Hermione played on the mat laid out on the café floor. Chubby, smiley, an easy baby who slept through the night, Penny couldn’t have been luckier with how the first twelve months of her baby’s life had gone. They’d been a unit, a team of two, right from the moment she held Hermione’s tiny, six-pound-two-ounce body in the hospital ward, crying – sobbing, really – and knowing, right in that moment, that everything she had hoped for herself had materialized through a pathway she could never have imagined.
‘One year old, I can hardly believe it!’ Uncle David said, arranging glasses and a big ice bucket for the champagne on the counter of Bridges. Eric stood beside him tying helium balloons to the backs of some chairs, spitting the odd swear word when his manly fingers proved too chubby for the fine work of knotting the latex.
‘Darling, how many times are you going to say that today?’ Eric said sweetly, finally getting a knot in a green one.
Uncle David scowled, making Sharon and Luke laugh.
‘What’s funny?’ asked Mia, from where she played with Hermione and Jonny on the playmat they’d put down in the corner.
‘Uncle David, Mia,’ replied Penny. ‘He’s getting all emotional, and it isn’t even his birthday!’
Faint music came over the café sound system just then, and Stuart said from near the coffee machine, ‘Music maestro, at last! It’s not a party without some music!’ Safiya, his new wife, stood beside him.
‘You’re so clever, baby,’ she said, in a teasing tone. He grinned at her. She grinned back.
‘Oh, amazing,’ said Sharon, as Francesco came out from the kitchen with two platters of finger food. ‘Look at that! God, it’s sexy that you can cook, Francesco.’
Francesco chortled. ‘Oh, I know all about finding chefs sexy,’ he winked, and Penny pulled a face that was the exact opposite of sexy.
‘There she is,’ said Francesco. ‘My hot girlfriend, looking her best.’ He wandered over and gave her a kiss, Penny accepting it gratefully.
It had taken Penny some time before she was here, in this moment, to figure it all out – life, and everything like it – and to say out loud what she wanted. It had taken her time to understand she could have boundaries, and that saying no is as important as embracing a yes. It had taken hard-fought lessons to arrive at herself, but with Hermione against her naked chest that very first time – skin to skin contact to encourage bonding from the off – Penny knew: taking time is the whole point. She could see it now. Life is about how you handle being thrown off course, not discounting yourself from the race because you were thrown off course in the first place. And look where her life had brought her.
‘Knock, knock,’ came a voice at the doorway, ‘I come bearing presents …’
Hermione looked up at the familiar voice, sunbeams shooting from her smile. It was Auntie Clementine and Auntie Rima. ‘Look who I found loitering near the station, too,’ Clementine added.
Charlie appeared beside them, triumphantly holding up the arm of the man beside her.
‘I got him here!’ they cried. ‘I got Priyesh here!’
Priyesh, dressed for a child’s birthday party in a suit and tie, smiled. ‘You hardly dragged me here against my own free will, Charlie,’ he said, soberly. ‘I wanted to come and meet the baby. And see the other baby – the café.’
Penny stood and kissed everybody, scooping up Hermione so that they all got baby cuddles, despite the fact that Hermione was very much in an independent phase and didn’t like to be picked up. It was like she knew everybody was there for her, and so for this one Sunday afternoon she allowed herself to be passed from auntie to uncle, friend to friend, gurgling and chattering.
Penny’s phone rang, vibrating against the table with a start. Francesco picked it up and passed it over.
‘Thomas!’ Penny said, swiping open a FaceTime. He appeared on screen, pixelated at first and then slowly coming into focus, sat in what looked like a dressing room next to a woman with big hair and a bright pink dress on.
‘Lizzo and I just wanted to say sorry again for being unable to make it,’ he said.
Lizzo waved down the camera. ‘Hey Penny,’ she said. ‘Happy birthday to your baby girl!’
‘Thank you guys!’ said Penny, scanning the room for Hermione. ‘I actually don’t know where my baby is. She’s being smothered with cuddles left, right and centre! But thank you for the gift. A full playhouse was very generous.’
Thomas laughed. ‘That’s okay. Sorry again. You were very sweet to invite us. We’ll make sure you all get tickets to the next London shows, okay?’
