Louisa
Now
‘You’re a mum, Louisa. An actual mum.’ I whisper the words to my own reflection, causing a smile to spread the entire width of my face.
There’s nothing quite like the mirror in a hospital toilet to make you look even worse than you already do. My skin is paper-thin under the harsh glare of the overhead strip light and my coppery-red hair looks like a ransacked bird’s nest. And yet none of that stuff seems to matter any more. Because I am a mum.
I love the word ‘mum’, love how softly it sits on my lips as I speak it out loud. It’s an insignificant sound really, one syllable, three measly letters, and yet it means so much to so many. I’m sure it means more to me than most, although I suppose any new mother would say the same. But not every mother has sacrificed what I have to hold the title. Some would probably say I sacrificed too much to have a baby, but, after holding Cory in my arms, I’d have to disagree. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.
I continue to stare closely into the glass, searching for the person who resides behind my eyes. Outwardly nothing has changed; my freckles still stick together across the bridge of my nose and my top lip remains a fraction too thin. But inside, I am different, I am new. It’s almost as if the moment I set eyes on Cory, I too was born into a new world.
I haven’t had it easy. My life hasn’t always been white picket fences and foreign holidays. For so many years I hoped, prayed even, that one day everything would slot into place, that I would somehow live the life I always knew was out there.
I met James ten years ago, when I was just nineteen and he twenty-nine. He was a trainee anaesthetist at the local hospital where I was an outpatient, my anxious mind reaching new heights as I steamrolled into adulthood. I was smoking a roll-up cigarette under a glass shelter outside the entrance, the cold biting the tips of my fingers as I sucked in nicotine like my life depended on it. I didn’t want to continue with the counselling sessions my GP had recommended, didn’t like where they were heading. ‘Got a light?’ James asked, his accent clearly northern but less harsh than the Salford drawl I was used to. I said I did and continued to fumble around inside my handbag for what seemed like hours, the silver clipper lighter nowhere to be seen.
In the end I passed him my roll-up, its filter smeared with blood-red lipstick. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, embarrassed by the whole situation. He bent down, cupped his hands around mine as he sucked on the end of his Silk Cut, trying his damnedest to light it.
‘You fancy a coffee across the road?’ he asked. ‘It’s bloody freezing out here.’
‘Sure,’ I replied, my voice sounding much more confident than I felt.
We were happy for a while, and I really felt my Happily Ever After had arrived. Then we started to try for a baby…
I wince as I make my way over to the cubicle door, convinced my nether regions have been stitched back together by Buffalo Bill! And don’t get me started on the ‘first pee’. I thought nothing could be worse than labour pains but it would seem that ‘pissing razorblades’ is a pretty accurate metaphor for what I’ve just experienced.
It’s now four hours since I gave birth to Cory and at just gone 7 p.m. the maternity ward is heaving with visitors. Shiny helium balloons in various shades of pink and blue float up towards the ceiling, accompanied by the hushed chatter of men, women and children. The air buzzes with excitement and yet there is an almost underlying hush, a collective respect for the newborns who are experiencing life for the very first time. They are all beautiful, all special in their own unique way, some with full heads of hair and others like little squashed-up aliens. Of course none of them are as beautiful as Cory, but I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Flimsy white curtains split the ward into several bays. I make my way down the centre aisle, my head raised a little higher than it’s ever been before. In the corner bay, sat on a plastic chair, an older woman gazes down at the tiniest baby I have ever seen. She looks almost terrified to move and I can’t say I blame her. He must weigh no more than five pounds, minute in comparison to Cory’s whopping eight pound nine. His face is covered in downy blond hair and his head is hidden under a white bonnet several sizes too large for him. He wears a chalky-blue sleepsuit with Peter Rabbit embroidered on the top pocket, and his pink blotchy skin looks so soft I almost want to reach out and stroke him. I assume the lady holding him is his grandmother. She seems oblivious to her surroundings, her eyes soaking up every inch of him. The baby’s mother is asleep in the hospital bed to the side of them, her face relaxed, almost as if she knows it’s okay to switch off because her tiny, delicate son is in the most capable of hands. I can’t help the tears that pool into my eyes. I think about my own mother, wonder what kind of grandma she’d have been to Cory had she still been alive. Would she have loved him unconditionally? Would she have cradled him in her arms even though she was terrified he might break? ‘He’s beautiful. What’s his name?’
The lady looks up at me, her eyes shining with pride. ‘Jude. Five weeks prem, delivered in under an hour. Little sod couldn’t wait to get out.’ She tries out a laugh but it’s tinged with fear. ‘There was a moment when we thought, you know…’ She swallows hard, seemingly lost in another moment in time when everything wasn’t quite as perfect as it is now. ‘Still, he’s here now. That’s all that matters.’ She offers me another smile, seemingly out of courtesy this time, before turning her attention back to little Jude who lies sleeping in her arms, completely oblivious to how much he is adored.
The next two bays have their curtains drawn right the way across so I’m unable to peer in. James always tells me off for being nosy but human beings fascinate me. I could watch them for hours, especially when they don’t realise they’re being watched. I guess when you grew up the way I did you become hungry to catch snippets of normal life.
