way is up. His love language is serving, but I don’t want him serving us so hard that he loses a single chance to just be with us.

He hesitates, then sits down on my other side, so gently that the sofa cushions barely shift under him, turning his entire torso towards me. His arm snakes over the sofa back, over Dex’s, their bodies cradling me and Charlie. I let my head drop back against their arms and shift my poor, sore undercarriage further forward so I’m reclining, our baby still curled up against me.

Only then do I let out a sigh. A long, exhausted, contented sigh. I glance at Max to my right, then Dex to my left, and I chuckle. ‘Holy crap. We’ve survived the first five minutes.’

‘You’re doing great, angel,’ Dex says before leaning in to kiss me on the lips.

‘Thanks.’ My voice is shaky. I let my hand do a lap of Charlie’s back. His pale blue and white striped onesie is made from the softest bamboo. His tiny lungs rise and fall under my palm. The speed of his breathing is astounding, as is the fact that he can keep himself alive like this.

Max ducks his head so he can peer at our son’s face, currently nestled into my neck. ‘He has three adults shitting bricks here, and he’s totally oblivious.’

‘Sounds about right,’ Dex says, his voice sounding as shaky as mine did. ‘God, he’s so perfect.’

‘He has your eyes,’ Max tells Dex over me.

Dex instantly starts demurring. ‘No, no—it’s impossible to tell at this stage. He?—’

‘I dreamed of that,’ Max insists. ‘If I was a praying man, I’d have prayed for it. All I’ve ever wanted was a child who had Darcy’s smile and your eyes.’

MAX

In the nine months that we had to prepare for Charlie’s arrival, we settled on the following plan, or mission statement, most accurately.

It was this:

That the three of us would embrace this life-changing gift wholeheartedly.

That we’d deprioritise the daily bullshit that life and jobs throw at us and focus on immersing ourselves in the miracle of our son’s early days.

That we’d use our cunning advantage of having one extra adult in the relationship to establish an equilibrium that meant no one person, including Darcy— especially Darcy—would be too overwhelmed and exhausted to enjoy this most special, fleeting time.

That we’d get help, as much as possible, so that our only duties were to revel in our baby and rest (probably in that order, to be realistic).

I wasn’t up for any sort of night nanny or maternity nurse for a good while. There are three of us, for fuck’s sake! I was confident that between us we could manage, until I had an eye-opening conversation with Rafe at a Berry Bros champagne tasting one night.

‘Your child is the most important investment you’ll ever make,’ he told me. ‘You wouldn’t buy a new Porsche and get behind the wheel if you’d never had a driving lesson, would you? You wouldn’t dream of trying to “work it out as you go along”. So why the fuck would you leave it to chance with your baby? Honestly, you should book up Josie, our maternity nurse.’

I grimaced. ‘It just seems—I don’t know—like an obnoxious thing to do.’

‘Since when have you not been obnoxious? But seriously, okay, imagine you’re at home that first night, and the baby’s been feeding off Darcy for like, an hour, but you have no idea whether they’ve had enough milk. Or you’ve burped them for ten minutes but nothing’s come up. Should you put them down? Or do you keep trying to burp them?

‘What if they’re throwing up too much, or you don’t understand why they won’t stop crying, or—and this is a common one—you guys have fed them and burped them and changed them and it feels like you’ve just got them down and then the whole fucking cycle just starts all over again. It’s bloody relentless. I’m telling you. Having the right expert on hand can mean the difference between days and nights of pulling your hair out versus an experience where you all get to fully participate in the good bits but you spare yourself the heartache.

‘Rosalie used to scream every time we put her down after a feed. Like agonised screaming. It was awful. Belle cried every time. Josie diagnosed silent reflux and we took her to the paediatrician—bingo. She was spot-on. God knows how long we would have all soldiered on in total fucking bewilderment. I dread to think.’

I held up a hand. ‘Okay, okay. You’ve made your point. I’ll give her a call tomorrow.’

We all loved Josie when we interviewed her. She was competent and organised enough to please me, and caring and effusive enough for Darce and Dex.

With her due to start this evening, our schedule looks like this:

Dex and I alternate nights while we’re both on paternity leave. This gives us equal time with Darcy and Charlie, and equal exposure to what Josie can teach us.

Whoever’s not on duty sleeps alone in our room—depressing, but necessary for a sound night’s sleep.

Darcy and the husband on duty sleep in the spare room with Charlie, next to the nursery, where Josie is sleeping now and where Charlie will eventually sleep.

