DAY 67
Meet a newborn baby
“Oh, God, not another blood sample,” moaned Polly. “Why not just cut out the middleman and install a permanent pump between my veins and the lab? Sorry, Khalid. I know you’re only doing the bidding of the evil Dr. McGrumpy.”
The green-clad nurse smiled uncomfortably. “I’m not here for you, Polly.” He looked at Annie. “Are you Mrs. Hebden?”
“Well, yes. But it’s Ms. now.”
“There’s another Mrs. Hebden down in Maternity and she’s asking for you.”
Annie didn’t understand at first. Mike’s mum? Then she did. So did Polly. “Oh, no, she didn’t! She’s having her baby here?”
“It is the nearest maternity ward.” Annie marveled at how reasonable she sounded. After everything that had happened.
“And she wants you there? Jesus! The cheek of the woman!”
“Er, I thought you said we had to forgive people and let go of the past?”
“Well, yes, but there are limits.”
Khalid looked puzzled. “Will I tell her no? She’s kind of... She was screaming a lot.”
Annie got up. “Poll, I’ll see you later, okay?”
“You’re ditching me for her? I won’t forget this, Annie Hebden.” She mock-pouted.
“It’s your fault, anyway. Making me all forgiving and saintlike, like Mother Teresa in nylon slacks. See you.”
* * *
“She won’t stop screaming,” said the harassed-looking midwife. “I tried to tell her it’ll go on for a lot longer. You’re the friend?”
“Well...yes.” It was easier than trying to explain. “She’s in labor, then?” It was too early, surely.
“Barely. But she’s hysterical. Do you know where Mike might be?” She consulted her clipboard. “That’s the husband, yes?”
That’s my husband. It was hard to shake the impulse, even now. “Yes. You can’t reach him?”
“He’s not picking up. She says they had a row and he stormed out. Baby’s not due for another month. At least, I think that’s what she said. She was screaming a lot.”
“Okay. Thanks. Should I go in?”
“If you want. I’d wear earplugs if I were you.”
Annie advanced cautiously down the corridor. Sure enough, she could hear guttural howls, like an animal in pain. Which was true, really. One thing she’d learned from all this hospital time was that people were no more than animals under a thin veneer, and how quickly that was stripped away by pain and fear. She pushed open the door. Jane was leaning against the bed, gripping its rail in her hands, wearing a hospital gown that gaped and showed her back tattoo. It was one of a lotus flower, which she’d got in a dodgy place in Croydon when they were seventeen. Annie had chickened out of getting one, too, like she’d been doing all her life. Until now. “Jane. Jane!”
“Arrrrrgghhhh. Annie, is that you?” Panting, she stopped screaming for a moment.
“You wanted me?”
“Come here. Come here.” She held out her hands and grasped Annie’s in a death grip. “Oh, God. The pain. How did you do it?”
“You’ll get through it. Are you having an epidural?”
“I wasn’t, but holy Christ! I think I’m going to break in two. Where’s Mike? Where the fuck is Mike?”
“I don’t know.” Mechanically, Annie rubbed her ex–best friend’s back. Her breath was heaving, shallow and terrified. “They’ll find him. There’s loads of time left. How did you know I was here?”
“Called...your house... Some kid...said you were...here.”
Bloody Costas. Incapable of lying, and why would he know to, since Annie’d never told him what had happened to her?
Jane was sobbing. “I’m going to die, Annie. I’m literally going to die and it will serve me right for what I did to you.”
“Oh, come on, you’re being silly. You aren’t going to die. They’ll take good care of you.”
Tears were streaming down Jane’s face, her forehead creased in agony. “But you forgive me? Please say you forgive me, Annie. I don’t want to die without you forgiving me.”
“You’re not going to die.”
Jane sobbed a little. Annie rubbed her back, feeling the racing of her heart. She was terrified. Annie remembered that all too well. That fear you might split apart. That you’d never be the same again. That your body and your heart would be crushed by it, by sheer bloody exploding love. And how could she stay angry with Jane when she was so terrified, so scared and hurting? “It’s okay,” she said soothingly. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine. I promise.”
