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It was rare that George and Ringo ventured out from Friar Park, and yet here Paul was, standing in the kitchen next to John, chopping vegetables in preparation for their arrival. Maybe it was normal enough, Paul thought. Maybe George and Ringo had been getting out more. He couldn’t remember exactly. But it had been busy the past few weeks, what with a newborn and Julian starting nursery school.
The process of making dinner seemed ordinary. Paul stood at the counter, Mary in a baby wrap against his chest, while John manned the stove a few paces away, boiling what smelled like lentil soup. Paul couldn’t remember choosing the main course, but John was a good cook. It would taste fine, whatever it was.
Sometime in the middle of the cooking, Julian wandered through, Heather just behind him. They stood on their tiptoes to see what was happening above their normal line of sight, as well as to look for any morsels of food they could snack on.
John picked both of them up in one swoop to give them a better view of the soup. The motion put his biceps on full display, and Paul found himself staring. John danced his eyebrows suggestively, and Paul knew he went red. How lucky was he that he still had the teddy boy he fell in love with all those years ago? That they had what they had, together? John gave a knowing smile, a soft one, and whispered a quiet I love you.
When Julian and Heather’s curiosity was satisfied, John set them down and they retreated to the play room. Moments later, John and Paul could hear the sounds of an imaginary world, one where rabbits ran diners and bluebirds were their customers. It was as beautiful a noise as any music the men had ever heard or composed. So, too, were the occasional yawns and gurgling noises that Mary made, shifting just slightly in her wrap as she dozed through the preparations.
“Reckon she’ll sleep all the way to the farm next month, just like Heather does?” John asked with a chuckle, stirring the lentils with a practiced hand.
“We can only hope!” Paul joked, fondly stroking Mary’s hair. It was surprisingly thick for a newborn, and just as dark as his own. “She’s been pretty good so far, hasn’t she? With sleeping nights?”
“Yeah, I think so. Definitely a sound sleeper when she does sleep. Better than Julian, that’s for sure.”
“Dear Lord.” Paul cringed at the memory of numerous sleepless nights, for Julian and the two of them. “Glad he’s gotten better lately, too.”
John nodded in agreement. “Sleeping in his own room again, without the two of us. Do you remember when he wouldn’t let go of you a few weeks ago?”
“When was that?” Paul paused, trying to remember even as he asked the question.
“Maybe a week before Mary?” John offered. “Anyway, he was holding onto you like a proper octopus, got teary when you explained you had to go say goodnight to Heather, even though you were going to come back.”
The memory flashed into Paul’s mind. Julian had indeed been clingy, refusing to let Paul leave the room. When John came in to help a few minutes later, Julian hadn’t wanted either of them to leave. It was rather cute, of course, but part of Paul worried that if he and John ever had to leave the kids with someone in an emergency, Julian would be practically inconsolable. Sometimes, he could hardly stand to be a few rooms away from his parents even when they were awake.
“School will help him, love,” John said, reading Paul’s thoughts. “He’ll be alright. He’s like you that way, can face anything in his own way and make it look good, too.”
“You flatter me,” Paul said with a forced smile. “Just worried about him, you know how I get.”
“I do, and that’s how I know both of you will be alright. He’s already doing so well. I only have to stay a short while in the morning now before he’s alright with me leaving.”
Paul held this thought close for the remainder of dinner preparation, just as he kept Mary close against his chest. He wouldn’t know what to do without the kids, or without John. He’d had John in his life for so long, and it seemed like the kids had always been there. Sometimes Paul wondered how he had gone through life without them, without their family. There was such a fear there, of being apart from them, even of losing them. But perhaps he worried too much. John had promised him they’d stay together, stay as a family. It would be alright.
And yet something felt wrong. Even when George and Ringo arrived, cheerful and lively, Paul’s worry remained. It was an unwelcome guest at the dining table, the eighth member of a meal planned for seven.
