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Keeley pregnant is surprisingly mellow.
Or maybe not, since Keeley in general seems to take most things in stride. Sure there’s the first month when she’s afraid to tell Rebecca that she’s pregnant, for reasons she refuses to explain to Roy and which he finds difficult to guess at because Rebecca seems to like kids just fine; she’s good with Phoebe and mini-Lasso when they’re around. But Keeley gets over that and Rebecca is pleased for them and honestly that seems to have been Keeley’s sole concern about the entire thing.
She’s calm when they go for scans, placidly certain about her decision that they should find out the sex in advance (“I don’t know what they mean by ‘be surprised,’ it’s a surprise now, isn’t it? All you’re doing is moving the timing of the surprise.”), steadfast in her refusal to join any pregnancy- or parenting-related groups on the internet, and entirely unconcerned about breastfeeding or cloth nappies or organic bedding. She’ll breastfeed if it works out and not if it doesn’t; cloth nappies use up tons of water and chemicals to wash and sterilize them anyway; and they do end up with organic bedding but only because that’s what Rebecca buys for them.
Roy’s sister insists on throwing them a baby shower but Rebecca helps (by which Roy assumes they mean that she pays). He learns that since Phoebe’s birth, baby showers have evolved and are no longer only for the women. At first he fears this means he will have to attend and all the guests will still be women, but in fact it means all of AFC Richmond packed into his sister’s garden, a lot of beer, and Colin and Zoreaux arguing about which of them is better at decorating a baby vest. Some of the players either have families or younger siblings of their own or have had their wives or girlfriends choose their gifts, but there are also a lot of tiny Richmond jerseys and footballs.
Keeley in labor is still fairly mellow. Even though – while nothing is going really wrong – just enough is going wrong that Roy is the polar opposite of mellow. And yeah, that’s usually true regardless, but in the delivery room he’s several stages past not mellow and well into completely fucking freaking out. Things keep starting and stopping and the midwife and the nurses keep saying things about slow heart rates and other pretty alarming stuff, and it’s taking every ounce of control Roy has to try to stay outwardly calm for Keeley’s sake. Meanwhile at the same time he’s feeling like – while he absolutely understands that he needs to be supportive and he wants to do that for her – it’s maybe also completely fucking unfair to expect him to be this rock of no emotions when it is, in fact, his kid and his wife.
And after a while – maybe it’s pathetic but call him pathetic; there’s one place he goes these days when he’s having a feelings experience and doesn’t want to let it overwhelm him, and best yet, that place has a kid of his own and presumably survived something a lot like this once.
He taps out a text between contractions.
help
And after reflection, a follow-up.
she’s okay but I’m fucking freaking out
It’s five in the morning but Ted must have some kind of Roy-in-peril radar because the answer comes almost immediately.
sit tight. reinforcements on the way.
Roy tries to do that, he honestly does, and he is relieved to think that some kind of help is coming; but after another half-hour when they’re examining Keeley again and all the blood feels like it’s rushing to his head, he gets very politely kicked out of the room for a while by his wife, the midwife, and two nurses. He sits on a bench in the hall and tries to breathe, and that’s precisely when Ted arrives, dressed for the day at the club as if he’d been ready and waiting all along for this call.
And he hasn’t come alone; he’s brought Rebecca, who’s barefaced and in jeans and has her hair in a ponytail – because it’s half-five in the morning – and looks softer and younger than she usually does. She hugs him and it’s both a surprise and a surprisingly good hug, warm and comforting.
Roy tries to explain, haltingly, about how the contractions get closer together and then farther apart again and it seems like everyone is worried and pretending they’re not, and how he almost passed out and had to be told to go “get some air”. He’s honestly waiting to be told that he’s already useless as a dad, but Ted just looks at Rebecca and says, “Think you better tap in, here.” He’s got his arm bent up behind her back and his hand on her shoulder in a way that should probably be interesting, if Roy’s brain were getting any oxygen.
Rebecca nods and goes into Keeley’s room, still in her trench coat. Roy watches her go with a flooding of relief. She’ll probably be actually useful to Keeley.
