Chapter Text
John loved New York.
He loved the energy of the city that never slept, how there was always something happening that wanted him to be a part of it. He loved the music scene, kids in clubs and an indie band on every block doing things he never would have dreamed of; he and Paul went out on weekends to see bands they didn't know and ones they were fans of. One night John got on stage at the Bowery Ballroom and sang with Laura Jane Grace, howling you should have been a mother, you should have been a wife, you should have been gone from here years ago into the microphone. He loved the museums and the culture, loved introducing his children to the wider world and watching them be awestruck by it. He loved the apartment in the Campanile on East 52nd Street by the river that they were renting for the summer: three bedrooms, an open floor plan, and a spiral iron staircase that wound up to the roof, where on nice evenings they would have dinner and play games until it was time for the girls to go to bed.
He loved how easily songs came. Ever since ending the Beatles he and Paul had been working separately and successfully. Paul had followed up his first self-titled album with another one he recorded entirely on his own, at the house in London and up on the farm in Scotland; he put together a new band to back him up and made another a few months after Ram came out. He went out on tour, something he'd always missed, playing at universities around Britain and across Europe the year after; John stayed home with the girls for the first, because Julia had school, but they went along for the second. He was glad to stay backstage with them, putting plugs in their ears and singing along; where Paul had always gotten energy from performing live, John was completely drained by it.
Paul’s latest album had been released in April, shortly before they decamped to New York, and he was in the middle of a tour, spending May on the road in the UK and picking up again in July. He was so happy to be back on the road again; he was energized by the crowd, loving how they loved him. He was writing faster and more enthusiastically than he had in years. John loved the playfulness in his work, and how he wasn't holding back anything. He could be funny, bitchy, sexy - whatever he wanted, because he was on his own and didn't have to answer to anyone else.
John had taken more time with his first album, writing new songs and reworking old demos over the course of a few months before recording them. He went back into memory and emotion, bringing what he'd gotten from therapy to the songs, writing about his mother, his grief, his miscarriage, his fears, the hopes he wanted to encourage in himself, and the people he really loved. Recording it felt like an exorcism of sorts, sloughing off a layer of skin and letting himself be raw and open on his own for the first time. The reviews were good, but the most rewarding thing was when Paul came downstairs after listening to a rough cut, tears in his eyes, and hugged John so tightly that it pressed the air out of him. "It's the most honest thing you've ever done," he said into John's neck. "Bloody brilliant."
John followed it up just under a year later. He leaned into his politics. Existence was political: he was trans and queer, he was raising children in a same-gender relationship, and he was still fighting every day to be recognized for who and what he was. He wrote a song asking people to imagine a new kind of world; a song about the working class who needed a hero; songs about love, fear, anger. It was a hit, especially the title track, which became a sort of anthem in the community for people who were looking for a better future. John never intended it to take on that life - it was just a song, he insisted, but Paul reminded him that there was no way to control something once it was out in the world. That December John put out a Christmas song for a single, getting Paul to join him for the intro to whisper happy Christmas Julia, happy Christmas Alice.
The first trip to New York came shortly after Imagine was released. The timing worked out well. Paul had time off between sessions and John wanted to bring the girls. Julia hadn't been since she was a baby, when they played Shea Stadium for the second and final time; she was old enough to appreciate the city. Alice was coming up on her second birthday, but easy-going, and it was no big deal to push her in her pram while they walked with Julia, as she marveled at everything New York had to offer. It was good for the children to experience a new place and better for their parents to get out of the country for a while. A month before they left, John and Paul returned their M.B.E.s to the Queen, after learning that an anti-trans activist was receiving an award for her "services to children." John was apocalyptic. He almost threw his phone at the wall. The idea of someone who made their life's work out of harming children by forcing them to stay silent about who they really were, kids who were just like he'd been, made him want to be sick. He decided at that moment that his MBE wasn't worth the metal it was molded out of, and when Paul came home he told him exactly what he planned to do. "I'm sending it back. I don't want it anymore," he said, pacing the floor, hands on his hips. "It doesn't mean anything."
