Tilly
Tilly stood with Evie and Luke at the entrance to the giant shopping centre to go shopping for baby things, waiting for Evie’s mum to join them. People bustled past, pushing trollies and carrying giant bags filled with their purchases. Luke was just as seemingly charming and kind as he’d appeared in the bar when Evie had gone with them to find him. But, it turned out, the three of them lapsed quickly into awkward territory, which meant that Tilly was trying not to bounce on her heels and Evie was gnawing her lips while Luke swung his arms so his hands clapped together gently in front of him over and over again.
“So. It was a bloody hot summer, wasn’t it?” Luke asked.
Evie nodded enthusiastically. “Really was. Being pregnant added some fun to it, too.”
“Oh, I read about that!” He gave Evie a smile that was close to beaming. “Your body temperature goes up an entire degree. That must have been miserable.”
“Yeah,” Evie said.
“Thankfully it’s starting to cool down.” Tilly wanted to contribute something.
“Such a relief,” Luke said.
That scintillating conversation died quickly, and they lapsed back into silence.
Luke tried heroically to start a new topic of discussion. “So—you two have known each other for ten years but only just got together? How’d that happen?” he asked, all genuine and thoughtful.
“Oh, you know…long-term pining and such.” Evie slipped her hand into Tilly’s. “All pretty standard.”
“How lovely,” he said.
And what did one say to that? Yes, we are so lovely?
So. Again: silence.
Evie’s and Tilly’s phones went off at the same time, and they both snorted as they read the message from Sean.
“Something funny?” Luke asked.
“A friend has been having his food stolen at work,” Tilly said. “He finally found out who it was and made them sign a contract that included the culprit saying something ridiculous in front of another colleague.”
Evie read from the text directly. “Colin just called himself a ‘food-thieving butthead’ in front of one of the senior lawyers. Senior lawyer gave him a weird look and walked away. Erica and I high-fived. It was glorious. Also, he had to buy me a curry for lunch. What a great day.”
Luke smiled like someone trying to understand an inside joke but not quite getting it.
Finally, Lin came through the double glass doors, grinning at them all.
“Well!” she announced. “Don’t you all look awkward.” She held a hand out to Luke. “So, you’re the one that knocked up my daughter in a one-night stand?”
Luke squeaked, Tilly snorted, and Evie closed her eyes as if pleading to a higher power.
Lin laughed loudly. “Just teasing you, Luke. It’s nice to meet you.”
And that’s how their shopping trip started.
They each pushed a giant trolley, which made navigating a little difficult. Evie was relieved to have something to lean on. Her feet hurt all the time these days.
Luke pushed his into the side of Tilly’s and winced at the sound. “Sorry.”
“No worries.” She decided to take pity on the poor guy. He was with the girl he’d knocked up in a one-night stand and was now trying to do his best with that girl’s best friend-slash-new girlfriend and her mother.
The two of them trailed after Lin and Evie, Tilly catching the word “perineum” from Lin and seeing the entirety of Evie’s back shudder. She bit back her smile.
Luke manoeuvred his trolley next to Tilly’s, the aisles barely wide enough to accommodate them. It had been months ago that she’d come here with Evie, in an effort to think about the reality of having a baby. Now the baby was due in a month or so and everything was different. Again.
“Are you going to buy anything today?” Tilly asked him.
“I was going to get a few things. My dad and I sat down and made a bit of a list. Stuff for me to have on hand until Evie and I figure out a more solid routine. Nappies, dummies, bottles, wipes, a portable changing mat, some onesies.” He listed it all as if it was memorised. “Um, a nappy bag. Some soft toys. Some little swaddle blankets.”
“Your dad sounds like he knows what’s up,” Tilly said as she managed to avoid a display of buckets. A display of buckets. Why?
“Yeah, he stayed home while my mum worked, so he’s full of answers.”
“That’s cool.”
“Yeah. He made me practise swaddling a couch cushion. He called my efforts ‘passable’.”
Tilly laughed and he shot her a sideways grin. He was all right, this Luke.
“We made a list last night,” Tilly said. “I thought it wouldn’t be too long, but it ended up an entire page. Like, you think nappies, some clothes, some blankets, baby furniture. But the list just kept going.”
“Yeah, my mum has been buying stuff since she found out. But I want to choose the things I need.”
“You seem close to your parents?”
A child dashed in front of their trollies and they both managed to avoid a collision, even as a parent zoomed after the kid, giving them an apologetic look. Exactly like the last trip here.
“I am. I’m an only child and they’re pretty doting. I’m lucky. They’ll help a lot. Mum’s pretty excited, now she’s got her head around it all.”
“Good to hear.”
He stopped in the middle of the aisle. “Hey.”
Tilly paused a step ahead of him, turning around to look at him. He leaned his elbows on the push bar, looking at her earnestly, surrounded by home goods and lit up by super fluorescent lighting. “Yeah?”
