Because of Them (Because of Love #2)

Chapter Twenty-Two

AUDREY

T he rest of November passes in a blur, edging closer to the end of the year. Creeping towards my due date; the date my whole life will be once again flipped on its axis. Maisie has orientation at her new school and I cry a thousand tears that she is about to become a big school kid. Spring gives way to a summer that already feels like it’s going to make me roast.

And even though I’m slowly getting used to the idea of having not just one baby, but two, it still somehow takes me by surprise each time it comes up. The midwife giving me a separate flyer on positions to feed both babies at once, the old woman at the shops who meant well but commented on how big my belly was when I told her I was only twenty-five weeks pregnant, the unimaginable twisting and pulling when they start to kick against one another and fight for room.

Each tiny moment throws the reality of having twins back in my face until I’m hyperventilating.

My stomach feels heavier with every day that passes. My feet swell. My breasts fill out. My back aches. None of it is fun, but I suppose pregnancy never really is.

So, no, I did not want to celebrate my birthday. I did not want to go out for dinner and worry if I was allowed to eat the food. I did not want to sit uncomfortably in a restaurant chair, hating the way even maternity jeans dig into my waist after I eat a meal. I wanted to curl up on the couch, put on a movie, and fall asleep by nine p.m. pretending I wasn’t another year older. No one cares when you turn thirty-three, and my birthdays have become more meaningless with each one I have.

Michael refused to let the day pass us by, though. It grated at my skin, the way he insisted we celebrate.

“Birthdays are the only day in the year you can celebrate you. You have to do something.”

He had scrolled through event websites searching for the perfect—low key—way to celebrate.

I huffed, turning my back and calling for Maisie to come down for dinner, and I thought he had dropped the subject.

Only now, I’m sitting on my bed, waiting for him and Maisie to finish setting up whatever it is they have planned. The afternoon sun streams through the open windows. I follow a little sparkling piece of dust as it dances through the beam of light, wondering what it would feel like to be that carefree. To have nothing, and no one, depending on you, and nothing you ever had to worry about or think about or keep track of. What a life, to be a floating piece of dust, destined for the vacuum.

It’s miserable, really, to compare my life to such a tiny, inanimate, speck. My shoulders droop. How did my life come to this? Is this baby blues coming early? Should I expect them to hit twice as hard since I’m having twins, the same way everything else has?

I’m probably overreacting. Turning my annoyance at Michael’s insistence on making plans into a life-sized meltdown.

Maisie’s giggles float their way down the hall, followed by Michael’s low grumble.

“Can I come out?” I call.

Maisie’s squeal of a “no” rings in my ears.

Those two are up to something, and as frustrated as I am, I’m also thrilled that they are spending time getting to know each other. Michael’s plans for my birthday evening have been kept top secret. He wouldn’t tell me what we are going to eat for dinner, or what activity he is setting out for us. He wouldn’t even give me a clue.

The melodic ding, ding, ding, of the doorbell rings and I push off the bed to see who has come. If he planned a surprise party, I might kill him.

I’m still struggling to sit up when he barrels down the hallway to the front door. Before answering, he pokes his head into my bedroom.

“Soon,” he says with a smirk, then blows a kiss and pulls the door shut.

I can’t make out the conversation, but when he closes the door, only his footprints track back up the wooden floors. The smell of grease and salt wafts through the gap under my door.

“I’m hungry! Let me out!”

My whining is met with another squeal and a fit of laughter from Maisie.

“Almost done,” Michael calls out. I fall back on the bed at his words, knowing I shouldn’t lie on my back but doing it anyway. My eyes flitter shut to lessen the harsh stripe of light that cuts across the bed, and my face.

I breathe slow, the way the midwife showed me, and allow my tense muscles to relax against the soft pillow.

“Audrey?” I feel his whisper underneath my ear. By the time I coax my eyes open, Michael has stood up, and back. Maisie steps forward, one hand outstretched to help me up, the other clinging to a giant bouquet of fresh white lilies.

I roll to my side, then use the strength in my arms to push up to a seated posting.

“You have to come see!” Maisie bounces on the spot. I grab the flowers from her, then let her take my free hand to drag me down the hall towards the kitchen and living space.

Stepping out of the hallway, I freeze to appreciate all that they’ve done. The dining table has been covered with butchers paper, and three tiny easels are lined up on one side. A rainbow of paint tubes are scattered between the easels, and each ‘place setting’ is complete with a canvas, a paper plate, a cup of water, and a collection of brushes.

“Let me take these.” Michael stretches around me, taking the flowers from my hands.

He unwraps them, then places the bouquet in the crystal vase sitting in the centre of the table. The new crystal vase.

Maisie wraps her arms around my leg and I lean down as far as I can to hug her. Looking up to Michael I beckon for him to join us. He envelops me with his arms, trapping Maisie between us. We sway a little, off balance in our three-way hug, but the moment is everything I ever wanted and more, and I never want it to end.

“Happy birthday.” Michael plants a kiss on my forehead.

In response, a low grumble from my stomach cuts through the peaceful silence and we laugh together.

“Dinner first?” I ask.

Michael steps away, around the island bench to the platter of food. Fried chicken, hot chips, fresh rolls, and a decent side of gravy. And a cheesy cauliflower bake. The meal itself is nothing flash, but it means so much more.

“Hot chicken and chips,” I mutter under my breath. My smile spreads wider. It’s the one meal I’ve consistently been craving all pregnancy, and he remembered.

“Sorry it’s nothing special,” Michael starts as he serves our dinner. “I wanted something I knew you would enjoy and I’m not very g—”

“It’s perfect.”

