Molly’s father’s sudden death had devastated them both. With a new baby, Saz and Molly had found their own parents’ support invaluable – telephone succour, free and readily available with none of the health-visitor panics that cause waking nightmares in the sleep-free nights of new parents. Ian and Asmita were too far away in Scotland to visit often and her mother’s Hindi lullaby crooned into the handset didn’t hush Matilda’s wailing in the slightest, but it calmed Molly anyway. Molly’s father on the other end of the phone, finally getting the chance to tell his daughter the truth. Yes, four-week-old babies are very scary. You were. And annoying. And sometimes horrible. You were. And beautiful. This too would pass. Though hopefully Matilda would stay beautiful. You did.
Molly and Saz had both noticed the change in their relationships with their own parents, and with other parents. Friends with children talked to them differently, their mothers treated them differently, they were in the club now, part of the sorority of graduate-women. Proper grownups. And of course they weren’t. They were ordinary Saz and Molly with their same old dreams and desires and, once the first few days’ endorphin rush had worn off, they were also tired and besotted and irritable and in love with Matilda and wanting their lives back and never wanting to be without Matilda. Ever. (Or maybe just one night. One perfect night of uninterrupted sleep.)
Saz and Molly understood their own parents in a way they never had before. Understood the unbearable, unspeakable truths of bringing home a new person, their new person. Unconditional love inextricably linked with “What the hell have we done?” Something they had suspected when checking out the double-edged admissions of already-parenting friends, but had to feel themselves to truly know it. It was like the grieving; before Ian’s death, Molly had imagined she understood what grief felt like. Now she knew.
In the same way that Molly and Saz were living some sort of ground-breaking lives as lesbian mothers, Molly’s parents had led a similarly ground-breaking life when they married and, despite the concerns of both families, gone on to create their mixed-race daughter. Molly knew this, and Ian and Asmita knew this, and all three were settling in to a more profound understanding of each other than before, parents and children re-connecting as adults, useful to each other, and happy to be so. Then Ian failed to wake up one morning, his heart skipped its beat in the night. Not an old heart, he was only sixty-three. Not an unwell heart, just one of those things, as banal and ghastly as they always are.
Saz understood that her grief was different to Molly’s. It was also heavily mixed with guilt. Saz was profoundly aware that while she had an older sister, three nieces and a nephew, and both parents, Molly now had only her mother. As she explained to her old friend and ex-lover Carrie, Matilda, beside them in the late summer shade. “It’s just always there, seeing Molly in pain. No matter what a good time we’re having, or how much Matilda’s making us laugh … ”
“How much you’re laughing at her, you mean.”
“Well, yeah, that’s what babies are for.”
“Like puppies?”
“But better at going to the shop for you when they get older. No, there’s this permanent feeling of sadness.”
“That’s normal, isn’t it? They were very close.”
“Yeah, but – and I know this is selfish – I’d just planned this perfect first year. All the cute baby stuff, everyone being nice to us, making a fuss … I thought I’d be able to ease into it all, the whole happy families thing.”
“And now you have to worry about Molly too?”
Saz shrugged, “Not quite like that, just … well … yes.”
“You’re right. It does sound selfish. Maybe you need something to distract you?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, I just didn’t think you’d be happy not working.”
“I didn’t know what it would be like.”
“But you like it?”
“Weirdly, yes. You know, like now, with Molly getting ready to go back to the hospital, and just me and Matilda at home, I’m loving it. She is a lot of work and I did think I might be bored, but I’m not.”
Carrie frowned, “Never? I mean she’s gorgeous, of course, but never?”
Saz handed her daughter another noisy plastic piece of primary colour to play with, noted Matilda’s drooping eyelids with pleasure. “Maybe every now and then,” she said. “I am surprised I’ve found her so entertaining, it’s not what I’d expected. But no, not really bored, not yet. There’s been all the stuff to do with Ian, none of that has been routine. I haven’t been at home by myself with her all that much, people keep visiting, like you now. I just quite like it, playing wife-and-mother.”
Carrie poured the last of the wine into their glasses, fished in the bag for crisp crumbs. She still didn’t look convinced. “Maybe you’re scared?”
“Of what?”
“Your work not turning out the way you’d hoped? The western world is littered with women who had great plans for their working wonders and then, when the whole brilliant career thing doesn’t turn out the way they hoped, they give up and have a bunch of kids and hope no one notices.”
Saz laughed, “Maybe that’s true for women with proper jobs, but I hardly think my freelance work over the past years counts as a ‘career’.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there’s the fact that I’ve been relying on Molly for the bulk of our money anyway, and that I still get more than half my income from boring find-my-cheating-lover jobs … ”
Carrie agreed, “OK, when you put it like that. And your last job wasn’t exactly a major success.”
“Thanks.”
“You were in hospital for half Molly’s pregnancy.”
“Ten weeks of the just over nine months. You’ve always been crap at maths, haven’t you?”
“Whatever, you were very sick, Saz.”
Saz turned away to concentrate on Matilda. “I know.”
“We were scared for you.”
“I know.”