"Are you sure?"
"Some TERF cunt gets an award from that old bat between defending her sweaty nonce son and taking up space by not fucking dying, I've had it." John sat down on the sofa. "You don't have to send yours back if you don't want to. You always thought it was worth more than I did. But mine's going back as soon as I can get it from Mimi."
"If you're doing it then I will too," Paul said.
"Yeah?"
"I'm on your side, Johnny. Always have been." Paul sat next to him. "Don't think I could look you in the eye if I didn't."
John took the children to visit Mimi and snuck the medal off her mantelpiece when she wasn't looking. He had given it to her, because she cared about it more than he ever did, and for years it had occupied a place of honor over the fireplace. She phoned the day after, when she realized what had happened, furious with him and demanding it back, but she relented after John reminded her that but for the grace of God and a binder given to him by his mother at exactly the right time, he would have been one of those children who lost themselves. Paul put his in the same box and they sent it along to the Secretary of the Central Chancery, along with letters to the Queen and the Prime Minister.
Your Majesty,
We the undersigned are returning our M.B.E.s in protest against the awarding of the British Empire Medal to a known anti-trans activist whose actions have done considerable harm to LGBTQ+ youth in Britain. To honor her for her "services to children" is beyond the pale.
John Lennon
Paul McCartney
The backlash was swift. Every newsreader and talking head had to add their opinion; John watched people in ugly suits and with bad haircuts discuss if he was sufficiently patriotic enough, if he should be punished in some way, and what the fuss even was in the first place. "It's not necessary for children to make these sort of decisions themselves," one of them, a blonde with a shellac helmet hairdo, sniffed. "When they're older, if they still feel that way, then they can pursue it. I'm a fan of the Beatles but I have to disagree here."
John retweeted the video and added a comment. If I'd waited until I was "older" then I probably would have topped myself and never made any of the music you're supposedly such a fan of. Children are suffering. How dare you disagree with that?
He was eviscerated. Most people didn't understand the severity of the problem. It wasn't just about puberty blockers and binders, it was about dignity and recognition. The Prime Minister made noises about disrespect and decorum. People on social media attacked him for speaking his mind, just like the Jesus thing years earlier. When someone tried to break into the house he put his foot down. "We have to get out of London for a little while," he said. "Until they find a new problem and forget about me."
"Where?"
New York. They landed on a bitter cold day in early November and moved into an apartment on Bank Street in the Village. Julia did her school work remotely on a small laptop, and Alice was Jenny's charge during the day. John brought some unrecorded songs with him and wrote a few more shortly after they arrived, inspired by the city and the people he met. He and Paul went out one night and saw a band called Elephant's Memory at a club, and he was so interested in them he went backstage to ask them if they'd be interested in playing with him. Three weeks later they were at the Record Plant working on the songs that would become John's third album. Paul's next album was released in early December, just before John went into the studio, and except for a quick visit home for the holidays, they stayed in New York until March, when the album was finished. John gave it the most obvious title: Some Time in New York City. "New York, to most people from Britain or Europe, is America," he said, giving an interview to promote it. "We were brought up on that skyline of Manhattan, and it's a real dream to be here and feel part of it, you know."
It was not well received. He'd leaned further into politics, singing about the causes that meant the most to him - trans rights, prison reform, mental health - but there was a fine line between singing about his beliefs and asking people to come along. He let it slide. He made the album he wanted to make in that moment in time, and he was proud of it. Life kept going. Before they left for London, John made an appearance at a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden, playing without his own band for the first time in his life. Paul was backstage watching but he still felt alone in a crowd of thousands as he sang "Come Together."