We’ve all agreed that Darcy’s only job right now is to feed him. She needs as much sleep as possible. From what Rafe said, I realise the feed-burp-change cycle can be both time-consuming and far too regular. We need to eliminate as much of that as possible so our wife can get the rest she needs between feeds. With three other adults on hand and the terrifying but efficient technology of breast pumps available, we’re determined that Darce will not shoulder this burden alone.

I feel quietly confident that we have a decent structure in place. Inevitably, parts of it will go to shit now that the little man is here, but that’s okay. The funny thing is that it all looked great on paper, but now that he’s arrived safely, and we’ve brought him home, and I’m sitting here with my wife and my husband and our child in what I suspect is a rare moment of calm, all the planning feels immaterial.

Because what I said was true. I’ve known for an impossibly long time now that to have Darcy and Dex immortalised in a child would be a gift more precious than anything else. However much I fill Dex up with my cum, I’ll never impregnate him. So to have been blessed with Charlie, the genetic product of the two most incandescent souls my own soul has ever encountered, has my cup positively overflowing.

He really does have Dex’s eyes. When he looked up at me the first time I held him in my arms, I had the most astonishing sense of recognition. I’d seen those eyes before, on one of the two loves of my life. That had to be a better surprise than seeing my own eyes.

Time will tell if our son has my wife’s smile.

I lay my hand gently over Darcy’s, and Dex puts his over mine, his touch warm and sure. Skin on skin on skin.

‘Can you feel it?’ she whispers. We’re still for a moment, and yes, I can feel it. I can feel the way her hand rises beneath mine with each fleeting breath our son takes into his impossibly tiny lungs and falls as he releases it.

‘Yeah,’ I whisper, leaning in to kiss her on the temple. ‘I can feel it. ’

‘Me too,’ Dex says in awe.

I lean back from her, quiet for a moment. Her head is still leaning against our arms, her eyes flickering closed. I can tell she’s far from her comfort zone, but still, she’s radiating a kind of serenity, of completeness, that I’ve never seen on her.

‘You know, sweetheart,’ I say finally, ‘you’re objectively a stunning woman, but I’ve never seen you look so radiant as you do right now.’ My hand flexes over hers, and Dex caresses my knuckles. ‘If I could bottle this moment forever, I would.’

She laugh-groans. ‘I look like total shit.’

‘No you don’t.’ I shake my head firmly. Dex is shaking his, too. ‘You look like an incredible woman whose body just performed a miracle, and you’ve given us a son, and you are clearly deliriously in love with him, and all that is so very beautiful. Dex and I have talked about nothing but this, and we’ve agreed on it, so there. It’s two against one.’

Last night, Darcy and Charlie spent their final night in hospital and I fucked my husband slowly and deeply in our huge bed. It was heavenly, as usual. Probably even more heavenly than usual, spliced through as the occasion was with the weight of love and emotion and relief, but we were both aware of Darcy and Charlie’s absence. It simply didn’t feel right .

Today, our wife and son are at home and we are now four.

And all is right with the world.

DEX

Darcy is, thank God, sleeping soundly, courtesy of utter bloody exhaustion, but I lie awake beside her listening with wonder to the snuffly little farmyard noises of our son as he sleeps. He really does sound like a piglet.

Even if he wasn’t making a peep, it would be impossible to be unaware of his presence. He’s so impossibly small, yet his being here has changed everything for us. Everything is different, and our life as we know it has altered forever.

When his snuffles turn to fretful bleats and squeaks, I ease myself out of the bed as carefully as possible so as not to wake Darcy. A peek into his crib shows my expertly swaddled son not quite wakeful but certainly growing agitated. I lift him out—he’s a white burrito in his bunny-strewn muslin—and, holding him tightly against my chest, sneak out of the room and tap gently on the nursery door.

‘Oh dear,’ Josie says with a warm smile at him, ‘is the wee man getting peckish?’ She has a soft Edinburgh accent that’s incredibly soothing. I can see why our friends call her a baby whisperer.

‘Let’s see if we can hold him off for a wee bit longer before we wake Mum,’ she says. ‘This is our job—to stave off those feeds as much as we can without him getting too upset.’

‘How will we know when he’s starving?’ I ask with concern, and she gives a quiet laugh. ‘He has a fair set of lungs on him. He’ll tell you, believe me. But he might just want to suck. Cradle him in your arm, why don’t you, lovey, and give him your wee finger. See if that keeps him happy for a few more minutes.’

I stand and sway with my son in my arms, the very tip of my little finger in his mouth .

‘God, he’s got a strong suck,’ I observe, marvelling at quite how much suction he’s got going on and just how solid his gums feel. ‘Poor Darcy.’

‘That he does,’ she says fondly. ‘But Mum’s nipples will toughen up. They’re already getting there.’

