IT’S GREAT TO HAVE friends around. Sophie and Richard have booked a babysitter, but Greg and Kate bring Lily and Alfie with them, putting them down in our bed while Pete cooks. Then we all squeeze around the table and drink wine and eat and talk. About our kids, mostly. Kate’s like me—she went back to work while Greg stayed at home, so it’s nice not to feel judged for once. At one point, when Pete and Greg are getting all competitive about what they cook with their charges—“Well, last week we made arancini balls from panko breadcrumbs and some leftover risotto, and we didn’t skimp on the chili flakes, either”—she gives me a sideways glance and rolls her eyes comically, which makes me snort into my wine.
Greg sits back. “I meant to ask you, Pete—you posted something on DadStuff a while back, about some kind of inspiring story you were involved with?”
“Oh yeah.” Pete looks at me. “We can talk about this now, right?”
I shrug. “I don’t see why not.”
So Pete—keeping his voice down, in case Theo is still awake—tells the story of how the babies got swapped, and how we’re dealing with the fallout. He’s a good storyteller—that’s the journalism, I suppose: He knows how to structure facts succinctly and not go off on tangents. But they’d be spellbound in any case. Hearing him relate the whole thing from start to finish, and seeing our friends’ stunned reactions, brings it home to me all over again just how extraordinary this whole situation is.
“And what are they like?” Kate asks when Pete’s finished. “Do you get on?”
“Well,” Pete begins, “that’s where we’ve just been incredibly lucky. They’re very nice. And really, really committed to making it work.”
“They’re a bit weird,” I say.
Pete shoots me a look. I realize I’ve spoken a little thickly, but sod it: It isn’t as if I’m driving anywhere.
“I mean, Pete’s right,” I add. “They are committed. But it’s a relief to have a break from them, actually. They wanted us all to go away together over Easter. I managed to get us out of it, but—put it this way, they’re hard work.”
“It’s a bit like nature versus nurture, this situation of yours, isn’t it?” Richard says thoughtfully.
Pete nods. “That’s what Miles said, too.”
I give him a look. “When was this?”
“When we went out for a drink.” Pete looks surprised. “I thought I told you. Miles said, it’ll be interesting to see if Theo turns out as successful as him, or whether being with us will make him less competitive. Or words to that effect.”
There’s a short silence. “That’s actually quite insulting, though, isn’t it?” Sophie says.
Richard frowns. “He sounds a bit of a prick.”
“Well, we have very different ideas of what success looks like,” Pete begins, just as the doorbell rings.
For a moment, I think, It’s him. Then I relax. Of course, it can’t be—the Lamberts are 250 miles away in Cornwall, and in any case, Miles comes earlier than this when he wants to see Theo. “I’ll go,” I say, getting up.
It is Miles. And Lucy, both of them smiling expectantly at me as I open the door. Miles is wearing a dark blazer and faded blue jeans. In one hand he has a bottle of expensive-looking wine, in the other a shopping bag.
“Thought we’d come and introduce ourselves,” he says cheerfully. I’m so dumbfounded, I let him step past me into the house. He looks around the full room. “Quite a party you’ve got here.”
Pete finds his voice. “Miles. We thought you were in Cornwall.”
“Didn’t fancy it on our own.” Miles waves at the table. “Greetings, one and all.”
“Right.” Pete nods, a bit too vigorously. “Miles and Lucy, everyone.”
“I’m guessing you must be Maddie’s brother,” Miles says to Richard, extending his hand across the table.
“I’m Richard,” Richard says, confused. “My wife works with Maddie.”
Miles turns to Greg inquiringly. But then a kind of shadow falls across his face.
“We know Pete and Maddie from the NICU,” Greg says.
Miles looks at me. “Where are your brother and his family?” he asks quietly. There’s a strange, pale light in his eyes, like a big cat’s.
“They’re not here.”
“Why not?”
I barely hesitate. “Their flight was delayed.”
“Which airline?” Miles’s voice is soft.
“We didn’t fancy coming to Cornwall,” I say defiantly. “It was a white lie, okay?”
There’s a long silence. Miles shakes his head. “No. It is not okay, Madelyn. It is not okay at all.” He speaks in the same distant voice I heard last time he was here, eerily calm.
“Mate—” Pete begins. Miles turns.
“I’m not your mate, Pete. Though God knows I’ve tried to be, for the sake of my son.” He looks at the table. “Well, budge up. Two more for dinner, now.”
Another silence. There is clearly no way anyone can squeeze up any further.
I take a deep breath. “Miles, Lucy. It’s always great to see you, but this isn’t a good time. As you can see, we’ve got guests.”
“Guests,” Miles repeats. “And they’re more important than the mother and father of that little boy upstairs, are they?”
“It’s not like that—” Pete protests.
“We’re not good enough for you, is that it?” Miles says. “Because we don’t work in the media or take drugs or read the fucking Guardian?”
“Jesus,” Sophie says nervously. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“You should go,” I say firmly to Miles.
“Yes, Miles.” Lucy’s voice is little more than a whisper, and when Miles turns toward her, she flinches. It’s a tiny movement, barely more than a twitch, but with a sudden flash of intuition I think: She’s scared of him. “Let’s go home.”
“Give this to Theo,” he says to no one in particular, pulling a box out of the shopping bag. It’s an Easter egg, a huge one. He puts it on the table.
I suddenly realize that Pete and I should have gotten something for David. We should have investigated low-protein eggs, or thought of a non-chocolate alternative. But it hadn’t even occurred to us.
Miles puts the wine on the table as well. “Come on,” he says to his wife. “Let’s get out of this shithole.”
45
Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 23, email from Peter Riley to Miles Lambert.
Miles,
After a day’s reflection, it seems to Maddie and I that none of us handled yesterday evening very well. Certainly, we shouldn’t have told that white lie about Maddie’s brother coming over from Australia. Please understand that we only did so out of a desire to spare your and Lucy’s feelings. We’ve been seeing quite a lot of you recently, which has been on the whole a great pleasure, and we just wanted a little time to ourselves.
Also on reflection, it was remiss of us not to sit down with you both much sooner and work out some ground rules for how this is going to work. Clearly, the effort we’ve all been making to keep it friendly and informal is going to have to be supplemented by some agreements about visiting times, responsibilities, how much input we should each have into each other’s parenting styles, things like that. And we are all going to have to be very clear about what is and isn’t acceptable language to use with each other.
In many ways we think it’s a good thing that harsh words have now been spoken and the air has been cleared. That’s what happens in families, isn’t it—a row, followed by reconciliation. And we definitely are a kind of family, even if it’s an unconventional one.
What do you say—shall we agree to put last night behind us, for the sake of our children, and take it from there? There are so many positives to be had from this situation, even if it is going to take effort and commitment on both sides to make it work smoothly.
Best wishes,
Pete and Maddie
46
MADDIE
PERSONALLY, I THINK THE email is way too conciliatory. I’m still furious at the way Miles and Lucy ruined our evening, and it’s taken all Pete’s powers of persuasion to convince me that the future relationship with them is worth swallowing my anger for.
“Think of David,” he said quietly. “Think of our biological son, sitting in that huge house with a father who virtually ignores him because he’ll never make the first eleven. Are we really going to walk away from our son just because Miles is turning out to be trickier than we first thought? David needs us to be bigger than that, Mads.”