Baby Steps ✔ (Under Construction)

THREE

Family meals were the bane of Zara's existence. Every Sunday she goes home to her parents house, where her mother, Vivienne and her father, Richard, play pretend. Zara's sister, Claudia and her fiancé Ethan came along every weekend and her brother, Gabe and his boyfriend, Cole show their faces every now and then.

Zara hated being the only single one out of her siblings. Being single meant she was always being looked down on by her mother, who had expected her to be at least engaged already. As her mother likes to mention most weekends, she made the mistake of waiting until she was early thirties until she started a family, and she didn't want the same for her youngest daughter.

"Your cousin, Caroline had Isla at nineteen and she turned out fine." Her mother says as she pours their after dinner cup of tea.

Zara sighs. "Mum, I don't want to have a baby just because everyone else is having them. I want one, when I want one, because I want one. Not because my cousin couldn't keep her legs crossed for a little while longer and aunt Harriet made her keep the baby as a form of punishment." She points out.

Her mother rolled her eyes, taking a sip of her tea. "I just think that if you leave it too late, then you'll regret being an old mum." She comments. "Trust me, my only regre—"

"Yes, we know. You're biggest regret is not having us earlier." Gabe pipes up, sending Zara a reassuring wink. "I think this is a decision Zara has to come to on her own, and no amount of peer pressure is going to make her want a baby."

Their mother splutters. "I'm not peer pressuring her, Gabriel. I'm merely pointing out that she has a biological clock and most complications happen after the thirty mark."

"You had us after you were thirty and we're perfectly fine," Claudia says, "Like Gabe says, its her decision to make - no one else's."

Zara liked having her siblings around. They always had her back, even when no one else did. Her mother looks over at her husband, waiting for him to back her, but when he shrugs and turns his attention back to the newspaper he is reading, she lets out a frustrated huff.

As she lifts her tea, Zara inhales the minty scent and lets out a satisfied sound pass through her slightly ajar lips. Peppermint tea was her favourite. Claudia and Ethan sat on loveseat in the far corner of the living room, the two of them cuddled up like love-struck teenagers; it was cringe-worthy as it was cute.

Gabe and Cole sat on the floor in front of the small log burner and her parents occupied the sofa along with their Lhasa Apso, Tink.

Zara loved her family home. It had been where she grew up alongside her siblings. It was the first and last house their parents had bought together. It was rather small, for a family of five. Growing up, Zara and Claudia had shared a room, whilst Gabe had a room of his own, not that you could really call it a room; it was more or less the size of a cardboard box. Her parents had always had the bigger room, of course and had always kept it that way, even when Claudia and Zara went through their teen years when all they did was scream at each other and moan that they never had enough space.

Her parents had decorated since then. The living room now had magnolia walls and a clean and soft, beige carpet. The sofa's were no longer the weird floral set that her parents had been giving by her fathers aunt back in the eighties. Now, they were both this dark, teal blue crushed velvet sofas with a matching armchair, that Zara currently occupied.

Vivienne and Richard loved bright things.

The rest of the downstairs was pretty much the same as it was before, with just a little spot of updating here and there and a few fresh layers of paint. The house was brand new when Zara's parents had bought it in the early nineties and it was one of few on their street, but now it sat along a crowded street, squeezed among houses that were exactly the same.

"How's work going, Zara?" Her dad asks as he closes his paper.

She smiles. "It's going well. I've been offered a promotion." Her mother gasps and claps her hands excitedly. "I haven't accepted it yet, but I think I'm going too."

"What will you be doing?" Claudia asks.

Zara briefly tells her family what the promotion entails and what it means for her, when it comes to moving up in the company.

"So basically, you'll be doing what you already do, but for more money?" Cole, Gabe's boyfriend, summarises.

Zara laughs. "Basically."

Cole nods his head appreciatively. "Decent."

The rest of the afternoon goes by pretty quickly and it's nearing five o'clock when Zara announces she is heading home. Her siblings give her hugs and tell her to get home safe as her father pushes himself up from the recliner with a groan.

Vivienne holds on to her husbands arm and helps him into an upright position. "Let me get your cane."

Richard shakes his head and wobbles slightly as he takes a step forward. "I'll be fine." He then looks over at Zara and opens up his free arm. "Come and give your old man a hug."

Zara rushes over and wraps herself up in her dads arms. A few years ago, when her dad turned fifty-five he got diagnosed with arthritis and since then he has lost a lot of his mobility. Doctors said he would most likely need a wheelchair when he gets older, but at the moment, he's perfectly fine with relying on his cane.

"See you later, dad." She kisses her dads cheek and then pulls away to give her mother a hug, too. "I'll call you both when I get home."

Her brother and Cole drop her off at the train station on her way home and once she's on the train, she lets out a small yawn and closes her eyes as she rests her head on the seat.

***

Its around eight o'clock at night when she gets home and she wants nothing more than to get into bed and go to sleep. On her way up to her apartment, she passed her neighbour, a nineteen-year-old student called Grace, who lives in the flat directly below her. She lives in a pretty quiet complex, considering the amount of students that rent there. Her flat was one of the nicest ones in the building; with two spacious bedrooms, an open plan kitchen and living room and a family bathroom, along with a small en-suite. Zara had found the listing on Rightmove a few months after she got the job at Pierce & Co. and has lived here ever since.

Once she reaches the fourth floor – her floor – and unlocks the door, she notices a small envelope on the doormat. Reaching down, she picks it up and carries it into her house. She closes the door behind her and kicks off her trainers, placing them on the small wooden shoe rack by the front door, and slips on her fluffy slippers.

She turned the lights on in the living room and winced at the state of her flat. She had been meaning to clean up this weekend, but after a spontaneous trip out with Jasmine and Rida, and her lunch at her parents, she hadn't found the time like she had hoped.

Stepping over a discarded pile of DVDs next to her sofa, she flops down on the teal blue, crushed velvet cushion. Reaching towards the coffee table, she grabs the small letter opener, she got from a charity shop last week, and slices open the envelope.

It's a note from one of her neighbours, telling her that her parcel now resides in their possession until she gets off her lazy arse and goes to claim it.

Tomorrows job, she thinks to herself as she hoists herself up from the sofa and heads into her bedroom.

She falls face down onto the duvet and lets out an unattractive groan. She wasn't sure where this sudden tiredness came from as she stripped herself of her clothes and climbed under the covers, but she didn't bother thinking about it any longer, not when sleep was beckoning her.

Calling out her name, like a sirens song.