I frowned as I let that roll around in my head for a second. Neil didn’t buy new socks without serious consideration; I couldn’t imagine him proposing to me without first having in depth conversations about our future. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not? You’ve been together for a year.”
“Yeah. A year. Singular. One year,” I said wryly. “I’m not angling for a proposal just yet.”
“A hell of a year, though.” Emma pursed her lips as she thought. “Have the two of you even discussed it?”
“No. Well. Once, I think. Only in the most abstract way.” Neil had confided that he’d planned to propose to me on his last birthday, but he’d changed his mind because he hadn’t wanted it to seem like one of those deathbed/wedding bed scenarios. “We haven’t had any serious discussion, and that’s okay. We’re happy where we are.”
“I suppose.” Emma didn’t sound too happy about having to accept that fact, and I was surprisingly touched. Her father’s last marriage hadn’t ended well, with hurtful accusations that I hoped were all a huge miscommunication between two truly well-meaning people. If they hadn’t been, then Neil’s ex-wife had been a gold digger out to trap him with the child support clauses in their prenup. Neil and Emma felt the latter was the case, so the fact that she could trust me enough to be disappointed that her father wasn’t marrying me was a big deal.
We rejoined the rest of the group in the living room, where Helen was just handing a slightly fussy baby off to Runólf.
“I’ll get her a bottle,” Kristine said, less relaxed than when we’d first come in.
“Do you need help?” I offered, though I wasn’t sure what needed to be done, and I prayed “hold the baby” wasn’t going to be her suggestion.
“I’ll help her. Neil, could you take Annie just for a moment?” Runólf asked, passing the baby off to his brother without waiting for an answer.
“I would love to.” Neil set his glass aside and reached up for the infant, whose tiny limbs wobbled excitedly in the air as she was han
ded off.
“Careful, you’ve got her now?” Runólf asked, and Neil gave him an annoyed tut.
“I have actually done this before, you know.”
Neil was seated in an armchair, so I plopped down in the corner of the sofa nearest him. He held little Annie under the arms, her pigeon-toed feet awkwardly stamping on his thighs. She babbled excitedly, and a thin stream of drool leaked from her lip and onto Neil’s six-hundred-dollar sweater. He didn’t look like he minded a bit.
I leaned my head on my folded arms atop the end of the sofa and smiled over at him. I’d seen the same wonder and joy in his expression in photos of a younger Neil with Emma.
Men with babies. Even if I didn’t want a baby, I couldn’t really deny there was something sexy about a man confidently holding an infant and yes, even making stupid faces at her.
“How old is she?” I asked no one in particular, as her parents were out of the room.
“Almost seven months old now,” Helen said. “She was born on the first, wasn’t she, Emma?”
The human mind is a really cruel thing. I couldn’t calculate what time I had to go to bed to get eight hours of sleep when I had to wake up early, but I instantly snapped back seven months, to the first week of July.
Our baby would have been due in July.
In the past year, I’d found myself thinking, on a couple of occasions, about the abortion I’d had. Occasionally, I had compared myself to a pregnant woman on the street, and wondered if I would have looked like her. I’d never been weirded out in a way that made me regret our choice, though. The first week of July had been a bizarre time for me, because Neil had still been in intensive care. I would have been ready to go into labor at any time at that point, if we’d kept the baby. I’d been too emotionally stressed by the fact that my boyfriend had been in a touch-and-go health crisis. The thought would jar me out of my head for second, and I would imagine how devastating it would have been to deliver our baby without Neil by my side, because he was dying in the cancer ward. It was horrible to imagine. I was glad we’d made the right choice.
Neil looked over at me, as if he could sense my thoughts. He probably could; we spent enough time together, and he read my every mood and facial expression like a cherished book. “Would you like to hold her? They’re so much more fun when they aren’t yours.”
“Oh, thanks, Dad,” Emma said with a snort.
“No, I don’t want to steal your time with your new niece,” I declined smoothly, and he was more than happy to go back to kissing Annie’s squishy fat cheeks and making grumbly noises.
Dinner was amazing, though not vegan friendly. Emma seemed to have anticipated this, and she’d brought her own food, which she chowed down without complaint. Neil and I had given up any hope of a vegan holiday. We’d picked up the diet when Neil was ill, after being convinced of the health benefits by Emma. But Christmas was never healthy, anyway, so we felt free to indulge in hangikjöt made of smoked lamb, though Neil informed me that he preferred the horse variety. There was also fried ptarmigan, a bird I’d never heard of but was stuffed with bacon, so I was sold. There were caramelized potatoes and red cabbage, and steaming warm homemade bread.
“You did all this?” I boggled after I’d inhaled my second helping of rice pudding.
Kristine grinned. “Yes, it was quite difficult. I had to call the caterer weeks in advance, and then pop the trays in the oven this morning.”
Everyone laughed, even Neil, who seemed to have loosened up a bit.
Though it was only five o’clock, it was pitch black outside by the time we’d exchanged presents and let the massive dinner settle. I was sitting in the crook of Neil’s elbow, leaned against him, when he suddenly spoke up. “You know, it only just now occurs to me that Michael has never been for a proper sauna?”