"Mummy!" Ava ran straight to her mother, barreling into her middle, her bag rising up over her shoulders and thumping down onto her back on impact.
"Steady, Ava." Jacob reached forward quickly to pick her up, watching Connie as she exhaled slowly, before turning to smile and chatter away with her little girl, offering to take her bag and asking her about everything she had learnt that day. Once they were in the car, Jacob didn't take his eyes away from his wife whose own eyes didn't stray from the road once, she was tense and still the entire way to Grace's school.
They waited in the car park for a few minutes until they saw her come out of the building with a group of girls neither parent recognised. She came over to the car, smiling, and opened the other back door to place a quick kiss to her little sister's cheek.
"Hi, sweetheart. Good day?" Connie turned around to see her daughter, smiling as she saw how happy Grace looked compared to recent weeks.
"It was alright, for school. How's your head?"
Grace looked in concern at the steristrips at her mother's head, and Connie rolled her eyes in response.
"Oh, fine. I just need to walk slower."
Grace giggled, before settling back in her seat. Jacob glanced sideways at Connie, before shaking his head and turning to the window.
"Why don't we all go shopping to pick up a dress for you, Gracie?" Connie asked as she glanced into the rearview mirror, smiling when her daughter nodded enthusiastically.
An hour later Grace was still trying on dresses. Jacob was sat outside the changing rooms trying to keep Ava occupied because he didn't want to leave Connie alone.
"Has she picked one yet?" Ava asked her mother as Connie walked out with a dress, and then dramatically dropped back down on her seat when Connie shook her head. "Why does she ALWAYS do this?!"
"I'm just getting her a smaller size. We won't be much longer." She offered as she walked past.
Jacob frowned after his wife and then stood up, reaching her just as the dress fell from her hand as she reached out to try and rest against the wall. He caught her before she fell and Ava watched with a frown as her mother seemed to struggled to hold herself up on shaking legs.
"Mummy?"
"Mummy's fine." Jacob offered his daughter a smile as he sat Connie down in the chair he'd just vacated. "Stay here."
"Jacob, I-"
"Stay here." Jacob spoke in a voice that made both Ava and Grace jump, and a moment later Grace stuck her head out of the changing room.
"Mum?"
Connie glanced up at Jacob and then looked down at her lap as Jacob pulled a museli bar from Ava's backpack and put it into his wife's hand. "Eat it and stay here." He repeated before going towards the changing rooms. He sat on a pouffe outside of the changing room of which Grace's head stuck out of. He saw her face fall, and how her fingers bunched the curtain around her.
"Jacob, let's go home-"
"Ava, can you bring the last dress?"
Moments later the little girl wandered in, glancing back worriedly at her mother but handing the dress through to Grace dutifully. She then scurried quickly back to where her mother sat down, the muesli bar unwrapped yet untouched, scared by the tone of voice she had never heard Jacob use before.
"Jacob, I think we should-"
"Try it on, Grace."
She nodded, knowing that Jacob wouldn't ask her to if there was something wrong with her mum. He would be the first person to insist they do this another day. He looked back to where Connie sat, entertaining her youngest daughter, her face pale but otherwise fine. He couldn't understand how she could simply bypass the fact that she was carrying their child, whether she wanted to be or not, and act as though everything was okay. He couldn't just switch his own feelings off like she could, he was never able to. And right now, he had just lost his own control, for the first time in a long while.
Hovering next to her mother, Ava watched her for a moment before reaching out to take the muesli bar from her. Breaking off a piece, she took a bite from it and then held it to Connie's lips as her mother used to do to her. "Your turn, mummy."
Giving a weak smile, Connie took a bite, her eyes glancing towards Jacob. When she saw his eyes on the hand she'd unconsciously pressed to her middle, she quickly pulled it away and instead reached out for some more muesli bar.
After Grace had picked her dress, Jacob led them all from the shop in silence, an arm tightly wrapped around his wife's waist despite the fact the colour had finally come back to her cheeks. Ava skipping along beside them and Grace wondering aloud about which shoes she should wear, Connie let herself imagine for a moment what it might be like to have another child. She and Jacob had already broken up on Grace's insistence when she found out she was pregnant last time. She'd waited until she was actually beginning to show before telling her daughter first, and had been surprised that Grace was excited about having a sibling. When she'd told Jacob, it was only because Grace had mentioned it in front of him, and then all Connie herself had done was confirm it, albeit in a yell in front of every single staff member. Despite the fact she'd felt him watching her, he left it up to her to approach him when she was ready to talk properly, and she didn't think she'd ever thanked him for that. Despite the fact she broke so often under the pressure in those few months, she'd refused to allow Jacob to look after her, either.
Glancing up at Jacob now as he chatted to Grace, Connie wondered if maybe this baby was her second chance. If only Grace would be as accepting, maybe she could let Jacob look after her, maybe she could let them all go through it as a proper family.
But Grace. She couldn't hurt Grace again, not after already causing her so much pain. She'd be so strange with Ava these past few weeks, would it be fair to put this on her too? Would it be fair to bring into the family another person who would take away the attention she got from her mother?
She glanced up at Jacob's profile again then. She could read him so well and could see the smile on his lips didn't meet his eyes. He worked so hard on being calm for everyone else, and all they did was push him, herself included.
When they stopped at the traffic light opposite the carpark, Connie allowed herself to rest a little against Jacob's side, and when she felt his arm tighten around her, she reached down and pulled his hand that rested on her hip a little across to rest against her middle. A moment later, he dropped a tender kiss to her head.
"Are you feeling better now, Mummy?" Ava tugged at her mother's hand whilst she fumbled in her bag for the door keys.
"I've got them." Jacob reached around her to unlock the door, and Connie guided Ava inside, sitting her on the stairs so that she could unlace her trainers.