They’re already chafed and a bit scabby, more like. Jesus fuck, men have it easy. This whole concept of Darce being responsible for all his meals right now is fucking terrifying. But Josie was right. Charlie does seem content to suck for now, and I remember she explained to us earlier how sucking has a dual function for babies. It’s how they feed, and it’s how they self-soothe. Charlie’s regulating himself now. If she hadn’t been here, I’d probably already have woken my wife up and subjected her to another feed.

Josie’s been here for all of six hours and I’d already give her a kidney if she wanted one.

As Charlie starts to grow more restless, she removes him from me and lays him on the elevated changing table, making efficient work of the swaddle and the bottom half of his onesie. ‘We’ll change him first,’ she says. ‘I don’t like laying babies down for a change right after their feed. It’s not good for their digestion. Always remember, gravity is your friend. Watch this.’

She holds up a small square of cut-up muslin, and I frown in confusion. Then she opens the nappy’s fasteners and, with lightning speed, lays the fabric over his tiny penis. Within seconds, it’s soaked through. My jaw drops in astonishment, and she winks at me.

‘Very important for baby boys. Their pee-pee will point straight up when you take the nappy off, so unless you want to get hit right in the eye, these squares are a godsend.’

I chuckle quietly. ‘I think you’re the godsend.’

Once Charlie’s been cleaned up and changed, we go through to the spare room where I wake my slumbering wife. I put an extra pillow behind her head so she’s semi-reclining, Josie hands the baby to her, and we all watch as Charlie, who’s making his best and sweetest rooting face, latches on. Josie looks proud, but that’s nothing to how I feel.

My wife is nothing short of incredible.

I settle on the bed next to Darcy and Josie takes a chair in the far corner of the dim room, lit only by the nightlight on the landing. We stay silent for the most part. Josie’s already explained the importance of keeping night feeds quiet and peaceful for the sake of both mother and baby. After about twenty minutes, she plucks Charlie off Darcy’s breast, gives him a quick and remarkably efficient burp, and helps Darcy arrange him on her other breast with a cushion propped under her arm for support.

‘Give them twenty minutes,’ she whispers to me, ‘then bring him through and I’ll show you how to burp him properly.’

She leaves us to it. I admire her emotional intelligence, something both the Charlton and French families commented on. She seems to know instinctively when to hover and when to give us space.

And so I sit here in the almost dark, as close to my wife as I can get without intruding, gazing transfixed at the wonderful sight of our tiny son suckling on her, of his head, so soft and so much tinier than her breast, of the workings of his jaw and cheeks and mouth against her skin. She lies back against her pillow, serene and still half-asleep, while I keep a useless, awe-filled vigil.

For so long, I thought wives and babies were inevitable, but I approached that kind of inevitability as one would the likelihood of rain on a bank holiday weekend—with stoic resignation. While I wouldn’t have resisted it, I wasn’t excited about it.

But this.

This.

Oh my God. This is heaven, right here on this earth, the very same heaven I’ve been told will never be my fate in the next life: Darcy’s contented breaths, and the sweet little sucks and gulps of our son, and the knowledge that, one floor below us, the man we both fell in love with has taken a few hours of refuge from worrying about us and caring for us and trying to anticipate every obscure need we might ever, ever have.

That people like my father truly believe that what Max and Darcy and I have here is godless and unnatural and sinful and deviant—it’s unthinkable. This love, this life, this family we’re building is the most beautiful, natural, right thing I could ever imagine, the bounties it’s bestowed upon us already so plentiful it’s intoxicating.

Some force out there has blessed us with such abundance, such happiness, and I will take that blessing as a sign that what we have is good and true and pure; I will double down and pledge every breath I have to these three people and however more may see fit to join us. I’ll cut out the sceptics and the naysayers and raise the drawbridges and camp out on this island with this family and never, ever, let anyone hurt them or disparage them or shame them.

I thought this week would be bittersweet. I thought Dad’s absence at the hospital when all the grandparents came to meet Charlie would be a void, a blemish on what should have been the perfect day.

It wasn’t. On the contrary, it felt right that the only people allowed into that fragile, hallowed inner sanctum should be those people who were wholeheartedly, stupendously delighted for us all. It wasn’t a day for censure; it was a day for giving thanks, for marvelling at how the simple joy ten tiny, perfect fingers and toes can bring a roomful of sophisticated adults to their knees.

My son and his siblings will know a very different type of family unit from the one within which Belle and I grew up. But some things will stay the same.

Darcy’s parents, who are over the moon at having a grandchild by blood, have expressed their interest in being known as Nana and Gramps.

And, if the way Mum and Charles were behaving when they thought no one was looking the other day is anything to go by, I suspect they may end up being Granny and Grandpa.

In fact, I’d put money on it.