Chapter 88

Chapter 88

Natalie

"What the hell is Operation Mum?" I asked as everyone piled into the van. Holly just smirked as I slid behind the wheel, a glance at the ladies in the back getting me nowhere. "I'm gonna need answers or so help me?—"

"You'll turn this car around?" Holly cackled. "Now you're getting into it. We're heading to that big shopping complex?—"

"Why?"

"Because I'd really, really appreciate it." She tucked her hands under her chin and fluttered her eyelids at me.

"I'm gonna need a better reason than that to tackle a bloody shopping centre," I replied.

"Because I said so."

Holly used the mum reverse Uno card on me and that had me shaking my head.

"We are not going dildo shopping again," I said.

"Again?" Jane said faintly.

"Absolutely G rated shopping trip, I promise," Holly said, her smile widening as I considered her proposal. She knew I'd say yes, she just had to wait me out.

"OK, the shopping centre it is." I put the car in gear. "Which end?"

The side of the shopping centre with the big department store apparently.

"What about these?"

Holly grabbed a pair of jeans off the rack and held them up against her.

"They look… comfortable," I said, eyeing my mothers-in-law cautiously because that's what they looked like: mum jeans. High waisted, light blue stonewash and those formless legs. Nothing like my favourite pair of skinny leg jeans I didn't fit into anymore. The legs were too loose, but the tummy area was too constrictive.

"Dude, these are mum jeans and you're getting a pair," Holly insisted, throwing the hanger at me. I fumbled it, but managed to grab them before they fell to the ground.

"They're so high waisted I'd be wearing them up under my boobs," I said, then looked down. "Actually the tide line there has changed a bit since the babies. The guys were so excited when my milk came in."

"Thinking it would turn you into some kind of buxom wench?" Ingrid asked with a snort. "Typical."

I frowned.

"But more mass equals more gravity."

"Then you need some better bras." Jane's tone was brisk. "With more support. Let's get some of those too."

"One of those horrendous beige things that look like you could launch a cannonball with them?" Holly's eyes lit up as she clapped her hands. "Yeah, let's get mum jeans and mum bras too."

"You need to hydrate more to maintain skin elasticity." Meryl scanned the floor. "How about one of those Stevens cups everyone's talking about?"

"Stanley cups?" I asked dimly.

"Yes!" She clapped her hands together. "They have them in all colours and patterns." Meryl turned to Jane. "Perhaps one with bears printed on the side?"

"What's going on?" I looked around me and all the noise and clatter of the shopping centre fell away, leaving only them. My mates' mothers and my best friend, here with me, looking at new clothes, new underwear, after getting me a new haircut. "What is this?" They all went still and the collective gaze of my mothers-in-law, my bestie was soft and understanding.

My village saw me then and didn't flinch as I stared down each one of them.

"What's Operation Mum?"

I asked in a much quieter voice now. Holly looked at the others, then stepped forward, making clear who the instigator was.

"You've found it tough, becoming a mum." That was a punch to the gut and all the more harsh because it came from nowhere. "It's been harder than you thought it would be." My head shook from side to side, as if that's what it would take to dismiss her words.

"We've all felt a little helpless watching you struggle," Jane added in a small voice.

"We've wanted to help so very much, but wanted to respect your need for space."

That was Meryl.

"Because it's hard." Ingrid stood tall, her gaze burning into mine. "People don't seem to want to admit that. It's all soft focus shots of pretty babies and glowing mothers, but that's not what it's really like, is it, Natalie? It's moments of the most exquisite joy and gut wrenching pain, exhaustion the like you've never felt before. And yet if you were given the choice to walk away, you wouldn't, not even for a second and that's what grinds you down. You love your children intensely, fiercely, with everything you've got, no matter the cost."

A tear slid down my cheek, one I hadn't even felt forming and then another joined it. More and more tears, because to my horror, I was bawling my freaking eyes out in the middle of a crowded department store. Every single one of them clustered closer. Hands went to my shoulders, rubbing circles there, but it didn't help.

Or rather it did, but that comfort just made the tears come harder and faster.

