It started with a night of disrupted sleep. Not an unusual thing, James understood, for parents of a child under one – especially given Theodora's resolute insistence that they take on the brunt of the work as much as was possible. I'm not having children just to hand them to someone else to raise the second they're born, she'd said. He could not pretend he didn't see her point. Whatever reservations he harboured on just how much she shirked the notion of a servant doing the heavy lifting was vanquished after lengthy discussions on the topic of modern understandings of bonding…and when he saw just how strongly she felt on the matter.
It was hardly as if he'd been dying to pass his daughter off to a wetnurse within an hour of her being born, either. Whatever prior expectations he had on that score had mostly lain in what was the done thing. And when had the 'done thing' ever been he and Theodora's method?
He just wished his wife would be a little easier on herself when it came to the standard to which she held herself. But he believed the phrase 'pot, meet kettle' had been thrown around when he'd voiced that wish, and so he hardly boasted of a leg to stand on.
It began with footsteps downstairs – but that was hardly enough to truly stir him from his doze, chalking it up to Hope attending to some matters now that they were out of her hair for the night. Then, though, it was followed by the scuttling footsteps of the dogs.
"What are those beasts of yours up to now?" he mumbled.
No response came from Theodora's side of the bed…and come to think of it, he didn't hear her breathing, either. Groping blindly, mostly hoping he would find her there and save himself from leaving the bed, his hand was met instead with blankets that had long grown cool.
It took few detective skills for him to track down his wife, considering the back door had been left ajar in her wake.
Theodora paced up and down the back porch, clad in a nightgown, a thick dressing gown, and those favoured black boots of hers. Antonia fussed in her arms, bundled heavily in blankets, and one of the dogs offered moral support in the form of trailing along behind her this way and that, tail lazily wagging and nose nudging at her legs every now and then. She looked exhausted, face pale and the long plait her hair was bound back into fraying wildly.
"Did we wake you?" she asked when she spotted him.
"I wish you had," he replied.
"No use in us both being sleep deprived," she shook her head.
"It's too cold to be out here."
"She won't settle unless she's outside, and unless I'm rocking her. I tried to put her down so I could at least bring a chair out, and she started screaming bloody murder the second I did," she said tiredly. "Those damned teeth of hers. Why aren't they just born with them all? This is torture on us all."
"What can I do?"
"Learn to produce milk."
"I'm afraid that might take more time than what we have," he said.
The smile she offered in response was strained, but it was a smile all the same. "One of the chairs – from the sitting room. Whichever'll be easiest to carry. I need to sit."
Within moments, he saw her furnished with the rocking chair from the sitting room – a gift from an elderly neighbour when Antonia's impending arrival was announced, which had proven to be nothing less than a godsend. In another trip, he brought blankets, and once she sat comfortably, he went to the kitchen, a plan of action now in mind.
In record time, he returned outside boasting a tray in one hand, and a stool for himself in the other. On the tray sat a chunk of ice, wrapped thickly in cheesecloth which he quickly set into Antonia's grasping hands (and she did not hesitate in depositing between her lips, settling down quickly thereafter – albeit with a furrowed brow and flushed cheeks), as well as a hunk of bread baked with fruit within. One of Hope's specialties.
It took a little shuffling for Theodora to situate their daughter so she had a hand free with which she might eat, but when she did she groaned her thanks before regarding him with weary affection.
"I love you."
James smiled. "And I you. Wake me next time. Have we not learned thrice over by now that anything we face is not so insurmountable when we face it together?"
"Are you comparing our beautiful daughter to Davy Jones?"
"It appears she'll have his temperament until all of her teeth come in."
Antonia mumbled nonsense noises through her mouthful of cloth as if in agreement.
With the crisis averted, he lowered himself down to sit on the stool beside the two leading ladies in his life, looking out over the lush green hilly land that they called home, backlit by the full moon and the stars. Though he never thought the would say it at the time, those first few perilous years of theirs had proved a blessing in a way, for it was now very difficult to take minor – natural – challenges too seriously at all, even in the midst of them. Whenever they struggled from overtiredness, or had to contend with an annoying neighbour dropping by uninvited, or one of the men in their employment needed a lesson in manners, they could always sit back and contemplate that at least Beckett and Jones were dead, and they were not.
With Beckett in particular, that reminder put things in a particularly rosy light.
Oftentimes, he had to pause now and look about them and wonder how any of this was real, half fearing that he would soon wake to find himself thrown back in time a number of years – that Theodora would be gone to Tortuga, and he readying himself to give chase, Jones and Beckett in need of vanquishing all over again.
