Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 2

you can make a permanent arrangement'. Meanwhile, the baby was still in the hospital and Jules was going there two or three times every day. The staff had shown him how to feed and change her and he felt he was getting to know her. He could have picked her out from all the other babies now, even if they had been dressed the same and switched around. He even knew her voice.
    The responsibility of deciding her future kept him awake at night. He called Mark and said, "If they would propose only one solution, I would go for it. But what can I do with all these choices? I don't know who will be the best parents for her."
    Mark said, "What do you want to do? How often do you want to see her?"
    Surprising himself, Jules replied, "I want to see her every day. But all the possible parents are here in France. I would have to sell the restaurant and move here, I'd have to start all over again."
    "I don't see why. Couldn't you bring her here? We're all EU citizens so there are no immigration issues. You can afford childcare or, if you don't want her to live with you, she could be fostered here so that you can still see her. But there's no reason why you shouldn't take care of her yourself. You're probably assuming you can't because you're a man, but if you were her father, nobody would question it."
    He saw at once that Mark was right. It turned to be very simple. Jules went to see Claire's notary who helped him complete the forms required to register Nicole's birth, prove that he was next of kin and get her a passport. Then he flew back to England with her.
    ****
    Mark met him at Heathrow. Jules had taken the airport bus on the way out, but with Nicole that was just not possible. It wasn't the baby that was the problem— she was neatly packed into a sling, nestling against Jules's chest— it was everything that came with her.
    "She has more stuff than a supermodel," he complained as they loaded a cart to push to Mark's car. "You wouldn't believe someone so tiny could need so much luggage."
    He was happy to see Mark's warm, welcoming face and even happier to find that his car was already fitted with a baby seat. Mark took Nicole to put her into the seat and Jules was impressed by the way he held her. He seemed to know how to talk to her, too. Of course, he had a niece and nephew of his own. He would be a big help, Jules was sure.
    And he needed help. From the moment they arrived back at the restaurant, his life changed completely. Mark had found an agency that supplied live-in nannies but that didn't mean that Jules had any free time. There was no more heading for the city on Sunday and Monday nights when the restaurant was closed. He had to stay with Nicole so that the nanny could have an evening out. Nor could he arrange for one of his internet dates to come over for quick and dirty sex the way they used to, not with Nicole and the nanny there. He would have had to go to the other guy's place, which wasn't easy when he finished work after eleven and had no car and the nanny was expecting him home.
    One evening Mark said something about Jules's life and Jules said, "Life? What life? I don't have a life, I have a baby."
    After a few weeks, the first nanny, Lucy, left to go backpacking around Asia. The agency sent a replacement but she was a slow, clumsy girl who resigned in tears when Jules yelled at her for breaking his coffee grinder. Mark told him that he couldn't yell at nannies as if they were kitchen staff. They weren't trained to accept it. Jules said in that case he would look after Nicole by himself. He didn't have much choice: the agency said there was nobody else available.
    He'd learnt a lot from Lucy and from the midwife who had been assigned to check up on him when he registered Nicole with a doctor. Theoretically, he was sure he could cope. It was true that he got twice as much sleep with a nanny there, but who needed sleep?
    He bought a second cot for Nicole so that she could stay in the office while he was working in the kitchen. He set up a baby monitor so that he could hear her crying and one corner of the kitchen was reserved for her bottles and formula. At the same time, he learnt to delegate so that customers' meals wouldn't be delayed while he went off to feed the baby.
    Of course, if Mark was in the office with her, he fed her. None of the other staff were allowed to have any responsibility for her care, but Mark was different. Without ever discussing it, they both took it for granted that he would