"It's OK." Ingrid's voice was like a lifeline thrown in a rocking sea and I held tight to it. "All of this is OK. You are doing so well. Your babies are beautiful and thriving. My lazy son is now prioritising what's important."

"You are so strong," Meryl said. "More than I was when the twins were born. I didn't let my mother go home for a month. I was near hysterical at the idea of being left alone with these two crying babies all the time and you've been trying to do it all by yourself."

"But you don't need to." Jane was always restrained, unfailingly polite in her conversations, but right now a hidden steel rose. "You don't need to. You're surrounded by people who want, no, need to help?—"

"And you've just got to let them."

I pulled back, my cheeks burning hot with embarrassment. The strange looks I was getting from other shoppers only making that worse.

"I don't think I need mum jeans," I croaked out. "Stanley cups are overpriced for what they are and bras… Later." I nodded and then started to make for the door. "Operation Mum, I think it needs to take on a different form than what you're thinking."

I parked the car and then had the door open, running towards my house before anyone could say a word. The door was thrust open and in I rushed. The TV was playing some brightly coloured kids show, but I barely noticed the noise as I stepped inside.

Home. Family. Mine.

It felt like I'd been divorced from those feelings, the insane learning curve of dealing with twins cutting off my love for my family like someone had turned a tap off inside me.

Not now.

I saw Koda sitting on the floor with baby Sven, leaning forward and making funny faces, laughing as the little guy kicked his arms and legs even more wildly every time his dad got near. Lars was walking around with Kai strapped to his chest, pointing out the architectural features of the house and describing all the work he'd done, something baby Kai had no chance of understanding, but he did this.

He had his father's undivided attention and knew that he was loved.

That's all they really needed. Well, to be fed and changed as well, but this was what was important. That we were there, responsive, and loved them. Thorn slid down onto the floor beside Kai and then scooped him up into his arms.

"How about we give this bottle a go little guy? Mum prepared it just for you," Thorn said, cradling my baby, our son against his chest. "There we go."

My heart was in my chest, not sure what to feel as Kai's brows creased. He was never quite sure about bottle feeding, but some instinct kicked in and he latched on, sucking down the contents greedily.

"Like this?"

I knew exactly what Alaric was feeling when he carried Lars over to them, sitting down on the couch and holding our child a little awkwardly. In some ways it was a relief to see someone else struggling. I moved forward then, sitting down beside him, shocked when I could run my hands along his arms and shoulders and correct him slightly.

"He needs his head up a little higher."

Alaric looked up at me, his eyes widening, then shifting to take in my new hair, his lips parting, ready to say something, then he sighed. Sven seemed to settle almost immediately, until he saw me.

Feeding time, that's what his little kicks and thrashing arms told me, if his increasingly red face and grunts didn't and my breasts ached, ready to be the one to feed him.

Not this time.

Some women didn't breastfeed at all. Some did exclusively, never needing to pump. Some wanted to do the job themselves and some wanted to share the job and that's was OK, I realised. Whatever we needed to do to raise our child into adulthood, healthy and well adjusted, was what we needed to do.

And right now I needed this.

To see Alaric hold the bottle for Sven to drink from. For me to reach over and correct the angle slightly. For us, all of us to share a moment as a family. I knew then that I had become the biggest obstacle to that. Some women were perfectly able to do everything on their own without missing a beat, and in that moment, I traded a heavy weight of guilt and shame for a much lighter feeling of acceptance.

"He's feeding really well."

"Really?" Alaric's eyes met mine and I knew then that my praise was hitting him hard. "I haven't really had much of a go at it yet because I was too scared I'd screw it up."

"Perfect or don't try at all, right?"

His smile seemed to take him by surprise, but once he got used to it, he nodded and it widened.

"That's stupid?—"

"Understandable." I turned and stared down at my beautiful little boy. "I may or may not know something about perfectionism, but…"

I reached down and Sven gripped my finger tight, which was just everything, because I think I knew then what Operation Mum entailed. When I stopped trying grinding myself into the ground, when I just sat in the moment, my anxieties stopped bombarding me and I was just here, now, with men I loved and my baby boys I loved even more.

"Our sons don't need perfection. They just need us."