“It was shit for Molly.”
Saz looked at the dark blue sky, at her daughter, at the lawn that needed mowing, the macrocarpa hedge that needed cutting, anywhere but at Carrie. “Yes, Carrie. I know.”
“And the rest of us, of course, but so horrible for her while she was pregnant. She was nicer to me then than ever before. Or since.”
“Moll’s always nice to you.”
Carrie picked the chipped pink polish on her big toenail. “No, Saz, Molly’s mostly polite to me. Not quite the same. But fair enough that she was worried, it’s not the first time you’ve had a job that ended in disaster.”
“Hang on, I’ve had my successes. It’s just that the disasters have been … ”
“More spectacular?”
“More painful. And I don’t need reminding, I’m the one with the scars.”
Carrie licked her fingers clean of grease and salt and lifted the hem of Saz’s thin cotton skirt.
“Oil!”
“Just checking. Your scars are pretty good though.”
“Helps having a doctor for a wife.”
“You can barely tell there was any problem with your hands. And this thigh’s all right.”
“Carrie, get your hand off my leg.” Carrie moved away a little. “The other one’s still a bit lumpier though.”
“Oh go on, show me? For old times’ sake?”
“No!”
Carrie lay back on the grass. “Anyway, the last mess would’ve put anyone off. You’re bloody lucky you came out of that with no scars.”
Saz massaged her neck, this conversation – as with any that touched on her past damage – causing her muscles to tense, her shoulders to ride up. “Not on the outside. Funny really, my burn scars are always here, like a constant show, and yet that’s something I got myself into. Whereas the scars I got from being beaten up – the internal damage, emotional stuff – none of that shows on the outside.”
Carrie frowned, “And the funny part about that is what?”
“That the fire – a thing – damaged me, so you can still see it.”
“Only if I lift up your skirt.”
Saz ignored the grin, checked on her now-sleeping daughter, lowered her voice, “And I’d rather you didn’t. Whereas the physical damage from the beating was mostly on the inside and that’s all healed now anyway, but the emotional stuff is always going to be there. Scars you can’t see.”
“Like the scars I have from our relationship?”
“Fuck off, Carrie, you left me. I’m trying to make an important philosophical point.”
Carrie stretched out in the late season sun, “I so care.”
“Well, you should. Move the umbrella a bit?” Carrie shifted the shade so it more completely covered Matilda’s body, and Saz continued, “Now that you’re a godmother you should take these things more seriously.”
“Umbrellas?”
“The damage people inflict as opposed to things, and yet it’s things – fire, water, guns, cars – that we’re usually scared of.”
“And we should really be scared of people? That’s the life-affirming message you want me to teach your daughter?”
“Of course not. Or maybe. I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.”
“In your long boring days at home all alone with Tilly?”
“Matilda.”
“Mattie?”
“Matilda.”
“Just wait until she goes to school.”
“I will, thank you. And my days are not boring.”
“Clearly not, you don’t even have the time to put your empties in the recycling bin.” Carrie pointed to the four drained wine bottles sitting by the back doorstep.
“Basement flat people always get there first and fill it with theirs. I think we’re a bit fed up with having neighbours.”
“They’re probably fed up with having a screaming baby in the middle of the night.”
“She doesn’t scream. Never has. Not once. Matilda is an angel.”
“Yeah, and you’re a liar.”
“Well, she’s very lovely when she’s asleep.”
“True, but you don’t even have a tiny hankering to take on some new work?”
“No, not yet. When Molly goes back to the hospital, I’ll be prime carer. That’s plenty for now.”
“She’d never let you work now anyway, she’s so bloody careful of you, always has been, it’s why she’s so snippy with me. Scared I might hurt you again. Or worse … ” Carrie pouted … “not hurt you?”
Saz laughed. “God, Carrie, I might just need more than five hours sleep a night for your suggestive leer to excite anything in me ever again.”
“Right. So you’re still not shagging?”
“Piss off. It’s none of your business. And anyway, Moll’s grieving, it’s been incredibly hard for her. For me too.”
“Of course it has. Her father’s dead, she had a bloody hard time with you being hurt, now she wants to share her baby with someone who’s not here any more. It’s fucking horrible.” Carrie knelt, picked up her bag, planted a careful kiss on Matilda’s head and a less gentle one on Saz’s lips, “And you’re still not shagging.”
“We are!”
Carrie just looked. And grinned.
Saz corrected herself, “Occasionally.”
“Yes, darling, you join in the new parents chorus and I’ll rush off home. Because while I may not have the current must-have accessory for today’s lesbian about town … ”
“What’s that?”
“A baby, Saz.”
“Cynic. That is no way to talk about your beloved goddaughter.”
“Guard-daughter. Don’t do God. Anyway, I may be baby-free, but I am at least getting a shag with fine regularity. So I’ll just go home and get my share. And maybe yours while I’m at it.”
Carrie left without divulging any further details of her latest conquest – “at least until I see if it’s going to last the week” – and Saz moved inside. Baby food, bath, lullabies, and cup of tea. Perfectly content.