“I, ah… I’ve said this to Evie. But I understand you’re going to be completely involved, so I want to say it to you.” He cleared his throat, that earnest look doubling. “I plan to be as involved as possible, in this. But I also, I respect that you’re a part of that, too. And it’s going to be up and down, us all figuring out how to do this. But I want what’s best for the baby, and for all of us. And I’d like to be good co-parents.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“There was a website that used that term. I liked it.”
Tilly smiled, her heart hammering in her chest for some reason. Here was Luke, whom she’d just met, talking about her involvement when she hadn’t yet had a proper conversation with Evie. What role would Tilly really have? What would it all mean for the kid? But Luke throwing around the term ‘completely involved co-parent’ somehow…made sense. “I like that term too.”
“It’s a good one.” He straightened, pushing his trolley forward and he fell into step. “I just wanted to, you know, tell you that.” Red crept up his neck.
“Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it. And I really respect what you’re doing. And I like the idea, of the three of us figuring this out in a team-like way. Who needs convention, right?”
He grinned. “Right.”
Evie turned around, now further up ahead, eyes pleading. She mouthed something and Tilly cracked up.
“What?” Luke asked.
“She mouthed that her mum was talking about pooping during birth. And to help.”
“Pooping…during birth?” he asked.
She grinned. “Do you really want to know?”
He gulped, matching her pace as she walked a little faster to save Evie from Lin. “I feel like I should say no, but my curiosity has always been too morbid.”
“There’s not a lot more to explain. Most people poop during birth. The end.”
“They what?” he yelped, several heads swivelling to look at them, including Lin’s and Evie’s.
She laughed as they joined them and the four of them kept making their way to the baby section, Tilly a little lost in thought. Tilly had no memory of what had happened in her birth on that front. She remembered she’d torn a little. It had hurt a hell of a lot. Everything had hurt. Laura had cried in the next room, and Tilly had curled into a ball and cried too. But every night, without fail, her mum had got the baby to sleep, then come tiptoeing into Tilly’s room and wrapped her arms around Tilly to hold her, fingers gentle in her hair.
She’d been remembering a lot, lately. Since telling Evie and Sean. Or, more accurately, she’d been letting herself remember. In a way that felt less like punishing herself, and more like acknowledgement.
She’d been pregnant. She’d given birth. She’d had a baby she didn’t raise.
Her experience in it all was still legitimate.
At times like this, though, when she stood with Evie and cooed over soft sheets with stars along the edges, feeling soft and warm inside, she couldn’t stop the guilt that flared. Guilt that she was doing this now, and hadn’t before. Guilt that could make her feel she didn’t deserve this. So she rolled with it. Let it sit there and didn’t ignore it, but didn’t feed it. Sometimes it was a little overwhelming though, especially when coupled with the reminder that Tilly was going to be there, for all of this with Evie. But also, how?
They needed to talk.
Evie leaned into her, sheets clutched to her chest and head falling onto Tilly’s shoulder. Tilly closed her eyes and breathed her in, turning her head so her nose was buried in Evie’s hair and she could ground herself with it, surrounded by their trollies with nappies, both disposable and cloth (Evie had convinced herself she’d try for at least fifty-fifty), tiny shirts and leggings, little socks, swaddling blankets, wipes—all the things on their list but things they’d forgotten about. If she kept her eyes closed and breathed in, it was just Evie, for a split second. Evie, who pressed her lips to her shoulder, and grabbed Tilly’s hand and pulled it to her belly, where the baby was pushing its entire back or something else in a freaky Alien manoeuvre.
“You okay?” Evie murmured.
“I am.”
Evie tilted her head up, chin on Tilly’s shoulder, grin wide. “Good.”
“Are you?” Tilly asked quietly, her tone serious.
Evie had been quiet for a little while after meeting her dad the other week, but it had only lasted a day or so. She’d talked to Tilly about her decision to try later, when she was ready to, and had seemed to really settle into the decision and be okay with it once she’d voiced it to someone else.
“I’m with you,” Evie said, her smile deepening. “So yes.”
Tilly kissed her, quickly. A soft peck.
“So?” Evie asked when she’d pulled back. “Stars or koalas?”
“Both.”
“Both. Good.”
They put both in the overflowing trolley and Tilly let Evie tug her over to the huge display of changing mats that Luke was staring at, looking as overwhelmed as Evie had when they’d first come here.
“How are there so many options?” he asked.
“Capitalism,” Evie said.
“Consumerism,” Tilly said.
“I like green,” he said, reaching hesitantly for a green mat.
“Same,” Evie and Tilly said at the same time.
* * *
Cardboard boxes lay in pieces. Far more plastic filling than was necessary, especially for the environment, was strewn all over the carpet. Bubble wrap long ago popped during breaks. Screwdrivers, Allen keys, the odd screw that hadn’t fit (which should be concerning, but which was now a long-accepted necessity of frustrating furniture), measuring tapes, and pencils all sat in various places, mostly pushed to the sides of the room.
