In Another Life

The next time that I wake up, it’s still quite early. The sun has risen, and the rays are peeking in around the slates of the wooden blinds. It’s an orangey pink color that lets me know that I couldn’t have been asleep for more than an hour or two at the most.

Harry is sleeping peacefully next to me, his face tucked into the crook of his elbow on his left arm that’s thrown up haphazardly around his head. His other hand is resting limply on his belly, half covered by the sheet that’s riding down low around his hips. He has one leg out from beneath the blankets, and I take a moment to follow the line of his leg all the way down to his bare foot and then to the tip of his toes.

He is so heart achingly beautiful. Even when he’s snoring slightly and has a bit of drool collecting in the corner of his mouth.

I take a moment to press a sweet, soft kiss to his temple before I climb up and over his body and onto the floor. I pause to wriggle back into my sweats and to grab a soft oversized cardigan before I sneak out of the room, avoiding the floorboards that I know protest loudly under any sort of weight—a handy skill that I’d picked up on in my younger years when I’d sneak out to meet some mates in the dead of night.

A quick peek into the girls’ bedroom lets me know that the both of them are still sleeping. Cadi is on her back with her arms tucked in neatly at her side. Even in her slumber, she’s a tidy little thing. It’s almost as if she doesn’t move during the night. Owi, on the other hand, is all over the place. She tosses and turns and flings limbs at those who are unfortunate enough to be her bedmates. I’ve been on the receiving end of her heel smashing squarely on my eye socket, and Mum swears once that she checked in on her in the middle of the night, and Owi was sideways at the foot of the bed and using the footboard as a pillow. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me.

I continue on my way downstairs and make my way into the kitchen. I move automatically for the kettle and fill it up at the tap before I place it on the range and click on the gas burner beneath. My next stop is the fireplace, where Tad banked the ashes earlier this morning. I grab for the shovel and use it to rake the ashes off of the remaining logs and the coals. As I lean forward to blow on the coals, I can hear the telltale clicking of dog’s nails on the hardwood floor.

Coco, our family’s 9-year-old border collie, is standing next to me and just as our eyes meet, she yawns widely and stretches down low with her rump high in the air. I smile fondly, and reach down to pet her behind her soft ears. Those bright blue eyes that I fell in love with at fourteen have gone milky in her old age, but she’s still as smart and friendly as she was the day that Tad brought her home in the pocket of his suit. He’d found her at the train station, off the path and in a thicket of weeds with her dead littermates all around her. Her previous owner had packed up all of those poor puppies in a box and left them to die for whatever reason. Coco was the only puppy to survive, and she’d been an amazing addition to the Matthews family.

“Do you want to go outside?” I murmur as she lifts her head and closes her eyes in contentment. “I’ll let you outside in just a second, let me start up the fire. Where is your brother, hmm?” And as if I had summoning powers in my voice, Boo, a Staffordshire bull terrier, trots around the corner presently, his pink tongue hanging out as he moves towards me. “Well good morning!” I greet him cheerfully, reaching to give him scratches, too. “Did you two sleep well?”

Boo makes a low gurgling content noise in the back of his throat, though he starts to whine once I pull away. His eyes open as if to ask me why I stopped, and I have to laugh.

“I have to get the fire started and then I’ll let the two of you outside,” I resume my rekindling of the kitchen fire. The dogs move around the kitchen as I work, and by the time I have a decent fire going, they’re both standing at the door and looking at me expectantly.

“Okay, okay,” I wipe my hands off on the thighs of my sweats before I unlock the door and pull it open.

A blast of cold air hits me square in the face, though the dogs don’t seem to mind. They push past me and pad out onto the back porch before they take off down the stairs. Coco, ever the prim and proper lady, starts to sniff at the grass looking for a place to do her business quickly, but Boo is out frolicking in the snow, kicking his legs up and spraying snow everywhere.

I can’t stand the cold for much longer, so I shut the door and then move for the range where the kettle is just starting to whistle. I grab a tea bag from the pantry and put it in a low, chunky mug before I pour the boiling water in.

