Kiera and Josh are heading home today, Kevin is getting ready to take them to the airport when he takes a call from Karen, after the initial daily Jack update his face displays several expressions ranging from confusion to concern, he quickly ducks outside.
Jack is about to say something when Mia throws herself at him "I'm going with grandad!!!" He catches her, resting her on his hip.
"Moo ya've gotta stop doin' that" she's increasingly often running at him full pelt and jumping for him to catch her, he doesn't realise it's his fault she does it.
"Tell daddy why you run and jump to him Mia moo" I coax her
"It's what you an' ya friends do when you getta goal!"
He groans "yeah course, but moo, daddy still isn't very well an' I'm worried I'll not catch ya baby"
She laughs "dont be silly! Of course you will catch me!"
She runs her hands through his hobo beard "I like your soft beard, it's very beautiful"
We both hold our laughs in "thank you moo-moo" he kisses her.
Kevin walks back in and immediately Mia kicks to be put down. "I'm ready grandad!!"
His face falls.
"Dad?" Jack sees it in his face immediately that something has happened "dad is everyone ok?"
"Yeah, your mom's broken her wrist, she's ok. Silly cow did it last night, fell over the dog, she's been up all night in pain hoping it would magically get better!" He rubs his face, in the same way all of his children do when they are anxious.
"She's at the hospital now with Kevan, she's had the x-ray just waiting to get seen"
"Oh shit, is Hollie ok?" Jack's voice is full of worry. Funny how he immediately goes into panic mode when he's not really fully understood why we've all been so worried about him!
"Yeah she'll be at college, I'm going to have to stay home though.....you know what she's like, even with Kiera back home and Kevan round the corner......"
"Yeah nah course"
"Will you two be ok?" He looks at me
"Yeah of course"
"Shall I take the girls back? Or at least Mia?"
"Kev I'm sure we'll be fine, hopefully we'll be back ourselves in a few days. Ed is still coming in daily and I'm sure if anything happens his wife would help with the girls?"
"Yeah o'course she would" Jack adds, "but I'm feelin' loads betta now anyway"
Kevin isn't convinced "I don't know, you felt ill yesterday after just a short walk, what if you slip by the pool and bang your head?"
Jack smiles "dad that's the kinda thing ya've been tellin' me since I was little an' no ones cracked their head open at a pool yet"
"Yeah been telling ya not to run into roads since you were a toddler too, that obviously hadn't sunk in"
"Fair point" Jack scrunches his face in amusement "but look, if anythin' did happen it's not like I don' know people on the island, half the premier league not on international break are here"
Kevin looks pleased with Jack's answer "well, let's just hope if you need them you remember their names!"
"Oh yeah, ha ha!"
"Mammy wots happening? I want to see the plane?"
We explain to Mia that now this is just a special holiday for the four of us.
-
Later, after lunch Jack and Mia go back to the pool while I settle Esme for her nap. I hear them giggling away together.
I hope he has the same bond with Esme as she grows. I confided in Karen when I was trying to deal with my feelings that I didn't think Jack could possibly love another child as much as Mia. She'd laughed and asked me if I thought any of her children where loved less or more than another.
I'd thought hard, and just come to the conclusion that no they wheren't, but it was maybe different. Each of her children had different needs and hobbies and expectations, and they were all fulfilled.
Karen said it would probably always be that little bit different with Mia and Jack. He has afterall, grown up himself with her in a lot of ways, year by year. She had been the girl that really changed him.
Then of course, when we wheren't together as a couple there was all the time Jack had her on his own at his house, learning how to be the best dad he could be.
Right from her birth it had been drama after drama, he'd feared I was going to die and have no one to bring her up with.
The night we'd been at the party and had to fly back to Birmingham when Mia was taken ill.
The day she was kidnapped by my crazy ex.
It was a lot. It was intense.
I join them with a jug of cold squash and a share bag of quavers to find them both bobbing around in giant flamingo inflatables, Jacks arm reaching out to keep Mia's flamingo anchored to his.