But then why was there an eighth chair at the table? For symmetry? Paul couldn’t remember. When it was just them as a family, they ate in the kitchen. It felt cozier there, and for some reason, the word safe came to mind. But it was nice to have guests, Paul supposed, especially George and Ringo, and need the larger table. The more the merrier, maybe.
“Album’s out, John. Feeling proud?”
“Among the easiest questions you could have asked him, Ringo,” Paul heard himself saying. “Been talking about it for weeks before it came out.”
“And it’s really that good, hmm?” George teased.
“As long as it’s listened to with an open mind, yeah,” John said earnestly. “It’s, well it’s a bit different from what I’ve done in the past. I’m proud of it, and it’s gotten good reviews not that that matters much.”
“At least you’ve got a built in fan base,” Ringo noted, looking at Julian and Heather, seated on the long side of the table between John at the head and Paul toward the end, and then Mary, in the high chair on the other side of John. “I’m sure they like what you’ve played them.”
“Amazing, what having kids can do for your ego,” John chuckled. “They seem to enjoy it, though I should mention that Heather hardly makes it through a song before nodding off. Not sure if that’s a testament to a song’s boring qualities or its soothing ones.”
“How about you Paul?” Ringo asked, a chuckle in his voice. “Album a good effort, you think?”
Paul looked to the head of the table, finding John’s eyes behind his glasses. They were open and loving, trusting and content. Paul loved those eyes. He’d been looking into them since they used to squint for want of glasses and when they stared confidently at a crowd they couldn’t truly see. There had always been such fondness in them for Paul, too, and that in and of itself used to make Paul go weak at the knees. Still did. Now those same eyes could take in everything, thanks to the round frames in front of them, and when they looked at Paul, there was still such a fondness in them.
“You’re getting lost in his eyes again, Paul,” George commented from across the table. His voice could hardly contain its gentle smirk.
“Like you don’t get all wrapped up in Ringo’s,” Paul threw back, earning a chuckle from the man himself.
“Alright, enough with the eye stuff you lot,” John called from the head of the table. “What about my album, then?”
“It’s very good, Johnny,” Paul assured, laughing a bit at John’s faux peeved expression. “I’m so excited that the rest of the world can finally hear it.”
“Generous praise from the perfectionist!” Ringo clapped.
“It’s enough to make me want to buy it,” George mused.
“Like you don’t already own it,” Ringo tutted. He turned to John. “Better be careful, or he’ll be wanting a signed album cover.”
“I suppose I could oblige, for as loyal a fan as him. I don’t recall getting a signed copy of yours last year, though.”
“An error on my part, I assure you,” George joked, keeping up the jest. “I’ll have my personal secretary send one over in the morning post.”
“Am I to assume that I am the secretary?” Ringo asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Well you’re the one who knows where the stamps are,” George said, eliciting laughter from John and Paul. Heather joined in, ever the mimic, and Julian smiled, just like Paul would do in a somewhat confusing situation for him.
The gaiety was loud enough that it almost drowned out the knocking on the door.
“You expecting anyone?” Ringo asked, looking to John and Paul. “I’m sorry if George and I intruded on a pre-planned evening.”
John shook his head. “We didn’t invite company. Besides, it’s getting late. Hardly the time for people to come calling.”
“Reckon it could be fans? Somehow got over the gate, maybe?” George offered, though he didn’t sound happy about the suggestion.
“No one’s jumped the fence before,” John said slowly. “And we have the alarms.”
The knocking continued, this time with hardly a pause between bouts of hammering. Paul swallowed. His head felt far away, like he was separate from where he sat. Something was different. He said as much, in a voice that was as far removed as he felt.
“This isn’t normal.” He looked to John. “Johnny…?”
“It’s alright, love,” John assured, reaching across the table for Paul’s hand. “I’ll just go check through the front. Be back in a moment.”
John rose from his chair after giving one more soothing squeeze to his husband’s fingers.
“So Paul,” George spoke up, diverting Paul’s focus from the insistent knocking and his connected worry, “how’s life with a newborn again?”