I can hear someone moving down the stairs. It’s a light tread, so I know that it’s one of the girls. I am not at all surprised to see Owi round the corner, rubbing at her bleary eyes tiredly. Her hair is a bird’s nest of tangles and knots and it stands around her head like a cloudy halo.

“Good morning,” I call out softly so as not to startle her.

She clambers up onto one of the high bar stools that sit at the counter and cups her face in her hands before she sighs heavily. “Hi.”

“Did you sleep well?” I laugh, coming around the corner and leaning back against the granite before I sip at my tea. When Owi nods mutely, I laugh again. “You look like you slept well.”

“I had a dream about the moon,” She announces, yawning widely.

There’s a scratching at the back door, and so I move to let the dogs in. “Oh yeah, what about the moon?”

“There was two of them,” She replies in a monotone voice.

I open the back door and Boo rushes past me and heads straight for Owi. He whines at her feet, dancing around the legs of the stool. And when she pays him no attention, he sits down and starts to lick at her bare feet. Coco, on the other hand, heads straight for the fireplace and turns around in circles three times before she settles down by the hearth and in front of Mum’s rocking chair.

“Do you want breakfast?” I ask, setting my tea up on the counter and walking towards the refrigerator. “And then you can tell me all about these moons?”

My sister nods before she pulls a face and looks down at the ground. “Boo, stop licking my feet.”

“He loves you,” I observe, pulling the eggs off of the shelf and moving for the sleeve of bacon. “Do you want hash browns for breakfast, too?” When I don’t hear anything come from behind me, I peek over my shoulder. “Owi?”

“I want some milk,” She sighs heavily, as if the weight of the world was upon her tiny shoulders. “The moon was pink, Bryn.”

I pause, a bit confused about what she’s talking about, before I remember our conversation about her dream last night. I hold all of the food against my chest before I kick the door shut and walk towards the counter. “And why was the moon pink?”

“I don’t know,” Owi sighs again and shakes her head, the very idea of having a pink moon being offensive to her. “I guess that’s why it was a dream.”

I place a pan on the range and start the burner beneath it before I start to work on opening up the bacon package and slicing the meat into thick strips. “Maybe it wasn’t a dream, and the moon really did turn pink.”

This seems to wake her from her stupor. She blinks and then twists around to look at me with concerned eyes. “But… the moon isn’t pink, Bryn. The moon is yellow. And that’s just the way that it is.”

“I know,” I agree, transferring the bacon to the hot skillet and watching as it sizzles. “But that could be fun. That’s all I’m saying. Can you get the dogs their breakfast for me, please? And then you can help me make breakfast for everyone else.”

A brief flash of annoyance flashes across her face, though to her credit, she does slide off of her stool and head in the direction of the mudroom, where Tad keeps the dog food in these great big plastic bins. Boo, upon hearing the sound of the kibble hitting the metal bowls, gets up and scrambles to get to Owi. I can hear him crunching on his food before she even leaves the mudroom and comes back into the kitchen.

“Mum lets me stir the eggs,” She appears at my side, her hands on her hips.

I watch her out of the corner of my eye. “When we make the eggs, you can absolutely stir them. We’re having a visitor this morning.”

“Who is it?” Owi asks, rubbing at her eyes again as she leans against the cupboard. She slowly sinks down onto the floor, her feet making a screeching noise as her skin slides sluggishly against the hardwood.

I flip the bacon over and then head towards the pantry, where I know there’s a sack of potatoes. I start to rinse a few off in the sink before I answer her. “It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I told you, would it?”

The look she gives me is a rather unimpressed one, and it reminds me so very much of Mum. As I start to peel and dice the potatoes, Owi crawls across the floor and then curls up next to Coco, using her belly as a pillow. Because she is quite possibly the most mellow dog ever, Coco doesn’t even flinch at the unexpected pressure added to her body. She just yawns and then sighs before resuming her snooze in front of the fire.

I work in silence for the next twenty minutes, frying up bacon and making hash browns. The pop and sizzle of food cooking is a comforting noise, one that brings me back to my own childhood of playing on the kitchen floor as Mum worked steadily. The years might have marched on by, and the décor of the room might have changed slightly, but it’s all the same really. I have many fond memories of lying exactly where Owi is and chattering incessantly on and on about whatever childish idea had popped into my head.

