“Welcome to the world, little man,” Pete said triumphantly as we walked out the hospital doors, lifting the baby seat like a lantern and slowly spinning around so Theo could see. “From now on, things are going to get better.”

Except it wasn’t that simple. Once, getting Theo home had been the only thing I wanted. Now it was strangely disorienting. When you were used to being able to glance over and check your baby’s status on a monitor, not having one there seemed odd. The noise of the machines had become so familiar, its absence was deafening—the bleeps and chimes continued in my head, insistent as the chorus of a song. Instead of relaxing because we were home, I felt increasingly anxious. I worried that we’d scald the inside of Theo’s mouth by overheating his bottle, or accidentally push him under the water when we gave him a bath, or drop him when he was wet and slippery afterward. I checked on him every ten minutes while he slept, to make sure he hadn’t stopped breathing. And when he sniffed a few times, I was convinced he had an infection and made Pete rush us all straight back to the NICU.

   The doctor checked Theo over, then said quietly to me, “And you? How are you coping?”

“I’m fine. Just a bit stressed out.”

“Depressed?”

I shook my head. If anything, I was the very opposite of depressed—full of nervous energy.

“Well, if you do get the baby blues, don’t ignore them. There are antidepressants your GP can prescribe that won’t pass into your breast milk.”

I didn’t tell him I’d already started supplementing with formula. Breastfeeding reminded me too much of the NICU. I’d hidden the oxygen tank, too. I only had to catch sight of it to feel sick.

Most of all, though, I felt alone. It was so difficult to tell Pete that I still felt no maternal attachment to Theo, only a terrible helplessness. Once I tried to explain to him what it was like, how I felt as if I were only babysitting someone else’s child, someone who’d be furious with me if I screwed up, and he looked at me, baffled.

“But of course he’s our baby. Who else’s could he be?”

“I don’t mean I think he’s someone else’s baby. I mean I feel as if he is.”

Nor did I tell him that the exhaustion, the chapped nipples, the emotional numbness, felt like my punishment for not being a good mother. Pete so clearly adored his son, I’d have felt disloyal even bringing it up.

Sometimes he’d start to say something about the NICU—“Do you remember when those other parents…” or “Wasn’t it weird when that doctor said…”—and I’d cut him off.

“I don’t really want to think about all that. Let’s put it behind us, shall we?”

   “Of course. That’s a really healthy attitude, Mads. Let’s look to the future.”

I’d read that, for some women, the maternal bond came slowly. So I assumed that was what would happen in my case. And it did start kicking in more when Theo was about three months. I’d gotten used to the half smiles and grimaces he made when he was trying to poo—Pete always seized on them as evidence of his affectionate nature, though to me they were simply an indication that Theo found pooing very satisfying. But one time, after I’d given him a bath, I’d wrapped him in a towel and laid him on the floor as usual when he looked up at me and grinned. A part of me knew he was just pleased to be warm and dry again, but that look, the mischief and contentment in his little blue-gray eyes…For the first time, I felt a relationship with him. I wasn’t just a milk machine. I was the center of his universe, and even if he wasn’t yet the center of mine, we were definitely in some kind of planetary orbit, locked into a relationship that would last forever. I thought: When I am old and gray, you will be my adult son, and the sudden sense of permanence made me gasp.

Looking back, it wasn’t surprising it took so long. I’m not someone who falls in love at the drop of a hat. It took me almost a year to fall for Pete—we used to joke that he didn’t so much date me as lay siege to me. Why would I fall in love with a stranger in a plastic box, one who was probably only passing through my life for a few short weeks? If there had been any maternal reflex in me at all, it was the one telling me not to risk getting emotionally involved. I had to wait for him to move on from being in danger, to become a person with a future, before I could allow myself the luxury of loving him.

12

Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 14B: Email from Peter Riley to Miles Lambert.

 Dear Miles and Lucy,

 First, thank you for your email, Miles, and for coming to see me in person before that, which can’t have been an easy thing to do. As you say, this is a very difficult situation that none of us chose to be in, but we really appreciate that you’re trying to deal with it in a civilized way. We fully intend to do the same.

Having discussed it, we would be very pleased to take up your offer of getting together at your house, and we think it would be good for Theo and David to meet as well. Maddie remembers Lucy from the NICU and says hello.

We’re free all day Saturday. Theo tends to be at his best in the mornings, so shall we aim for about 10:30?

Best wishes,

 Pete

13

   PETE

   COME SATURDAY, WE PACKED Theo into the back of our Golf and headed over to Highgate. I’d allowed plenty of time to find somewhere to park, but as it turned out, I needn’t have. Where we lived, it was always a scramble to find a space, but the roads in Miles and Lucy’s neck of the woods hardly had any cars parked in them at all. It was because the houses were so big and far apart, I realized—fine, wide Victorian villas, with large sash windows and raised ground floors. Very few had been turned into flats, either, which meant even fewer vehicles competing for spaces, while some, like the Lamberts’, had off-road parking. We pulled up a few yards from their house and sat waiting for the clock on the dashboard to reach ten thirty, while behind us Theo puffed tunelessly on a plastic kazoo.

“On reflection, that might not have been the best toy to bring,” Maddie said after a while.

“I didn’t bring it, he found it on the backseat,” I pointed out. “And it’s good for his speech to use his fine mouth muscles. But I’m sure David will have lots of other toys to play with.”

   We were both silent. The truth was, we were wrung out. The days since Miles had knocked on the door with his bombshell had been exhausting. We’d veered between hope and fear—hope that we could somehow make this work, and fear at what might happen if we couldn’t. Sometimes, in the depths of the night, I’d jolt awake, gasping with adrenaline. I could almost feel our family, our little unit, being pulled apart, like the segments of an orange. But then I’d tell myself it was going to be all right, that we had a plan. And that, after all, Miles and Lucy must be feeling exactly the same terror as us.