Chapter Text
“Are you sure? You really mean it?” Shelagh asked, beaming with excitement, her eyes beginning to shine from the wetness of the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.
“Of course! We want nothing more, that is, if you are willing to,” Bernadette replied.
“After all, Mum, you know I won’t settle for anything less than the best midwife in Poplar delivering my children” Tim added with a grin.
Shelagh blushed at the attention and praise, still reveling in the news her son had shared with them moments ago and his following request that she be the attending midwife. She couldn’t help but smile as Patrick put his arm around her shoulders, giving them a tight, reassuring squeeze. “Yes, only the best for my grandchild.” He still couldn’t believe the word belonged to him, giving the same grin his son had moments ago.
“Dear Bernadette, I am more than willing to be your midwife - I am over the moon thrilled about it!” Shelagh no longer tried to hold back the tears, allowing them to fall freely as she moved forward to embrace her daughter-in-law. “The moment you married Timothy, you became my daughter and I have never felt more blessed than I do in this moment. I really didn’t think anything could top the joy I felt when you and Timothy found each other and were married - I guess I was wrong!”
“Where is the video recorder when you need it? Your Mum admitted to being wrong! I’m not sure anyone is going to believe me.” Patrick smirked from behind his wife, giving Tim a far too obvious wink as Shelagh turned to swat at him with feigned indignity, all the while refusing to let go of her newest daughter.
“Honestly, Patrick, you don’t half know how to ruin a moment!”
Patrick grabbed her outreached hand, giving it a light kiss and then letting go to encompass both women in his arms. “You’re right dear, as always,” a statement accompanied by yet another lopsided grin and a sweet kiss upon the top of her head.
“Told you, Bernie, didn’t I?” Tim exclaimed, being met with confused glances from the soon to be grandparents. “Even in an announcement about us, they have to turn it into an opportunity for their mushy stuff!”
The room was soon filled with comfortable laughter, and Shelagh guided Bernadette to sit down as they talked. “What is so funny?” Angela asked as she and Teddy came in from the garden. “What did we miss?”
“Mushy stuff, Angela… Mushy stuff,” Tim replied in a rather over-exaggerated manner, delighting to see his younger brother rolling his eyes the way that Tim had taught him.
“Well that’s nothing new, they do it all the time!” Teddy looked disgusted. Tim looked proud.
Noticing that her mother hadn’t even given a second glance to the mocking by the brothers, Angela knew something else had happened entirely. “Mum,” she repeated pointedly, “What did we miss?”
Shelagh looked to Bernadette, assuming correctly that she would want to share the news herself. “I’m going to be having a baby, Angela! You’re going to be an Aunt!”
The young girl squealed with delight, grabbing Bernadette tightly, bouncing with excitement. “Mum is going to be your midwife, right? She has to be your midwife! She’s the best there is! I already told her that when I have children one day I want her there.” Angela gave a shy smile to her mother, “though Mum has assured me that it had better be a long way off!”
“A very long time, angel,” Patrick nodded, then adding with a grin: “In fact, have you ever considered becoming a nun?”
“Like that worked out for Mum!” Came the quick reply, everyone enveloped in laughter yet again. Well, everyone other than Teddy, who seemed much more serious about the news that had been shared. “Teddy, why don’t you look happy? Aren’t you excited to be an uncle?”
“Uncles are old… I’m only 9! I don’t know how to be an uncle!” Teddy looked as if he were about to cry, but not from joy as Shelagh had before. She pulled the young boy into her lap and held him close.
“My dear, you know that families come in all sorts of different ways. Not all uncles are old and I am certain you will be a wonderful uncle to baby. Think of all the fun you will have together as he or she grows!”
Liking the thought of being able to be in charge during play time for once, Teddy finally stated rather matter of factly, “All right, I’ll allow it. You can have a baby.”
Shelagh was certain that she had not laughed so much in a very long time. As she watched her littlest ones, who weren’t so little anymore, giggle and laugh, as she saw the joy in Tim at becoming a father, as she noticed her husband’s wide grin that had not left his face since the news came, Shelagh knew she had never been happier.
******
“Shelagh, are you still awake?” Patrick whispered quietly as he tiptoed into their bedroom that night, trying not to wake her if she had fallen asleep. The joy and excitement of the afternoon was wonderful, but also exhausting after a long morning at the surgery and on district rounds. The children had fallen asleep almost immediately and Shelagh had gone upstairs soon after, leaving Patrick to finish putting away the clean dishes. Rather than having gone to sleep, however, he found his wife sitting in the bed with tears in her eyes, looking over old photographs.
“When did our children grow so much, Patrick?”
“I thought you were happy about the baby, you’ve been secretly wondering when she would become pregnant since the moment they were married, I know you have.”
“Of course I’m happy, I’m going to be a grandmother! How can that fail to make me happy? But, well, I missed out on so much with Timothy - he was practically grown by the time we married, or so it felt. And now Angela is already older than he was then… it’s just happening so fast!”
Patrick walked around to Shelagh’s side of the bed, carefully removing the photographs from her lap and placing them on the end table. Moving her gently toward the middle of the bed, he sat down beside her and wrapped her in his arms, her head resting on his chest. “I’m sorry, my love, but that is the nature of life… And I’m sorry I was so selfish, I’ve made you a grandmother far too young,” Patrick gingerly ran his fingers through the strands of honey colored hair which framed his beautiful wife’s face.
“We’ve been through this, Patrick! You were no more selfish than I, we belong together - ‘two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one’ - if you don’t mind me quoting a bit of Keats,” she lifted her head to give him a wide grin before he kissed her gently. “You and I both know I’m not young anymore… but, besides, we have had our share of young grandmothers in the Maternity Home, so who is to say what families ought to look like?”
“You are wrong again, dear, for the second time today,” Patrick’s graying hair fell across his face as he looked down at his wife, “You are still so young… and beautiful... and everything to me…” He slipped a hand under the hem of her nightdress, his voice becoming thick, “although I think I’m too old for this particular grandmother to be in the Maternity Home in anything other than that sexy uniform.”
Shelagh’s breath hitched, blushing as she did every time his voice took on that tone, no matter how many years they had been married. Patrick loved that about her, loved that she was still so excited to be with him, even after a decade of marriage. It left him in awe time and again that she would choose him. She turned on her side so that she could face him more, beginning to unbutton his shirt to press her hand upon the skin of his chest, “If I’m wrong, I think you’ll have to prove it to me.”