Cadi’s descent down the stairs is much more quiet than her sister’s. She slinks around the corner slowly and sits down next to Coco, rubbing at her face and yawning. Boo, who has disappeared for the last quarter hour or so, comes back and plops himself down next to the girls. The tags around his neck jingle cheerfully as he scratches at his neck, and he opens his mouth to yawn with his tongue lolling out before he clicks his teeth shut and blinks as he gazes around the room lazily.

I continue working on breakfast, knowing that Cadi likes a little bit of time to wake up in the mornings—a trait that she’s always possessed, even as a small child. Sure enough, by the time that I start to fry up the eggs in the skillet that I’d used to fry up the bacon, Cadi has moved to a bar stool and is watching me through glazed over eyes.

“What’s for breakfast?” She mumbles, her voice dull and listless.

I run the tip of the spatula around the edge of the egg and wait for the yolk to cook all the way through. “Eggs, bacon, and hash browns with toast and fruit.” When she doesn’t reply to my menu, I finally lift my eyes up from my pan. “Does that meet with your approval, miss?”

Cadi nods, still completely zoned out. Owi, meanwhile, has clambered up onto the stool next to her and sighs heavily once she sees that the food still isn’t finished cooking. She’s been waiting a long time, a long time by Owi standards, at least.

“Bryn says that we’re having a visitor this morning,” She announces, her forehead wrinkling comically. “But she won’t tell me who it is.”

Cadi blinks up at me. “Who is it?”

“It’s a friend of mine,” I admit, reaching for another egg to crack open. “Can you two set the table for me, please?”

Owi reacts immediately, slipping down from the stool and going for the drawer where the silverware is kept. “Is it Jeanette? Or Amanda? Or Raina?”

“No,” I laugh, pulling a stack of plates from the rack above the sink. “It’s not one of those friends.”

“Is it Liv?” Cadi asks from where she’s rummaging through the fridge for a drink. “She’s not a friend, though, is she? She’s our cousin.”

“She can be both,” I interject just as I see Owi opening her mouth to protest. It’s best to just nip this right in the bud before it turns into a full-blown argument between the two. Let’s be honest, it is far too early in the morning for me to have to listen to the two of them bicker. “But it’s not Liv who’s coming to see us.”

“Is it Santa?” Owi asks over her shoulder as she starts to lie out the forks and knives on the table. “Because it’s almost Christmas time?”

“No, it’s not Santa, though it is a boy,” The smile that comes to my lips is a tiny, private one, one that I quickly work to swallow and hide for myself. Because I sound like a lovesick teenager, and I know that if anyone were to catch sight of the goofy dazed smile on my face, they’d want to vomit. Because I know I do, and I’m actually the one doing the mooning about like a stroppy tit.

“It’s my boyfriend,” I carry on as if there hasn’t been a solid thirty seconds between my words. And I very firmly ignore the way that Cadi’s head snaps up and she looks at me through comically wide eyes. “And he’s probably going to be joining us for breakfast, so I need you two to be on your best behavior. That means,” I raise my voice slightly to be heard over the both of them starting to speak at once. “No burping or farting at the table.” I look pointedly at Owi, who has the decency to look outraged.

“I don’t do that.” She scoffs, placing the last pair of fork and knives on the table and turning around to look at me with her hands on her hips. “I’m a lady. Mum says so.”

But I tune the rest of her protests out as I hear the floorboards overhead start to creak. The footfalls are careful and brisk as they walk down the upstairs hallway and then start to descend down the stairs. As it’s still quite early in the morning, I can only assume that it’s my boyfriend and not my brother coming down to join us for breakfast.

Sure enough, just as I slide the last of the fried eggs onto a plate, Harry rounds the corner and walks into the kitchen. He’s redressed himself in the same jeans that he was wearing earlier, but he’s sporting a soft looking v-neck long sleeved shirt that he’s rolled up to his elbows. His hair is sticking up adorably, and he’s scratching at the back of his neck and yawning widely as he moves.

