Midnight Wonders

7.4.1. A Peculiar Sense of Familiarity

Luc didn't want kids. He had never wanted kids. Kind of. He'd thought about a lot of times, but never really, because he'd never actually been faced with the prospect of it being a possibility. He went between thinking about it and thinking he was stupid for thinking about it when he already had so many other children to think about who were his even though they weren't really.

He liked children in small doses, and he had enough of those small doses when he was at school. Half of the effort for his job came from dealing with children, even though he loved them and he willingly went along with it. Mostly, though, he could barely care for himself, so it felt entirely selfish to try to care for a child.

Luc especially hadn't thought too hard about it before because of Cora. There was no time to take care of anyone else when there was her. But now she was out of bed and doing as she pleased and Luc figured that was probably why he felt so empty, because now there were holes in all his days where he used to be doing something but now he wasn't.

Luc wanted to ask Cora if she wanted kids, but that felt like a weird question to ask. Also, she seemed occupied enough with Tristan. Even though they were engaged there was no talk of a wedding, and Luc especially didn't know how to ask her about that. It felt so awkward even though it wasn't. Probably because he was going to be the problem in all those conversations.

But he thought he might be able to tell the answer just by looking at how she fawned upon the children. They stayed at the house for a while, and then Annabel and Emma decided that they ought to give Luc and Cora and Tristan a break so went back to their apartment. (They had also taken the extra time to get their apartment ready for the children.) But they still came over and sometimes stayed there for a while, and other times they were the ones who stayed at home while the others visited. Cora was always eager to visit, and she was delighted with the children. Luc had never seen a person actually melt until he saw her look upon their bright faces.

Luc finally mustered up the lack of emotion to ask Cora when he found her in the kitchen rearranging the cupboards. (He thought it was a bad idea considering how terrible he had discovered himself to be at adjusting to change, but then again he barely used three things in the kitchen now that he didn't have to make food for anyone besides himself.)

"Oh, no," she said, and laughed. "Certainly not."

"Oh," said Luc, wondering what other sort of delusions his mind had made him believe.

"I love them," she said, "but I'm not having my own. I like my freedom."

"Oh," Luc said again. That seemed so simple.

"What about you?"

"I don't think so," he said, meaningfully.

"You can adopt."

"It's too much work."

"Yeah," she said. She looked at him. "Stealing children from Under-The-Green-Hill seems easier."

"Just children."

"Yeah."

Then he got to helping her with the cupboards so he could remember where everything went and would look or feel like an idiot when he had to get something that she had moved. And also helping was nice.

—

Mr. Jacobs and Catherine came over on the weekend to see the children. "I heard you have babies," Catherine whispered conspiratorially to Luc as she crept into the house. "Is that true?"

"They're not really mine; they're just here right now," Luc said.

"Whose are they, then?"

"Annabel's." Luc led to the living room, where Tristan and Cora were playing with Lilias and Tam on the floor. Catherine's eyes widened upon seeing them.