Baby Be Mine

listening. Christian had gone. He’d left France. I don’t know why this made everything seem so much more final, but my insides felt like they’d been put in a tumble dryer.
    ‘Okay, thanks for letting me know,’ I said in a monotone voice.
    ‘Hey, are you okay?’ he asked, suddenly curious.
    ‘I’m fine, thanks. I’ve got to go.’
    ‘Oka—’
    ‘Bye,’ I interrupted, ending the call.
    I don’t know what I’ll say to Christian when we do finally speak. If and when that day ever comes.
    Johnny and Barney are standing on the small bridge in the garden overlooking the stream.
    ‘What are you up to?’ I call.
    ‘I’m going to make him a paper boat,’ Johnny calls back. I smile as I wander towards them, folding my arms across my chest. There’s a chill in the air. Summer may be raging on in the south of France, but it’s officially over in England.
    I reach down and pick up three sticks. ‘Race ya,’ I say to Johnny, handing him one and Barney the other.
    ‘Hang on a sec,’ Johnny replies, giving me a sardonic look. ‘Let me check the aerodynamics of that one, first, please.’ I roll my eyes and hand him my stick. ‘Sneaky,’ he murmurs, swapping my stick for his.
    ‘Happy now?’ I ask, raising my eyebrows. ‘Or would you like to check Barney’s, too?’
    ‘Hmm.’ Johnny regards Barney’s stick through narrowed eyes. ‘I suppose he can have that one.’
    ‘That’s nice of you, seeing as he’s only one, and all.’ I shake my head at him. ‘Right . . .’ I show Barney how to hold his stick over the edge of the bridge before throwing it in, and then we all rush to the other side to see whose comes through first.
    ‘I won! I won!’ Johnny cries.
    ‘Yes, you beat the baby. Well done.’ I smirk at him and he chuckles. I wonder if Barney should start to call him Daddy . . .
    That thought came to me out of nowhere. But no, it’s too soon.
    ‘I should probably get on with dinner,’ I say.
    ‘I hope your cooking has improved from the last time we came here,’ Johnny responds.
    ‘You ungrateful sod,’ I remark. ‘We’re having a Spaghetti Bolognese ready meal, for your information.’ We stocked up on food at the service station on the way here.
    ‘Man, I miss Rosa.’
    He immediately looks a little taken aback at his own declaration. I don’t think he meant to say it out loud, to admit to anyone how much he cared for his beloved cook. I give him a sympathetic smile.
    ‘There’s no chance of her returning?’
    He shakes his head. ‘Come on,’ he says to Barney. ‘Let’s find some more sticks.’
    I turn and head back inside.
    ‘Messy eater,’ Johnny says at dinner. Half of Barney’s spaghetti is on the floor.
    ‘This is nothing,’ I reply. ‘You should have seen him when he’d just started solids.’
    It’s a flyaway comment, but I immediately realise it’s an insensitive one. I look up at Johnny to see him watching Barney thoughtfully.
    ‘So,’ I say with a wry smile, trying to change the subject. ‘What have you told Dana this time?’
    ‘The truth,’ Johnny replies without a beat.
    ‘Seriously?’ I’m shocked. I thought he was going to say he’d told her he was writing or away on business, or had used some other excuse. ‘You’ve told her about Barney?’ I double-check.
    ‘Yes.’ He stares at me directly. I find it unnerving, but try not to show it.
    ‘Wow. What did she say?’
    ‘She was pretty cool with it.’ He pushes his plate of half-eaten spaghetti into the centre of the table.
    ‘Was she?’
    ‘Yep.’ He abruptly gets to his feet, the wooden legs of his chair screeching across the stone floor. ‘Gonna nip outside for a fag.’
    ‘Okay,’ I say in a small voice.
    Why doesn’t this feel like good news?
    ‘Do you remember this?’ Johnny asks me that evening when I come downstairs after settling Barney. He’s holding up a jigsaw box with a picture on the front of a litter of multicoloured kittens in a basket.
    I smile. ‘Yes, I do.’
    There’s no television in the cottage, so last time we were here we spent a decent chunk of our time playing board games.
    ‘Are you up for it?’ he asks.
    I pull out a chair and sit down. ‘Go on, then.’
    He opens the box and tips the pieces out onto the table.
    ‘First, you’ve got to do the corners,’ I say, teasing him because this is what he said to me the last time we did this puzzle, as if I didn’t know how to do a jigsaw. ‘Then the edges,’ I add for extra