"Have you both topped up your suncream"
They share a giggle.
"What?" I'm sure they are laughing at me.
"We jus' had a little bet that that would be the first thing ya asked us" he grins doppily at me.
"Where's Essie?"
I roll my eyes. It was him that came home one day obsessed with the name Esme, we'd pretty much agreed on Evie pretty soon after our gender scan.
We'd actually argued over it, because I knew Esme's one of those names that can be pronounced two ways, yet the Brum accent throws a third pronunciation in the works. Everyone calls her 'es-may' apart from Jack and his friends and family their accent often sounding it as 'es-meh' and occasionally we get es-mee from people that aren't sure.
And here we are nearly four months in and Jack is already morphing it to Essie. Not that it's surprising when Mia gets moo from him more that Mia.
"In our room" Jack paddles them back to the side of the pool and clambers out before helping Mia out, they join me, both soaking wet, on the lounger.
"Urgh you're both soaked! Why both sit on me?"
I move onto the dry lounger opposite them.
"Yeah I been thinkin', now we're ere jus' us I don' like the idea of Mia sleeping upstairs on her own"
"You going to be ok up the stairs?"
"We sleep upstairs at home bab I can't jus' avoid stairs, honestly I don't feel achey in me legs an' that now, there's anotha room up there that no one used ain't there? If we jus' move the crib up, rest o'our stuff can stay where it is"
"Daddy I'm very tired" a little voice whines next to him.
"Ya can lay down if ya want moo" he reaches behind them to grab the handle of the large umbrella to open it creating a canopy of shade.
He sits back, his large hand loosely on her hip as she curls up next to him.
"You ok?"
"Yeah, I do feel tired still, not like tired tired or afta a game tired, but jus' me body feels exhausted tired"
"That's to be expected, Ed said you wouldn't feel yourself for a while"
"When ya was inside, Mia was askin' if we could buy a present for her teacher an' I ain't gotta clue wot her teachers called....."
"It's Sue, the lady with ginger hair"
He stares ahead at nothing in particular.
"Nah, I got nothin' bab, I can remember the building an' her peg, but where even is it Chels? Where does she go to preschool cos I ain't gotta clue"
"Ja - "
" - nah, don' bab, don' say it's ok, it'll be ok, cos wot if it ain't? Cos right now I'm thinkin' wot if I forget me way home one day, or forget something really big? Or what if I have forgotten somethin' really big but I don' know it yet?"
He looks down to Mia laying at his side.
A deep shaky sigh escapes him.
"Is she asleep?"
"Yeah"
"Come here" I move over on the double lounger.
He drags himself to join me, he lays at my side almost mimicking the position Mia took next to him, he lays his head in my lap and I instantly stroke his hair.
"I know it's scary, I'm scared too so I know it's only going to be worse for you....." I speak gently. "But, we will get through it, together"
"I hope so"
"Hey, come on baby, we've got through everything that's been chucked at us so far, haven't we?"
"I feel pathetic"
No, no, no, I run my hands through his hair, so much emphasis has been put on his physical recovery, but there's obviously a lot emotional recovery to get through too.
"Please don't think that, please don't think any less of yourself because of what healing you need to do" I continue playing with his hair "Jack you fractured your fucking skull and your brain swelled! You are so fucking lucky! I don't think any of us fully realise how lucky you've been! Merely weeks on and we're about to get you home, Jack seriously the drs said a slightly deeper fracture, brain swelling slightly further across, any extra bleeding, you could have been in hospital here for months!" I spill this all out with more passion in my voice than I'd meant.
"We could have lost you" I whisper.
He spins his body, he ends up at a right angle to me, on his back across the lounger, his head still in my lap but looking up at me now.
"Marry me Chelsea? Not like in a year or whatever, let's jus' do it?"
I smile "you know I will" he meets my eyes "at least you're not drunk now."
