“What shall we do?” Bella asked Sophie, gripping her dressing gown with clenched fists. “What shall we do to save her?”
Sophie fought to control the tremble that shook her voice, desperate not to show Bella just how afraid and upset she was. “I’ll just see if I can feel anything one more time, so we know where she’s hurt, and then we’d better call the vet. Go get my phone from the bedside table. Go on, quickly.”
Carefully Sophie took the flashlight and on her hands and knees peered under the bed, but this time instead of approaching Artemis directly she tried to look at her from a different angle. She blinked, trying to make sense of what she was seeing amid the rucked-up blanket that Artemis had ensconced herself in.
“Hang on a second,” she said as Bella arrived back with the phone book and phone. “Something’s happening, she’s …what is that?”
Sophie stared wide-eyed as Artemis half sat up and began licking something soft and slimy. At first Sophie thought it might be a dead mouse or a bird, but she had never seen her cat be so gentle with another living thing. And then as Artemis licked away the slime and gunk from the tiny creature, Sophie realized it was furry and orange. For a second she thought the injured animal had taken comfort from Izzy’s toy cat, but then the tiny creature stirred, wriggling closer to the cat. Sophie stared at Artemis as she continued to lick the little creature, tenderly, lovingly, washing its face clean of any muck as it took its first breath.
Sophie gasped, clasping her hand over her mouth, tears springing to her eyes. She sat back on her heels and handed the flashlight to Bella.
“It’s okay,” she told Bella, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s fine, Artemis isn’t dying. Oh look, Bella.” She hugged the little girl hard. “Artemis is having kittens!”
“Right,” Sophie said, coming back into the room armed with supplies. “The vet says we should have towels in case she needs a bit of help with rubbing them awake, dental floss in case Artemis doesn’t cut the cords properly, and some yogurt. He says she might fancy a spoonful of yogurt to keep her going. Oh, and a big box to put them all in once she’s finished. I thought that old packing box in the shed would do. We have to line it with shredded newspaper.”
“There are two now!” Izzy said, as she lay on her tummy in front of the bed. Louis had taken Bella’s bedside lamp and laid it on its side next to the bed so that they could all get a clearer view without using the bright flashlight. “The second one looks gray to me …oh, they are soooo cute. We can keep them all, can’t we?”
“What I don’t understand,” Louis said, keen to gloss over that subject as he hunkered down next to Izzy, “is how Tango ever got near enough to make this happen, the old dog. The old cat dog. Artemis has hated him from day one, and he’s always avoided her.”
“I told you I saw them hugging,” Izzy said triumphantly. “They are in love!”
“What I don’t understand is that Artemis is a rescue cat,” Sophie said. “She’s supposed to be spayed. I’d never have let her move in with an unneutered tom, even one as soppy and hopeless as Tango, if I hadn’t thought that.”
“Well, someone, somewhere, made a mistake,” Louis said. “Because that cat is most definitely fertile.”
“And now they are married!” Izzy said, clasping her hands together happily and rolling onto her back for a moment. “Married and having babies. Just like you and Daddy are going to, Aunty Sophie.”
Sophie’s and Louis’s eyes met above the girls.
“How many kittens do you think she will have?” Bella asked. “I’m hoping for about twenty.”
“The vet said four or five, most likely,” Sophie said. “He said if she’s still in labor in another few hours, then he’ll come over and check her out, but he expects she’ll be able to manage perfectly well on her own.”
“Look at her, look, Aunty Sophie.” Bella dragged Sophie back down onto the carpet to peer under the bed again. “Look, she loves her kittens.”
Sophie watched as Artemis licked the two kittens that already nestled at her nipples. She looked so gentle and so tender with them, like an entirely different cat from the one Sophie knew and loved. This Artemis knew exactly how to be a mother, how to break the membrane sac so her kittens could breathe, how to lick them clean and bite off the umbilical cord. The fierce, angry loner cat had been transformed into a mother, all of her natural instincts flooding in just when she needed them.
“She’s going to make a wonderful mother,” Sophie said, wincing slightly as she straightened up, her body still stiff and aching from lack of sleep.
“And so are you,” Louis told her, his cooling hand on the back of her neck.
Bella looked up at him sharply.
“What do you mean?” she asked him.
Sophie and Louis looked at each other and Sophie nodded. She didn’t want to keep any more secrets from the girls.
