Page 39 of Because of Them

I pinch a piece in between my fingers and pop the juicy flesh into my mouth. “Mango?”

“Twenty-two weeks. I just don’t know if they’ll be smaller, since there’s two of them. The app didn’t say.”

“I suppose they might be, but it’s okay. Thank you.”

I work to catch my breath as I nibble at the mango. I’ve walked too far today.

“Do you think we got everything?” I ask once my little cup of food is empty.

Reading the list off his phone, Michael nods, his chin resting against my head. “All the big stuff is done: cots, pram, car seats. I’ll come back with the truck during the week to pick it all up. A million tiny clothes, bottles. If there is anything we missed, it’ll be stuff I can run out to get you when we realise we need it. Plus, we have time.”

He’s right, we do have time, but I feel like it’s a train racing express down the track toward my due date.

“I’m sure we missed something.” Like the whole fall in love, move in together, get married steps that usually come before having a baby.

“Audrey, it doesn’t matter. We’ve done a lot. And my feet hurt so I can only imagine how yours must feel.”

I relax further into his embrace. “They feel swollen,” I admit. “All of me feels swollen, all the time.”

“Then let’s go home.”

I’m too tired to question who’s home he is talking about. As we walk back to the car I’m too focused on how he keeps an arm around me to care. Even as he plants a kiss on the top of my head before opening the car door and helping me in, I don’t ask. Because ultimately, we don’t have a home together and that thought hurts.

The tension in my shoulders drops when Michael pulls into my street. The familiarity of my own home, the babies’ home, induces the deepest breath my squashed lungs can muster. And it’s not that I want to rush into living with Michael when we are barely in anything that even resembles a relationship, but I don’t like thinking about how he won’t be here. I’ll be alone, dealing with not one newborn baby, but two. Baby Maisie was hard enough, this is going to be … rough.

I shake off the shiver that runs up the length of my spine.

Leaving Michael to sort out all the bags in the back of his truck, I hobble up the hallway to flick the kettle on. Once I’ve made two cups of tea, I carry them to the couch and sit down,resting my feet on the coffee table. The coffee table with sharp corners and a lower shelf full of Maisie’s books. My gaze flies across the room at all the little changes I made when Callum moved out. The fiddle-leaf fig growing happily in its giant ceramic pot in the corner, tiny pebbles covering the roots. The candle and dried flower arrangement on one side of the TV, and the Lego succulents on the other. The open entertainment unit with Maisie’s games console and my outdated DVD collection. None of it is baby proof.I knew we were forgetting something.

I stretch forward, my back aching as I reach for the pen and paper Maisie left on the coffee table. ‘Baby Proofing’, I write at the top, followed by a list of all the things I just noticed. From my spot on the couch, I think my way through every room, jotting down everything a baby might get hurt on, choke on, or destroy.

“Did I ever tell you your house is beautiful?” Michael calls down the hallway after dropping the last few bags into the spare room I’ll need to turn into a nursery.

I tap my pen against the paper. It is, as a real estate agent I can see that. But it’s not me. It’s not mine. “I’m trying to make it feel more like a home, but no matter what I do it feels stuck in the past.”

Michael jumps down onto the couch beside me, startling me with his unnecessary force.

Keeping my feet on the coffee table, I turn my upper half to face him. The baby proofing to-do list rests in my lap.

“I wish it wasn’t so modern. I can add as many coloured pillows or arty prints as I like and it still feels a little too much like a museum of recent history. You know?”

Of course he doesn’t. He’s never been in a serious relationship and still lives in a bachelor pad complete with a home gym system worth more than all Maisie’s toys put together. He has no idea what it’s like to feel like your house isn’t your own.

“I get that.” His response surprises me, and I wring my hands in my lap above my list.

“It makes me feel so ungrateful. As much as I appreciate Callum letting me keep it in the divorce, I wish I could move into somewhere new, something that feels like mine.”

“So, why don’t you?” he asks.

“What, move? I couldn’t. I can’t. Between trying to sell this place and looking for somewhere new, I doubt I’d have the time. Let alone finding a bank to finance the inevitable mortgage once I pay all the taxes.”

He grumbles, deep in his chest. The sound brushes over my skin, leaving goosebumps trailing over me.

“You deserve to be happy, Audrey.” He mumbles, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. With both hands, he pushes his long beachy hair off his face.

“Unfortunately it’s not that simple.” I snap the words out, harsher than I intended.

Michael sighs, shaking his head in his hands. He pauses when his head tilts towards my lap.

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