1.3 Two Babies and an Email

It wasn’t long before Luce was pregnant with the couple’s first child. She was over the moon with this discovery. Soon she’d have a little family of her own.

As soon as Phin had returned home from work, she shared the good news.

“Phin darling, I’m pregnant!”

“Oh that’s great.”
His response was certainly not what she expected. Phin hadn’t counted on becoming a father so soon.

“How will we afford it though?”

“It’s not an IT, Phineas. It’s a soon-to-be-bundle-of-joy!” She took this as an insult. How could he call the baby an “it” as if “it” were some useless inanimate object!

Oh great her hormones have already kicked in Phin thought.

“I just mean that we’ve barely made a life for ourselves and there are a lot of expenses when it comes to babies you know.”
“We’ll manage.” She cut the conversation and stormed off.

Luce needed to de-stress and Sharma Day Spa was just the place. She replayed the conversation over in her head as she walked out after having a quick shiatsu. Maybe she had been a little harsh; they weren’t financially comfortable as yet and . . . and this was what she wanted! Phin would just have to break into his little savings to build up the nursery. He wanted to do renovations and adding a nursery was pretty much the same thing.

They didn’t speak until the next day. She found him gardening in his pyjamas. The garden really did need work and she would have helped if she didn’t have that annoying backache.

“I’ve been thinking...” He started. “Maybe it won’t be so bad. I’ll get to work on the nursery as soon as I can but you’ll have to take care of the interior. I’m not good with that stuff.”

“It’s fine. I might have overreacted. I could get a part-time job after the baby is born.”
“No you won’t. You’ll stay home and take care of the baby. A child needs its mother.”
Phin strongly believed in this. He’d missed out on having a mother because she had died in child birth – well, that’s what his father had told him.

Luce reluctantly agreed to this.

But she was pleased to see Phin warming up to the prospect of soon hearing the little pitter patter of feet in the house – and sleepless nights of feeding and diaper changes.

“Is that the baby moving around? Or do you just have gas?” He chuckled.

“OH YOU! It’s the baby moving.” Luce shook her fist at him jokingly. At least he wasn’t referring to the baby as an “It” anymore.

“When are you going to pop?”

“Soon, I hope. My back is killing me.”

And soon came soon. In the early hours of the morning Luce’s contractions started getting closer. She was going into labour.

“The baby’s coming!”

“What do I do? What do I do?!!” Phin was panicking.

“You’re just going to leave like that and leave the bed unmade?”

“Unless you want placenta juice spilled all over this carpet, you’ll leave the bed and get me to the hospital!!” She yelled – more from the pain than the ludicrousness of his question.

Luce was in labour for quite some time before the baby decided to finally come out. Phineas and Lucinda Sinclair were now the proud parents of a baby boy – Aleksandar.

A father and son moment

“Weeee! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s Aleksandar zooming around!”

Phin had definitely warmed up to Aleks. The fact that it was a son, made it even easier to love him. He always wanted a son; to be the father to him that his own father never was. But that is a whole other story. No sir, Phin would be there every step of the way for his son: a supportive, hands-on dad. That was the plan...

However, since Aleks’ birth, Phin had switched jobs. The family was experiencing even more financial difficulty than before and Phin had to put in extra hours working from home. But the switch was necessary. Phin had his reasons for wanting to move to journalism but he couldn’t explain it to Luce just yet. She didn’t need any more stress to deal with: Aleks was reaching toddlerhood and before they could blink, Luce was expecting. AGAIN

“ARRRGGHHH!!!”

Aleksandar was about to celebrate his first birthday when Luce went into labour. Not being able to understand what was going on Aleks was content on staring at the ceiling while his mother experienced excruciating pain; cute gurgling noises escaped his little lips. The labour pains were much worse this time and the fact that she wasn’t planning on delivering the baby today made it worse. What would happen to the little party they’d planned for Aleks?

This time she dashed off to the hospital, leaving Phineas to take care of Aleks. Naturally, he couldn’t let her be alone through this so he grabbed baby Aleks and headed over to Sacred Spleen. They waited outside anxiously while Luce’s screams could be heard all the way from the maternity ward.

“What a way to celebrate your birthday huh, little man?” Phin said as he comforted Aleks but really he was trying to comfort himself.

Moments later Luce emerged from inside the hospital which had that hospitally smell of disinfectant and bland food. She was carrying baby James who looked rather calm in his mother’s arms despite being suddenly exposed to the bright midday sun.

Once James was tucked away safely in his crib, Aleks’ party started. Among the guests were Phin’s colleagues from the force and the repair man who brought along a date. Gunter Goth had decided to crash the party but being in a very good mood, the Sinclairs welcomed him in anyway.

“Our little boy is growing up so fast.” Luce cooed as Aleks was about to become a toddler.

This is baby Aleks who has inherited his mother’s eyes. The blonde hair is a complete mystery though...

Meanwhile, Phin moved up the ranks at the local newspaper, just as he’d done while working for the force. He was now the newspaper’s blogger but this wasn’t exactly the position he’d been looking for. He was hoping that both law enforcement and journalism would have been lucrative in hiding his past and finding out who Evelyn McKinley was. He was relieved to find that no criminal records or warrants for his arrest existed, both in Sunset Valley and the Central Police Offices in London. However he had no such luck with discovering the identity of Evelyn McKinley.

He had searched through citizen records, newspaper archives and anything else he could get his hands on but none of them mentioned an Evelyn McKinley. He’d reached a dead end and resolved that he should just accept that this woman knew him somehow and decided to leave her property to him.

He didn’t have to accept this ending for very long. That afternoon in which he’d given up he sat down to read his emails. It all seemed to be the usual – reminders for meetings, latest news updates, updates to comments on his blog... until one caught his eye. It was from the offices of Von Blotnitz and Lockner. That second name was familiar... He opened it and read.

“Dear Mr. Sinclair

I am heartbroken to inform you that William McKinley has passed today. My deepest sympathies are with you in these dark times. I’m sure you may have many questions at this moment and I am willing to answer them as best I can. If you can, meet me at Old Pier Beach tonight. I will be waiting. And Mr. Sinclair, this will be your only opportunity.

Sincerely

Jeremy Lockner”

Who was William? And why were sympathies being sent Phin’s way? Phin’s head spun as he teeter tottered between going and not going.