“I mean,” Louis said, reaching out to hold Sophie’s hand, “that Sophie is going to have a baby. And I’m the baby’s daddy and you and Izzy are going to be big sisters.”
“That’s awful!” Izzy cried out, horrified. “You’re not even married yet.”
Sophie watched Bella’s face very closely as she took in the news.
“It’s okay, Izzy—you don’t have to be married to have a baby.”
“You don’t?” Izzy said. “Tango and Artemis are married. How long will it take for the baby to get here? Will it take longer than the wedding? If I am a big sister, will I get to boss the baby around, like Bella bosses me around? Will I get a bigger bedroom? I want a bigger bedroom if I am going to be a big sister and my own Nintendo DS. Is that why your tummy is so fat, Sophie, because there’s a baby in it? How big is the baby in it now?”
“Just hold on for a second.” Sophie laughed, holding her hand up to stave off any more questions as she kept an eye on Bella, whose gaze was fixated under the bed.
“The baby is going to be here in April,” Sophie told Izzy. “It’s not very big at the moment, hardly anything to see at all, really, although I have got a picture I can show you later if you like. So I’m afraid that all of this”—she patted her tummy—“is mainly cream teas and jam.”
“Can I name the baby?” Izzy asked her. “I would call it Petunia.”
“Oh well …maybe,” Sophie said.
“What if it’s a boy, dummy?” Bella said, her eyes still fixed on Artemis.
“If it’s a boy then I would call it Rufus,” Izzy said. “Like the dog next door, that way when we take it to the park we can call after it, ‘Here, boy, here, Rufus.’”
Izzy giggled, which Sophie would once have found reassuring, but now she wondered if Izzy was really expressing shock and anxiety with her jokes.
“Bella?” Sophie said, easing herself up onto the bed. “What do you think about me having a baby?”
Bella sat back on her heels and looked at Sophie.
“I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “I like things how they are. With just us. I like you looking after us.”
“I like it too, but that won’t change,” Sophie told her. “I’ll still look after you. I’ll still always be here for you. I promise.”
“But that baby will be your baby,” Bella said, pointing at Sophie’s middle. “You will love it more than us.” She glanced at Louis. “He will love it more than us because it’s your baby.”
“You are all my children,” Louis said. “I’ll love you all the same.”
“Even Seth?” Bella challenged him.
“Eventually,” Louis said. “Given the chance, then yes. I’ll love him too.”
Izzy sat up, watching Bella, her face still and thoughtful as she listened.
“And as for me,” Sophie told both the girls, “it’s not possible for me to love anyone more than I love you.”
“Isn’t it?” Bella looked uncertain.
“Mitchell Lambert in my class has four brothers and a sister and their mum loves all of them the same,” Izzy said.
“Yes, but Aunty Sophie isn’t our mum, is she?” Bella said. “She’ll be the baby’s mum, but she won’t be ours.”
“Oh, I forgot that,” Izzy said sadly.
Sophie rubbed her hand over her face and looked at Louis, who reached out and stroked Bella’s hair.
“The thing is,” she said slowly, “I know I am not your mum, but I
feel
like you’re my daughters. I feel like you are
my
girls. Carrie was your mummy, and she always will be—but when you were gone and missing and I didn’t know where you were, all I could think about was
my
girls, my daughters. About getting you back and keeping you safe. Artemis is lucky, she’s got an animal instinct to tell her how to be a mummy, the second that her first kitten was born. But I realize that I’ve been even luckier. I’ve had you two to show me what being a mummy is really about. So that when this baby comes, when your little sister or brother arrives, then I’ll be able to do nearly as good a job at it as Artemis.”
“Will you bite off its cord with your teeth?” Izzy asked her, in awe.
“Probably not,” Sophie said. “But apart from that, I think I’ll be better at looking after this baby because I’ve got you two. You’re my daughters and I love you and nothing, nothing on earth, will change that. I promise you.”
Bella peered under the bed again. “Now there are three!” she exclaimed. “This one looks tortoiseshell.”
“Anyway, I’ve been thinking,” Sophie went on, treading ever so carefully. “The last thing on earth I want for you and Izzy is to worry about anything, so if this is all happening too quickly for you, if you feel that everything is changing too fast, then Daddy and I don’t have to get married. I can stay in the B and B with the baby and things can go on as they are.”
