The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2486 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

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The luncheon was considered a success by those of us who attended it. I looked across the table at Phoebe and Danielle, they both looked so grown up in their outfits and makeup. It was possible that Danni put any more mascara on her lashes, the weight would have stopped her opening her eyes. Bless her, she was still learning how to be a young woman and in my estimation, was doing all right.

There were occasions when her inexperience showed a little—she still guzzled if no one was watching, rather than ate more sedately. On a football pitch, she was inclined to play as she always had, aggressively. She had better ball skills than most of her contemporaries and was utterly fearless in the tackle. Fortunately, most people didn’t seem to notice or accepted that she used to play with boys.

I watched Phoebe helping Cate eat some ice cream. She’d grown into a very pretty young woman, a bit of a change from the young thing I gave a lift to from Salisbury that day a couple of years ago. Neal and Gloria were away celebrating his birthday not aware that Phoebe was intending to stay with them because she wanted to surprise them. She did, they were away. I took her in once we’d notified her mother and she’d been with me pretty well ever since, first her mother, then Gloria and Neal dying.

Having had relatively close bereavements I had some idea of how she might feel, but not as Lady Bracknell suggested, To lose one parent is unfortunate. To lose both verges on carelessness.” I must be careless on that summation.

The bus took us home and Simon tipped the driver quite well. It was dreary and wet but not as heavy rain as before and we scampered into the house, the girls squealing as they ran through the rain, while I carried the sleeping Lizzie, trying to keep her dry as I went. I’d worn my trench coat and it had worked fine on the way out, but now I had the baby wrapped up in it too, it flapping as I trotted across the driveway.

I handed her to Jacquie as I took off my coat and like one of my dormeece, she stayed deep in apparent hibernation. “Good pizza?” I asked.

“We had Chinese in the end.”

“I didn’t know they did pizzas.”

“They don’t. We had Chinese food.”

“Not kitten burgers in black bean sauce?”

“Don’t be silly, we had sweet and sour dormice.”

“As long as they were properly cooked.”

“Oh yes, with hazelnut stuffing.”

“Gross.”

I took Lizzie and deposited into her cot for a proper sleep, which was when she woke up—as soon as I walked away. Moments later she climbed out and had I not caught her, she’d have fallen onto her head. Once the palpitations stopped, I told her that she was naughty and that I cross with her. My sermon had immediate effect—she giggled and squirmed so much, I nearly dropped her. I wondered if anyone did a playpen with an electric fence.

Sitting her on the bedroom floor while I changed into my jeans and tee shirt uniform for sitting about or household chores, I turned my back and she was half undressed and heading for the door. I dashed ahead and she turned around behind me, so when I looked back she was going towards my bed.

Once before, it took Simon and me over half an hour to extricate her from under my bed. She is every bit as wilful as the cat, but thankfully, with less than half Bramble’s speed. Dressed in just my bra and pants I managed to scoop her up before she got entangled in the bed springs which made her giggle. Once in my arms, she pulled at my breast and somehow got her mouth round my nipple. I sat down on the bed and gave her an impromptu feed.

Simon came to see where I was and smiled at me. “I love to see you feeding our babies.”

“Ours?”

“As good as ours, you know what I mean.”

“I have some nice photos of Neal and Gloria and will make sure she understands who her real parents were.”

“Real parents? What are we then—pretend ones?”

“Natural parents, birth parents—you know perfectly well what I mean.”

“I know, based upon our other charges, that they’d just as soon forget their previous lives and treat us like their parents, which we are by law.”

“But it isn’t right.”

“What isn’t?”

“There’s a huge difference in the two.”

“I won’t deny that there is a difference but ours have mostly chosen who they want to be and have eschewed their origins to be adopted by us, so as close to natural children as we could get, given your little problem.”

“I knew it, you regret marrying me now don’t you?”

“What?”

“You want your own children—don’t you?”

“Cathy, why are you raising this old chestnut again? You’re my wife, and these are our children.” He pointed at a photo of them and us taken at Christmas last year. “I have the woman I love as my wife, and a houseful of beautiful and loving daughters. What more could I want?”

“Someone who could give you a natural heir.”

“I have my family, so stop beating yourself up. You might not be able to have children, but you’re the woman with who I fell in love and want to spend my life with. I can’t say it any plainer than that, can I? So stop this inferiority—I’m not a proper woman—stuff, because you are as far as I’m concerned.”

He came and sat on the bed and put his arm round me, holding me to him. Then he bent forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. “Get rid of the brat and I’ll show you how much I love you.”

“What?” I gasped and I don’t know if I tickled Lizzie’s nose because she gave a huge sneeze which woke her up and she started crying, thus ending the moment.