Paul started working on his next album as soon as they got home, Julia went back to school, Alice started learning to read, the dogs lay around the house, and John made up his mind to stop trying to explain himself. He had spent years trying to convince the world that he wasn't a monster or an alien, but it would be a waste of breath to go on when so many people just didn't want to hear it. He didn't need their approval, anyway. He was man enough for himself, plenty tough - tougher than cis men who, he knew, would beg for mercy if they had to experience a fraction of the shit he'd had to go through to have his children.
Months passed and John wanted to go back to New York, so they decided on another summer in the same co-op. Paul's tour began in May and the first part wrapped up before the end of the month. They were back in New York by the first week of June, moving into the Campanile and falling into a routine quickly. John was glad to be in New York for the summer, looking forward to going back to the Record Plant, excited to start working and for all the things that only New York City had to offer. But on that morning in mid-June, a few days before Paul and Julia's birthday - Paul thirty-one, Julia eight - on a cool morning that was going to turn into a warm, humid day, the thing that John loved most about New York City was that he could sneak out of the apartment, leaving his boyfriend, children, and their nanny asleep in their beds, walk to the nearest drug store, and purchase a pregnancy test with cash without anyone seeing him. He didn't want to be recognized. He was already close to panicking. It was all so carefully choreographed; Paul's new album had just come out two months before, John was getting ready to go into the studio for his next album, and as soon as he was finished Paul was going to start another. There was a tour to finish, and they had to go home and get Julia back to school, and start getting Alice ready to enter nursery school. A baby would throw a wrench into their plans and rewrite the next year. It would be a disaster.
Thank God the self checkout was open. John paid for the test and shoved it into his pocket for the walk back to the apartment. He let himself in quietly and went straight to the bathroom attached to his and Paul's room to take it. Paul was still asleep, sprawled across the bed with his head on John's pillow. The last time John had taken a test he'd woken Paul to give him the news. He wasn't looking forward to doing it again, but if the test was positive he wouldn't be able to hold it in. John took the test and left it on the counter when he left the bathroom, heading for the kitchen to set up the coffee maker. They would need coffee no matter what happened.
He was so focused on the coffee and his own racing thoughts that he didn't hear blankets rustling and didn't consider that Paul could get up while he was out of the room. When he walked back into the bathroom he jumped at the sight of Paul holding the stick. "What the hell is this?"
"What's it look like, a mouth organ?"
"You think you're pregnant?"
"I didn't piss on it for fun."
"John."
"Yes, okay? I think I could be pregnant." John sat down with his back against the counter. Paul left the test where he'd found it and sat next to him. "I just have this feeling. I've been tired lately. Feeling like my nerves have gotten shorter. The other day when I was coming out of the subway I got a face full of cigarette smoke and I thought I was going to be sick."
"You've been on your shots for almost three years."
"Julia happened when I was on my shots, remember? And we've gone without condoms recently."
"The night we landed here."
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking." John put his hands on the back of his neck and leaned forward until his elbows were digging into his knees. "Christ on a bike, how could we be so careless? We can't have a baby right now. You're back on tour in a couple of weeks and I'm starting my album right after."
"We made a film while you were pregnant with Julia and broke up the Beatles right before Alice was born."
"I don't even know if I'm ready for another right now. We haven't talked about it at all."
"Do you want a third child, John?"
John looked up. Paul was looking at him with so much love John thought he could cry. "I do," he said. "But it'll be the last one."
"You're sure?"
"If it's positive then it'll be four times in ten years that I've been pregnant. I've had enough. I might even want to be fixed after. Have them take it all out so I never have to think about it again."
Paul brought his hand to his mouth and tapped his finger against his lips. "So we do want another baby. When?"
"Not fucking now, I'll tell you that much."
"Is the test ready?"
"Dunno. Forgot to set a timer."
Paul stood up. "We're fucked," John said. "I'm pregnant, aren't I? Worst time possible. God. Now we have to go home, get all the baby shit out, and I'll be sick and miserable soon, and we'll have to tell the girls, and -"
"John," Paul said. "Shut up."
"Why?"