Louis dropped his head.
“But if you do get married, then what?” Bella asked her.
“Well, then I’d come and live here, and the baby would live here too eventually, and we would all be together every single day.”
“And Seth would sometimes visit too,” Izzy added. “To teach us to whistle.”
Bella got up and sat next to Sophie on the bed.
“I don’t want you to move in after you’ve got married,” she said, and Sophie felt her heart sink with a disappointment that she hadn’t fully appreciated until she heard Bella’s verdict. “I don’t want to wait that long. I want you to move in now. After all, Artemis will need help with the kittens, and you’ll need extra looking after, and if you’re here then …”
“Then?” Sophie asked her with bated breath.
“Then we’ll be a family,” Bella said.
“And you’re happy for me and Sophie to get married?” Louis asked both of the girls.
“We are,” Bella and Izzy said together.
Louis looked at Sophie. “And what have you got to say?” he asked her.
“I have this to say.” Sophie’s smile was radiant. “Louis, Bella, and Izzy—will you marry me?”
• • •
Soon after Artemis’s fourth and final kitten was born, Louis sent Sophie and the girls back to bed, just before 8:00 A.M.
“You need rest,” he said, kissing Sophie on the forehead. “And you two could do with at least one day off from school what with all the excitement you’ve had. I’ll sort out Artemis, get her box ready and all that business.”
Sophie and the two girls curled up in Louis’s bed and drifted off to sleep the moment their heads touched the pillows.
It was midday when Sophie finally woke, feeling refreshed for the first time in ages. The girls had already gone, as she found them down in the kitchen, cooing over Artemis and her kittens, who Louis had put in a box next to the boiler.
“Good morning, Sophie,” Louis said, encircling her with his arms. “Good morning, beautiful woman and bride and mother-to-be. The vet popped in to take a quick look at Artemis and he says she is fighting fit. Tango even turned up for breakfast and tried to have a look at his offspring but Artemis sent him away with his tail between his legs, which is pretty much all he will have there soon. The vet says we have to have them both done really soon if we don’t want a repeat performance.”
“That’s great that she’s doing so well,” Sophie said as she sat at the table and looked into the box at Artemis with her kittens. “That’s really, really wonderful.”
“Well, probably not for Tango, the poor fellow,” Louis said, wincing. “But I have got more good news. We have been busy, haven’t we, girls?”
“Yes!” Bella jumped up excitedly, resting her palms on Sophie’s knees. “We have got surprises,” she said, wriggling her fingers in what Sophie assumed was an indication of mystery.
“Really?” Sophie asked her, a little cautiously. “Not entirely sure that I’m up to surprises.”
“I called Fineston Manor this morning and they still have New Year’s Eve free,” Louis told her.
“They don’t!” Sophie exclaimed delightedly before her brow furrowed. “But why do they? Is it a rubbish place where no one wants to get married?”
“No, it’s a wonderful place where lots of people want to get married. It just seems that very few people have a ceremony a mere three months after they decide to get married, and no one else has booked it. They’re thrilled we still want it, they’ve promised me candlelight and music and they’ll do all the catering—we just need to look at menus and give them numbers.”
“That’s a fantastic surprise—but New Year’s Eve—it’s only a couple of months away—there’s so much to do. I need to find a dress that won’t make me look like a house.”
“Or a horse,” Izzy interjected.
“Ah well, that’s our other surprise,” Louis said, grinning at Bella. “I phoned Carmen earlier to tell her about the kittens and Fineston Manor and to ask her about the cake and all that and I asked her if she knew of any dressmakers in the area who might help us.”
“Did she?” Sophie asked.
“She did better than that. She knows
the
dressmaker, the one who designed the dress you saw and loved at the fair? Apparently, after it all kicked off, Carmen decided to phone the organizer and find out about the designer, got her number, address—everything. She said she would have mentioned it sooner but everything seemed a bit up in the air.”
“A long way up in the air,” Izzy commented as she gazed happily at the kittens.
“Anyway, they’re a small outfit based in Plymouth. I called them today and Ellen, that’s the designer, said if you go in tomorrow they can fit it for you extra loose and then just before the wedding, take it in or let it out so that it flows perfectly over all of your curves. I tried to get her to tell me what it would look like, but she refused.”