“Simultaneously exhausting and invigorating,” Paul said, smiling in spite of himself. “Seeing all of her firsts is just as wonderful as it was with Jules and Heather. She’s just learned how to smile, sort of, and yesterday John got a bit of a laugh out of her, a real one. He was laying her down for her nap—”
The sound of breaking glass shattered the veil of their domestic evening, the thin wall of their separated lives. Julian jumped in his seat, eyes searching wildly for Paul. Heather, too, looked for reassurance in her father’s face, and Mary’s joyful gurgling stopped in confusion.
“John? John, is everything alright?” Paul’s voice was shaky, as were his movements. He was torn between leaving the table to find his husband and staying put to guard his children. “Johnny?”
“What on Earth was that?” George half-stood up from his chair, mirroring Ringo next to him.
Another noise emanated from the entryway. It was deep and solid, the perfect opposite to the glass. Paul recognized it as something smashing against wood, and an instinctual light went off in his brain. He’d just put the pieces together when a series of shouts reached his ears.
“What in bloody hell do yeh think you’re doing! This is my home!” John’s voice was outraged, strained with anger. “You can’t come into a private residence without a warrant! Leave us alone!”
“Dada?” Julian grabbed Paul’s sleeve, eyes wide and mouth quivering. Paul could have sworn he was looking at John in that moment, their eyes were that alike. “Dada?”
Heather scrambled out of her seat and hurried to Paul’s chair, clinging to his legs just as Mary let out a wail. A crash came from the foyer, followed by a dull thud, adding to the cacophony. A cry, pained in it’s tone, hit Paul to the core. John.
“Let me go! Stop it!” The sounds of a scuffle. Then: “You can't keep taking away my family! Paul! Paul, the kids—!” John was cut off with another thud. It was closer now. Much closer.
Adrenaline rushed through Paul and before he knew what he was doing he had Heather and Julian in his arms. He found himself rushing to the other side of the table, where Mary was howling in her high chair. Soon she was somehow against his chest as well, trembling in the same manner as her siblings.
Only then, children secured, did he look up to survey the room. Ringo was gone, to where Paul had no idea, and George was coming toward Paul, a look of urgency in his wide eyes. Wide. Not squinted, not behind glasses. Not like John’s eyes. John, he was out there. In the hallway, hurt. He’d cried out. Paul had heard him.
“Paul! You’ve got to go!” George was pushing him now, motioning to the other door. “Paul, you need to get out of here! Go!”
Go where? Without John? Not as a family? Paul’s head swam. They hardly went anywhere if they weren’t all together. And he couldn’t just leave John behind at a time like this. He needed John. He couldn’t do this — whatever this was — without him.
Mary let out another wail in his arms. The only one not truly sobbing was Heather, and she seemed to be climbing up to his shoulder, as far away as she could get from the noise, as close to something safe as she could be. Paul could feel the fear in them, in all of them, as they clutched to him.
That was what did it. The thought of the kids in danger. His kids, their kids. Paul turned away from the exit to the hall, the noises coming ever closer, and made for the door to the kitchen.
“It’s alright, everything is going to be alright.” Paul did his best to soothe them. Every step was closer to the kitchen. He didn’t know what to do after that — the door to the garden, maybe? But he’d hardly be any better off there. He needed the car. Needed to get to the garage. More steps forward. He was almost there. “I’m right here. Nothing is going to happen to you. You’ll be fine, I promise—”
He was yanked backwards. He was grabbed, turned around, and roughly maneuvered. His head throbbed and a split second later came the realization he had been slammed back against the wall. Then his arms were being pried apart.
No. No, this wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t strong enough to keep all three of them to his chest. He needed help.
“John! George!”
Each of the kids was crying now, and Julian was screaming just as loudly as Mary, yelling his name over and over again. Dada, Dada, Dada!
And Julian was being pulled away from him. Wrenched from his arms. Paul felt his hands, so small and fragile, really, try to grab hold of his shirt, to hold on just a second longer. The grasp hardly lasted. He was gone then, locked away in a prison of thick black sleeves and shining silver buttons.
