4
Alex pushes the front door open and lets Ally duck under his arm to dart inside. In his arms, Lucy kicks her feet and bats his face with her hands, then latches her mouth onto his cheek, covering him in drool.
“Ally, hang your bag up,” he calls as she runs into the kitchen. Lucy leans back and gurgles at him, then with a happy crowing sound grabs two fistfuls of his hair and pulls.
Eyes watering, he tries to untangle her fingers from his hair as he pushes the kitchen door with his hip. Ally is already clambering on a stool next to Polly at the bench, chattering about her day, back pack abandoned on the floor.
“Papa’s door is shut,” she says over her shoulder to Alex and he glances through the kitchen window toward the studio on the other side of the courtyard. They’d converted the studio that had been Ben’s mother’s architecture studio into Ben’s small legal office and the door is indeed shut, indicating he is with a client. “Are you making ‘gritas, Olly?”
“Sure am dolly bird,” Polly says. “And Shirley Temple’s for good girls. Know any?”
“Me!” Ally squeals.
Finally liberated from Lucy’s grip, Alex deposits her in the highchair and rubs his stinging scalp.
“Pick your bag up monster,” Alex repeats and fills one of Lucy’s bottles with water. He fixes a teat on it and places it on the highchair tray. Takes the jug of margarita mix from Polly and puts it in the fridge. “Think he’ll be long?”
“I doubt it,” Polly says after a moment’s consideration, “he’s been in there over an hour already. How was the clinic?”
Alex lifts Ally down from her chair and points to her bag while he catches Polly up on the comings and goings at the health center. Huffing and rolling her eyes, the little girl takes out her lunchbox and puts it on the bench, then hangs the backpack on a hook by the door. There are two rows: one on adult level that have been there since the house was built when Ben was twelve and a new row, lower down that Alex put up when Ally started going to day care. When she turns back he’s holding a bright yellow plastic apron ready and slips it over head and ties it behind her back. Ties his own, in the same blinding yellow, and lifts her back up on to her chair. Together they wash their hands.
“Can we have nuggets, Daddy?”
“Not tonight. We’re having spaghetti and meatballs.”
Shrugging, Ally takes the plastic board Alex is holding out to her and waits. He gets a Tupperware container from the fridge, takes the lid off, and sets it down with a smile. Inside is the meat and crumb mix, already prepared last night, for her to start forming meatballs with. For a moment he watches her, then gets out a pan to start making sauce in.
By the time the office door opens, and two men emerge to disappear down the path toward the road, Polly has taken the girls to the living room and when Alex hears the opening strains to “Do You Want to Build A Snowman”, he groans. He’s going to be humming the damned thing all weekend now. The meatballs are simmering in the sauce, water boiling and ready for the pasta. Alex snaps the dry spaghetti in two and drops it in the pot, then gets two bottles of beer from the fridge. When he shuts the door, Ben is leaning in the doorway, arms folded over his linen shirt, smiling at him.
“Hey,” Alex hands him one of the bottles, twists the cap off the other, and takes a mouthful. “You finished for the day?
“Hey yourself.” Ben pushes away from the doorway and crosses to Alex, slips a hand around his waist, and pulls him closer. “Yes, I am all yours to do with exactly as you please.”
“Uh huh,” Alex’s mouth quirks up at the corners. “Well the light in the girl’s bathroom needs changing and the Volvo needs an oil chan … mmmphhh”
Alex smiles into the kiss and his eyes flutter shut when Ben flicks his tongue over Alex’s bottom lip. Sighing, Alex skims his hand up over the swell of Ben’s butt and brings it to rest in the small of his back. So far this week, there hasn’t been a chance for Ben’s promised romantic evening or even another non-romantic blow job in the shower. Either one of them has had to work late or the girls have taken so long to settle for the night that all either man can think of when they get to bed, is sleep.
“Ewwww, Olly they’re doing it again,” Ally cries from the doorway behind them and Ben breaks the kiss, dropping his head against Alex’s shoulder with an exasperated groan. Laughing, Alex kisses the top of his head. “Daddy stop smooching Papa; the meatballs will burn again.”
