Playing Nice
As if from nowhere, doctors appeared. “What’s going on?” one demanded.
“This woman pulled the cord,” Paula said sulkily.
“His line is loose,” I pointed out.
The doctor looked down. “So it is. We’ll soon have that sorted. And thank you,” he added, as they got to work.
10
PETE
I LOOKED AT MY watch. It was already eleven thirty, and I had to collect Theo at noon. Normal life had to continue, if only for his sake. I took a deep breath. “So I’ll reply to Miles saying we’ll go?”
Maddie nodded. “I guess. But we should get our own position clear beforehand. In our heads, I mean. We need to know what we’re trying to achieve.”
“Which is what?” I said helplessly.
Maddie looked at me. “Pete…The fact is, of the two of us, you’re closer to Theo. No—” She stopped my protests with a shake of her head. “Let’s be honest. We both love him to bits, but it’s you who spends your whole day with him. So tell me what your instincts are saying to you right now.”
“If there is a decision to be made, it’s a joint decision. It’s got to be.”
“Of course. But you go first. Tell me what you really think.”
“Well…” I tried to marshal my thoughts. Just like Don Maguire’s use of the word solution earlier, the word decision seemed to open up a great void beneath my feet. “It’s a shock, of course, so I may not be thinking very straight. But I suppose—if we’re really being honest—my gut instinct is that I don’t think paternity and genetics are all that important. Not compared with love. If Theo was adopted, would we love him any less? Of course not. Minding whether someone is your flesh and blood—what they are, as opposed to who they are—it’s so Victorian, isn’t it? Or even older. Neanderthal. And then there’s Theo. What would it do to him to suddenly be told, Oh, we picked up the wrong kid at the hospital by mistake, out you go? However nice Miles and Lucy turn out to be, it would shatter him.” At the thought of telling Theo he wasn’t our birth son, let alone that we were abandoning him for another child who was, my throat started to thicken and I had to pause. “I’m not doing it, Mads. I’m not breaking up this family.” I stared at her defiantly. “So that’s my view, and I’m pretty bloody wedded to it, actually.”
In reply, she stepped forward and kissed me.
“And that is why I love you, Pete Riley,” she said quietly. “Because of that.” She prodded the approximate location of my heart.
“So you agree?”
“Of course I agree. That is, I suppose I’ve got a whole bunch of emotions. When you showed me that photograph of David, just for a moment, I—” She shook her head. “But no, you’re right. Absolutely. The overwhelming question here is, what’s best for Theo? And the answer is—obviously—for him to go on being brought up by the best dad in the world.”
“And the best mum. Do you think the Lamberts will see it that way, though?”
“I don’t see why not. After all, they’ve had longer to think it through, and now that you’ve said it, it’s pretty obvious. Actually, I think that may be what Miles is hinting at in his email—that bit about putting the children’s interests first? He says he’s not trying to jump us into anything, but he’s clear that whatever we do, we should do by agreement, and for the children. That can only lead you to one conclusion really, can’t it? That we stay as we are. For their sake.”
I nodded. “Maybe we don’t have to make it as binary as swap or no swap anyway. We’re civilized people in a civilized society, for God’s sake. Maybe we can be part of each other’s lives some other way.” I snapped my fingers as an idea hit me. “We’re always saying it’s a shame most of Theo’s cousins are in Australia. Why can’t Theo and David be honorary cousins?”
“That’s a great idea. Or what about godchildren? We were saying only the other day we should get Theo baptized now that we’re starting church. We could ask Miles and Lucy to be godparents, and we could be David’s as well. So there’s something formal to recognize the relationship.”
“Brilliant.” At the realization that there might be a middle way after all, relief flooded through me. “And the two of them could have playdates. After all, they’re the same age—”
“Exactly.” Maddie nodded. “I’m sure that’s the right response to this situation. Dialogue and cooperation and good communication…What are you doing?”
I was rummaging in the fridge. “Making us all blueberry smoothies for lunch. I promised Theo I’d do it before I picked him up. It was his turn to choose.”
11
MADDIE
IN SOME WAYS, LEAVING the NICU was almost as traumatic as going there had been. The nurses and junior doctors had become my friends. But there was too much pressure on space for Theo to stay a moment longer than he had to, and eventually he met all the criteria for being moved to the special care baby unit, or the fattening-up room as the nurses in the NICU jokingly called it.
“Your baby’s a fighter,” Bronagh said as she wrote up his notes for the last time. “We’ve a pretty good track record with preemies, but I’ve never known one catch up as fast as him.”
“How’s David Lambert doing?” I hadn’t been able to shake off the sense that David and Theo were like A Tale of Two Babies—that despite being admitted on the same day, one had somehow turned left while the other turned right, their fortunes forever diverging from then on.
“Paula told me he’s on the mend. They operated on him for a heart duct that hadn’t closed, and that seems to have sorted him out.”
“I’m so pleased!” I said. “Will you tell his mother I said hello?”
Bronagh nodded. “And this is for you, Pete.” A little shyly, she handed Pete a card. On the front was written Happy Father’s Day. “We make sure all our babies give cards to their dads on Father’s Day—it’s a little tradition around here,” she explained. “But that’s on Sunday and you won’t be here, so…” I could tell Pete was touched.
We were only in the special care unit for a week. Theo continued to put on weight and sailed through the car-seat test, when the doctors hooked him up to the monitors and strapped him into a car seat for as long as it would take to get home. Pete and I were given training in infant CPR and the loan of an oxygen tank and mask, just in case he ever stopped breathing at home. And then—just like that, eleven weeks after I woke up with a splitting headache and a strange leaden feeling in my womb, and still two weeks before my actual due date—we were out of hospital, discharged, a proper family at last.