"Because you're not pregnant."
John stood up and took the test out of Paul's hand. The little display said Not Pregnant. He felt his heart slow, and his head stopped buzzing. It was almost like he was deflating. "Oh," he said. "Well. How about that?"
"Yeah. Suppose you're just late."
"Must be. Huh. Don't have to worry about it." John looked back to Paul. "Good, yeah?"
Paul opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but he was interrupted by Alice calling "Dada! Daddy! I'm up!" from the room she was sharing with Julia, which was quickly followed by Julia saying "Dad, make her be quiet," and the sound of the water turning on in the other bathroom, letting them know that Jenny was awake and getting ready, so there was no time to talk at the moment. The day was starting.
They didn't talk about it again until the night of Paul and Julia's birthday. Like they'd done in the past, they celebrated Julia during the day and Paul at night. Instead of a party, they went to the Central Park Zoo, had ice cream for lunch, and took a taxi down Broadway to the Strand, where she picked out a stack of comic books and graphic novels so tall she had to hold it under her chin to keep it steady. After the girls had gone to bed, John and Paul changed and went out for a late dinner, just the two of them, and afterwards went for a stroll through the park, hand in hand. "I think Julia's going to grow up to be a comic book artist," John said. "She's already better at it than I am."
"Maybe we should put her in an art class. There must be one for kids her age."
"They do programs for children at the Met and MOMA."
"What about Alice?"
"Don't know yet. She's not even four, she has plenty of time to figure it out." They were coming up on Bethesda Terrace as they walked deeper into the park, heading towards the Ramble and the row of luxury apartment buildings on the west side. "Listen, Paul. Were you serious about wanting another?"
"Of course. Do you want one?"
"I do, yeah. But I was serious about it being the last one, too. Four times in ten years is hard on a body. Not counting what they do to me on the outside."
"Yeah."
They stopped at the stone barrier that overlooked the terrace and the Angel of the Waters. "When?" Paul said.
"Not now. Maybe not even this year."
"I won't get the name book out just yet, then."
"No, not yet."
In July Paul went back to the UK by himself to wrap up the last dates of the tour; Sheffield, Birmingham, Leicester, and Newcastle. John and the girls stayed in New York; John found a weekly art class for Julia and a playgroup for Alice at the nearby Y, began working on his album, and thought about what he'd discussed with Paul. He did want another child, and he wanted it to be the last one. Paul would have been happy to keep having kids until he had enough for a football team, but if he wanted a fourth he could do it with someone else. The more he considered it the more attractive the idea of being sterilized became. No more scares, no more periods, all fun and no game.
Paul phoned every night to talk to the girls and tell John about the shows. After his last show, he phoned at the usual time, and then again a few hours later, when Julia and Alice were both asleep and John was lying in bed with a book. "Guess what I just did," Paul said.
"Wrote a song? Fucked the Duchess of Cambridge? Grew a third eye?"
"No." Paul let out a hushed giggle. "I smoked a joint. A big one, Johnny. Thick as my thumb."
"How nice."
"Phwoar, the weed you can get now is something else. I feel like I'm floating. Where was this when we were picking stems and seeds out of those shitty little bags?"
"Perks of rock star life." John put his book aside. "Did you phone me at this hour to brag about weed?"
"No. Well, yes, a little, but! There was something else."
"I'm listening."
"I just wanted to tell you that I really do want another child. Our last baby. Think about it, really consider it, John. We'll never have another. Never see the ultrasound for the first time. Never feel it moving ever again. Never hold one of our babies in a hospital room."
"Yeah. And I'll never puke my guts up in the morning, suffer through leg cramps and unspeakably painful heartburn, and destroy my fanny bringing one of your big-headed children into the world ever again."
"Johnny," Paul said, playfully chiding him. "You know you love them before they're even born. Just like me."
"Of course I do. But it's rough." John lay down on his side. If Paul were there they'd be curling together to kiss and caress. "You'll be the first to know when I'm ready."
