Returning to London, James and I had a rare moment of mutual panic as we realised we had no idea how to furnish our house. We agreed that we were going to bring a lot of the “old” furniture from the house in Hammersmith with us, as none of us were fans of throwing things out that were in perfectly good nick just because we were moving. But we realised we would need a lot more furniture, and we didn't even know where to begin planning or looking for things. In the end I rang up Mindy, knowing that they had moved several times and into huge estates. She quickly calmed me down, saying she would put us in contact with a great decorator who had helped her several times and could help sort out everything we needed. James promptly decided to leave the whole operation to me, promising that as long as I picked out the furniture we needed, he'd carry it to wherever it was supposed to go. Coming into contact with the decorator, she immediately agreed to help us. Our first task was to go over to the new house and go through it room by room, trying to think of what we would need in each one, and what we were bringing with us from the old house, basically to comprise a shopping list. Going to the house again I felt excited, my heart beating hard in my chest. Walking through it again, everything looked a little different now that I knew it was ours. James had already done quite a bit of thinking, and taking my hand he pulled me towards a door.
“This is the biggest bedroom, and has its own bathroom, so I thought this could be ours, “he said, opening the door to a huge, empty room to the back of the house with a good view of the back garden. I barely had time to look at it before he closed the door again and eagerly pulled me to another door. “And I thought this... maybe... could be the baby’s' room”. He opened the door to a bedroom that was empty apart from one piece of furniture standing along a wall: a baby crib. It was beautifully made out of what looked like solid wood, painted white. Over it was a mobile with little cars and planes dangling from it.
“Aaaaaw..” I breathed, stepping into the room to take a closer look. “You already got us a crib? This is... beautiful, James... ” Walking over to it I ran my hand along the top rail. It already had a mattress and a "bumper" along the inner edges of the crib, there to protect the baby if it flailed and banged itself on the rails. The bumper was in an adorable pattern with flowers and owls. The crib was perfect, just waiting for a baby. James lingered by the doorway, both hands in his pockets, looking a little nervous and even embarrassed.
“I... It's actually made out of my old crib, my mum had it in the attic. Simmy helped me draw out some plans to rebuilt it a little, and helped me...” James mumbled.
“Wait a minute, you built this? Out of your old crib?” I felt my mouth fall open.
“Um, yeah.... As I said, with a little help,” James mumbled. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and walked over to me. “The bottom is adjustable, it can be lowered as the baby grows. This way it'll be easier to pick it up when it's still, you know... tiny.” James explained.
"Wow... I just... I'm stunned... I cant' believe you did this," I squeaked, fighting the tears. “When did you have time to do all this? It must have taken ages!”
“Oh, a few hours here, a few hours there, a few white lies...” James admitted. “I literally had to smuggle the thing out of my parents house when they weren't looking. And since I recruited Simmy to help me out I had to tell him quite a while ago, so he knew... Sorry...”
“No, no, it's okay, I just... I'm stunned,” I muttered, resting my cheek against his chest while staring lovingly at crib.
“I know just buying one would've been easier, and less time-consuming, but... I don't know, maybe I'm just very old-fashioned. I just liked the idea of building it myself.”
“It's very romantic, and adorable. But in a very manly way,” I added. I studied the mobile, and on closer inspection it looked like the little cars and planes were cut out of wood and sanded down before they had been painted by hand.
“You made these too, didn't you?” I asked with a little smile, gently prodding a little aeroplane to make it spin then looking up at him.
“Yeah. Well, I had a go at least...” He muttered, squirming a little now. “It's not very gender neutral perhaps..”
“Screw gender neutral, I love this! They're colourful and bright and absolutely amazing. How many kids have dads that actually make them mobiles? And girls can love cars and aeroplanes too? I like cars?” I argued mildly, hugging him tighter. For a moment i just stood there, staring at the crib with my arms tightly wrapped around him.
"James?"
"Mm?"
"DId you actually go out and shop for a crib bumper?" I asked disbelievingly, pictures James utterly lost and confused in the depths of some childrens' store.
"Mno, I... Got my sister to come with me, I realised I needed some help. I didn't even know what a bumper was! I have a lot to learn..." He sighed.
"Don't worry, so far you are really aceing all this “becoming a father”-thing, you know?”
“I'm only doing it this once, so I'm trying to do the best I can...” He smiled, grateful for the appreciation I was giving him.
“You are doing great, sweetheart."
Just two weeks later we had come a long way with the house. A lot of the new furniture was in place, and we had started moving things from the old house and into the new one. Trying to be as helpful as I could, I put things into boxes and took them out again to put them in their new place, which was pretty much the only thing I could do. James was constantly fussing, worried I was doing too much, but I insisted that I wanted to help, I needed to help, I just couldn't sit on my hands and watch as the movers, or our friends and James worked around me. On a Friday I was busy in the kitchen, unpacking dishes, glasses and all kinds of kitchen equipment. James was out running some errands, and had been gone for a while. I had taken the little stereo with me from the old kitchen, and the music was on loudly. Over the past week I had become a lot less tired and increasingly filled with energy, and I was enjoying it to the fullest. I was happy, excited, in love, and that resulted in me dancing around the kitchen with 'Chrvches – Now is not the time” on full blast. The music masked the sounds of James coming home, and when I suddenly spotted him in the kitchen doorway I was too happy to even be embarrassed about my stupid dancing. James grinned, evidently amused by me jumping about like an idiot. Feeling euphoric I grabbed James by the hands and pulled him into the kitchen, waving his arms about, trying to get him to dance. He resisted initially, flinching and squirming, but the music drowned out his feeble protests. In the end he rolled his eyes and tried to dance along with the music. This instantly caused me to start laughing loudly, as I had never seen, and never thought I would see James loosen up enough to dance along to loud electro-pop. At least not sober. At this point we were both giggling. Suddenly I froze and lurched forwards, clutching my stomach. James also froze, his eyes widening with horror as he stared at me. He opened his mouth to ask something, then realised the music was too loud and ran over to turn the stereo off.