Ted sits next to Roy and pats him on the leg and says, “Most of the time I remember this part as the greatest day of my life, but if I think hard about it – it sucked. The waiting. Not being able to do anything except keep trying to shove ice chips at her. I got kicked out, too.”
“Did you get faint?”
“No, but apparently it was not the time or the place for my ‘manic energy’. And jokes were really not appreciated.”
Roy manages a short laugh.
“Though.” Ted sits back, arms crossed. “At some point they will probably offer to let you watch? I do not recommend it.”
“Did you cut the cord?”
“I did. And then I managed to get all the way into the bathroom before I puked. I was very proud of both of those accomplishments.”
“What did it feel like?”
“You ever use scissors to cut through a piece of really gristly raw meat?”
Judging by the gorge rising in his throat, Roy’s going to be passing on this experience, but. “Are you glad you did it, though?” he asks, after swallowing hard.
“You know.” Ted looks at him thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure he would still feel like mine even if I’d let a trained medical expert cut the cord.”
“Yeah.”
Ted drops his hand onto Roy’s leg again and says, “It’s gonna be okay, son. It’s gonna be okay.”
He’s not remotely old enough to be anything like Roy’s father, but this still raises a lump in his throat.
They sit there for what seems like a pretty long time, and then Rebecca sticks her head out of the room and says, “Roy? Better get back in here. I think we’re in business.”
“Don’t leave,” he begs her as he passes her on his way in.
“I’m not.”
She sort of crouches on Keeley’s right and leaves Roy to resume his chair on her left. Rebecca seems to be trying to strike the perfect balance between supportive and invisible, and it’s pretty much working. In any case no one is paying her any attention, except for Keeley’s death grip on her hand. Keeley’s also holding Roy’s hand pretty painfully in her left one, and she’s right-handed, so there’s a chance Rebecca’s going to need medical attention before this is done. Good thing they’re at a hospital.
What the midwives and nurses think of any of this, Roy has no idea. Between contractions he wonders if anyone will think they’re some kind of a triad, and just prays that no one assumes (at least out loud) that Rebecca is Keeley’s mother. That is, just barely, possible.
They have a hard time keeping Keeley from hyperventilating, but then suddenly she’s gasping and there’s a lot of action down at the foot of the bed (Roy takes Ted’s advice and remains staunchly at the head) and the midwife is holding a wet, bloody, wriggling little thing which is his son, and he’s already grizzling.
The baby, not Roy.
“Do you want to cut the cord?” the midwife asks, and Roy waves his hands in a panic. She offers the scissors next to Rebecca, who says, “God, no,” so the midwife handles it and the baby is wrapped and placed on Keeley’s chest where Roy could probably get a better look at him if he weren’t so bloody. Keeley’s grinning and trying to use the corner of the blanket to wipe his face off. And then in no time at all they’re taking him away again to be weighed and checked and hopefully cleaned. There’s a bit more business at the foot of the bed which Roy carefully does not look at, and then they’re bringing the baby back and everything is great and a nurse is about to hand him his son.
And he’s cold and clammy and sick and he can’t breathe, and he drops into the chair without realizing he’s doing it.
“Head between your knees, love,” the other nurse says, her hand on his neck to guide him.
Over the rushing in his ears he hears Keeley say, “Give him to Rebecca,” and then she’s reaching to hold Roy’s hands. “It’s okay,” she says. “Just breathe, we’re all okay.”
When he feels like maybe he might not throw up, he raises his head to see Keeley and Rebecca looking at him with scarily identical expressions of concern, except that Keeley is still pink and sweaty and glowing and Rebecca is standing over her holding the baby. She looks like she’s actually, competently held one before ever. So has Roy – Phoebe wasn’t even the first – but that’s hard to remember at the moment.
Rebecca comes around the bed and he automatically stands up, and she comes close and just tips the baby against his chest. “Go on,” she says gently, and Roy’s sort of already holding him so it’s easy to do as she says. Except that it’s hard to take a newborn baby from someone else in any kind of smooth way and he ends up touching her breasts way more than he’s comfortable with. He’s had a long list of worries about this day, but “accidentally groping the boss” was not on his bingo card.
Then again, the boss having to hold his baby because he was too freaked out wasn’t on there, either.