But they were done.
The dark jarrah cot, intricately carved in places yet simple in its design, stood against the wall opposite the door; a gift from Lin, as promised. A mattress lay inside, soon to be covered with sheets once they dried. They had to be washed before going on, Tilly had learned. Something she had never done for herself but was a mortal sin when it came to a baby. Folded swaddling blankets sat in the open-shelved changing table. It doubled as a set of drawers, now mostly full of tiny clothes and onesies. Nappies and wipes were neatly placed on the changer. The birds Evie had put up ages ago swept in patterns over the cot. The mobile Luke had chosen hung over it, soft animals slowly twirling clockwise.
A bookshelf was lined with a small collection of baby books. Alongside was a little table with a lamp that emitted a soft light, and an armchair that gently rocked was in the corner next to it.
“It looks like a baby’s room,” Tilly said, leaning back on her hands from her seat on the floor.
“That’s a relief,” Evie said, sitting next to her. But she was looking around with wide eyes. “It looks nice.”
Tilly smiled, watching her watch the room, her hair escaping its messy bun, cheeks a little pink. “It does.”
Evie turned her head, lolling it against her shoulder in a lazy way. She threw her ankle over Tilly’s. “Hey. Were you okay when we were shopping?”
“Yeah,” Tilly said. “Why?”
“Well, you were meeting Luke properly. That had to be weird. And you got this…look on your face. I don’t know. Do you need to talk?”
This was a moment when Tilly would need bubble wrap to pop, but it had all been popped. That left her with nothing to fidget with, which somehow left her feeling far too exposed. She glanced around the room. The soft edges and colours. The expectancy filling its corners. The care that could be seen in the carefully placed items. The excitement in the way the drawers were almost overfilled, the shelves holding more items than a newborn would need.
Opening up could be hard, but this space was something they’d created together. If Tilly could open up anywhere, with anyone, it was here with Evie.
“I think I do.” Tilly let her gaze continue sweeping over the birds on the walls, the lines they made, as if following a flight pattern. The silence buzzed.
Evie’s foot jiggled over her ankle, and when Tilly turned to look at her, there was a wry little smile on her face. “You generally speak, then.”
Tilly huffed a laugh. “Yeah, yeah.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I was talking to Luke. And he was talking about, how it was all going to work with him, and the baby, and you. The plan you’d made, that you’d told me about.” Evie was nodding slowly along, the space between them wide open for whatever Tilly needed to fill it with. “And I realised… We haven’t really talked, about me. And how I fit in. And what I’ll mean, in all of this. How do I fit in, really?”
Evie sucked in a deep breath. “This is all so unconventional.” That wry smile twisted up on her lips a little more as she gestured between them. “Not only how Luke and I are doing this, but how you and I are doing this, with Luke. We’re starting our relationship when I’m about to have a baby. You’ve moved out, but are here all the time. I think… I think we do whatever we want, really.”
“But what do you want?” Tilly asked.
Evie looked her right in the eye. “You,” she said, simply. “You, and me. And this baby. If I’m being honest, I want to do this together. When I picture the baby being born, you’re there. When I picture the first few months and the exhaustion everyone warns me about, you’re there. Supporting and helping. But more than that: you’re there, because it’s where you belong. As family. As…” Evie hesitated, as if nervous. “As our family. That’s what I want. The birth certificate will have to say Luke and me. But I want you to be… I want you, the baby, and me to be a family. If that’s what you want. And this is a lot, we’ve been dating for, like, months…but—”
“But we’ve kind of been dating forever,” Tilly offered.
Evie laughed. “Exactly.” She swallowed audibly in the quiet room. “What do you want?”
Tilly’s lips quivered, and she pressed them tightly together. “I want that, too. I want to be a family, with you two. I don’t want to be just your girlfriend; I want to be more than that to this baby.”
“You do?”
“I do.” Tilly sat up so she could rest a hand on Evie’s shin. “I really do. And I’m… I’m struggling, a little. With guilt, about Laura. About if I…deserve this—” she held up a hand as Evie’s mouth automatically opened to interject “—I know. But I can’t help but feel that. And Laura, soon, needs to know the truth of it all. I need to tell her. And I need to work through how I feel about it. But I do want it. And I’m in. I’m so in.”
Evie tried to move forward and struggled, giving a huff and Tilly tried not to laugh. “Oh, shut up, I can barely move. Come here.”
So, Tilly did. On her knees, shuffling forward to cup Evie’s cheeks and kiss her, on the floor of that room they’d put together, together, for the baby. “I love you.”
Tilly kissed her again, pulling away enough to open her eyes to see the soft, encompassing look in Evie’s. “Me too.”
“Move back in.”
Tilly laughed, a little thickly, and kissed her a third time. “Okay.”