"I mean it, you say when an' where an' let's jus' do it.......I know ya don' want a big thing"
"You've got a million relatives" I laugh "we can talk about it later"
"It's later now bab.......this is why I never asked ya before, cos ya shrug it off. Y'know I've got ya a ring at home.....?"
I don't tell him that I do know, that I heard him and Ben, that I wrecked the house looking for it and couldn't find it.
Instead I trace a line with my finger following the arch of his eyebrows.
"You could have used it when you serenaded me on the driveway" I smile.
"I forgot I had it, I were that drunk"
"Ah ha! So do you admit you were drunk!?"
He grins and my finger runs along the crinkles at the corner of his eyes.
"Talk to me Chelsea, tell me wot ya want, ya say ya want to be married, but ya give me the cold shoulder when I try t'talk about it"
I know what my problem is, this man, my girls, I don't want or need anything else.
I desperately want it to be official. I want to be a Grealish, but I don't care for a fancy wedding, big dress and fancy food.
"The thought of Layla and Ben's wedding makes me feel a bit sick at how lavish it's going to be"
"I know...... an' we don' hafta do that"
"Your family though, your mum.......you're bloody Catholic!"
He sighs "I've told ya before, when we've sez about not wantin' the girls to have christenings, it don' matter to me, an' me mom don' care! It's our lives!"
I'm scratching my nails through his beard now. It's a full on beard and I actually quite like it.
"I don't really want a wedding, but I want to be your wife so bad Jack, I want us to be a proper family. I want to be a real part of your family. I want the same surname as my daughter's"
His eyes look wistful before he slowly closes them.
"You ok?"
He exhales softly "yeah, I can't think.....there's somethin' but I can't remember......"
"Ok, take your time" I reassure him, my hand now gently cupping his cheek.
"Is it linked to what we're talking about now? Getting married?"
"Yeah...."
"Ben and Layla?"
"Nah"
"Dele and Jasmin?"
"Nah....." He presses the heel of his palms to his eyes.
"Baby....." I soothe.
"Nah, it's there, it's right there....." I hold my hand on his chest now and his hand envelopes mine. "Who do we know that's married?"
I reel off the names of the weddings we've gone to together.
"Nah, we didn't go.....we didn't go, that's wot it is!" He sits up. "We can jus' get married on our own, no one has t'come, it can jus' be us! Us an' the girls?"
I'm a bit lost, and not quite sure he's fully where he wants to be in his head with this.
"We could get married here?" He raises an eyebrow, "jus' go home married?"
Ahhhh I think I get what he was trying to grasp. "Like Chris and Sian!?"
"Yes!! They jus' came home married!"
"We can't just come home from Ibiza married" I'm smiling, it's amazing, but impossible.
"Why?" So simple.....why?
"Because, it wouldn't be right cutting in infront of Ben and Layla" I'd never hear the end of it. But something catches in my tummy at the idea.
"But, I'd really like to just do that, just us, the girls and maybe your parents?"
He smiles, the most beautiful genuine smile I've seen on him for days.
"We can do whateva ya want bab"
My mind starts whirring, "honestly, a midweek in the registry office, then a meal with your family at that restaurant we all like near your mum's would be perfect"
"Soon, before the world cup?"
I nod, grinning like an idiot.
He rolls off of me...
"Oh no, Jack!" He kneels on the floor between the loungers.
"Ahhh no, you don't have to!" I squeal.
"Will ya shut up, I'm tryna be romantic here!" He grins back, he grabs my hands.
"Right, in the absence of ya ring that'll I'll give ya when we get home, although I dunno where it is actually y'know....." He looks down embarrassed.
"Minor detail" I lean towards him.
"Ok, ring pendin', Chelsea Kelly, will ya marry me?"
His deep brown eyes watch up at me.
"There's nothing I want more baby, yes!" he leans up to kiss me, but all too soon I'm aware that mine are not the only hands around his neck, he chuckles, we bow our heads down together, sharing a second, waiting for it.
"Mammy, daddy, wot ya doin'?!"