The Family Friend by C. MacDonald (love story novels in english txt) 📕

happy. He was furious when he got home, something about Richard not paying him for a mural he’d done. And, I hadn’t spoken to anyone all day and I blurted it out, what I’d been thinking, the thing that might be a solution for us, the thing that might stop me annoying him so much, that might give him the motivation, the inspiration to become the great artist I know he can be. It was something he’d talked to me about, something he’d always painted me with. I thought it would make him so happy.

I told him I wanted us to have a baby.

He stormed out and I haven’t seen him since. I want to go and look for him but if he sees me out of the flat it will only make him more angry.

But I do want us to have a baby. I’ve thought about it every day. It would give us something to live for. Something to bring us together and fight for. No bond is stronger than a child.

But maybe he’s right. Maybe I am just a stupid little girl.

36

BRAUNEoverBRAINS

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ERIN BRAUNE

This is my contrite face. Because I am stuffed with contrition like a Christmas turkey cushion.

Better half doesn’t like me sharing too much of our relationship on here. But I’ve been reflecting on some mistakes I’ve made in the last couple of weeks. It’s easy to put yourself at the centre of things, particularly when you’re tired, busy or when exciting life things are happening. But I’ve really learned this week that forgetting those around you, family, friends, your support network, not putting them at the heart of your decision-making, is the worst thing you can do. Being a parent is hard. Being a partner as a parent is harder. But I’m lucky to have found a man to spend my life with who can look past some pretty stupid, immature behaviour from me and not get angry, not lash out like I would, but who takes time away and always comes back and forgives me. Which in itself is hard because I just want to have a blazing row and hash it out. But I know his way is better.

Take a minute then today to think about them. Think about baby. Think about partner. Think about your parents. Because, and I’m guiltier than anyone of this, it’s so easy to cloud your experience of life through your own narrow perspective.

#theguruwillseeyounow #selfishallergy

#imab•tchimaloverimachildimamotheretc

@trudibell44 THIS. Tiredness is a killer. Since I’ve had Bodie I feel like everything I do is SO incredibly selfish even though I never seem to get any time to do anything for me. So good to know I’m not the only one.

@ggheorgh you like your baby yet?

@aniiieclarkson QWEEEEN

@periodicalprudence Where are you in your cycle? I often make strange decisions in the week before my period is due. Maybe you can get your husband to track your cycles with you? It’s important you don’t blame yourself. Be kind. It sounds like your partner is. (eventually)

@leisacrowd where do I find me a man like that?

37

‘Manuka honey? That the stuff that’s meant to cure all ills?’ Caz says, giving her son Stanley a leg-up onto the stern of a wooden pirate ship in the Viking play park on the seafront. Erin nods. ‘Bobby’s had a bad chest for weeks, hasn’t he?’

‘What are you trying to say?’ Erin snaps, glancing round at Bobby who’s picking up clumps of sand and then brushing it violently from his hands. She went through Amanda’s kitchen this morning and found a black pot of Manuka honey under the sink and recognised it as the object she saw her stuffing away in her shoulder bag a few nights ago.

‘Just wondering if she was trying to help his chest.’ Caz clears her throat. Stanley clatters up and down the wooden floorboards of the empty ship, while Imogen toddles towards a wall of rope netting. The winter sun makes the view out to sea so clear, Erin can see a gunship in the distance.

‘Are you telling me you’d be fine with someone putting honey in Imogen’s bottle without asking you?’

‘It’s twenty quid a pop that stuff, even in Aldi it’s a tenner. Why not use 50p runny stuff if she’s trying to turn Bobby against you?’ Most of the time Erin loves Caz’s brusqueness, her challenging honesty, but right now she wishes she’d just accept what Erin thinks and agree wholeheartedly. Since the pictures were posted, it seems like everyone she’s spoken to now doubts her every word. She goes to rescue Bobby who’s struggling to scrabble his way out of the sand. She picks him up and walks him over to the baby swing. When she tasted the sweetness in her milk it seemed to confirm what had been at the back of her mind for some time, that perhaps Amanda wasn’t just being a helpful Mary Poppins wonder-nanny, but that in fact she wanted to make Bobby look to her as his primary person instead of Erin. The skin-to-skin cuddling, the spiritual songs, the special games with special smiles, and now this, all of it designed to make Bobby like her more.

‘Honey is on the NHS list of things you’re not meant to give a child under twelve months, I looked it up,’ she says.

‘They also say you have to cut up a blueberry into about fifteen pieces just in case the baby chokes.’

‘Why are you sticking up for her?’

‘Look, no one should be tampering with what’s going in your one’s wee body, no one,’ Caz says, plonking Imogen into the swing next to Bobby. Ten in the morning and the playground is deserted. ‘But I guess, if you let someone look after your bairn you’ve got to accept they might not do it exactly like you want, you’re not paying her or anything neither.’

‘I