The Aftermath, Gail Schimmel [sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt] 📗

borrow trouble? I opened the door and Daniel had transformed the flat. There were candles everywhere and rose petals leading from the front door to the table. The table was beautifully laid, and there was a huge teddy bear sitting on my chair, wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Baby’s First Toy’. I suppressed the thought that actually, by a few hours, it wasn’t.

As soon as Daniel saw me, he came rushing over from where he’d been cooking, carrying a martini glass.

‘A virgin cranberry martini,’ he said. ‘For my beautiful Julia.’

‘Wow,’ was all I could manage.

‘You sit down while I finish with supper. Put your feet up. Relax. You work too hard.’

I didn’t know what to make of it. It was like he’d accessed the disloyal thoughts I’ve been having about him and decided that he’d show me how great he really is. And I’m certainly not complaining. Maybe he finally started the divorce proceedings, I thought. Maybe he was going to propose! That gave me a small frisson of excitement. And apprehension. I supressed the memory that Daniel had proposed to Claire on top of the Eiffel Tower. ‘So cheesy!’ Claire had laughed when she told me, but to me it had sounded romantic.

I looked around my small, overcrowded flat. Daniel’s boxes are still not unpacked, lurking like malevolent spirits everywhere I look. They’re now dusty and the edges are scuffed from us tripping over them. Whatever’s in them doesn’t seem important enough for Daniel to actually need. But other than the boxes, my place is nice. And I’ve made it feel like home, even more so since Daniel’s moved in and the spectre of Claire’s perfect house has loomed over me. There are lovely new scatter cushions that I paid too much for, and curtains that Mandy made for me, and an orchid on the coffee table, because Claire once told me there’s no design dilemma an orchid can’t fix.

It wasn’t Paris, but it would do.

But as it turned out, Daniel didn’t propose to me. In a way that made it better, because then I didn’t have to compare it to Paris. As it was, it was just a wonderful, romantic night, exactly like I imagined life would be with my perfect match. Romance for no special reason. Just because.

And we ate a delicious meal, and Daniel didn’t even blink when I asked for third helpings – he just smiled and said, ‘Got to keep my little boy growing.’ And when I actually burped at the table, he looked at me as though I’d performed a magic trick. So I almost immediately squashed the thought that Claire would never have burped in front of him. Obviously he was fine with it.

And after dinner we made love in a good, ordinary, romantic way. None of this up-against-the-wall, dirty-talk stuff. Just ordinary sex, with loving words. And yes, maybe it wasn’t as earth shattering as the other type. Maybe it was even a bit boring. But that was a good thing – that’s the type of sex one should be having with the father of your child when you’re twenty weeks pregnant. It made me feel like at long last I was safe with Daniel.

So today I wake up happy. And even though Daniel is busy all weekend, like he said he would be, I don’t mind. He sends me text messages during the day, checking in on me. At first, it’s sweet. It’s like we’ve turned a corner, like he’s made the decision to be with me in his heart. But as the day goes on, it gets a bit irritating. He’s gone weeks without contacting me all day, and now my phone is beeping every ten minutes. I go from feeling like the star of a romance movie to the victim of a stalker – but I push that feeling down. This is how it’s supposed to be. This is love.

Eventually, I send him a message: Stop worrying about me. I’m fine. Enjoy yourself.

And it’s a good time to smuggle the little rabbit like contraband into the house. First, I put it in the cupboard in the nursery, which is what I’m calling the spare room, but then I think Daniel might look there. After all, it is where half his clothes still are. So I put it under my bed. But that’s insane – it’s just a toy rabbit – so I put it back in the nursery, in the cupboard he never uses, and realise that he probably isn’t going to notice it anyway, or think that anyone but me bought it. I am acting like a complete lunatic. Finally, I put both the giant teddy and the rabbit on the spare room bed, on display. I need to get a cot, instead of acting like a toy rabbit is radioactive.

I try to phone my mother to see if we can go for lunch, but she doesn’t answer. So I stay at home, researching schools and births and early childhood development. I’m going to be ready for this baby. I feel grown up about my life.

Daniel is late home, but he texts several times more, so I don’t worry.

I’m okay, stop stressing, I tell him, every time. He’s obviously not used to being with a strong, confident woman like me is all I can conclude, trying hard not to picture Claire.

I’m fast asleep when he gets home.

I hear him bashing about getting changed, making the most enormous noise and pulling things out of the cupboard. I smile to myself – he must be very drunk. But I don’t let him know that he’s woken me, because as lovely as last night was, I don’t really feel like sex. And he might.

So I let myself fall back to sleep, holding my baby bump and thinking how lucky and happy I am.

Helen

On Saturday I wake up feeling good. I have a visit with Mike and then the lunch with Edward and his family. It