She looked around, catching the eye of the nurse and waving frantically through the glass panel in the door. When it opened, she hissed, “Why won’t you give her some drugs? She’s in pain—look!”
The nurse shrugged. “Sorry, miss. She’s had all the drugs we can give her for now.”
“Well, what about an epidural?”
“Far too soon for an epidural. We’ll send in some ice chips.” The door closed again.
“What did she say?” sobbed Jane. “Are the drugs coming soon? Oh, God, I need all the drugs they have. I said I didn’t want them. What was I thinking? Why was I so stupid?”
“Everyone thinks that before it starts. Come on. You’ll be fine.”
Jane clutched at Annie’s hands again, cutting off the blood supply. “Oh, God. Where the hell is Mike? You won’t leave me, will you? Please don’t leave.”
Annie kept rubbing her back, feeling the baby roll and move beneath the skin. Her ex-husband’s baby. This was the weirdest situation in the world. Luckily, thanks to Polly, she’d had quite a bit of experience with weird recently. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s do the special breathing, okay?”
* * *
Later, Annie would remember that day as informative, terrifying and completely overwhelming. During the birth of her own child she’d been mostly out of it, alternating between screams and giggles as the drugs kicked in and they wheeled her off for a cesarean. She’d woken up to find a clean baby swaddled on her chest, Mike looking on with adoration. If only they’d known what was coming.
As a bystander, by contrast, she was there for every screaming bloody tearing moment of Jane’s daughter’s birth. Annie did her best to stay away from the business end of things, feeding ice chips into Jane’s whimpering mouth, holding her hand and trying to wipe the terrified sweat from her friend’s forehead. “Where’s Mike? Where the fucking hell is Mike?” Jane kept saying.
And Annie would say, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Jane lay back on the pillow, exhausted by the contraction that had rippled along her. “I’m glad you’re here. I always thought you’d be here, if I had a baby.”
And Annie remembered something from the happy fog when she’d had Jacob—Jane had been the first one there, almost before Annie had held him herself, bursting in with balloons and a blue teddy the size of a small dog. Hugging Mike, delightedly. Had it been there, even then? Should Annie have seen it, the thing that was growing between Mike and Jane?
No. She wasn’t going down that road again. She couldn’t let every good memory turn black in her hands, like rotting fruit, tainted by her own misery and pain. Jane had been her best friend. Mike had been her husband. It hadn’t started until after they lost Jacob and everything fell apart. She had to believe that.
The doctor between Jane’s legs looked up, her face tense behind her mask. “Okay, Mrs. Hebden.”
Annie almost said, Yes? She bit her tongue.
“Jane, I need you to give one big last push. She’s ready to come out.”
“But Mike isn’t here! Where the fuck is he? I’ll never forgive him, never.”
“We can’t wait. On you go. One last big push.”
Jane screamed, a sound so loud Annie thought it might tear her in two, and she felt the strain in her own hand, crushed almost to the bones, and all the way down her arms. She yelped, and then suddenly, just like that, there was another voice, and another person in the room. A slithery lump was slipped onto Jane’s chest, all blood and mucus, a little tuft of dark hair, eyes crumpled shut. “A little girl,” said the doctor. “Congratulations, Mum.”
Mum. Annie found she was sobbing. No one had ever called her that. Jacob had never said it, never would. They were all crying, her and Jane and the baby, too, red-faced and squalling. “Is she okay?” Jane groped at the baby, blindly pulling her close. “Is she all right?”
“She’s beautiful,” said Annie. “She’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
* * *
Later—she wasn’t sure how much later—she was sitting in the chair by the bed while Jane slept, conked out. In Annie’s arms was the baby, as yet nameless, wrapped in a white waffle blanket. One hand was clenched in a little fist. Annie was rocking her, very gently, jiggling her against her body, when the door opened.
