Immy suppressed a smirk. She was expecting questions but not like this.
‘Because sometimes when a man gives the woman his seed, the man isn’t expecting a baby to be made. There are only certain times the woman’s egg is ready for the seed. Remember when we planted those runner bean seeds last year? Everything has to be perfect for the seed to grow. It has to be at the right time of year, the soil has to be right, it has to have the right amount of water – too much or too little and the seed won’t grow. Same with the sunshine, not enough sunlight or too much and the seed can’t grow into a plant. It’s also thesame with the woman’s egg, everything has to be perfect for the seed to be able to mix with the egg to create a baby and, most of the time, the seed won’t get to the egg and the baby won’t grow. So when it does happen, it’s a wonderful, happy surprise.’
‘So why did you give Immy the seed if you weren’t expecting it to turn into a baby?’
Immy felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment.
Xander cleared his throat. ‘Because… it’s like giving her a gift, like a bunch of flowers. She loves getting the flowers and I enjoy giving the flowers because it makes her happy and that makes me happy.’
‘Giving her your seed makes her happy?’
‘Yes.’
Etta looked at Immy for confirmation and she nodded even though her cheeks were burning red. Etta still looked confused and Immy wondered if the next question would be about how the seed was delivered. She decided to try to head it off.
‘Are you excited about being a big sister?’
A small cautious smile appeared on Etta’s lips. ‘Yes, I think it will be fun. We can play together and make cakes together and play in the garden…’ She frowned. ‘Will the baby live here?’
Well this was going to lead to more awkward questions.
‘Yes. Maybe,’ Xander said.
‘Sometimes,’ Immy said.
‘Why will you and the baby not live here all the time?’
‘If we decide that we love each other then we will probably live together, but that won’t be for a while yet,’ Xander said, clearly trying to placate her but Immy knew this would only make things worse.
‘Well, why can’t you decide to love each other now?’ Etta asked.
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Immy said, gently. ‘We’ll probably spend a lot of time together over the next few months to see if we do love each other enough to live together, but it might not work.’
‘You might decide you don’t love us enough to stay?’ Etta said, her voice wobbling.
Oh god, Etta had been here before when her mum left, and this was the very thing Immy had wanted to avoid. She didn’t want Etta to get her hopes up for them to be a family only to have them dashed. But how could they explain that she would be here quite a lot over the next few weeks or months while she and Xander figured out if they had some kind of future together? Should they have tried to keep it more of a secret until they knew for themselves? Or maybe it was time for a bit more honesty.
‘I like your dad very very much and I love you, you’re the most amazing little girl in the world. I would love for us all to live together, me, you, Daddy and the baby, but sometimes, no matter how much you want something, it just doesn’t work out,’ Immy said.
‘Why?’
‘Do you remember when you wanted to do ballet?’ Xander said. ‘All your friends were doing it and youwanted to do it so badly and we bought you the dress and the shoes because you were so sure you would love it just like your friends did, but you hated it. And you kept going week after week because you thought eventually you would fall in love with it but you never did.’
Etta nodded.
‘And that’s OK. We’re not all going to like the same thing. But the point is no matter how much we want to like something, or how much we want something to work, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. We are going to try really hard to make this work, but if it doesn’t, if we’re not happy together, that’s OK. Immy and I will still be good friends and she will be over here with the baby all the time so you’ll still get to play with your brother or sister every day.’
‘OK,’ Etta said.
‘Do you have any other questions?’ Immy asked.
Etta chewed her lip for a moment as she thought. ‘Can I name the baby?’
Xander suppressed a smile. ‘You can definitely come up with ideas but it would be nice if we came up with a name we all liked.’ He glanced at Immy to see if that was OK and she nodded.
‘How about Merida?’ Etta said, naming the main character fromBrave.
‘Merida is nice for a girl,’ Xander said. ‘The baby might be a boy. We should all come up with a big list of all our favourite boy and girl names and then we can compare our lists. We have six months before the baby comes so we have lots of time to make up our minds.’