He stands a little taller and the slight wrinkle between his brows flattens.

“I think we’re running out of fruit,” he adds, gesturing at the cauliflower bake. “At twenty-six weeks the babies are, apparently, the size of a cauliflower. I figured this might taste a bit better.”

When he hands me the first roll, I devour it. But I take my time enjoying the rest of the meal. There’s no need for small talk between the three of us, we just sit in comfortable silence as we eat my birthday dinner.

Maisie has only eaten half of her sandwich—and three servings of chips with gravy—when she declares she is full.

“Michael,” she asks in her chirpy voice, “will you live here when the babies are born? Because you’re their dad. Or will they go spend half their weeks at your house like I do with my dad?”

Michael and I pause, sharing a glance. He sucks in a quick inhale, letting it out slowly before he answers.

“The babies will need to stay with your mum while they are little. And I will be wherever she needs or wants me.”

Here, I realise after he says the words. I want him here. I don’t want to handle the sleepless nights and exhausting days on my own. But for him to live here … I don’t know. It’s like we’ve been taking baby steps this whole time, carefully adding layers to our budding relationship. But him moving in? I never wanted to fall into a relationship because of the babies and if they weren’t a factor we wouldn’t even be considering it. So, if he did, what would that mean for us? It would be a giant leap in our relationship that we wouldn’t be taking if the babies weren’t a factor.

He must see the thoughts racing through my mind, because he reaches past Maisie to hold my hand.

“But we haven’t talked about it yet,” he says, turning back to Maisie. “We can figure it out closer to when the babies are due.”

I’m still thinking about it while Michael clears away the dishes, adding it to my list of things to do and figure out. When I sit down in front of one of the easels, my mind finally clears. I’m ready to get lost in the creative juices that flow as soon as I have a paintbrush in my hand.

Michael clears his throat before he sits down. “I thought we could all paint the flowers. They are lilies, which symbolise new growth and change. It seemed fitting for our lives right now.” He twists a paintbrush between his fingers and adds, “I hope it’s okay.”

Reaching below the table, I place a hand on his bouncing knee. He stills the movement but continues to pull at the paintbrush in his fingers.

“Michael, it’s perfect, thank you.”

Maisie claps on my other side, demanding my attention. Using a paintbrush as her pointer, she gestures around the table at the paint tubes, spread in a perfect rainbow around us. “And thank you Maisie for putting all the paints out. I made a rainbow, see?”

“It’s beautiful, Maisie,” I say as I stretch my arm around her shoulders and pull her close.

Everything about this evening is perfect. I don’t even care that Maisie stays up past her bedtime to finish her painting. We just sit and talk and joke and paint, and all my worries about what the next twelve months will bring slowly melt away.

Maisie drops her paintbrush into the murky water in her cup with a yawn.

“Finished,” she sings as she jumps from her chair.

Squeezing her way onto my lap, she looks up at our paintings. Her’s is full of abstract lines and paint that blends together in criss-cross strokes. There’s a subtle hint of the bouquet’s shape, blue resembling the vase and some white splotches in between the shades of green.

“I love it,” I whisper in her ear. “I love how you chose to use blue for the vase.”

“I love yours too, Mummy.”

I hide my smile in her hair. My own painting is rushed, incomplete. I wish I had let the paint dry between layers to prevent some of the sections where the green has bled into the white flowers. But for something I created in only a couple of hours, I’m happy enough with it.

“How come you chose rainbow colours for the vase?”

Tilting Maisie to one side, I point at how the light reflects in the angles of the crystal vase.

“See there, how it shines like a rainbow when you get the light just right? That’s what I was trying to show.” I squeeze her tight adding, “Plus, I loved how you made a rainbow with the paint tubes and I wanted to use them all.”

Maisie squeaks with a bashful smile and turns to Michael. His painting surprises me. It’s far more refined and precise than I imagined. Taking no creative licence in his artwork, everything matches the bouquet in front of him perfectly. The exact number of leaves and flowers, the hints of white and blue forming the outline of the otherwise clear vase. Even the stray leaf that has fallen to rest on the table. It’s good. Really good.

“Wow.” Maisie’s praise is a whisper as she stills in awe.

“Michael, this is …” I trail off in admiration, soaking in the beauty of his painting.

Shifting in his seat, Michael runs a hand through his loose hair. His chin tips down as the tops of his ears brighten to a sharp crimson.

“It’s nothing. I messed up this flower here, and the vase is, I don’t know, not right. And this leaf looks all wonky.”

Using his paintbrush to gesture at all his apparent mistakes, Michael slouches down in his chair. I unwrap one arm from Maisie’s middle and place it firmly on his arm.

“Stop it.”

He turns to look at me, but keeps his chin low and shoulders hunched.

“Michael, mistakes are fine. When you look at the whole picture you don’t notice them. This whole thing is incredible, you should be proud.”

His chin dips in a sharp nod. “Art was always my favourite subject at school. But then I started working for Dad and I just never pursued it. It became something that a younger me used to do. I wish I had an art studio like yours.” He gestures toward the sunroom where my easel and paints are permanently set up. “I’d paint every day.”

“I thought you worked out every day?”

“Most days, less now than I used to. But I think I’d enjoy this more.”

Maisie jumps in my lap, scrambling to climb over to Michael’s knee. He lets her settle in place, then wraps a tentative arm around her.

“If you came to live here,” Maisie squeaks, “you could use Mummy’s painting room all the time.”

“He could,” I answer when Michael looks up at me for guidance. And after tonight, I think I kind of want him to.