Mike stared at her—his ex-wife—holding his baby. “What...?”
A thrill of fear went through Annie. What must he think, her being there? She jumped up so quickly the baby stirred, making a small mewing sound. “They couldn’t find you. I was here—my friend’s sick—so Jane asked for me. I... Here!” She held the baby out like a Christmas present.
Mike was staring, oscillating between Jane and Annie and his child. “I—I’d turned my phone off. We had a row... Jesus. It wasn’t meant to be for another month!”
“Well, here she is!”
“She?”
“Yup. You have...” Annie’s mouth suddenly filled with tears. “You have a daughter, Mike. Here. Look at her. She’s perfect.”
He took the baby in his arms, looking at her the way he’d looked at Jacob. “I can’t believe this. You were here, the whole time?”
“I’ve got the broken hand to prove it.” She held hers up, then jumped again as Mike grabbed it.
“Annie, I wasn’t here. I can’t believe I wasn’t here. She must hate me. I’m sorry. I’m struggling to take this in.”
“I don’t know if she’ll remember most of it,” Annie lied.
“We had a fight—I said she shouldn’t have let you in the house that time. She felt so awful about it! She’s been miserable ever since. She thought we’d be punished somehow, for what we did to you...and now here’s the baby coming early...”
“She’s fine, the doctor said. Just a bit small.”
His face twisted in on itself, and Annie realized he was going to cry, too, just to complete the set. “What if it happens again, Annie? I can’t bear it. I...” He bent his head to the baby, a sob tearing from him. “I didn’t even want another one! I can’t stand it if I lose her, too!”
Annie took the baby back, gently. “You won’t, Mike. What happened to Jakey—it was just terrible bad luck. It won’t happen again.”
He bawled into his fists. “How can you even talk to us?” he said, muffled. “After what we did? What I did? You must hate us.”
Annie shrugged helplessly. “I... I hated everyone for a while. You. Her. Me most of all. But... I guess things have changed recently. You and me—we couldn’t have got through it, anyway, could we?”
“I just couldn’t reach you. I felt so hopeless. I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know,” soothed Annie (though she didn’t think she’d ever be entirely sure). “We were broken, you and me, and you just got on with your life. It isn’t a crime. Just because I didn’t know how to.”
“She was so desperate for you to forgive her.”
“I do,” said Annie. “I do, really.” It might even have been true. Even if it wasn’t—even if Mike had done the worst thing imaginable to her—it didn’t seem to matter now. Not when there was a whole new person in the world.
He was still sobbing, incoherent. Annie directed him to the chair, then walked the baby around the room, soothing her back to sleep. She looked up to see Polly peering through the door, leaning up from her wheelchair and shielding her eyes to see. Quietly, Annie eased the door open, holding a finger to her lips. “You shouldn’t be out of bed!”
“I got bored. What the hell’s going on? You’ve been gone hours.”
“This happened.” Annie hoisted the baby in her arms.
“Is that...? Holy God. You were her birthing partner?”
“Didn’t have much choice. Mike was AWOL.” They were whispering.
“That’s him?” Polly nosied around the door at heaving-shouldered Mike and zonked-out Jane. “Annie, you’re going to have to tell me every single detail of this.”
“I will. But...look at her.” She held the baby out for Polly to see.
“Oh, my God. She’s so small.”
“I know.” Annie felt the rush of tears again. “She looks just like him. She really does. Jacob.”
“Oh, Annie.” Polly’s strained face was kind. “You’re going to have another baby one day. I just know it. Lots of cute babies, maybe with kilts on.”
“Stop.” Annie wiped her face on her sleeve, as her hands were full of the baby, who looked up with dark blue eyes. Seeing everything for the first time. A whole world in front of her, shiny and new. “I’ll be okay. I promise. But for now...say hello to someone who was, for a little while earlier at least, the world’s newest person.”