"I love you so much. I love our girls so much. And I'm gonna love our last kid, too. Even though they're still an egg."
"The sperm to fertilize it hasn't been made yet. Wonder which one of them is gonna win the lottery. I love you, too, Paul."
"Always knew I'd have kids with you. Knew it in Paris. Remember Paris, babe?"
"Fucking in that closet sized room at the hostel. I hope that memory lingers when I'm on my deathbed and my life flashes before my eyes."
Paul laughed. "We should go back. Just you and me. Get a hotel room and fuck like rabbits for a week. Room service when we get hungry, bring our guitars to write if we're inspired. Like we used to do when we toured."
"I'd do Paris with you any time."
Three days later Paul was back in New York and John was putting in twelve hour days at the Record Plant. He left after breakfast and didn't get in until after everyone was in bed. He was proud of the work he was doing, writing and producing the whole thing himself: he had a clear vision for the sound he wanted, the engineers he'd chosen were cooperative, and the songs were as good as anything he'd ever written. He was particularly happy with the songs he'd written about Paul, neither of which he'd sung to him yet. He wanted them to be a surprise. Even after twelve years and two children together, tender feelings were still sometimes hard to express. The first was about their past, how they'd met and clung together after an introduction that was more destiny than chance: Out the blue you came to me, and blew away life's misery. The second was rooted in the present, in the life they'd made together, with nods to their old Lennon-McCartney songs thrown in: Today, I love you more than yesterday. Right now, I love you more right now.
John sometimes stayed in the studio until after midnight, tweaking a song or listening to different mixes. One night, he didn't get back to the apartment until almost one. He left his shoes at the door so he wouldn't make too much noise, but stopped halfway down the hall at the sound of guitar and Paul's voice. He stepped lightly until he got to the girls' bedroom and stood in the doorway. The room was lit only with a nightlight in the corner. Julia was asleep in her bed, wearing her headphones; Alice was awake, hugging her bunny to her chest, watching Paul. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor facing her, strumming his acoustic, and singing softly. "Better give me some time for this heart of mine, 'cause I just can't take it all in...still we will remember, Daddy's little girl, still we will remember -"
"Dada," Alice said, sitting up.
Paul looked up. "Evening, Johnny."
"What are you doing up so late?"
"Alice had a nightmare. She asked for a song to help her back to sleep."
"Poor baby." Alice was prone to nightmares. She was more excitable that Julia had been at that age, more given to getting lost in fantasy, and had inherited John's overactive imagination. He sat down on her bed. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Alice shook her head. "It was scary."
"I know. But remember, Allie, it's only a dream. Dreams are only in your head, and you can control them."
"How?"
"Think of something lovely before you go to sleep." John's mother had given him the same advice, when he was small. "Now, give us both a hug, and we'll see you in the morning."
They waited until she was lying down and closed her eyes before leaving. Paul shut the door. "She dreamed that we were all walking in Central Park and she got separated, and she couldn't find us. At least, I think that's what she said."
"It'll be better for her when we get home. You haven't had to sing either of them back to sleep for a long time."
"I don't mind. Anything to get them settled."
John completed his album in mid-August, and they finished out the summer in New York before going home. Paul went back to work straight away to record the songs he'd been writing since his last album came out. He and John, along with George, made three separate appearances on the album Ringo was recording at the same time, re-igniting the rumors of a Beatles reunion even though the four of them were never in the studio at the same time. John spent his time mostly at home, writing and recording demos, catching up on reading, spending time with the girls, and thinking about the third child he and Paul both wanted. When he brought up the subject, Paul kicked the ball back into his court. "I'm ready when you are," he said.
"No pressure, though."
"I'm serious. Say when and we'll start."