He'd gladly do it, if doing so would get him here once more.
His daughter fussing drew him from his thoughts – a half-hearted sort of fussing, for she'd tired herself out – and when he turned his head he saw it was because Theodora no longer rocked her. Her head was tilted against the high backrest of the chair, her eyes shut, her lips parted in sleep. James smiled a little, and pressed one foot down onto the front of the curved rocker of the chair, rocking it gently back and forth. Theodora did not stir, and Antonia 'hmf'd as if to say quite right.
It was then that he had an idea.
Theodora knew that her husband was up to something. Well, that was nothing to boast about because he'd all but told her, banning her from the work-shed at one side of the property. Although that new rule sprang up in the aftermath of his chopping and sawing a great deal of timber – something he saw fit to do in only breeches and boots, leaving his bare shoulders, chest, and back glistening from his exertions. Theo's admiration of the sight had been plain as day, and no matter how cool he'd tried to play it, he'd never quite managed to disguise his smirk when he caught her.
"From hereon, you cannot spectate on what I do," he'd said. "Or else the surprise will grow too obvious, and be ruined."
Then, he'd added in a mutter. "And because Antonia will have a sibling before it is done, if we keep this up."
The grumbling lost any edge it might've had thanks to the smugness that underlay it. And so Theo had relented. It wasn't like there was ever a shortage of work to do elsewhere on their homestead, and he was too enthusiastic about this surprise for her to let her own curiosity spoil it.
Given all else that they did, it was weeks before it was finally unveiled to her.
"She's got another tooth coming in," she sighed one evening after Antonia had been put to bed – if not for the night, then at least for a few hours. "We'll need to order more ice from town soon…she's gnawing my fingers down to stumps, bless her."
"I have something that will help."
He rose quickly from the sofa, as though he'd been waiting for her to give him this 'signal' – whatever it may have been.
"A spare hand?"
"Two, in fact," he smirked. "Which have made something I'm rather proud of. Wait here 'til I fetch you…and do not cheat by looking out of the window."
Punctuating his point, he drew the curtains and then smirked at her. Theo could only watch on in amusement; as well as feigning a great deal of patience that was not entirely genuine.
Finally, though, he returned inside and took her by the hand, pulling her up and leading her through the house, out of the back door, and onto the porch. Once they reached it – once she saw what was there – the smile slipped from her face as her mouth hung open and she stared in disbelief.
A porch swing now sat where they so often had to drag the rocking chair out to in order to soothe Antonia at night. It was long, enough to sit four at a squeeze but certainly two or three very comfortably, sanded smooth, and stained a deep warm glossy brown, hanging by chains on a frame that offered not only support but also a latticed little roof above.
"You built this?" she asked in disbelief.
"Artful and ornate it is not," he replied bashfully, his hand still in hers. "I can build, but I cannot carve. The little shelter above was the most decoration I could offer, and even that set progress back a good while for it was a great deal more fiddly, to use your word, than I anticipated. But it is comfortable – and sturdy. With more than enough room so that we both might sit on it together when sleep must be pushed back. Or in summer, to enjoy the air and the scenery. In winter, even, for I know how you enjoy the col-"
As he spoke, Theo was reminded of her own nervousness – back when she'd bestowed upon him the rings that had sat on their fingers ever since. He'd teased her for her shyness then, and she'd enjoyed it, but she couldn't bring herself to do the same now. This was a far cry from harassing a smith's apprentice into knocking together a couple of rings. This had been weeks upon weeks of work, and physical labour – for her. So that they might sit together properly on the next sleepless night.
She wondered if she could still blame those pesky post-motherhood hormones for how she began to tear up.
James, luckily, was able to quickly discern that they were very much the good kind of tears, breathing a laugh and stepping closer still, wrapping an arm about her shoulders. "I had not intended to make you cry."
Turning into his grasp, she rose up onto the balls of her feet and kissed him, arms wrapped around his neck to keep herself balanced. She kissed him then, long and slow, sighing her contentment as his arms wrapped around her to both steady and pull her close, the hand not firm at the small of her back snaking its way upwards so that his fingers could tangle themselves in her locks and ruin the updo she'd wound her hair up into. She didn't mind a bit.
"I can't believe you built this for me," she breathed when they parted, turning her head to look at it again.
"I would do far, far more," he chuckled softly, speaking lowly into her ear – most likely because he knew what it would do.
"Oh, I don't doubt that," she murmured.
And was rewarded with a brilliant grin.