‘Okay! Have a good show, Lizzo!’ said Penny, waving goodbye and putting her phone back down, drinking in the scene of the room. Her uncle and his love, her sister and hers. She was pleased she and Thomas had stayed friends. He called by at Bridges when he was around, and always had an outrageous story to tell from life on the road.
Dofi, the owner of the restaurant Penny and Francesco had met in that night, slid in to the chair next to her and said, ‘I’m so happy for you, Penny. Look at all this! Look at your life!’
Penny grinned.
‘Thank you so much for coming,’ Penny said. ‘God we’ve got so much to catch up on.’
Dofi made a murmur of agreement. ‘We do,’ she said. ‘And not that I’m not desperate to hear your news but first, can you tell me more about the man in the suit? He’s hysterical – he just had me in stitches with a joke about three penguins and a llama.’
‘Priyesh?’
‘Anything I should know?’ Dofi said. ‘Because I think I’m going to ask him how long he’s in London for and maybe get him out for a coffee.’
Penny looked from Dofi to Priyesh. She could see it. It made sense. ‘I want you to know we dated for ten seconds when I was up Havingley, and it feels like a million years ago, but other than that …’
‘Oh, I’m zero per cent bothered by that,’ Dofi replied. ‘Anything else?’
Penny shook her head. ‘He’s a really good guy. Do it.’
‘Okay,’ said Dofi. ‘I’m going to do it right now.’ She stood up and Francesco slipped into her place. Penny issued him with a kiss, for nothing other than the fact that he was here, at what was now their café, a joint venture since they worked together so well, offering to feed her family and friends and her baby. His open heart made her softer. His ability to savour small moments rooted her in the present. His daily pledge to be her partner made her want to do him justice, too.
‘I love you,’ she said into his neck.
‘I love you too,’ he said, smiling.
‘And I respect you,’ she said, playing their favourite game.
‘I respect you too,’ Francesco replied.
‘And I think you’re the hottest mama on the planet.’
Francesco smiled even broader. ‘It goes without saying that I think you’re the hottest mama on the planet …’
A loud crash came from around the playmat, followed by an almighty wail from Hermione.
‘Whoopsy!’ said Safiya, in a high-pitched voice. ‘I think I built the tower too high.’ She swooped in to pick Hermione up, walking over to find Penny. ‘We just hit ourselves in the face with a tower of cuppy cups, didn’t we?’ Safiya said, still in her baby voice. ‘We didn’t mean to do that, did we?’
‘Oh my darling, my baby!’ Penny said, standing and opening her arms for her daughter. It was heart-breaking to hear – every single time, whatever the need – and yet she loved – deeply enough that as she lay in bed at night holding her breath to hear her own child breathing in the bassinet beside her – being needed. She loved being Hermione’s person.
Penny raised her close and whispered that she loved her. ‘You’re okay,’ she continued. ‘You’re okay.’
Francesco came to see if she was okay too, fussing over her with Penny.
‘Da,’ Hermione said, reaching for him with pudgy fists. ‘Daddy.’
Penny looked at Francesco and shrugged. Francesco shrugged back.
‘There you go, da,’ Penny said, passing her daughter along and watching her nuzzle into his chest. She watched him hold the back of her head with his hand, how Hermie settled easily when she was with him. It was exactly how Penny felt with him, too.
‘Daddy,’ Penny said, smiling. ‘I think we should make it official.’
They’d talked about it before, the idea that he might adopt her. But Penny had come this far alone, and always delayed a conclusion. She couldn’t delay it any longer, though, because it was true: Francesco was Hermione’s father as much as she was her mother.
Francesco nodded, careful not to wake the baby as her eyes drifted closed in her father’s embrace.
‘I’d like that,’ he said. ‘I’d like that very much.’
And in Bridges café on a back street of Stoke Newington, family that were friends and friends who were like family – all dented in their own way by love and grief and uncertainty and disappointment – came together and celebrated, choosing to try again in their imperfect humanness, thankful for everything that had happened before that meant there was so very much to look forward to in their futures.
Penny grinned at her boyfriend and her daughter.
‘I’d like that very much too,’ she said.