RomCom Cliché

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Nam was out of the hospital two days later with her daughter in tow and Rebecca visited almost every day. 

She brought healthy juices and bagels for the new parents, their eyes ringed with dark circles as they nursed strong coffees, and Nam was mostly laid up in bed as she rested and nursed and slept as much as she could. 

Enjoying her time with her goddaughter, Rebecca would let the couple shower or nap while she paced and rocked through their sprawling, polished home. 

If they hadn't had a full-time cleaner, she would've taken the time to sterilise the abundance of baby bottles and pacifiers and tiny little socks and baby blankets but she was spared the housework and devoted all of her time to Rose.

Freen frequently came with her, unsurprisingly amazing with the baby, which cast her in a new light for Rebecca, and it felt awfully domestic at times as Rebecca cooked and Freen murmured to Rose and the shower ran in the main bedroom, until they all congregated in the dining room to eat. 

The rest of their friends were frequent visitors as well, bearing gifts and helping to lighten the load. There was little alcohol passed around when they were all together and no late nights unless it was without Nam and Heng present, but they all doted on the baby.

A few weeks passed by in the blink of an eye and it was Freen's birthday, a sensitive topic that Rebecca eventually broached and helped organise a quiet dinner at Freen's favourite Chinese restaurant with her family. 

The ostentatious private yacht from last year seemed too outlandish now, knowing the grief that shrouded a day like that, and it made her chest hurt a little to think about how hard Freen had tried to hide it all last year, for the sake of Rebecca's enjoyment.

This year, she took extra care and perhaps that made it all the more thoughtful. 

It wasn't about being lavish or the big grand gestures, although they were grand in smaller ways Rebecca thought, and she thoroughly enjoyed putting together her gifts, her friends not even questioning her bizarre life updates when she wasn't available for brunch because she was too busy meeting with a plumber or browsing the Home Depot paint section.

The night before, she invited Freen to stay over, making gnocchi and enjoying wine and a new thriller TV show that Freen wanted to watch. 

Rebecca annotated court transcripts for one of her current clients and messaged Mai with a list of things to do on Monday as she watched and Freen was exhausted from a long day of work, a rare on-call shift the night before leaving her to apologetically make her way up to bed early.

Glancing down at her watch, Rebecca was surprised that her night was suddenly a lot earlier than she'd anticipated, the last-minute touches to her gifts brought a few hours forward instead of being relegated to the middle of the night. 

She milled about for a bit, rinsing out wine glasses and loading the dishwasher, straightening up the couch pillows and neatening up the remotes until she was sure Freen was fast asleep. 

Rebecca knew she was a heavy sleeper and it didn't take long for her to drift off, so after fifteen minutes she slipped out the back and turned on the garden hose and then lugged a ladder out of the garage and the can of paint and the pristine paintbrush she'd bought.

It was a cool night and she changed into the new overalls she'd picked up as well, removing her watch and tucking her phone into her back pocket before she got to work. 

She would've looked an odd sight to anyone passing by, perched on her ladder as she methodically painted her front door at ten o'clock in the night. 

It was peaceful in a way, the quiet rasping on the paintbrush over the wood, and she almost fell off the ladder at the sudden interruption of her phone vibrating in her pocket.