"Much better, sweetheart. Now, we'll get you some tea and then how about we watch a film?"
Jacob watched his wife as she continued to chat away to Ava, and then followed Grace through to the kitchen, asking her to put the kettle on and make her mum a cup of tea.
"Is she okay, Jacob?"
Jacob sighed, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.
"Yes. No... Oh Grace, you know what she's like. I doubt she ate lunch, and her fall yesterday has probably made her feel a bit funny."
"Should she get it checked out?"
"I'll ask someone to give her a once over when she's in work tomorrow."
"Thanks, Jacob." Grace hugged him quickly before going to the kettle, and Jacob smiled at her sadly before going back into the hallway.
Connie was hugging Ava tightly to her chest and the girl was looking a little shocked as she slowly moved her small arms around her mother. "Mummy?"
"I love you." Connie spoke fiercely, pulling back a little to brush Ava's hair from her face before she dropped a kiss to her cheek. "I love you so much."
Ava glanced towards her father and then reached up to touch her mother's cheek gently. "I love you too, mummy. You can make broccoli for dinner, if you like, and I will eat it all up."
Jacob gave a sad smile at his daughter's attempt to cheer her mother up before he stepped forward. "Right, bag away, please, and then if you wash your hands you can come and help me with dinner!" Ava nodded, but glanced worriedly at her mother who had lowered her head and put her face into her hands. "Mummy's fine. Come on, upstairs!"
When Ava rushed away up the stairs, Jacob put a hand to Connie's shoulder, but she shrugged him off, standing as she brushed the hair away from her face before offering Grace a tight smile as she appeared with a mug of tea. "Thanks, sweetheart. How about we go into my office and work on your homework while they're making dinner?"
Grace nodded before asking hesitantly, "Can I Skype Dad tonight?"
"Of course." Connie held out an arm for her daughter and then walked with her into the office, turning her back on Jacob who gave a heavy sigh before returning to the kitchen.
"I'm sorry, Grace. I want to take Emma on holiday just the two of us while we still can." Sam offered his daughter. Sitting on the other side of the desk, Connie once more put her head in her hands, silently cursing Grace's father. "It took me a long time to get reservations at that hotel, and the only time they had available was during school holidays."
"I could come with you?" Grace asked quietly. "I'll be good, I promise."
"I really am sorry, Gracie, but Emma and I need to do this as a family."
At his last word, Connie shot out of her seat and moved around to face the monitor as Grace burst into tears and ran from the room. "Oh, well done Sam. And I thought I was supposed to be the terrible parent. Grace IS part of your family!"
"I didn't mean-" Sam began.
"Oh, I don't care what you meant. Try to think a little more next time before you speak to your daughter, if she ever wants to speak to you again." With that, Connie slammed the laptop shut and went after her daughter. She expected to find her in her room, but when Connie found it empty she rushed back downstairs, her footsteps slowing when she found Grace hugging Jacob tightly and crying into his t-shirt as Ava hugged her sister's waist tightly.
"He just wasn't thinking, Gracie." Jacob talked softly to Grace as she cried, and Connie retreated back up the stairs, her head beginning to spin slightly. Jacob had it under control.
What the hell had Sam been thinking? It would have been kinder to have not mentioned it at all. And then throwing in the "as a family" card really did top it all off. It was like he didn't know his daughter at all, how should would react.
A few minutes later, she decided she'd hidden away long enough and walked slowly down to the kitchen, where Jacob had Grace sat on his knee, and Ava sat cross legged on the floor in front of him.
"Hey you, come here." She opened her arms, and crouched to hold her youngest daughter to her as Ava look back worriedly at Grace.
"He just... Wants to spend some time with Emma. It's a big change for them, this baby, Gracie. You know that." Jacob rubbed her should reassuringly as he talked, stealing quick glances over her shoulder to where his wife knelt on the floor, her arms tightly around Ava. He couldn't help but feel a little sick, knowing that sooner or later his own family was going to have to have a big conversation. The girls needed to know what was going on, and he didn't even know how far gone Connie was. He had tried to work it out but it wasn't a particularly easy, straightforward task.
"Jacob's right, Gracie. Your dad didn't mean for it to sound as though he didn't want you there. That wasn't his intention."
"You don't know that."
"I do, darling." Connie stretched a hand out to touch Grace's knee. "I do, because your dad has a habit of saying things before he thinks about how other people will interpret them. In no way does this mean that this baby, and Emma, are replacing you as his family. He's your father, Gracie. And he loves you."
"Well I wish he wasn't. I wish I had a proper family like Ava does." Grace replied, her voice slightly muffled by the hair that lay over her face.
"You know what? I think you're luckier than Ava. More presents, another family across the pond to spend your holidays with...all Ava gets is my mum around the corner who makes her eat broccoli." Jacob offered softly, earning a groan from Ava at the thought. "Why don't we go and have our dinner now, and then afterwards, we can plan the best school holiday ever, so good that your dad is going to beg to come with us!"
Grace gave a small smile at this and nodded, standing up before pulling her little sister along with her to the kitchen. "Come on, Ava, let's swap our vegetables so you only have peas."
"Thanks, Gracie!" Ava smiled up at her sister as Jacob reached out a hand to help Connie up.
"You see?" Connie spoke softly, as though the situation with Grace was exactly what she'd expected to happen. "We can't, Jacob."
"That's not what I see. I just see that we need to approach things differently than Sam did." Jacob replied, edging her towards the kitchen as he was eager for her to eat something.
With a sigh, she finally followed him.
He made them dinner, and insisted on the children being in bed early so Connie could sleep and rest too. Soon enough, he had taken her upstairs and the house was quiet, save for his low murmurs into her ear as he tried to soothe her to sleep.