LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Thank you,’ I said as I slicked on some lip balm. ‘Mummy appreciates it more than you’d know.’

      Except what Mummy didn’t know was that Alice had only stopped crying because Daddy had brought her into bed.

      ‘Alex,’ I said from the bedroom doorway.

      ‘She was crying. I couldn’t leave her,’ he said, bouncing her up and down on his knee. ‘I’ll make it up to you later.’

      With a frustrated sigh, I padded back to bed, sliding under the covers. It was true, Alex Reid was the greatest dad of all time. He had taken to fatherhood like a waitress to water, throwing himself head first into all things Alice from the very first day we’d brought her home. He was the one who said we didn’t need a full-time nanny when I went back to work, he was the one who cleared out Barnes & Noble’s parenting section, and I would be lying if I said he hadn’t done more than his fair share of dirty nappies and three a.m. feeds. He’d even built a chute that ran out of her bedroom window and down into the bin so I could chuck her dirty nappies away without having to go outside in the winter. But the fact of the matter was, for one person to be the best at something, someone else had to be the worst.

      Alex was a natural parent, I was not.

      And it didn’t feel good.

      ‘Here she is,’ he said, waving a sulky bundle of baby in my face. Softly shaking my head, I forgot my frustrations and snuggled into the family hug. Even though she was sleeping in the nursery, I loved how she almost always found her way into our bed in the mornings, all grumpy and fidgety and half-asleep.

      ‘She always reminds me of you when she first wakes up,’ Alex said, pulling the covers up over his long legs.

      ‘Thanks,’ I replied, running my fingertip along her tiny ear as her big green eyes watched me, cheeks flushed with crying. ‘She always reminds me of you when she cries, it sounds like you singing.’

      ‘Thank you for that vote of confidence two weeks out from my first show in forever. My baby’s gonna be a rockstar.’

      Stretching until my back cracked, I smiled and shook my head. ‘Auntie Jenny says she’s going to be a YouTube sensation.’

      ‘Over my dead body,’ he said instantly. ‘She’s going to be a rockstar. Or an astronaut. Only choices on the table.’

      ‘What if she wants to do something really important with her life?’ I countered. ‘Like write amazing novels that are never appreciated in her lifetime? Or start an underground feminist magazine? Or open a cat café?’

      ‘Also acceptable options,’ Alex replied as Alice poked the blanket with great concentration and babbled to herself. We were so close to her first words I could feel it and every single atom of my body wanted that word to be ‘Mummy’. I knew it wasn’t a competition as to who she loved the most, but I also knew it totally was.

      ‘Jenny wants to take me to Hawaii,’ I said, resting my head against his chest with my eyes closed, synching my breathing with the reassuring thud of his heartbeat.

      ‘And I was going to offer to take you to breakfast. Why does she always have to one-up me?’

      ‘Because she’s Jenny?’ I suggested.

      He nodded sleepily. ‘When does she wanna go?’

      ‘Next week,’ I replied. ‘For five nights.’

      Alex and Alice both looked at me with their matching big green eyes and laughed.

      ‘Sure. Classic Lopez.’

      ‘It’s a work thing, all expenses paid, fancy private resort on one of the little islands,’ I said, rolling onto my back and catching Alice’s tiny toes in my hand. Alex closed his eyes and smiled. ‘I told her I couldn’t go.’

      I looked over to check for a reaction but in the pale dawn light of our bedroom his face was perfectly still and his eyes were shut. He wove his fingers into my hair, running them from root to tip and then back again, sending happy shivers down my spine.

      ‘You don’t want to?’

      ‘I would love to but I have work,’ I reasoned. ‘And Louisa is coming to stay and, you know, I have to keep a human being alive.’

      ‘I don’t know, Angela.’ The corners of Alex’s mouth turned upwards in a smile even though his eyes stayed closed. ‘I think I can survive without you for five nights.’

      ‘Ha ha, I meant Alice,’ I said, propping my head up in my hand. Alex stayed exactly as he was, his chest rising and falling evenly with every breath. ‘Although you would also be a concern.’

      ‘I’m not the one who leaves their hair straightener on three times a week,’ he reminded me. It was a harsh but fair point. ‘If I had the opportunity to go to Hawaii on Lopez’s dime, I would go. You’ll be gone what, five days? Me and Al can cope on our own. You managed when I was gone for the weekend.’

      ‘Yes but that was different,’ I argued, reaching for a hair band from my nightstand and automatically pulling my hair up in a ponytail. Once the hair was up, that was it. I was officially awake.

      Alex opened one eye and raised an eyebrow. ‘How exactly?’

      Don’t say because I’m her mother, the voice whispered in my head, do not say because you’re her mother.

      ‘Because I’m her mother.’

      Alex closed his eye and grinned. Alice said nothing.

      ‘If you wanna to go, you should go,’ he said through a yawn. ‘When this record is finally finished, we’ll definitely have to tour, and I’m not a parenting expert but I hear babies are a lot less trouble than toddlers, so consider this my pre-emptive apology for all the times she throws a tantrum when I’m off playing some rando festival in Germany two years from now. You were fine on your own, I’ll be fine on my own.’

      I rubbed my thumb against the band of my engagement ring and scooped Alice out of his arms, resting her against my chest.

      ‘When you went away, I spent the entire weekend in my pyjamas,’ I muttered, gazing down at my baby. ‘I didn’t shower, I only slept for six hours the whole three days and I took her to the emergency room when her spit-up was blue.’

      ‘What was it?’

      ‘I was so tired, I forgot I’d given her blueberries,’ I said, stroking her delicate head. ‘She was fine.’

      ‘If she spits up blue, I’ll shoot you a text,’ Alex promised. Cradling Alice carefully, I reached for the edge of the curtain, pulling it back on what looked to be another extremely sticky day. Did Hawaii get as humid as New York? I imagined it was less of a concern if you were sitting on a beach in a bikini.

      ‘I don’t know,’ I said, letting the curtain fall back into place, a shaft of daylight fading in and out across Alex’s face. ‘I can always go when she’s older. Hawaii isn’t going anywhere, is it?’

      ‘Can’t promise that,’ he said with an uncertain shrug. ‘Climate change is a real thing. Which reminds me, you have to start separating the recycling, babe.’

      ‘I’m going to tell Jenny I can’t go,’ I said, thinking out loud and mentally listing all the reasons not to jump on a private jet to a five-star resort with my very best friends for five nights in paradise. ‘I can’t leave you two on your own. It’s not fair.’

      ‘Obviously, I would miss you, it’s like we never have any time together, but that shouldn’t stop you from going.’ He turned over and covered his eyes with his forearm.

      Well, that was considerably less encouraging.

      ‘And, if I have to, I can always get my mom to come and help out.’

      He could do what? I sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake.

      His

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