“It’s alright baby, you’re alright!” Paul assured desperately. “Stay calm for me, deep breaths Jules. You’re alright, please baby, it’s going to be fine. Don’t struggle!”
Something in Julian’s face, tear-stained and terrified, smoothed at Paul’s words. He was still crying, still trembling, but his father’s words still had the resonant power of protection. If Dada said it would be alright, it had to be alright, didn’t it?
Heather was next, ripped away just as Julian had been. Paul shot his free arm out after her, trying to pull her back to him without hurting her, but that only left Mary more exposed. A hand flashed into view, fingers ready to ensnare her. Paul twitched away, wrapping her tighter against his chest as he tried to calm Heather down.
“Heather! Please, don’t struggle!” She was kicking wildly in her captor’s arms, landing blows more often than not. But that would only make it worse for herself. “Heather! Heather, listen to me. You need to be calm, alright? Be still. Please sweetheart, for me. You’re alright.”
Paul had no idea as to the truth of his promises, but saying otherwise as this moment in time wasn’t going to help anything. He didn’t let himself linger on the thought that he wanted to believe it was true, too. He couldn’t bear to think of it being any other way.
“Sir, hand over the child.” The voice was deep and grating, and Paul was sure he had heard it somewhere.
Was it someone they knew? Had they been turned in? But it wasn’t illegal! They weren’t illegal anymore! These were his children! Mary was biologically his!
“Sir, hand over the child.”
Paul tried to meet the man’s eyes, but he couldn’t find his face. It was dark or blank or hidden or something. Paul’s eyes couldn’t focus. His head was swirling. This couldn’t be real. Please God, please this can’t be happening.
“Hand over the child. Now.”
“But she’s just a baby!” Paul finally found his voice. “She’s only three weeks old, please. She needs to be cared for. And, and her lungs, please, she needs to have time outside. You can’t take her, she’s only a baby!”
Her cries rose higher and higher and Paul knew he was crying too. But he had to stay calm. He had to. For Julian and Heather and Mary and John. John!
Where’s John? They’re taking Mary now, taking her away. I need help. I need John to be here. What if they’re taking him, too? I can’t do this alone. I can’t lose all of them. Not like this. I need the kids, I need John.
“John! John, help! Johnny, Johnny they’re taking them! Johnny, please! John!” he wasn't calm anymore. His voice grew hoarser and hoarser and the kids’ screams grew louder and louder in his ears and all he could see was the man’s blank face and he couldn’t feel anything but a ripping at his chest. “Johnny! John, help us, please! John! John!”
It didn’t sound like John’s name anymore. He didn’t hear it when he yelled it. He heard something else. Something strange and familiar all at once. It was growing louder, too. Urgent and pained, calling to him, hitting against his ears. It sounded like something John would say. But what would he say right now? He’d call out to him, yell for him. For him, for—
“Paul! Paul! PAUL!”
Paul jerked away. He heard himself scream again. “John! John, the kids!”
“Paul! Paul! Paul, wake up!”
Paul whipped his head around again, trying desperately to focus. He still only saw a man’s face, a blank face. Except… no. No, it wasn’t blank anymore. It had a straight nose, tousled hair, bleary eyes. It looked tired, like it had just woken up. Woken up? It had been asleep. Had he been asleep.
“J-John?” Paul couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe anything right now.
“Paul! Paul darling, are you alright?” John’s voice was tinged with sleep but still filled with concern.
“Johnny, the kids!” Paul felt his heart racing. How much of that had been a dream? Had any of it?
“What? Paul—”
“The kids! Where are the kids!” Paul frantically fumbled with the blankets as he tried to free himself. “They took the kids, John!”
“Paul! Paul love, please! You’re alright!” John gripped Paul’s shoulders with a tender firmness, holding him still. “You were dreaming, darling. Whatever it was, it was just a dr—”
“How much of it was a dream! How much!” Vaguely, distantly, Paul knew how crazed he must sound. How irrational and nonsensical. But the underlying fear was still there: where were the kids?