John turned thirty-three in October. He was well aware that it wouldn't be getting any easier to have a baby as he got older. The doses in his last bottle were winding down, and he kept putting off calling in a refill. For Alice's birthday in November - four already, even though John felt like he'd been sweating and groaning just the other day - they had a party at a paint your own pottery place with twelve other four year olds. He watched both of his girls: Julia, focusing intently on painting her mug, sweetly awkward like a filly still trying to get her legs underneath her, and Alice, auburn hair curling into a halo around her head, a human tornado of energy as she splattered paint everywhere. Having a third almost felt like he was pushing his luck. He still thought about the one that didn't make it, in early February and the middle of September. But Alice had made her way out to join them, and Julia endured not being noticed for three months. Twice he'd managed it. "I can hear you thinking," Paul said, after they'd put both girls to bed that night. "What's on your mind?"
"If we want a third baby, we should probably get on it," John said. "Before I start to dry up."
"You're nowhere near that yet. Are you ready?"
"I'm not going to call in my refill. Let's see where we are in the spring."
Paul's album was released at the end of November. It was a smash hit. John contributed backing vocals on a few songs, including the title track, and he posed with Paul and the others for the cover art, so he felt a little proprietary over it. He and Paul hadn't officially recorded together since the Beatles split, except for small things: a few bars of guitar or piano here, a suggested lyric there. With a new album came press, television appearances, interviews, social media blasts. There was hardly enough time for a trip up to visit John's family in Edinburgh for Christmas before Paul was back at work, and John was right behind him. He had two more albums to deliver before his contract with Apple was up. One, a collection of old rock and roll standards, came along in fits and starts; he'd recorded a few tracks in his last sessions in New York, but there was talk about marketability and audience in the offices. The other, another album of original songs, he was writing and making demos for at home, in the music room. He wondered, in the flurry of all the work, if it was the right time to try for a baby. Paul would say there was no such thing as a "right time," that their first two had come at what looked like the exact worst moment and it had all turned out for the best, and he wouldn't be wrong, but John wondered how few and far between his moments of peace were going to be for the foreseeable future.
When John gave Paul the news that he was ready to start trying, in February, they decided to take a more lax approach to it than they had before. Instead of pissing on ovulation tests and tracking his cycles, John suggested that they just let it happen. Try without really trying. If it didn't happen, then they could go back to the scientific approach. For two months, they didn't worry about it, and for two months, it didn't happen. Work was taking up much of their time, and most of the rest was devoted to the children they already had. John thought about the baby stuff in the attic that they'd put away after Alice outgrew it, and about names, and how certain he was that there would be no more children after this. He wondered what his younger self might think if he could go back and tell him.
Paul had the idea to take a long weekend up on the farm - a breath of fresh air before they had to start planning the six weeks in Nashville - so they went up for a few days in the first week of May. Paul was in his element. He was a country boy at heart, getting up at sunrise to tend to the animals and do grubby DIY and repair jobs around the house. John preferred not to get his hands dirty; he watched the girls riding their pony, and lay in the grass reading aloud to them as they played. He didn't think once about what he and Paul were trying for until their last day, when he was in the kitchen washing up the dishes, and when he looked out the window he saw Paul, shirtless and shiny with perspiration, splitting logs in the yard just beyond the house. John let the dish he was holding sink while he watched the muscles in Paul's arms and chest tense and relax as he swung the axe, and the way he grit his teeth and squared his shoulders if he hit a difficult one. He quickly came up with a plan and had already executed it by the time Paul came inside. "Drink this," John said, handing him a glass of water. "And go upstairs to change. I'll be up in a minute."
"Right now? What about the girls?"
"They're occupied." He had given them each a jam buttie and a glass of milk, and put on a cartoon they liked, the one about the robot girl and her alien cat. "I told them we'll be upstairs if they need anything."
"Well." Paul drained his glass over the sink, the water running from the corner of his mouth down his chin, and wiped his lips. "Shall we?"
Paul got in the shower after they were finished. John followed, after lying in bed with his legs up at his chest for a few minutes. Forty-five minutes passed and the girls had barely noticed they were gone.
