Monday January 20th

 

“That’s the mommy and the daddy,” Sierra pointed to the top floor of her new doll’s house. Her dolls, Kelly and Brett were in bed together.

“Um, Sierra,” Cate asked, “why is Kelly lying on top of Brett?”

Sierra shrugged, “they’re making a baby?”

“They’re making a what?” Cate spluttered, spilling coffee on the carpet.

“OK,” Nate whistled, “I’m going to go and check if Mats needs any help with his homework.”

“Sofia said that’s what mommies and daddies do when they want to have another baby; they lie on top of each other.”

Sierra looked up at Cate with those innocent, black eyes. “Is that what you and Daddy did to make Lola, Mats and me?”

Cate was literally lost for words.

But Sierra didn’t seem fazed by Cate’s lack of reply. “It looks really uncomfortable. Have we got any apple juice left? I’m really thirsty.”

“Um, yeah, I think there’s still some in the fridge,” Cate mumbled. Sierra got up from the floor and went downstairs to the kitchen.

Cate looked at the dolls “baby-making” on the top floor of the doll’s house. She quickly separated them, laying them down side-by-side. She walked to the bedroom door and then stopped. She turned around to look at them again. She felt like a fifties movie censor, like she should have made sure that Kelly’s foot was on the floor as well.

When she came back upstairs, Sierra would notice that she’d separated them. She felt torn. She really didn’t want to have a conversation about the proverbial birds and the bees with her youngest daughter – it had been excruciating enough having it with Lola but she also didn’t want to Sierra to think that she couldn’t talk to Cate or Kian about anything.

“Darn,” Cate cursed. She walked back to the doll’s house and quickly put Kelly back on top of Brett. Ugh, now she felt like a pimp.

After Sierra had got her apple juice and gone back upstairs, Cate phoned Liv.

“Which one was on top?” Liv giggled after Cate had explained what her daughter, Sofia had told Sierra about “baby-making”.

“Seriously, that’s what you’re asking me right now?”

“Don’t be such a grump.”

“Fine, it was Kelly.”

“Yay, go Kelly. My inner feminist is so freaking proud right now.”

Cate shook her head, “doesn’t it bother you that our two little girls are already talking about “baby-making”?”

“Not really. They’re both really smart, little girls. I think it’s only natural that they’d be curious since I’m having another baby.”

“I guess,” Cate relaxed a little. “What else did you tell Sofia about baby-making? Please tell me you didn’t just stop at they get into bed together and then Mommy lies on top of Daddy.”

“Of course not,” Liv laughed, “I’m not a complete slut-bag. I prefaced it by saying that before they can get into bed together, they have to love each other very much and most importantly, they have to be married. OK so I might have gone a little overboard when I told Sofia that if they weren’t married that God would get really angry and set fire to the bed.”

Cate slapped her forehead, “that’s going to get you into so much trouble when Sofia gets older and she realises that there aren’t nine months between your wedding anniversary and her birthday, you know?”

“It’s fine,” Liv shrugged. “She’ll have forgotten all about it by then.”

It was Cate’s turn to laugh, “unless you’ve scarred her for life.”

“If it stops her jumping into bed with complete and utter assholes like I did then it’s well worth the therapy bills, trust me.”

“Hey, Jax isn’t that bad.”

“Ha, ha. I think we both know which particular douche-canoe I’m talking about.”

 

“So…” Kian said later that night. He was still stuck at the office but wanted to say goodnight to the children before they went to sleep.

“Let me guess,” Cate sat down on the end of their bed. “You’re not coming home again tonight, are you?”

“I’m really sorry, angel.”

Cate thought about what he’d said over the weekend. She definitely needed to cut him some slack. If he didn’t come home, it wasn’t because he was out boozing or at strip clubs, he was working. It wasn’t just about making money; it was about proving to everybody but more importantly to himself that he wasn’t just a stupid footballer.

“It’s OK.”

Kian sighed, “no, it’s not. For the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at a really promising start-up in Detroit but Ben found out over the weekend that it might have drawn the attention of Miles Hardy’s firm so if we want to make a deal, we’ve got to do it now. I just want to go over the paperwork one more time to make sure that we’re not missing anything. I made you a promise this weekend and we’ve been back home less than twenty-four hours and I’m already breaking it. You’d be perfectly entitled to yell at me right now.”

Cate smiled, “you made me a promise that you’d be home every other night so as long as you don’t pull an all-nighter again tomorrow, you haven’t technically broken it. Besides, you should know by now that yelling isn’t really my style. I’m the absolute queen of passive aggression.”

“That’s true,” Kian chuckled, “so you’re not angry with me?”

“I’m disappointed that you won’t be coming home tonight but I’m not angry. It makes it easier, I guess, that I understand now why the company is so important to you.”

“If it helps at all, I’m going to have the biggest crick in my neck tomorrow morning. That sofa in my office is so fucking uncomfortable.”

“You know what? That does actually make me feel a little bit better,” Cate giggled.