“I’ll give you some time,” Rebecca says, backing away.
“Don’t leave, either of you!” Keeley says. “I want to see Ted too before you go.”
“We won’t,” Rebecca promises, and goes out into the hall, and then it’s just the three of them. Roy, Keeley, and their son. He sits down again and leans the baby onto Keeley’s chest, still holding him.
“This is your dad,” Keeley says seriously. “He doesn’t usually faint. Give him a minute and he’ll be okay.”
“I’m fine now,” Roy says.
“He says that a lot.”
“He’s been listening to me for nine months,” Roy says.
“Yes, and there’s a decent chance his first word is going to be ‘wanker’.”
The baby really does seem to recognize both their voices; although his eyes aren’t focused, he keeps turning his head toward whoever is speaking.
A lot of time probably goes by. Roy doesn’t do a whole lot except stare.
Finally Keeley tells him to go get Rebecca and Ted, and he remembers. “Are they . . . ?”
“Are they what?” she asks.
“They seemed pretty cozy earlier.”
“Cozy like how?”
“Cozy like cozy.”
Keeley frowns. “I would know. Wouldn’t I?”
He shrugs and goes to retrieve them, leaving the baby with Keeley. Ted and Rebecca are both beaming, looking as though being awakened at five in the morning to watch someone else have a baby is their favorite occupation, as they follow him back into the room.
“Come and take him,” Keeley says, and Ted immediately scoops the baby up and cradles him like an expert.
“Look at that face,” he says, smiling so hard his own face is practically split in two. “Does he have a name?”
“Turns out my dad and Roy’s granddad both had the same name,” Keeley says. “So he’s David.”
“David . . . Jones-Kent?” Rebecca says, leaning over him as if she hasn’t already seen him, her hand on Ted’s back. “He’ll either be a star striker or a prime minister. Or both.”
(There had been a twelve-second discussion once about whether Keeley was changing her name. Roy’s sister asked, and Keeley looked at her and said, “Keeley Kent?” and that was the end of it.)
“And you’re okay?” Ted asks, his smile melting into a look of genuine concern.
“I do feel like I’ve been tackled by Man United,” Keeley says. “But I’m okay.”
“Well you sure are glowing.”
She smiles. “Thanks, Ted.”
“Here,” Ted says to Rebecca, whose face is close to his. “You take him.”
They do a much better job of transferring the baby between them than Roy and Rebecca, although Roy’s beginning to wonder whether Ted is at all concerned about touching her breasts.
“Hello again, David,” Rebecca murmurs once he’s secure in her hold. Ted is still close, his arm around her waist and one hand on the baby’s stomach.
Keeley looks at Roy, and he nods.
“So, Rebecca and Ted,” Keeley says.
Rebecca looks up. “Sorry. Did you want him back?”
“No.” Keeley smiles. “We wanted to ask – would you like to be godparents?”
Now it’s Rebecca and Ted with the identical expressions, this time of shock and wonder.
“Both of us?” Ted asks.
“Both of you,” Roy says.
Rebecca’s already someone’s godmother, he knows, and the smile that settles on her face is gentle and comfortable. Ted still looks flabbergasted.
“Gosh, you two,” he says, looking from them, to the baby, to Rebecca, back to the baby, back to Keeley in her bed. “Really?”
“Really,” Keeley says.
“Does it . . .” Ted moves his hand from the baby’s stomach to Rebecca’s hip as if he’s going to pull her closer, then quickly moves it to his own hair. “Does it matter if – I mean do you have to be part of the Church of England, or . . .”
“Rebecca is, and that’s supposed to be good enough,” Roy says.
“Real- okay, that’s another layer of the Rebecca onion,” Ted says, his glance flickering back up to her face.
“Half my family is Jewish and the other half only go to church when someone’s being married, christened, or buried,” Roy says. “So the christening part – will happen, but mostly we’re asking, you know . . .” He gestures at them and hopes they’ll understand.
“I’m . . . touched,” Ted says, looking as if he might be about to cry. “Guys. Seriously.”
“So yes?” Keeley asks.
“Yes,” they both say.