“Once, I burned them once,” Alex protests turning back toward the stove.
“Cause you were being smushy and smooching Papa,” Ally points out. She holds her arms up and Ben picks her up, presses a loud kiss on her cheek and asks how her day was. Polly appears behind her, Lucy in her arms and grins at Ben.
“You have no sense of decorum, that’s your trouble,” she says. “Never did have.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Alex leans back from the table, Lucy in his arms, sipping the last of his margarita. Beneath the table he draws lazy circles on Ben’s ankles with his bare feet.
“You good there, Lulu-bug?” he asks the baby bouncing up and down on his thigh, flexing the muscles in her plump legs.
“Gracie’s mommy is having a baby,” Ally says around a spoonful of ice-cream. She’s seated on Ben’s lap, head resting against his chest, while they share a bowl of ice-cream.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, munchkin,” Ben says licking at his own spoon.
“Gracie says the baby is in her mommy’s tummy. It must be really small.”
“It is,” Alex shakes his head when Ben lifts the spoon in his direction and blows at Lucy face, making her gurgle, “but it will grow.”
“Ok but …” Ally frowns at the bowl of ice-cream, twists around to frown at her older father, “Papa, you’re eating it all. Stop.” She slurps some more dessert off her spoon before continuing. “But, what I don’t get is how the baby got in her tummy.”
Polly roars with laughter when Ben’s chokes on his mouthful, spluttering ice-cream over his daughter’s head.
“Ewwwww, Papa! It’s in my hair! Ewwwwww.” Ally grabs a napkin and scrubs at her hair, throwing indignant looks over her shoulder. “That’s gross.”
“Sorry.”
“Dolly bird,” Polly says, eyes twinkling, “a mommy and a daddy have a special hug, one where they hug really tight, really close – much tighter than anything else and sometimes that makes a baby in the mommy’s tummy.”
“Oh,” Ally says. “Okay.”
Scarlet cheeked, Alex mouths thank you to Polly, relieved Ally doesn’t seem interested in any further details, and grins at Ben who is still apologizing for the ice-cream in her hair. Ally puts her spoon down, face creasing into a frown.
“But what about daddies?”
“What about them?” Ben asks.
“Is that how they get a baby in their tummy too?”
“Nope, only a mommy can have a baby in her tummy.” Alex clutches at Lucy who is trying to throw herself out of his arms.
“So,” Ally looks confused and Alex realizes, too late, where the conversation is headed, “how did you and Daddy make me and Lulu-bug?”
This is not how Alex had imagined this conversation going. For a start, in his imagination there was no hair and ice-cream chapter. Nor had he imagined having it when Ally wasn’t even four yet. He had thought it might not happen for, well he’d hoped another decade. Maybe never if he was lucky, which obviously, he thinks, he’s not.
“Uh, Aunt Claire helped us make you,” Alex says, cheeks heating at the thought of the next visit from his brother and sister-in-law. Like Ben, Ally is incapable of dropping something once it has her attention. Desperate, he finishes his drink and tries to change the subject. “I think it must be almost bath time. It’s certainly time for your sister to have a diaper change.”
“Did you give Aunt Claire a very tight hug, Daddy?”
This time it’s Alex’s turn to splutter and he ducks his head, ignoring Polly’s laughter from the other end of the table. Shoots a panicked look toward Ben from behind Lucy.
“Um sort of munchkin,” Ben says and Alex glares at him – he’d wanted Ben to head her off the subject, not continue it. “See…”
“Ow!” Alex yells. Ducking his head has put him on Lucy’s level and once again she has two handfuls of his collar length hair and is pulling with all her might. He pries her hands free and holds her out toward Ben, rubbing his head.
Ally clambers into his lap, takes his head between her hands and plants a sticky kiss in his hair.
“Poor Daddy,” she commiserates. “All better now?”
✽ ✽ ✽