Though he does his best to contain his yawn once he catches me watching him with twinkling eyes. “Goo’ morning,” He slurs, offering me a lazy smile as he starts to walk towards me.

“Hi sleepy,” I whisper, leaning into him as he wraps his arms around my waist and drops a tender kiss to my skin. “Did you have a good nap?”

“I woke up because the bed was cold and you weren’t there,” He replies in a raspy voice. “And also because I smelled breakfast and I’m hungry.”

I have to laugh at this. “I thought it was something like that. Harry, I have some girls who are very excited to meet you.”

Ever the dutiful boyfriend, he pulls away from me and turns around to look at the both of my sisters, who are sitting at the table and looking at the both of us expectantly. He smiles widely and then crosses his arms over his chest once he realizes that Cadi is staring at the way that he’s touching me.

“Cadi, Owi, this is Harry. He’s my boyfriend,” I pick up the plate of eggs and nudge him in the arm with it.

He takes them from me and then grabs the bacon before he walks to the table. “Hello, you two. I’ve heard a lot about you from your sister. I hope it’s okay that I’m staying with you for a few days.”

“Are you here because Mum is having a baby?” Owi has quickly gotten over the delight of having someone new to ogle at, and she begins to help herself to the hash browns. “Did Tad send you?”

Cadi snorts. “Tad did not send Bryn’s boyfriend to watch us.”

“She’s right,” Harry speaks up, setting the plates down on the table. “But I’m here to hang out with all of you, and—” His eyes land on me and he widens them, as if asking me how to respond to this particular question.

“Harry is here to help us celebrate Christmas,” I announce, coming around behind him with a pitcher of orange juice and setting it down on the table. “Now who wants bacon?”

The next thirty minutes are spent eating the breakfast that we’d prepared. Owi had moved two places over so that she could sit closer to Harry, and she’d spent the better part of a quarter hour talking his ear off about how she had found a kitten in the barn two weeks ago but Tad wouldn’t let her keep him, and so she’d had to give the kitten away to one of her classmates. She thought that Harry needed to know that she wanted to name the cat Blob, but that her friend had ended up naming the kitten Sam, which, according to Owi, is a decidedly uncatlike name and therefore, unacceptable.

Harry, ever the wonderful thoughtful person that he is, listens very intently and asks well-timed questions and interjects with astonished exclamations in all of the right places. He needn’t have tried so hard. Owi was head over heels in love with him after about two minutes of him paying her his undivided attention. That’s just something that she doesn’t get a lot of around here, unfortunately, what with everything being so chaotic and busy all of the time—especially with a brand new baby about to make their debut.

Cadi, on the other hand, is a bit harder to win over. She eats steadily, where Owi picks like a bird, and keeps her eyes trained down on her plate. Harry does manage to pry a few timid smiles out of her, though she does her best to appear somber as soon as she realizes that I’m watching her closely.

“So,” Harry pushes himself away from the dining room table, and then stretches. “What’s next on the agenda?”

“Can we go outside?” Owi goes uncommonly still. “Because it snowed yesterday and I haven’t been outside to play in it yet because Tad wouldn’t let me and Mum said that Bryn would take me outside.”

Harry catches my eye from across the table where I’m trying to hide my laughter behind my cup of after breakfast tea. When I don’t make a move to bail him out, he shrugs his shoulders and smiles widely at my littlest sister. “Sure, let’s go outside. I mean, how much trouble can we get into out there?”

Owi screeches this high-pitched shrill that leaves my ears ringing before she rockets away from the table and clambers up the stairs, shouting for Cadi to follow her so that they can both go outside together. Cadi, for her part, is much more sedate as she gets down from the table and leaves the kitchen to head upstairs. Although as soon as she rounds the corner, she takes off running, calling for her sister as if the both of us in the kitchen wouldn’t hear her.

“You’re going to regret that,” I shake my head, draining the last of my tea and getting up from the table.

Harry’s smile fades slightly. “What are you talking about? We’re just going outside. How much trouble can they get into?”

