‘That sounds like a very workable plan,’ I replied, giving in as his hand slipped between my legs.
It had been a while since this had happened. And by ‘a while’ I meant more than month. I thought I knew what tired was before I had a baby – living with Jenny was hardly a relaxing experience, after all – but this was something else entirely. Motherhood utterly consumed me, mind, body and spirit. For the first six months, every ounce of my existence had gone into Alice and now, as I tried to pull back pieces of my life, I was even more exhausted than before. No matter what the baby books said, it was almost impossible to get yourself in the mood when you were so exhausted you felt like you were in a medically induced coma every time your head hit the pillow. No matter how hot your husband might be.
‘Alex, wait,’ I whispered, my voice catching in my throat as he pulled my T-shirt up over my head and the world turned pink for a moment as I untangled myself from the fabric.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, stopping immediately.
Wrangling my T-shirt back down, I offered him my best apologetic grimace.
‘I need a wee.’
Really I had to start working on my Kegel exercises.
‘Give me two seconds,’ I said, all arms and legs as I scrambled out the bed, running to the bathroom on tiptoes. A quick wee, a rinse around with mouthwash and, bloody hell, I thought as I caught sight of myself in the mirror, maybe we’ll go for a once-over with the micellar water, given that I got approximately none of my mascara off before I went to bed. Motherhood meant multitasking and I was well into my second cleanse, sitting on the loo, when I heard Alice start.
‘No, no, no,’ I chanted, dropping pads of used cotton wool in the bin. ‘Please go back to sleep. Mummy needs to get some.’
Looking down at my shorts and knickers, a pool of pale pink fabric on the bathroom floor, I sighed. My sleeping clothes were a sad state of affairs. I picked up the greying granny pants with my toe and tossed them in the trash, right on top of the cotton wool. So brazen for six o’clock in the morning.
As I washed my hands and combed my fingers through my bedhead, I realized Alice had stopped screaming.
‘Thank you,’ I said as I slicked on some lip balm. ‘Mummy appreciates it more than you’d know.’
Except what Mummy didn’t know was that Alice had only stopped crying because Daddy had brought her into bed.
‘Alex,’ I said from the bedroom doorway.
‘She was crying. I couldn’t leave her,’ he said, bouncing her up and down on his knee. ‘I’ll make it up to you later.’
With a frustrated sigh, I padded back to bed, sliding under the covers. It was true, Alex Reid was the greatest dad of all time. He had taken to fatherhood like a waitress to water, throwing himself head first into all things Alice from the very first day we’d brought her home. He was the one who said we didn’t need a full-time nanny when I went back to work, he was the one who cleared out Barnes & Noble’s parenting section, and I would be lying if I said he hadn’t done more than his fair share of dirty nappies and three a.m. feeds. He’d even built a chute that ran out of her bedroom window and down into the bin so I could chuck her dirty nappies away without having to go outside in the winter. But the fact of the matter was, for one person to be the best at something, someone else had to be the worst.
Alex was a natural parent, I was not.
And it didn’t feel good.
‘Here she is,’ he said, waving a sulky bundle of baby in my face. Softly shaking my head, I forgot my frustrations and snuggled into the family hug. Even though she was sleeping in the nursery, I loved how she almost always found her way into our bed in the mornings, all grumpy and fidgety and half-asleep.
‘She always reminds me of you when she first wakes up,’ Alex said, pulling the covers up over his long legs.
‘Thanks,’ I replied, running my fingertip along her tiny ear as her big green eyes watched me, cheeks flushed with crying. ‘She always reminds me of you when she cries, it sounds like you singing.’
‘Thank you for that vote of confidence two weeks out from my first show in forever. My baby’s gonna be a rockstar.’
Stretching until my back cracked, I smiled and shook my head. ‘Auntie Jenny says she’s going to be a YouTube sensation.’
‘Over my dead body,’ he said instantly. ‘She’s going to be a rockstar. Or an astronaut. Only choices on the table.’
‘What if she wants to do something really important with her life?’ I countered. ‘Like write amazing novels that are never appreciated in her lifetime? Or start an underground feminist magazine? Or open a cat café?’
‘Also acceptable options,’ Alex replied as Alice poked the blanket with great concentration and babbled to herself. We were so close to her first words I could feel it and every single atom of my body wanted that word to be ‘Mummy’. I knew it wasn’t a competition as to who she loved the most, but I also knew it totally was.
‘Jenny wants to take me to Hawaii,’ I said, resting my head against his chest with my eyes closed, synching my breathing with the reassuring thud of his heartbeat.
‘And I was going to offer to take you to breakfast. Why does she always have to one-up me?’
‘Because she’s Jenny?’ I suggested.
He nodded sleepily. ‘When does she wanna go?’
‘Next week,’ I replied. ‘For five nights.’
Alex and Alice both looked at me with their matching big green eyes and laughed.
‘Sure. Classic Lopez.’
‘It’s a work thing, all expenses paid, fancy private resort on one of the little islands,’ I said, rolling onto my back and catching Alice’s tiny toes in my hand. Alex closed his eyes and smiled. ‘I told her I couldn’t go.’
I looked over to check for a reaction but in the pale dawn light of our bedroom his face was perfectly still and his eyes were shut. He wove his fingers into my hair, running them from root to tip and then back again, sending happy shivers down my spine.
‘You don’t want to?’
‘I would love to but I have work,’ I reasoned. ‘And Louisa is coming to stay and, you know, I have to keep a human being alive.’
‘I don’t know, Angela.’ The corners of Alex’s mouth turned upwards in a smile even though his eyes stayed closed. ‘I think I can survive without you for five nights.’
‘Ha ha, I meant Alice,’ I said, propping my head up in my hand. Alex stayed exactly as he was, his chest rising and falling evenly with every breath. ‘Although you would also be a concern.’
‘I’m not the one who leaves their hair straightener on three times a week,’ he reminded me. It was a harsh but fair point. ‘If I had the opportunity to go to Hawaii on Lopez’s dime, I would go. You’ll be gone what, five days? Me and Al can cope on our own. You managed when