“What is it?” He asked as soon as the kitchen became quiet, worry etched in his voice.
“I.. don't know..” I said slowly. The feeling had gone as quickly as it had come, and now I straightened up again, thinking it was over. As soon as I had, the feeling came back, not exactly painful, but sudden and a little uncomfortable, like a quick jab to the stomach. I bent over again, placing a palm over the place where I had felt it. “Ow!”
“What? What is it? Does it hurt? What’s wrong?!” James was panicking now, rushing over to me, nearly shaking me by the shoulders. I was silent, standing dead still, waiting on bated breath for it to happen again. And sure enough, within a few seconds there was another jab. Holding my palm against the part of my stomach where I had felt it, I could also feel the jab on the outside this time. And then it clicked, and I knew what was going on. All my terror drained away, replaced by relief and excitement.
“I think... it just kicked,” I said quietly, a smile spreading on my face.
“Kicked?!” James was so worried he didn't even understand what I meant at first. “Wait... Kicked? The baby you mean?”
“No, my spleen!” I shouted at him. “Of course the baby! Here!” I grabbed his hand and replaced my palm with his, waiting for another. James' mouth was open as he stared unblinkingly at his hand, waiting. When the baby kicked again James nearly jumped.
“Yes! I felt that!” He exclaimed in that high-pitched way he sometimes did when he god really excited. His palm still on my tummy the baby kicked again, to James' great delight. “Come here,” he said and grabbed me eagerly by the hand, dragging me through the house to the sofa in the living room. As soon as I sat down he placed his palm on my stomach again, hoping to feel more movement. It was as if the baby had suddenly figured out that this was something it could do, it could kick and punch wildly around, and now it just wouldn't stop. “Maybe the baby is trying to say that you should relax for a bit and stop working?” He admonished.
“Or maybe it just thought it was really fun when mummy was bouncing around in the kitchen?” I suggested, smiling innocently at him.
“Maybe,” he agreed with a smile. “Anyway, I wanted to talk to you. I went and got the papers for the house, you need to sign a few x'es.” He took a stack of papers out of an envelope.
“I do? Why?” I frowned.
“Didn't I say that this house should be in both our names?”
“Yes, but...” I mumbled.
“And for that, you'll need to sign these too,” he said flatly, handing the papers to me along with a pen.
“I... Okay,” I said feebly. Part of me didn't want to argue with him because I didn't want to hurt him or make him believe that I didn't want it, but another part of me couldn't stop thinking that this was insane. James had never told me what he paid for the house, and I knew much too little about real estate to even have a guess. But I knew enough about house prices in London to know that it was a lot. And he was practically giving me half. Deciding that there was no point in thinking about it any more I signed my name quickly on the dotted lines and gave the papers back to James, who stuffed them unceremoniously back into the envelope. Resting back against the sofa I stared at James unblinkingly. After a while he noticed my eyes burning a hole through him.
“... What?” He raised an eyebrow. I paused for a moment, trying to think of what to say.
“I just find it amazing how much you've changed in your life... Just for me.”
“Changed?”
“I mean... You let me live with you, you bought this huge house for us to live in.. We're having a baby, James! These are all huge bloody changes, and all of it just because of me, to... fit me into your life,” I shrugged.
“You've made just as many changes in your life as I have?” He argued mildly. At this I just frowned, trying to think what changes I had made. “Probably more! You never meant to live and work in London permanently, did you? But you stayed, you moved in with me, and not once did you even mention the possibility that we would live anywhere else, even though staying here meant moving away from your family. And you could've taken that job and gone back to Africa, but you chose not to, because you said you wanted to stay with me. And I know that was a huge dream of yours. Those are pretty big changes, too? You moved to a different country. I'm just moving to a new house,” he shrugged.
“But those were never... Changes. They weren't decisions I consciously made, so much as just...they were the only decisions I could make, because all the other decisions were wrong.”
“See? That's how I feel about it, too! Yes, of course my life has changed, I'm not a pathetic old bachelor nearly in my fifties living alone with my cat any more. And that has to be entirely a good thing. You talk about changes like they're purely negative, but they don't have to be? You have completely changed my life, but only for the better.”
“I just... hope you won't regret everything some day and want your old life back...” I fiddled with my hands in my lap, feeling insecure.
“Emily, don't be ridiculous.” I felt James' arm wrap around my shoulder, squeezing me. “I love this house. I love this baby. I love you. And I love living my life with you.” I leaned into him, sighing a little.
“Will you please remember that when this baby throws up on you at 4am?” I begged.
“I will try my best," he promised. "But, Emily... I don't have some rosy-red mental image of a perfect family life where everything is cuddles and fun. Its going to be a bigger change than either of us can imagine. We'll be tired, we'll be frustrated and exhausted, and I'll probably ask myself more than once where I went wrong with my life. And you probably will too.”
“Yeah, I know...” I admitted with a sad little smile.
“But we're both prepared for that, at least as much as we can be.”
“Even for toys lying scattered ALL OVER the house? And dried porridge on the kitchen table?”
“... I'm getting there,” James chuckled, and I joined him laughing. "I don't mean that I'm thinking it is going to be complete hell either. I'm looking forward to the cuddling," he added.
"How can you be so adorable?!" I squealed, wrapping my arms around him and peppering him with kisses. As I did there was another major lurch in my gut as the baby kicked again. "Oh!" Jesus, that is going to take some getting used to!"
I research a lot of weird stuff for this fic - but c'mon, how ADORABLE is this crib bumper?)
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