Dom was going to be a father. Dice and slice it up anyway which way you wanted, that was the long and the short of it. No beating around the bush, no prevaricating and procrastinating, no avoidance and no escape. Dom was going to be a father and he had not a clue what that meant.
It could be any day now. There was a window of a few weeks at any moment of which Janey could give him the message that the time to deliver had arrived. And that was assuming things went vaguely to the vague plans they had. It was also possible of course that all sorts of bloody terrible things could happen and he’d be jerked from his complacency into some sort of medical nightmare.
As it was, he appeared to have ended up in some other sort of nightmare. He’d done plenty of reading up on what should happen during a pregnancy and what was expected of the father-to-be, but at no point had anybody mentioned waking up in a bloody forest with some impossible bod for company who wandered around shooting at things and cutting them up. Nobody mentioned assignations being arranged for you to meet loves from half a lifetime ago – who hadn’t changed and were hanging out in the same bloody forest.
It made him long now for the more rational madness of pregnancy and birth. Because if things went well (and he still expected to get the nod at 4 in the morning, because how else could these things go but in the most inconvenient way possible?) Janey would be giving birth any day now. That was a crazy world he needed to be in right now.
Things were progressively getting wilder at home. Janey was probably getting swamped with hormones or whatever which made the unreality only greater - aside from the current episode of unreality he was experiencing that is, which granted would take more than your average hormone rush to induce. Probably having a baby was easier to deal with if you didn’t try to grasp it in terms of reality too much.
The things that he would miss. If he discussed it with his mates in the pub, as he had done this previous night - seeming so long ago now - then they couldn’t realise that the change was so deep and complete. Of course, none of them had kids, because it was the end of this part of your life, when you did have the bairns to care for and enjoy. Who wants to spend their time with a bunch of the same old faces, in conversations that become variations on a theme the older you grow, when you can spend your time at home in the bosom of the ones who love you, watching and learning with your children as they experience the world anew and teach you so many new and varied lessons? Ah, if it were only that simple.
The things that he would miss? A Friday night and staying up late and taking any drugs that were floating around safe in the knowledge that tomorrow may bring hangover and comedown but pretty certain that the only one who might wake him would be the nuzzling of his dog or a one-night stand or some new relationship. Almost certainly it wouldn’t be a three year old having a tantrum.
And what else? He didn’t know it yet, but on the horizon was a whole raft of lifestyle changes and adaptations he would need to make. A host of opportunities that were unavailable, vaguely glimpsed in the distance wallowing through the depths of the collective male consciousness. What else would he miss? Nipping out for a beer and a natter. Taking off on a holiday without warning, perhaps hitching across half a continent, perhaps grabbing a last minute flight to somewhere, anywhere. Playing loud music after eight o’clock at night. Eating dinner off a plate and watching videos of some old movies not suitable for kids. Kids who are beginning to ask awkward questions and have nightmares at night that wake you three times in that narrow space between falling into bed and getting up much too early to head off to work and slave and earn the wage that responsibility and the family unit demands.
What would he miss? Getting up after seven o’clock in the morning and going to bed at seven in the morning. Not being tired constantly. He’d miss that for sure. Leaving the house without packing 27 bags and countless spare sets of clothes.
Of course some and many of these complaints were ones that could equally be applied to the responsibilities and commitments of a relationship. But his relationship with Janey was still relatively new - they certainly hadn’t been together that long when they got pregnant, and it sometimes seemed his mates were still adjusting to that changed reality. This new one would be one step too far, that shattered old friendships and he knew that this was effectively goodbye - though friendship had meant much and many things to him over the past many years.
And the other thing was that in a relationship with a woman as smart and sussed as Janey, there was always that option of negotiation. It could be an evening in the pub whilst she has a girl’s night out; or going together on that last minute flight to somewhere, anywhere. There didn’t seem the possibility of much negotiating with a new born baby. It was very much a case of my way or the highway with them. One wail had to fulfil a multitude of demands, but you were slave to them all.
Funny really, that he was still so much looking forward to it.
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