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just are.   She was perfect, a doll, growing more beautiful by the day, as her face uncrumpled and her features began to define themselves.   Both of her grandfathers came to visit, my Dad and Joe Donn, Susie’s natural father.   Joe didn’t quite know what to make of me, but he made a fuss of the baby, that’s for sure.
    I watched her all the time.   I watched Susie feed her, change her Pampers, dress her for the day, settle her down for the night.   When she was asleep I couldn’t stop myself from slipping into the nursery and standing there, staring at her.   I’d always thought of myself as a clever bastard; I’d just never realised how clever I was, until her mother and I made her.
    I was standing there, on the Wednesday after we’d brought her home, when I felt a small hand slip into mine.   Susie stood beside me, looking down, just like me, her mouth hanging open in a smile as gauche as mine.   Joe Donn had just headed back home to Mother well, and we were alone again with our child.
    “There won’t be anyone else, you know,” she whispered.   “Remember all that stuff I spouted back at the turn of the year, about finding a titled twerp to give me a couple of kids and a place in the country that he could run with my money?   That was all crap; I’ve got what I want.”
    “So now I can piss off, is that what you’re saying?”
    “No.   What I’m saying is that you can walk through that door any time you like, and come back any time you like.”
    “Mmm.   I don’t know if that’ll work both ways.”
    “I don’t care.   As long as you provide accommodation suitable for Janet when she comes to stay with her dad, I don’t care.   She’ll have a full-time nanny as of next week, and they’ll arrive as a package.”
    I hadn’t given any thought to that one.   In fact I hadn’t given any thought to anything that might happen after the baby’s birth.
    “Christ,” I murmured, “I don’t even have accommodation suitable for me at the moment.”
    “You still own the Spanish villa, don’t you?   She was made there, so where better for her to visit?”
    “I’m selling that to Scott Steele.   He’s been renting it for a while, and he made me a good offer for it.”
    “What have you got in America?”
    “Nothing; the place where Prim and I lived was leased, and I’ve let it go.   If I was asked what my permanent address is right now I’d have to say that I don’t have one.   I don’t even have a car; I sold those to Scott as well.”
    Susie stifled a chuckle.   “Oz Blackstone, millionaire vagrant; look, I mean it.   You have to have something; I’m not having you take Janet to some crappy rented condo.”
    “Okay, let’s do some supposing.   Suppose you fancied coming to visit Daddy with her, to play families for a couple of weeks?   Where would you like it to be?”
    “Anywhere safe, where they speak English.”
    I gave her my arched eyebrows look.   “What the fuck are you doing in Glasgow, in that case?   It’s disqualified on both counts.”
    She dug her nails into the palm of my hand.   Janet started to stir, and so we crept out of the nursery, as quietly as we had come in.
    “How about life?”   I asked her, as she half-closed the door behind us.   “I’ve seen all these places, but I’m still a Fifer at heart.   My Dad’s house has been lying virtually empty since Ellie moved to St.   Andrews;
    I could take that over.”
    She patted my chest.   “Whatever makes you happy... as long as it’s good enough for our daughter.”
    “Nothing will ever be good enough for our daughter.”
    She squeezed my fairly impressive triceps.   “God help the lads when they come calling, in that case.”
    “Indeed.   It takes one to know one.”
    Susie grinned up at me, slipped her arm through mine and led me along the hall.
    “How’re you feeling now, by the way?”   I asked her.   “Still sore?”
    She stopped at the bedroom door.   “Not so’s