Cocaine&Champagne

Three's a crowd

Freddie was a married man, had been since he was eighteen years old. He wore a ring but anyone within a five mile radius knew that meant nothing in terms of keeping his trousers on, least of all his wife.
Jackie Jackson had been half glad her husband was banged up, as it meant she knew where he was for once. She knew he was safe and sound with limited drugs and booze available to wreck himself with and absolutely none of the loose girls he couldn't seem to leave alone.

They had been kids themselves, fooling around when Freddie had knocked her up aged only sixteen. The moral high ground of the times led them to get married and then suddenly it was all ok. If they shared surnames then it didn't matter how young they were anymore. People didn't frown about it because they were family.

Freddie's mother Maddie, and Jackies mother Lena had begrudgingly agreed to bring the child up between them all and her father Joe payed for a shotgun wedding to save face in the community. They were teenagers suddenly living an adult life and growing up fast was the only choice given to them. They moved into a council flat together and Freddie went on the graft to provide for his new family, flitting between working legitimate construction jobs in the morning and spraying stolen cortinas with Jimmy during the night. It depended on the weather. Work wasn't solid and so he had to think outside the box.
He was robbing homes on the evenings when he wasn't out getting shitfaced at house parties and the little money Jackie did try and save for the baby, soon got snorted up his nostrils or poured down his throat. The more she let him get away with it without consequence, the worse he got and the more he took. The world was heavy on his young shoulders and he did anything he could to forget.

On welfare, the baby was due to arrive home to a dingy thirteenth floor high-rise flat on Chalkhill estate, with boot-sale babysuits and a handed down stroller. Jackie thought it was typical they lived on the thirteenth floor, because she was so bloody unlucky since Freddie got her pregnant and she felt it was all the baby's fault she was in this situation. Her Freddie had changed a lot since they got married and she had got fatter carrying his child, it was like he didn't fancy her anymore, he was always gone, and she started to hear rumours that he was carrying on with girls allover the place.
She had naively believed it to be love's young dream in the beginning, her attractive childhood sweetheart. All the girls at school fancied Freddie Jackson and wished he was their boyfriend, plus all the lads were scared silly of his reputation for violence and wanted to either be him or at the very least be in his crew. Jackie had been dead proud that he had wanted her of all the girls on the estate he had his pick of, and to keep him interested she had first let him between her legs at just fourteen years old. Now, the ramifications of their sexual relationship had seemed like the next step anyway- their own little family, just a little too early. However once it became a reality, she was realising quickly that Freddie wanted different things than that, and also by the sounds of it different women by his side too.
She mostly chose to ignore the gossip, her hypothetical fingers in her hypothetical ears, but the look of pity on people's faces when she went out with her rounded tum, told a damning tale about his galavanting. She spent most of her pregnancy dealing with her mass amount of hormones very much alone, and if it wasn't the pressure on her bladder, heartburn or aching muscles keeping her awake at night, it was the empty space in her marriage bed, because Freddie rarely came home.

*

Kimberly Shanice Jackson was born near Christmas, and that was ironic because she was instantly like a guiding Bethlehem star in Jackies previously dim and dull existence. Suddenly, all her old mates who hadn't bothered with her during pregnancy, crawled out of the woodwork to visit the new baby, the novelty not lost on anyone, including Freddie.
Jackie loved the attention and promises that were lavished on her about providing them with a better life, and he was at home more in those first few weeks of Kimmies life than he had been.... well, ever.
She naively believed everything he told her whilst he was wrapped up in the idealistic bliss of his new fatherhood dreams.