(Untitled)

[ooh_lily]

OFten, lately, Lily has thought that it might be useful to sprout an extra pair of hands. Eddie's brilliant, and Jim's ever-present, but, inevitably, there comes a point where the guys are both doing the things that they need to get done on a daily basis, and Lil's got Dill and Emmy on her own. Today, they're doing laundry

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[whats_insideyou]

Setting Matthieu down on his feet at the foot of the stairs, she lets him toddle ahead to peer at Emmy and her mother. He'd always been unusually perceptive, and from Lily's disapproving look, he seemed to decide that joining in Emmy's game would be a bad idea.

"Should I take him?" Sarah asked, stepping closer and reaching for the fussing child in Lily's arms.

[ooh_lily]

"Here you, Dill," says Lily, turning towards Sarah with a grateful look on her face. "You go to Auntie Sarah. Matty, you want to help Emmy put the laundry in the machine?"

She cuts a look at Sarah.

"It's being a day," she says.

[whats_insideyou]

She takes the boy with a wry smirk of a smile, cradling him against her chest and rubbing his back while he fussed. Matthieu had been such a quiet child, but he'd had his share of fussy nights.

"One of many to come, I am sure," she said knowingly. "You should have come and gotten me. I was right upstairs."

[ooh_lily]

"Come on, Matty," says Lily, touching the top of a little head. "You help Auntie Lil put the laundry in the machine, okay?"

She glances up at Sarah.

"You ever hear the saying about alligators and swamps, Sarah?"

[whats_insideyou]

"I do not believe I have," Sarah said with an amused tilt of her lips, watching as her son nodded solemnly and waited to be shown how to help. He seemed so old, sometimes. So wise, it even frightened her. She'd known the day he was born that he would never be normal, but she'd always imagined him a monster, not this stoic, gentle little boy growing up before her eyes.

[emilyiris]

"Come on, Matty," says Em, taking the little boy by the hand. "Gonna do washin', okay?"

She kisses his cheek and then pats it.

"Good Matty."

[whats_insideyou]

"He is not a dog, Emmy," Sarah chuckled, shifting the infant in her arms and shushing him quietly.

"I do not know how you manage with more than one."

[ooh_lily]

"Well, when you've got both of them, you haven't really got a choice, have you?" says Lily, bending down to stuff laundry into the machine now that Sarah's holding Dylan. Emmy and Matty appear to have started a complicated game of their own design.

"And I've got Eddie, and you know how good he is."

[whats_insideyou]

She smiled, a brief tightness of her lips, but otherwise, she stayed quiet, leaning against an empty drier with the baby beginning to doze against her shoulder.

It was difficult, still, to imagine not having to raise a child alone. It was hard not to be jealous of a woman who'd been able keep her husband, even if that woman was a friend.

[ooh_lily]

"Don't look like that," says Lily, studying her friend's face for a moment. "You've got me and Eddie too. You and Matty. You know that. We're family."

[whats_insideyou]

"I know that, Lily," she sighed, her hand curled gently behind Dill's tiny head.

"I hope you do not take offense if I say it is not quite the same."

Ten years from now and she was sure she'd still miss Matthieu's father with the same intensity. The fears of doing this without him had not disappeared completely.

[ooh_lily]

"I know it's not the same, love, and you know I don't take any offense at that," says Lil, gently. "But at least you knwo you've got someone, eh? You'll never be alone without us."

[whats_insideyou]

"I know, I know," she said with an exasperated sigh, "I don't need you consoling me, Lily. I'm all right."

It was, for the most part. All right, as much as it ever could be, which was better than she thought it would ever be.

[emilyiris]

As though sensing the change in tone, Emmy looks up and studies both adults with a frown on her face. She looks between both of them and then she reaches up and pats Sarah's hip and Dill's foot.

"Okay?" she asks.

[whats_insideyou]

"Okay, Emmy," Sarah said, offering a thin smile and smoothing a hand over the little girl's hair.

"Your mommy's just being a pain," she teased, flashing Lily a more playful smile.

[emilyiris]

"Mum!"

Emmy gets called a pain sometimes, and she knows that that means her Mum's being naughty. She turns and narrows her eyes, studying her Mum.

"Don't be naughty to Auntie Sarah, Mum."