“You have no idea,” I laugh as I turn on the tap above the sink. “And I’m so sorry that you’re going out there on your own with the both of them.”

“What are you talking about?” He does look a little alarmed by my news. “You’re going to let me out there with them by myself?”

I nod as I start to rinse off the pile of dishes that I’d accumulated in the sink while cooking. “Well who else is going to clean up the breakfast things? I have to tidy up. You’ll be fine; you’re a grown man.”

“Famous last words,” Harry sighs dramatically, though he does stand up from the table and start to bring the rest of the dirty dishes to me. “If something happens to me, the Royal Guard can be out here in two hours, you know that, right? And then you’ll just piss off Gran, and the whole of Britain—”

“That is a risk that I am willing to take,” I reply, leaning into his tall frame and kissing his pouty lips. “Make sure you bundle up, it’s really cold outside. If you think it’s too cold, just come inside.”

I don’t catch his grumbled response as he takes the time to carry the last of the dishes to the sink for me, because the girls have returned in their snowsuits. They both make a big fuss out of getting into their snow boots as Harry slips from the room and heads upstairs, presumably to either hide from my sisters or to gather together his own outerwear for their jaunt outside.

I do take the next five minutes to help the both of them into their boots and to wrap them securely in scarves and hats and mittens before I zip up their heavy winter coats. By this time, both of them are gagging to get outside and destroy the fresh snow that’s been left virtually untouched. Harry has returned at this point, and he throws me one last imploring look before I wave the three of them out the back door with Boo hot on Harry’s heels.

I watch Owi immediately fling herself into the snow and start to make an enthusiastic snow angel while Cadi picks her way carefully through the slush to a particularly large icicle that’s hanging from the garage gutter. Harry, who stands still for just a moment, starts to pack snowballs and I realize that there’s about to be an all out war in my back yard at any moment.

By now, my fingers have started to go a bit numb, so I shut the door and then sigh heavily, looking down at Coco who is standing patiently at my side. “They’re all a bit crazy, aren’t they?” I murmur, rubbing at the soft fur behind her ears.

She sighs and leans into my touch before I pull away and resume my task of rinsing off the dirty dishes and loading the dishwasher. As I work, I hum quietly to myself, content with the soft sound and the popping of the fire that’s burning cheerfully and keeping the warm quite cozy.

Just as I’m about to start transferring the leftovers into the proper Tupperware, Griffith rounds the corner, rubbing at the corner of his eye and yawning hugely. He shuffles straight to the refrigerator and pulls out the milk jug and drinks straight out of it.

“That’s sanitary,” I remark airily, using a big mixing spoon to pack the leftover fruit into a container.

My brother does have the decency to look slightly ashamed of himself before he uses the sleeve of his t-shirt to wipe at the corners of his mouth. “Sorry… I didn’t see you there.”

“So that’s what you do to the milk when no one’s around?” My lips twitch as I struggle to keep myself from smiling. “I’d hate to think about how many things I’ve eaten so far that have had your mouth on it—and I’ve fed the children it, too.”

“Well it’s not anything that they haven’t had before,” Griffith shrugs, coming around the kitchen counter and accepting the plate that I hold out to him. “You made breakfast?”

I nod. “I will choose to ignore the incredulous tone that you’ve taken on, as I have become slightly more self-sufficient since I’ve moved out, I can assure you.”

“And that includes your cooking?” He peers at the eggs and bacon that I’ve provided him with suspiciously. “I seem to remember you nearly burning the kitchen down while trying to boil a pot of water.”

“In my defense, I forgot that I was actually making pasta,” I do have to laugh at this. “And then by the time I remembered, the water had all boiled right out of the pot.”

Griffith laughs and then makes himself comfortable on one of the high stools at the kitchen counter. “Tad grabbed the pot without any oven mitts on, and then nearly launched the pot through the sink window once his brain caught up to his hands.”

“He had the most atrocious burns,” I say quietly, thinking back to that fateful day with a bit of a frown on my face. Both of my parents had been so upset with me—Tad especially. He’d really milked the whole recovery process, and Mum had threatened divorce numerous times in those weeks. All in jest… I think.

