It was after Christmas dinner and everyone was still seated at the table in a pleasant post-turkey tryptophan haze.
Previous Christmases they’d crammed around the table in Jackie’s kitchen diner, the nephews annexed around a pull-out picnic table in the lounge, under pain of death not to drop anything on the carpet. Or Zoe and Win would go up to Yorkshire to stay with her parents, which was always lovely until her father’s unmarried sister, the godfearing Aunt Margaret, descended on them and she was hard work. But this year Zoe and Win were hosting and hopefully starting a new Christmas tradition. Ken and Nancy, Jackie and Gavin, Ed and Amanda, the four nephews and Win were all seated, more or less comfortably, around their huge kitchen table.
Zoe looked past the cracker debris, plates smeared with streaks of gravy and cranberry sauce, the serving dishes empty apart from a couple of forlorn roast potatoes and a few stuffing balls, to where Win was playing jumping jacks from a cracker with Medium and Small. He looked up and smiled at Zoe. She smiled back and blew him a kiss, which he pretended to catch while Large made gagging noises until Amanda threatened to take away his new iPad.
Zoe still had that warm, mellow feeling like a Ready Brek glow around her soul later when Win’s side of the family had gone home. Her parents were in the front room. Ken curled up on the sofa with Florence sprawled across his chest, their stereophonic snoring rattling the window frames, while Nancy Skyped with her sister in Walton-on-the-Naze. She and Win were in the kitchen putting away the last of the glasses, which Win had insisted on hand-washing. Once they were done, he pulled Zoe into his arms and gently spun her round while Frank Sinatra crooned in the background.
‘Happy Christmas, wifey,’ he murmured in her ear, even though Zoe had told him never, ever to call her that. Ever.
‘Happy Christmas, hubs,’ Zoe replied then pulled free. The tension was thrumming through her. ‘Actually I’ve got one last present for you.’
‘Really?’ Win tried not to look eager, but failed miserably. ‘Because you’ve had all your presents.’ He pulled out the pockets of his jeans. ‘I’ve got nothing left to give you.’
‘This is a present we can both share,’ Zoe said and she took the small, narrow gift box out of the drawer where she’d hidden it. ‘Here you are. Hope you like it.’
Win gave Zoe a curious look because her voice was so high and squeaky it was a wonder Florence hadn’t come bustling in to see if they had mice. ‘I’m sure I will,’ he said, taking the box from her and tugging the ribbon bow loose.
‘It’s a bit unhygienic, but I gave it a wipe down with the antibacterial hand gel,’ Zoe assured Win as he opened the box. ‘And I know it’s a bit naff, wrapping it up. Even clichéd, but the occasion warranted a cliché, right? Sometimes you have to embrace the cliché.’
‘Oh,’ Win said, his voice breaking. ‘Oh.’
‘Is that a good oh or a bad oh?’ Zoe asked, and now she knew what was meant when people said their heart was in their mouth because it felt as if her heart had risen up her chest and was making it hard to get her words out.
‘Are you sure?’
Zoe nodded. ‘About ninety-five per cent certain.’ Immediately, she was back in Win’s arms as he kissed her hair, her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose, her mouth and stayed right there, peppering kisses against her lips so she couldn’t speak. Didn’t want to.
Finally he let her go and held up the strip of plastic that could change a person’s life. Two persons’ lives, because soon two would become three.
Win sat down abruptly as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up and pulled Zoe onto his lap.
‘How do you feel?’
She smiled damply. ‘This time I feel pregnant. My boobs are sore, which is why I elbowed you in the head the other night when you were too enthusiastic, I cry whenever the John Lewis Christmas ad comes on. I even cried when the Superdrug Christmas ad came on, and bad smells make me want to retch.’
‘Is that why you’d declared Christmas a Brussels-sprout-free zone?’ Win asked.
‘Not so much the sprouts as the thought of Gavin’s farts after he’d eaten the sprouts,’ Zoe said and then she wished she hadn’t because she retched while Win looked at her as if she was truly enchanting to behold. ‘I wanted to tell you before but I was scared that I wasn’t. And now I’m scared because I’m pretty sure I am but I’m excited too. You know what? I don’t even know how to explain how I feel.’
Despite Win’s Christmas schedule, inevitably Zoe had found herself in Boots in Wood Green at three in the afternoon the day before doing battle with all the other last-minute, panicked Christmas Eve shoppers. Heading for the tills after snatching the very last Soap & Glory gift set off the display, she’d seen a shelf full of pregnancy tests and had grabbed one almost as an afterthought. She’d vowed to herself that she’d wait until after Christmas. That her period was late because she was stressed about the robins, stressed about hosting Christmas for the very first time and her body was probably still adjusting after years and years of having a contraceptive implant releasing progesterone into her system. Anyway, it was too soon. They’d only just started trying.
She’d felt like a kid too excited to sleep the night before Christmas and had sneaked out of bed at five that morning to put herself out of her misery. But it turned out that misery had nothing to do with it.
‘I think it’s all right to be scared,’ Win decided. ‘I’m scared too. It’s all I can do not to get up right this very minute and throw out all the raw tuna and soft cheese that’s in the fridge.’
Zoe wound her arms round his neck. ‘We don’t have any raw tuna in the fridge.’
‘I know, but I still want to make absolutely certain.’ Win rested his forehead against hers. ‘I’m going to be a very attentive and a very, very annoying expectant dad. You’ve unleashed a monster and the spreadsheet potential… Oh… I’m going to be a dad. We’re going to have a baby. Our baby. That’s huge.’
‘The hugest,’ Zoe said and it was early days. They’d been down this road once before and it had ended in disaster, but all she could do was hope for the best. There was always hope.
She shifted on his lap so she was snuggled against Win’s chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and rested a hand on her belly.
They were home.
***