Another Life

40

I didn't even hear the front door open, I was so focused on reinstalling the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs and I didn't hear the footsteps either. It was only when a voice came from behind me that I jumped out of my skin and spun around on the bottom stair to see Jay's disapproving look.

"Didn't we just get rid of that?" He asks, annoyance in his voice at the gate being put back on.

I nod, turning back to continue what I was doing. "Yes, but Alfie's got it now, they need to go back on." I reply and Jay lets out a groan.

The stair gates were never the best thing, we were both constantly tripping over them and they became a real hassle when Macie learned how to open them. In the end we took them off, she was getting over or through them anyway and she was bound to hurt herself on the gate there to help keep her safe. But now Alfie had clocked crawling, and was now really fast at it, it was only a matter of time before he hurt himself because of a lack of stair gate there.

Jay walks over and leans up against the banister, watching me install the gate for a moment before furrowing his eyebrows. "Where are the kids?" He asks.

I point over my shoulder toward the living room. "Mae's playing hide-and-seek with Alfie in there."

"Are they getting along?" He asks.

I still don't lift my gaze from the gate. "They haven't screamed yet so maybe."

In the corner of my eye I see Jay nod and then he leans down, puts a kiss to the top of my head before mumbling how he was going to start on dinner and he pads out into the kitchen.

A few minutes later, once I had finished up on the gate I grabbed a handful of socket-covers from the drawer in the end table and followed behind Jay into the kitchen, slowly making my rounds, plugging up the sockets and anything else Alfie would happily stick his fingers inside. I do the dining room in silence but when I make my way into the kitchen, I spark up a conversation with Jay, rather than the two of us standing in silence.

"What are we doing for Mae's birthday. It's in two weeks." I ask, covering a plug socket.

Jay chuckles from behind me. "You know, it really doesn't feel like that long ago you were asking me that question last year."

I stand back up from the floor and put one hand against my hip, the other leaning up against the kitchen counter. "Yet here we are," I say, letting the couple of covers still in my hand onto the marble-top. "So what do you want to do?"

Jay shrugs, looking up from the stove. "I was gonna say whatever we did last year because that went pretty well, until we ended up in Med because she fell off the coffee table and spilt her head open."

I shake my head. "Well then we won't don't do that again," I say, making Jay and I both laugh. I wait a moment before becoming serious again. "No, c'mon we really need to discuss what we're gonna be doing."

We had already asked Macie what she wanted to do, if there was somewhere she wanted to go but she had just shrugged, not given us an answer and had walked away. We had asked her multiple times what she wanted to do for her birthday, but she had shut down every time, unsure on what to say. There's always next year that she'll pick something to do so we don't start scrambling around last minute.

Jay tilts his head to one side. "I quite liked what we did last year, minus the whole, you know, head splitting thing. It was nice just the three of us in the morning, going out somewhere fun and then having family over for dinner. It was close, like what a kid's birthday is supposed to be, surrounded by family and friends. Maybe we could do that again."

I smile. "So out for lunch and family over for dinner?" I recap.

He nods. "I mean if we don't have a big case come in. Mae loved all that last year, even enjoyed the hospital so it couldn't have been that bad of a birthday."