It turns out to be pretty close to the next christening date, so after a month of classes that aren’t really so bad (other than the fact that the two other sets of parents are a little starstruck), most of AFC Richmond packs into the church with Roy and Keeley’s families and a handful of friends. Their friends and Ted are equally lost for most of the service, but Rebecca really did go to a C of E school and she holds a prayer book between them and mutters when it’s time for him to do something. She’s wearing a long floral dress, softer than anything Roy’s ever seen her in, and it’s fairly obvious that Ted is looking. The only question now is whether he’s always looked at her like that and no one ever noticed.
It’s Rebecca holding the baby as he officially – in the eyes of the church – becomes David George Jones-Kent. Ted has his hand on her lower back the whole time, and the next morning one of the tabloids publishes a photo that’s caught them holding hands behind Roy and Keeley later in the ceremony. But no one sees that at the time.
The christening lunch is at Rebecca’s, and enough meaningful looks have passed between Roy and Keeley that he knows she’s going to ferret out the truth. As everyone finds places to sit down and eat, Roy ends up in a chair near the open door to the garden where Keeley and Rebecca have sat down on the steps with the baby in Keeley’s lap. He’s pretending to listen to his uncle criticize the vicar’s sermon, but he’s actually straining his ears to catch the conversation outside.
“You and Ted,” he hears Keeley say bluntly. “When did that happen?”
Although he can’t see her, Roy can perfectly picture the look on Rebecca’s face as she’s probably thinking about lying. After a moment she says, “Wolverhampton.”
Roy snorts and tries to make it look like a sneeze. He hears Keeley say, “Of all the possible places in the world to get romantic, you pick Wolverhampton?”
“It wasn’t romantic,” Rebecca says, and even though they’re frankly sappy-looking Roy has a moment of fear that this is going to be a bad story, actually. Keeley must have the same worry on her face, because Rebecca adds, “No, I mean, it was just – I couldn’t sleep, and I ended up in his room. Nothing happened, we just talked until I fell asleep. I woke up in the morning wearing him like a blanket; kind of liked it.”
Someone’s saying something to him, so Roy shoves an egg and cress sandwich in his mouth and tries to look interested. Instead of eavesdropping on his wife and his boss like a character in a soap opera.
“And Ted woke up and apologized for an hour?” Keeley guesses.
“About that long. But since he’s finally stopped trying to convince me to be mad at him – it’s been good.”
Phoebe comes running through, excited to spend time with the grown-up ladies. She barely gives her uncle a wave before she’s outside. Roy twists around to watch her settle down next to Keeley, where she can make faces at the baby and let him wrap his fingers around her thumb. “What are you talking about?” she asks.
“Ms. Rebecca and Coach Ted,” Keeley says, not missing a beat.
“What about them?”
“Is it too weird?” Rebecca asks.
Roy’s just shamelessly watching from inside the door now.
Keeley shakes her head. “You both deserve to be happy. And if that’s with each other, that’s, like, really efficient.”
“Are you going to marry Coach Ted?” Phoebe asks.
“Oh. Gosh. Not right now,” Rebecca says, smoothing her dress over her knees.
Phoebe sits up straight. It takes Roy a second to work out why that posture looks so familiar – she’s sitting exactly like Rebecca. “I was very good in Uncle Roy and Aunt Keeley’s wedding,” she reminds them.
“You absolutely were,” Rebecca says. “And if I ever get married, you are first on my list.”
Given full confirmation, Roy turns to go back into the house and look for Ted. Is it weird, his boss and the gaffer, of the most-watched, occasionally-controversial team in the league, who are also the joint godparents of his child, having it off? Yeah, probably. But he likes the boss – Mannion was a prick and she’s a huge improvement – and he likes Ted, and Keeley’s right, this is a very efficient way for them both to be happy.
All this – maybe not him and Keeley, maybe that would have happened anyway – but all these people, the team united, celebrating his son’s christening in the boss’s house; the boss standing up with Keeley at their wedding and holding their son in the church; a gaffer who complained when Roy didn’t bring David in his papoose to training, instead of calling him soft when he did . . . all this, because of a couple of clueless Americans Roy had thought wouldn’t last a week.
Fuck.