The kitchen is quiet for a few moments as Griffith eats his breakfast and I continue soaping up the dishes in the sink. Coco snores quietly by the fire, and in the background, I can hear the faintest snatches of delighted childish screams from outside as Harry and the girls play in the snow.

Griffith brings his plate to the sink and rinses off the egg yolk under the tap before he hands it to me. I take the dish from him, and as I glance up, I can see the bewildered expression on his face as he looks out the window above the kitchen sink. I frown and then look out the window, as well, before I see what he sees and I understand his confusion.

Owi and Cadi are both chasing Harry around the backyard and pelting him with snowballs. Harry is flailing about in a dramatic fashion, kicking snow up and allowing Owi to tackle him around his knees. He falls to the ground, calling out for Cadi’s help, which she answers with a handful of snow smashed into his face. All three of them are cackling wildly, and Boo is jumping all around them, adding his throaty bark as he tries to get in on their antics.

“Is there any particular reason that Prince Harry is in our backyard?” Griffith asks slowly, taking in the scene before him through wide eyes.

I shrug and then peek up at him to gauge his reaction. “No, not really.”

“So-o-o,” He holds out the word slightly. “You’re saying that His Royal Highness just happened to be out in our backyard and decided to have a romp in the snow with our siblings?”

“Well when you put it like that, it just sounds silly.” I remark, moving away from him and resuming my task of cleaning up from breakfast. “I… I brought him here,” I say simply.

“Have you stolen him?” Griffith sniggers, still gazing out at the unreal sight outside. “Is the Royal Guard on their way here to arrest you?”

Wheeling about, I snap the tea towel at his side and laugh at his flinch. “Hush up. He is here of his own volition to spend the holiday with us.”

“Because of you?” He clarifies, looking at me from the corner of his eye.

I pause, the weight of his words settling on me quite unexpectedly. Well I guess it does sound a bit preposterous when one phrases it like that, doesn’t it? But yes, yes Harry is here because of me, for me, for… well, for us, actually. And I suppose it does sound a bit ludicrous that a prince, an actual member of the Royal Family is here for little old me. But it’s the truth, as insane as it sounds. I do sometimes think briefly, in my happiest moments of pure bliss, that maybe this is all a delightful, wonderful dream and I’ll wake at any moment and be crushed that this has all been an elaborate ruse of my imagination.

I know that I would be destroyed if I woke to find Harry had never been mine at all.

“Because of me,” I agree quietly, knowing that my brother is still waiting for my answer.

He waits for a second before nodding his head a few times. “Fair enough. Do Mum and Tad know?” His gaze flits back to me and at the horrified look on my face, he erupts into laughter. “Oh god, Mum has no idea, does she?”

“No,” I whisper, feeling all of the color drain out of my cheeks. “He surprised me this morning when he showed up.”

“So Mum has no idea that an actual member of the Royal Family is currently at her house and she’s in the throes of labor… were you just going to show up at hospital and shout ‘surprise’ at her when he comes into the room?”

I go perfectly still at his words. Because this is exactly how I’d planned on introducing Harry to my parents. If I rang Mum up now to tell her, it would just send her in a tailspin and I’ve never had a baby before, but I think that that’s the last thing that she needs right about now. And if I tell Tad, he’ll just barge home and order Harry to sleep in the barn or something archaic like that.

“Well I was going to throw a bit of confetti around, too.” I mumble, pulling at the skin on the back of my neck uncomfortably.

Griffith laughs loudly at this. “Promise me that I can be there when she kills you?”

“Stop,” I demand, though I do have to laugh a bit at the mental image of Mum lunging out of her hospital bed and wringing my neck. “She won’t be that bad.”

“That’s what you think,” He answers, shaking his head. “She nearly took Aunt Shellie’s head off when Jeanette got engaged to Phil and she didn’t tell Mum straight away that she was planning a wedding and Phil isn’t even royalty.”

“I’m so fucked, aren’t I?” I say in a low voice as my stomach twists itself into knots.

My brother manages to stifle his laughter long enough to reply. “You have no idea.”

Well shit.