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ROSIE

February arrives and so does my bump. It enters a room before me and I can no longer see my feet.

Which works for me as I know my ankles have doubled in size, so at least I don’t have to look at them.

Jackson still swears I’m beautiful, rubbing my tired feet at night and cradling my bump to take the weight off my back.

Gloria wasn’t joking about Harper’s being big babies, so her and Ella advised me to start doing perineal exercises over Christmas dinner, which made Jackson go very pale and Cody gag into his turkey.

I told Jackson that he needed to do what he needed to do, but I can’t deny that I breathed a sigh of relief when he told me he was stepping away from the stunts. Even though that means the schedule has extended to make up for the lost time arranging his double.

He was home for only a few days before he had to go back to set, this time for even longer.

It’s fine. I lived on my own for years before he started climbing into bed with me each night and waking up with me each morning.

One more week until the film’s wrapped and then he’s home for good, just a few weeks before my due date.

I can’t wait for him to be home more, even though I have to work basically until I’m due anyway.

The guys at work have been strangely supportive, especially Conor and Lee, who have somehow taken it upon themselves to get me anything I want so I don’t have to get up from my desk.

Even Kevin keeps to himself a bit more, which is a blessing.

Gareth has also allowed me to negotiate working from home three out of five days of the week. So generous of him.

It’s on one of my office days, when I’m waiting outside the building for my car home, that she finds me.

“Hi Rosie,” my mother says, standing beside me, wrapped in a scarf with a trim coat secured around her shoulders. It takes me a few seconds to register that I’m not hallucinating.

“Mum?” I ask, bewildered. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, you’ve refused to tell us your new address, so I had to take it upon myself to find you.” She crosses her arms across her chest.

I blink. “I don’t have to tell you where I live.”

She huffs, clutching her coat tighter around herself. “Don’t be ridiculous Rosalie. Of course your mother needs to know where you’re living, especially when you’re shacked up with a basic stranger.”

I roll my eyes. “Jackson is not a stranger, Mum. He’s my boyfriend.” She glances away.

“What are you doing here?” I repeat, still absorbing the shock. I turn towards her, placing my hand on my belly as Smudge nudges me.

Her eyes drop to my stomach, and I swear they dampen. “Look at you,” she whispers. “When are you due? ”

“February twentieth.”

Mum looks up. “I’ve missed so much.” Her voice is a whisper drowned out by the London traffic.

I try to ignore the guilt that slithers down my spine. She could have reached out months ago, I remind myself. She didn’t.

“Would you like to get dinner with me?” Mum asks, and I almost swallow my tongue.

I can’t remember the last time we hung out just the two of us. I don’t even think it’s ever happened.

“Uhm…” I glance at my phone and the car that’s en route.

“Unless you have to get home?”

I bite my lip. My dinner plans are currently whatever I can scrounge from the fridge and I’m starving .

“I could eat.” I shrug, canceling the car service that Jackson set up for me.

We weave through crowds of tourists as we head away from the office and towards the less populated area.

Managing the central London crowds whilst this pregnant is not ideal, but I’m happy to postpone the awkward small talk we’re about to have for as long as I can.

I try to come up with some neutral conversation topics. Maybe we could talk about the weather?

We end up at a small vegetarian restaurant and we spend a few minutes looking at the menus. I decide what I want immediately, but I keep my head bent over the menu until a waiter comes to take our orders, and my crutch is taken away.

“I almost forgot,” Mum says, reaching into her bag. “I brought these for you.”

She slides a packet across the table towards me .

“Salted almonds,” she says as I warily pick it up. “I used to eat them all the time when I was pregnant with you.”

I clutch the packet. “Thanks,” I say quietly, pulling the packet off the table.

We descend into silence again as I play with the packet on my lap, my fingers tracing the sharp edge of the plastic, teasing my skin with the threat of a cut.

“So,” Mum begins again, “how have your doctor’s appointments been? Have you been going to them?”

“Yes, I’ve been going to my appointments,” I mumble, teenage angst rushing to the surface. I swallow it down, and relay her with all I can; measurements, scans, what foods I am or am not eating.

Our food arrives, and we lapse into silence.

“Can you let Dad know we love the crib?” I ask around a bite of mushroom pasta. “It’s perfect in the nursery.”

“What crib?” Her wrists fall to the table with a clatter of bracelets, as if she’s lost the energy to hold them aloft.

She has no idea what I’m talking about.

“Oh.” I gulp some water. “Dad brought us a crib just before Christmas, so Jackson brought it to our new place. It’s all set up, and we designed the rest of the room around it. It’s…it’s nice.” I trail off awkwardly.

We lapse into silence again, the only sounds the scraping of cutlery on the plates and the hum of our neighbors’ conversation.

“And Jackson,” Mum asks finally. “How is he?”

I’m grateful for a subject to jump on to, so I tell her all I can about Jackson.

His job, his wonderful family, the way he’s been there for every step of this pregnancy and how I couldn’t have done it without him.

She jumps in with questions, even laughs occasionally, and it’s pleasant.

It’s also the longest we’ve spoken without animosity, or addressing the elephant in the room.

“This was nice,” I say to her as we step outside the restaurant a few hours later. I’m still not ready to suggest we do it again, but it wasn’t the worst.

“I’d like to throw you a baby shower,” she says quickly, as if she’s been thinking about it for a while.

“Oh,” I say, surprised. I was almost ready to give up on the thought of a shower. Pip wanted to throw me one, but I think a part of me wanted my mother to at least be there, so it was easier to just put it off.

“If you’d like that.”

I bite my lip. “Uh… sure, that would be really nice. Nothing too crazy or anything, though.”

“Really?” Mum brightens, her eyes crinkling.

I nod. “I have a few friends who’ve been wanting to throw one so I guess I should.”

“How about two weeks on Saturday?”

I do some quick maths, calculating how close that is to my due date, which sits in my mental calendar in a big red circle.

“Yeah, that should work.”

“Wonderful,” Mum breathes before she steps forward and wraps her arms around me, leaning awkwardly around my bump. The familiar scent of her Dior perfume envelops me, and my eyes burn. I can’t remember the last time I got a hug from her.

She pulls back with a bright smile.

“Mum,” I swallow thickly. The next words I say will likely ruin everything, start an argument or cause the whole shower to disappear in front of my eyes, but I have to. “I don’t want Cleo to be there.”

Her smile falls. “What do you mean? ”

I straighten my back and rest my hand on my belly. “I don’t want her to be there. That’s my condition. I won’t come otherwise.”

Mum sighs heavily, disappointment evident in her voice.

“Fine, Rosalie, if that’s what you want.” She throws her hands up. “But she’s your sister, I don’t kno?—”

“Mum,” I plead. “She’s not even apologized for what she did.”

“Rosie, I’m not getting in the middle.” The familiar saying from my childhood rings in my ears.

Thankfully, my car pulls up alongside me, “Look, I’m not going to fight with you about it,” I say, “But I mean it—I won’t go if Cleo’s there.”

Mum huffs as she helps me into the car. “Yes yes, I hear you. Email me your friends details so I can get the invites out to them too.”

“I will,” I say as I buckle in.

“I’ll see you then,” Mum says before she shuts the door.

I have the long drive home to ponder if that was a terrible decision or not.