“I, I don’t know, darling,” John stumbled, clueless to what Paul had dreamt. “But you’re alright, I promise you. I’m right here.”
“And the kids?” Paul suddenly found himself afraid to ask. In the darkness of their room, the shadows hanging from the walls and standing in the corners, his emotions tumbled one after the other. Hysterics to quiet fear to what he felt as a rising tide of desperate, hopeful relief.
“They’re fine, they’re fine Macca.” John ran a hand up to Paul’s cheek, stroking his beard and the curls of hair against his ear. “They’re asleep love, Jules and Heather down the hall.”
“What about Mary? Did they take her? In the dream—”
“Shh, darling, shh. Mary’s in her crib, just next to the bed. Here, wait a moment, stay and sit for me, yeah? There we are.” John disentangled himself from the blankets and crawled over Paul’s legs, careful not to kneel on them. He slid his feet to the hardwood floor, and Paul watched the dim glow from the hallway night light and occasional slivers of moon glide across his shoulders. It shifted more to his back as he leaned down, stretching his arms into the bassinet. “Here we go, shh little one, that’s it. Just taking you to see your Dada. He loves you so much, y’know.”
“I-is she alright?” Paul felt the waver in his voice. “Johnny, she’s alright?”
“She’s just fine, love. Sleeping soundly like her siblings. Put your arms out, that’s it.” John set the swaddled bundle in Paul’s hands, watching his husband with careful concern.
It had been a fine day for them. Julian had finished his second week at nursery school and seemed to be enjoying it more as time went on. Heather was adjusting wonderfully to her role as a big sister, watching Mary with wonder and helping Paul feed her. Mary herself was as pleasant a baby as her parents could have asked for. Full of smiles and cheerful gurgling noises and looking every inch like a McCartney, she fit into their family perfectly.
George and Ringo had said as much when they dropped by for dinner. She was fascinated by Ringo’s rings, and when the group settled down to watch television in the evening, she’d fallen asleep on her uncle’s chest. George couldn’t resist pulling out his camera when Ringo, too, fell asleep. It was an almost perfect way to end the day, calm and full of love.
But the nightmare had been horrible. When Paul first started twitching and mumbling in his sleep, waking John, the latter had deliberated between letting the dream run its course or ending it by jostling Paul awake. At the muffled cries, John was shaking his husband’s shoulder. At the screaming, he’d been calling his name in earnest. John knew that Paul finally opening his eyes and beginning to understand his surroundings was the best thing he’d see all day, even though it was barely 2 in the morning. Must have been a hell of a nightmare, likely one that built on real events from the day, even small ones. John swallowed a sigh. He and Paul needed to talk to someone about these dreams. And soon.
“Do you want to visit Julian and Heather, love?” John whispered, nudging Paul gently.
Paul looked up, eyes teary. “Can we bring them in here, Johnny? Just for tonight, please? I know Jules is learning to sleep on his own again, but—”
“Of course we can Macca.” John pressed a kiss to Paul’s forehead. It was slicked in sweat. “Do you want to talk about the dream?”
Paul cast his eyes down this time. Then he shook his head. “Not right now. I, I don’t think I can.” He tucked Mary even closer to his chest.
John leaned in, wrapping the two of them into his arms. He’d ask about the dream later. Coax it out of Paul to discern the anxieties behind the nightmare. Reassure him over and over again that they were a family, that their kids were safe, that they’d stay together. Listen to him and wipe his tears. It would all happen. But later. In the hours of the morning where light chased worries away and laughter filled hearts from the bottom up to overflowing. That would be later.
As for now. Now was for holding his husband close and rocking him gently as he rocked their newborn daughter. It was for scooping their toddlers from their rooms and setting them gently amid the blankets of the master bed and crawling in after them. For drawing the blankets up around them all and showing Paul the best way he knew how that it was alright. That they were together. That this was real.