“I’ll make some more tea,” I say.
* * *
—
“ ‘BOTH HIS DADS’?” I say quietly to Pete when they’ve finally gone and Theo is watching CBeebies. “Is that something you agreed to?”
“I could hardly pull him up on it in front of Theo. But we haven’t discussed what Miles should call himself, no.” He glances at me. “How was Lucy?”
“Anxious.” I tell him about the photo request. “I think we’re going to need a conversation with them about boundaries.”
“Really?” Pete sounds surprised.
“Well…When we were making the decision about the park and whether it was too soon for Theo to be playing…I felt a bit outnumbered. Like there were suddenly four parents instead of two.”
“They didn’t take any part in deciding to go to the park, though. That was me.”
“Yes, but you knew Miles wanted you to go.”
“Okay,” Pete says, a word that somehow contains the sentiment I think you’re overreacting but I’m too supportive to call you on it. “I’ll speak to Miles. I’m sure they want clarity just as much as we do. But we did say that we’d try to make sure Theo’s a part of their lives.” He gets up from the kitchen chair and stretches. “We had a good time today, actually. I’d forgotten how much fun it is just to go and chuck a ball around—it’s something I can’t really do with Theo on my own.”
“Lucy asked me if I’d booked Easter week off yet. I had to stall her—I had no idea what she was talking about.”
“Yes, you do. That plan to get together on Easter Day? It’s evolved into a few days down in Cornwall. Miles has found this massive house by the sea.”
“I’m not sure I want to be stuck with them for a whole long weekend,” I say doubtfully. “I mean, yes, they seem like nice people, and it would be lovely to spend more time with David. But we shouldn’t rush things—this is way too important to risk getting it wrong and having it blow up in our faces. Besides, the way Lucy was talking it sounded like more than just a couple of days.”
Pete shrugs. “I think it could be fun, actually. And I do get a bit stir-crazy sometimes in London, stuck in this tiny house with Theo. But I’m sure they won’t mind if we say we can only go for a night. I’ll talk to Miles next week.”
26
Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 17, retrieved from DadStuff.net.
HELP! JUST FOUND TODDLER EATING SALT. WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Homedad85—Level 5 poster. Member since 2018.
No idea how much. Big pile of cooking salt from one of those plastic tubs. Given him plenty of water. Should we be worried?
Actiondad
NHS Direct
Darren
Yeah, dial 111 for NHS Direct.
Homedad85
Tried 111, still in the queue. Should we go to emergency?
Thedadinator
Give him some water.
Fourlovelydaughters
Surely must be self-limiting as tastes so bitter and horrid? Maybe ask if he wants any more—if he says yes, maybe he likes the taste so could actually be in real danger? I would just give LOTS of water.
Fourlovelydaughters
Mind you I’m not a medical professional so please don’t rely on my advice.
Darren
Out of interest, what did you decide to do?
Darren
@Homedad85? Everything ok over there????
Homedad85
Sorry, got back from emergency after three hours (basically, all fine but projectile vomiting—nurse said we’d done exactly the right thing) and found visitors waiting. Had to go and play rugby in the park with DS and DS’s new grown-up friend Miles, aka “Moles” as DS calls him. Pretty inspiring story actually—how friendship, positivity, and good communication are making what could have been a really tricky situation into an all-around success.
Darren
Sounds intriguing @Homedad85—do tell?
27
MADDIE
“YOU KNOW, THIS MILES and Lucy thing would make a great feature,” Pete says over supper. “I might try to pitch it to a few editors.”
I look up, frowning. “Isn’t it a bit soon for that?”
“Well, even if someone does go for it, it’ll take me a while to write it. And I’ll clear it with Miles and Lucy before I send anything out, obviously. But I think it’s the kind of thing an editor might really like—unconventional family dynamics, a beacon of cooperation at a time of global division, all that kind of stuff.”
“Will you disguise our identities this time?”
“Of course.” He sees my expression. “I know that was a mistake, before,” he says quietly. “But this is what I do, Mads. I’m a journalist.”
* * *
—
AFTER HIS REDUNDANCY, PETE struggled. Not with Theo—he loved being a full-time dad—but professionally. It turned out the articles travel editors really wanted now were the ones their overworked staff writers no longer had time to write, the ones that required actual traveling: fourteen days trekking through Patagonia, say, or a review of a new hotel in the Arctic made entirely of ice. That was out of the question for Pete, of course, with Theo to look after. So he started pitching more general articles to the family sections: pieces about being a full-time dad, mostly.
He didn’t tell me he was writing about my breakdown, not at first. It was about the NICU, he said vaguely, and what we went through when Theo was born. It was only when he showed me a draft that I realized just how frank he’d been. It was all there—how he’d gotten back from the bike ride and found the TV covered in dried shit, bits of broken phone all over the floor, the gibberish I’d babbled about the doctors who were watching me. “My partner is amazing,” he’d written. “Because, however good the NHS was at keeping our tiny premature infant alive, when it came to his mother’s brain, they were in the Dark Ages. She was left to fight most of that lonely battle by herself.”
“What do you think?” he’d asked when I’d finished reading it.
“It’s powerful,” I said doubtfully. “And very well written. I suppose I just wasn’t expecting it to be so…honest.”
“We always say there shouldn’t be any stigma around mental health,” he pointed out. “How are we going to remove the stigma, if we don’t speak out?”