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Rebecca Welton was wise enough to realize that this might have been a mistake.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time, of course. She’d spent the last three weeks cooped up at home for the most part, and for good reason- that reason was sitting in the back seat. Rebecca glanced into her rear view for the thousandth time since climbing into the car, and the baby hadn’t yet disappeared.
They’d been out in the garden and for very short walks to the car to visit the club and Mae down the pub, but at 2:40 on this Tuesday afternoon Rebecca decided that she’d had enough of the baby bubble. So she’d grabbed the loaded baby bag and buckled her daughter into the pod that slotted into the base Ted had painstakingly installed in the back seat of the car- and promptly spent fifteen minutes cleaning a blowout nappy and the mess it made in the seat.
Everyone on the road was far more aggressive than she remembered, she baby-brained her way down a wrong street, and was fairly certain she’d birthed a jellyfish when she sneezed at the last red light.
Maybe taking her first solo trip with the baby- on a deadline, in the car- wasn’t such a fantastic idea.
But there was Henry after all, and as she pulled up along the street she marveled at how grown he looked, leaning against the stone pillar in front of the very posh school he started last week. His school uniform of button down and jumper were rucked up to his elbows and with his head turned just so Rebecca could see Ted as a young tween. He was talking to a few classmates, but spotted her just as she was rolling her window down.
His face lit up just like his father’s, dimple on display.
“Rebecca!” He was halfway across the street when he caught sight of the top of the baby seat. She didn’t think it was possible, but his face broke into an even more joyous expression.
“Guys! C’mon, come meet my baby sister!”
And oh, her heart.
He made introductions (she melted a little at “this is my stepmum”) and she forgot their names almost immediately. But she obligingly rolled down the back window so they could get a better look at the baby. Henry was gushing about his sister, how adorable she was and how she smiled right before she passed gas, how her nappies weren’t smelly yet and “did you know that if you touch her hand she’ll hold your finger by reflex?”
One of the girls reached her hand into the car, but before Rebecca could say anything Henry was lightly slapping her hand away from the baby. “Sorry, Adele, but you gotta wash your hands before you touch the baby.”
Adele was suitably apologetic.
“It’s okay, it’s just she’s too little. We don’t want her to get sick.” He hefted his bag higher on his shoulder, and Rebecca thought that might be a cue.
"We should get going, Hen, I don’t want her to wake up and need feeding before we get home.”
“Yeah, for sure.” He walked backwards around the back of the car, calling out his goodbyes and “Sorry for the swat!”
When he slid into the back seat she breathed a sigh of relief. At least now she wouldn’t have to worry about the baby being alone back there.
“How was your day?” she asked, as she pulled out onto the road. And then he was chatting away about math (“sorry, maths ”) and how surprised they were that they were reading Hemmingway in English, and how it was weird to be at school so late (“but then I guess we start later, too”) and then it was her turn.
“Me?” She looked in the rearview to see him smiling back at her.
“Yeah! What did you do today?” She saw him sneak his hand into the car seat and hid a smile.
“Well, we napped after you left for school, and then she ate, and then I ate, and she napped while I took a shower. She ate again, napped again while I had some lunch, and then I’d about lost my mind with boredom so I decided we’d come get you instead of sending David.”
Henry nodded. “I guess it can’t be too much fun to be inside all day with a baby.”
Rebecca tilted her head. “I’ll be honest, it’s really not. I love her, of course, and I’d never trade her for anything but God I miss not being home.”
“Yeah, I get it. We’re home a lot now.”
She caught his wistful look out the window and made a snap decision.
“Well, it’s not as if we have to be there all the time. In fact, how do you feel about ice cream?”
****
Since becoming the mother of a newborn, Rebecca had learned to multitask in ways she never thought were necessary or possible. But this was a little ridiculous. She was attempting to shade her face with her hand where the setting sun was peeking over her sunglasses, holding a nursing baby with the other, and trying not to drip ice cream all over her and Bea while Henry held her cone.
Finally she just sat back and laughed. “I give up, Henry. You go ahead and clean it up for me.”
But Henry wasn’t paying attention, having seen something beyond where they were sitting. “DAD!!” he shouted, and she winced at the same time the baby startled.
She was half blind with the sun in her eyes, but Henry was waving and of course it must be late enough that Ted was walking through the Green on his way home. She shushed the baby under the muslin swaddle she’d draped over herself so as not to flash half of Richmond- wouldn’t that make a headline- and snapped her nursing bra closed as a shadow fell over them.
“Well, well, well, what have we here? A party without Dad?”
She hummed when he bent down, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips. “Trying to have some time out of the house, actually.”
“Are you decent?” he said quietly, and despite being three weeks postpartum a shiver went through her. She took the muslin away from her in response, and Ted lifted their baby high into the air, her little legs scrunching up toward her belly.
“Rebecca tried really hard to get all the ice cream but I had to help a bit,” Henry put in, handing over her dripping cone. She made short work of licking up the mess, smiling a little slyly at the look Ted was managing to give her while listening to Henry’s recounting of their afternoon. She knew that despite the exhaustion, the mess she made in the bed almost every night, and how unattractive she felt, they both had an eye on that six week postpartum appointment.
“Sounds busy,” Ted was saying. “Ready to go home and get some dinner?”
Henry frowned. “No,” he said, but his stomach rumbled loudly and Rebecca brushed her hand through his hair.
“Sorry, sweetheart, but it seems like your stomach has different ideas. Besides, homework is waiting.”
“Ugh.”
She crumpled her napkin into a ball and stashed it in the nappy bag, coming back up with a packet of wipes and handing a few to Henry before wiping her own hands. “I know, but I’ve got homework too.”
Ted was swaying with Beatrice, turning her away from the sun and whispering into her ear.
Henry looked surprised at her statement. “You do?”
“Laundry, my boy. It’s a never ending pile at the moment.”
He looked thoughtful. “I guess so.”
“Right,” she said briskly, tapping him on the knee. “Let’s get to it, then, shall we?”
Henry hopped up and held out a hand for her to take as she slowly stood, still more sore than she’d like.
“Where’d you park the car, hon?” Ted was buckling a sleepy Bea into her pod.
“We’ll show you, Dad, it’s not far.” Her insides swooped for an entirely different reason than Ted’s gaze when Henry didn’t let go of her hand.
Ted took her other hand, the handle of the baby’s pod tucked in the crook of his free arm.
“You folks had quite the adventure today. Did you have fun?”
Rebecca looked down at Henry when his hand squeezed hers, and they shared a smile.
“We really did.”