‘Two boys,’ Anna said, ‘twelve and nine. And you?’
‘I have one girl,’ Eleanor said. ‘She’s six next week.’ She turned to Nia. ‘Do you know what you’re having?’
Nia shook her head. ‘We wanted it to be a surprise, and now it’s decided to come two months early and when Aidan’s not around and I think that’s surprise enough.’
She put her head in her hands, and then another contraction came, and Anna remembered so clearly the feeling of hopelessness that had taken over her, both times, when she was birthing her sons.
‘I’m here,’ Anna said, ‘and I know it’s not the same, but let me assure you, one birthing partner is just as useless as another. It’s all down to you, I’m afraid. But if you need anything, I’m here.’
When Aidan turned up, in the early afternoon, Anna felt as if a weight had physically been lifted from her shoulders. She was no longer responsible. She saw the relief in Nia’s eyes, too, and she saw the way Eleanor smiled. All was as it should be. And it was then that Anna realised that Nia was part of a familynow, and a little less part of her. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, or have winded her, especially since she had a family of her own at home, but it did, a little.
Aidan put his hand on Anna’s shoulder, after he’d kissed Nia. ‘Thanks for being here. I know it will have meant the world to her to have you with her.’
Anna shrugged. ‘It was nothing.’
It was what you did for a friend. Anna turned to Nia. ‘I’ll go home now, and wait for news.’ She reached for her friend’s hand. ‘You’re doing brilliantly.’
Nia smiled up at her and Anna knew that she wasn’t really there, not fully. She was exhausted and scared, and she would be until her baby arrived, and then for all the years afterwards. She was a mother.
Anna let herself into the house and stood in the kitchen, boiling the kettle. It felt so empty after the bustle of the hospital. She called Edward at work.
‘Hey. Did she have the baby already?’
‘No, but Aidan arrived so I came away.’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Hard to say. It should be, I think.’
‘You sound shattered. Why don’t you lie down for a bit? You’ve got a couple of hours before school finishes.’
‘I think I will,’ she said.
She wanted to say something else, about how seeing Nia on the verge of becoming a mother had made her feel rootless, somehow. How seeing Nia and Aidan acting as a team for this ultimate act of partnership had made her feel as if she’d floated far away from him, her own partner. But she didn’t know how to say any of it, so she just said she would see him later and ended the call.
Edward had been right about her being exhausted, but onceshe was lying in bed with the curtains closed, she felt wide awake again. She thought about Nia, wondered how she was getting on, whether it was close to being over yet. It was strange to imagine Nia just entering this world she’d been a part of for more than a decade. She thought back to her early days as a mother and mostly remembered crying and feeling like she was getting it all wrong. She remembered Thomas thrashing in her arms, refusing to nap, refusing to feed. The way she’d wondered whether it had been the right thing to do, whether she’d made a dreadful mistake. She hoped Nia wouldn’t feel like that.
And of course, those thoughts led her back to her own mother, as so often happened. At her mother’s funeral, Edward had stood beside her with his hand on the small of her back, and she had hated herself for questioning her whole life, including her marriage to him, while he was trying to be there for her. Her mum had led a lonely, closed-up sort of life, and now it was over, and only a handful of people had come to say their goodbyes. Was her life so different? She hoped that her style of mothering was more generous and open. She knew, at heart, that it was. But what about everything else? Had she made much of a difference to anyone? Had she done the things she desperately wanted to? The things that scared her? She pictured Steve, that kiss they’d shared in the kitchen, how it had felt like coming home. You couldn’t always live for the moment, could you? Yes, she had been drawn to Steve and she had felt like perhaps she loved him, but she had built her life with Edward. Wasn’t it the right thing – the responsible thing – to stay true to that?
When she thought of Steve, she couldn’t help but imagine the life the two of them might have lived together, if things had been different. If she’d turned her back on her marriage and given it a go with him. She would never know how it might have turned out. Whether it would have been a dream or a nightmare.She didn’t know Steve’s habits, his faults. That was the way things were. You took the chance, or you didn’t. You went one way or another.
Anna’s phone beeped and there was a message from Aidan. ‘He’s here! Everyone’s doing well.’ There was a photo of Nia holding their baby, her face clear and her eyes bright. She looked tired but somehow transformed.
‘One big love,’ Anna whispered to herself, ‘and one baby.’
29
NO
Thursday 5 June 2014
Anna stood at the kitchen counter making cups of tea while Ben and his daughters ate chocolate biscuits at the kitchen table. He’d just picked them up from school, and they were staying for three nights.
‘Stella, no more until Anna has had some,’ Ben said.
Stella shrugged and walked over to the fruit bowl. She picked up two apples and a satsuma and juggled with them for a few seconds, before dropping them all on the floor, picking them up and taking a big bite out of one of the apples. She didn’t look at Anna. She rarely looked at Anna.
Anna took the drinks over to the table and sat down opposite Tess.