A month later they landed in Nashville, to stay in a house owned by a local singer, while Paul and Wings worked on tracks for their upcoming album. As the girls ran around the house, with Jenny keeping an eye on them as they bickered over the choice of bedrooms and looked at the gold records on the walls, John unpacked the suitcases and Paul started a list of what they would need. "We'll get someone from the label, an assistant, to do a run to the chemist or the shops," he said, as John unfolded their clothes and hung them in the closet of the master bedroom. "So far I've got no tears shampoo for the girls, shaving cream for us, toothpaste, and hair ties. Anything else?"
"Yeah, a pregnancy test."
Paul fumbled his pen. "Serious?"
"Serious. I'm two weeks late." John opened a dresser drawer and started putting their trousers in. "That fresh air up in Scotland did it, I think."
Paul laughed, coughed, cleared his throat, and scribbled something on his list. "The blue one?"
"Yeah. Easiest to read."
Three hours later, the bags were delivered by an assistant who, as the head of A&R had promised Paul, didn't know who exactly was staying in the house, only that a band was in town to record and one of them had asked for those particular things. John went to bed that night knowing without knowing. He woke up before the alarm, took the test, went downstairs to put the coffee on, and woke Paul. If Paul recognized the similarities between that June morning and the one they'd had a year earlier, he didn't say anything. "Well?" Paul said, while they were sitting on the bathroom floor, the test waiting on the counter next to the sink.
"You look."
Paul stood and picked up the test. "John," he said, and just from the way he said it, John knew. "Johnny."
"I told you," John said, as Paul pulled him to his feet and kissed him.
The six weeks in Nashville were some of the most relaxed sessions Paul ever had with Wings. The house was on a hundred acre farm of wide open country; there was a stable with horses and ponies, and a swimming pool. Paul went to the Sound Shop with the band most days, but he made time for his family. They celebrated Julia's birthday with a trip to Nashville Zoo; Paul took the girls riding with him, and borrowed a motorcycle from someone to give them bumpy rides around the lawn. John went swimming in the huge pool almost every day, sometimes twice: once with the girls in the morning or after lunch, and again at night when everyone else was in bed. He liked the feeling of being alone with the apple seed inside him.
John quickly adapted to being pregnant in a new place, seeing people every day, and keeping it a secret from his two very perceptive daughters and a nanny to whom they told everything. He and Paul decided that they weren't going to say a word to anyone before the anatomy scan, so he had to keep up appearances. He set his alarm for six every morning so he would wake up before the first wave of nausea hit and he could get it over with before the girls were up, and he would fight sleep until after they went to bed. An assistant from the label dropped off bottles of B6 and prenatal vitamins, and a bag of ginger candy. Plans had to be made: after Nashville they were going to New York for eight weeks so John could record at the Record Plant, and they wouldn't be back home until September. John found a clinic where he could have a blood test and his first scan without being treated like anything other than what he was, and he and Paul snuck in wearing baseball caps and baggy clothes early in the morning. John held Paul's hand as the gray smudge on the screen pulsed. Eight weeks along, due at the end of January. That afternoon John made the arrangements to have some of his looser clothes and dungarees packed up and shipped to New York, as soon as they chose a place to stay. For the third time he'd be making an album and a baby at the same time. Part of him couldn't believe he was in the same spot again.
The ninth and tenth weeks passed, and John felt himself begin to relax. The sessions began winding down; Paul was happy with the songs they'd finished and had another handful to demo and tinker with while they were in New York. They booked a suite at the Pierre Hotel for their stay and John found a doctor for his appointments. He was feeling as good as possible. Knowing that it was the last time took some of the edge off. Yes, he was puking every day and already pissing like a racehorse, but it was for something he wanted. He thought he could push through the sessions and make the album on sheer will alone. He had fourteen songs, he had chosen the band, he was going to produce it himself. It would be the last thing he made before he took time away from the outside world. He was going to make something to be proud of.