Eventually I come to another open booth where a girl, no older than eighteen, stares down through wide eyes at a newborn who lies sleeping on her chest. At twenty-nine I suddenly feel too old to be a first-time mother, although I know in the grand scheme of things I am still pretty young. Unlike the other half-dozen beds in the ward, there are no flowers or cards on this girl’s nightstand; there’s no helium balloon advertising her child’s gender. My heart breaks for her, and I wonder what has gone so very wrong in her life that nobody is here to share the most incredible day of her life.
‘Congratulations.’ I offer her a tight smile.
‘Thank you. And to you.’ She looks up only briefly before dropping her gaze.
‘Boy or girl?’
She strokes the newborn’s back. ‘Boy. He’s called George.’
‘Me too. Cory.’
‘Lovely name.’
‘And yours.’
A stilted silence hangs between us. ‘Is your partner coming?’
She shakes her head.
‘Parents?’
‘It’s just the two of us and that’s fine by me.’ She looks me squarely in the eye, her jaw tight.
‘Well, I’ll see you around.’ I pause, wait for her to insert her name into the silence, but it doesn’t come. I guess I was wrong to think being a mother automatically gave me the right to befriend other mothers. I feel a little sad.
James doesn’t appear to notice me as I approach our bay. He is sat on the visitor’s chair to the side of the bed, Cory balanced across his arms like he’s attempting some kind of circus act. I stop for a moment and watch him, his hand bigger than Cory’s head. There’s something about the way he sits; awkward, his muscles flexed, his shoulders tense. He is making shushing noises even though Cory isn’t making any sound.
‘Hey, how’s things?’
He flinches before looking up at me. ‘Great, brilliant. How are you feeling?’
‘Well, they don’t warn you about the first pee in antenatal class.’ I attempt to laugh but somehow it falls flat. ‘You know he won’t break, don’t you? You can relax your arms a little.’
He smiles, releasing some of the tension in his shoulders. ‘Sorry, I keep having flashbacks, you know.’
He doesn’t need to elaborate. The image of Cory lying motionless on the hospital trolley isn’t one which will disappear from my own memory very easily. ‘I know, but he’s all right. He’s safe now.’ My voice holds a confidence which doesn’t quite reflect how I feel inside. How can I ever really guarantee his safety? Tragedy strikes all the time, doesn’t it? Especially in newborns. SIDS they call it, sudden infant death syndrome. I googled it repeatedly while pregnant, begged James to invest in a breathing monitor, but he rolled his eyes and told me I panicked too much. Perhaps I’ll broach the subject again; always better to be safe than sorry.
‘There were some cards on the mat when I nipped back earlier – news travels fast.’ James nods in the direction of the bed to where four or five cards are piled on top of one another.
‘I guess people have been waiting for this moment almost as long as we have.’ I sit down on the edge of the bed, wincing as I do, and pick up the first card in the pile. ‘You are all right, aren’t you?’ I ask as I begin to open the card, the distraction allowing me to avoid eye contact.
‘Perfect. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘No reason.’
The first card is from my Auntie Kath and ‘Rosie the Dog’. The second is a Moonpig special from James’s cousin, typed in Arial black with a photograph of me and James on our wedding day on the front. Slightly odd but I suppose the thought was there.
‘This one’s just addressed to me.’ I lift up the third envelope in the pile, my name scrawled across the front in what appears to be red fountain pen.
‘Secret admirer?’ James winks at me, which, even after eight years of marriage, still has the ability to flip my stomach over. ‘Open it then,’ he says after a second.
I shove my fingers down the side of the flap and prise it open. On the front is a picture of a stork carrying a baby wrapped in a light-blue blanket. ‘That’s weird,’ I say, holding it up for James to see. ‘We haven’t announced the gender yet. Not unless you’ve sneaked it onto Facebook without me knowing?’
He barely lifts his eyes. ‘Of course I haven’t. Who’s it off?’
I open it up, stare down at the scrawled red handwriting inside, my mind unable to process what I am reading.
‘Lou, who’s it off?’
I snap it shut, my stomach twisting into a knot as the words inside begin to knit together in my brain. ‘Erm, just a woman from antenatal class, you don’t know her.’ I place it beside me on the bed and cover it over with my hand.
‘A psychic one?’
‘What?’
‘The blue blanket on the front. You all right, Lou?’
The embossed lettering on the front of the card burns my palm, and yet I daren’t lift up my hand. ‘I think I’m just exhausted. And visiting time is over. Best you go get some rest.’ I hold my breath, praying he leaves without pushing me further.
‘If you’re sure.’ He stands slowly, his heart seemingly in his mouth as he passes Cory over to me. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to holding him.’
‘Put him in the cot.’ I gesture over to the small, see-through cot with my eyes.
‘Really? I thought…’
‘He’s asleep.’ My words come out sharper than I intended. ‘You shouldn’t indulge babies. The book says.’
‘Well, if the book says.’ He laughs and rolls his eyes but thankfully places Cory down in the cot without further question.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow then.’
‘Yeah, see you tomorrow. And Lou…’ he says after a moment. ‘I am happy. More than I ever could have imagined.’
Tears prick the back of my eyes and I know without any doubt that I can never allow James to see inside the card. No matter what has gone before, I am a mum, my baby is safe, and my husband is happy.
Surely that’s all that matters?