The Brightest Stars ✨

Chapter 27

Unedited, please excuse the oopsies

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"When can I go on maternity leave because I am tired," Natalia moaned. "Why isn't unlimited maternity leave like a human right, what the hell is wrong with your country?"

Gabe smiled around his coffee cup, his evergreen eyes twinkling in amusement in Natalia direction. He maneuvered the truck out of the drive-through Starbucks and back onto the highway. He stayed silent, which was rather smart of him. Natalia oscillated between wanting to be a working mum and staying at home...hourly.

Some days she was so energised and ready to take in the world and other days she wanted to crawl under her duvet and never come out again, she called it being baby-polar.

In fact, they had already discussed this at length several times. Gabe preferred it if Natalia stayed at home, of course he would, he didn't say it but she could see it in his eyes. If he could wrap her in cotton wool he would but the choice was entirely hers he'd reassured her.

They were privileged in that they could afford her not going back to work for an extended period of time, if ever. Natalia could see the benefit in that. She liked to imagine that picture of idyllic domesticity; home cooked dinners, arts and crafts at the kitchen table, having the time to garden and bake. When she had been young and had often retreated into her head, that's what she imagined her adult life would be like.

Growing up she had lived in a cramped two bedroom highrise flat. With the four of them, her mum and two brothers, they were always in each other's pockets. It was a rough council estate, or what they called projects in the US, sprawling with vibrancy and violence. It was tucked away in the North West of the city, skirting on the edges of real poverty with grand opulence just a stone's throw away. London was just like that, a city of extremes.

Her mother, a nurse, was always pulling double shifts, night shifts and bank shifts. Now that she was grown, Nat often wondered if her mother had even needed to work that much or if she had thrown herself into it to escape the crushing humiliation of her failed marriage. She had only been around six when their father had left the house never to return again.

Her mother had lain stoically in bed for months until one day she got up like nothing had happened and went back to work. No one had ever explained where their father had gone and they never said his name again. That's just how things were done in the Burton household.

Nat was realising that she was more like her mother than she had previously thought, the closer she got to motherhood. She could now admit that in the silent safety of her own thoughts. The impulse to run, shut things, people and emotions out, she had been doing that for the last decade, that was her modus operandi too. Only Lima and Gabe had managed to thaw her defences.

Nat and Nick had been left to their own devices a lot. Ashley, who was four years older than them sometimes played a supervisory role, more often than not he was out of the house, studying or with friends.

Nick had fallen in love with football at an early age and Nat, always had a book tucked under her arm as she cheered on her twin on the field. That was her job, and she relished it. She didn't need friends, she had Nick. He was her rock, her constant. Until she didn't.

"Hey, where did you go?" She felt a warm clasp around her hand bringing her back into the present with a jolt. In the time that she had been thinking they had arrived at the Mall, Gabe had parked, helped her out of the truck and was guiding her along the entrance of the mall, making sure no one jostled her.

She didn't answer, still feeling the haunting tendrils of her thoughts. She often went away, into her brain, thinking until she stumbled upon painful memories and then she retreated back