‘Me! I think you were! Goodness, you didn’t lose your head in all of that.’
‘I didn’t have a lot of choice,’ Nina said as she leaned her head back against the lighthouse wall. She never wanted to hear the word “breathe” again.
‘You have to learn all sorts when you look after a train station as your main job. I can now add childbirth to my list of skills,’ Nancy joked.
Nina chuckled weakly, her gaze shifting between Nancy and the tiny bundle in her arms. ‘Well, I’m glad one of us has such a varied skill set,’ she said, her voice a mix of gratitude and exhaustion.
The paramedic chimed in. ‘You both did amazingly. It’s not every day we deliver a baby at the top of a lighthouse!’
Nina looked down at her baby girl and was paralysed with love. ‘She’s perfect,’ she whispered.
Half an hour or so later, as the ambulance doors closed, Nina looked down at her baby. Totally overwhelmed, she felt as if she’d been washed in a deep feeling of peace, pure and utter love, and a lovely but strange sort of completion. In the clear of the night, as the ambulance drove away, she could see the lighthouse getting further and further away, and she felt as if her life had moved to another dimension. Nothing would ever be the same again. Thank goodness.
41
Nina had just fed the baby, had a shower, and washed her hair. Considering she had a newborn and half the time felt as if she had no clue what she was doing, she felt remarkably together. After putting on real clothes and fluffing on some Orgasm blusher and a bit of mascara, she looked in the mirror and smiled. She was almost human again. Winning at life.
She tucked the baby in the pram, put her handbag in the basket underneath, popped on her trainers and bumped the pram out the back door. A few minutes later, she was walking around the harbour whilst wiggling the pram handle from side to side. She smiled as she watched Faye’s eyes get heavier and heavier as she dropped off to sleep snug as a bug. Oh, how content.
Feeling ridiculously happy that Faye had settled and that the sun was shining she checked the time on her phone and decided on a nice, long stroll around Lovely Bay to blow away the cobwebs. Since coming home with Faye, she’d slowly but surely got into a routine. Despite what she’d read here and there and followed on various social media tags and apps, Sophie had told her the best way was to ignore everyone else and simply find the baby’s groove. Nina had taken the advice and run with it and ithadn’t taken long for Nina and Robby to work out that for all of them to be content if Faye was fed by routine, she was happy.
Everything else slotted quite nicely around that. Time would tell.
As she pushed a sleeping Faye, it felt nice to be out and about in Lovely again. Crossing over St. Lovely green she stopped to say hello to Clive from the boat, bumped into her neighbour Jeffrey with his dog and, as she got to the lighthouse, smiled to herself as she looked up. The tall, whitewashed lighthouse had become quite significant in her life. She’d been proposed to at the top of it and given birth there, too. She laughed to herself at what might come next.
About ten minutes later, she walked down the High Street on her way to the chocolate shop. Alice from the deli was winding the awning over the front as Nina strolled past.
‘Ooh, morning! How are you?’ Alice asked with a beam.
Nina smiled as Alice stopped what she was doing, turned around and peeked in the pram. ‘Good, thanks.’
‘Little Faye. What a sweetheart. Out for some fresh air?’
‘Yep. It feels nice to be out and about.’
Alice nodded. ‘I know how that feels when you’ve just had a baby! How are you getting on with everything?’
‘Good. Yeah, not too bad.’
‘How is she sleeping? What’s it like at night?’
Nina thought about the night feeds and how strange it had been that as she’d sat in the dead of night feeding and thinking, she felt as if Andrew had been with her a lot of the time. She wasn’t going to mention that to Alice, though. No need to frighten the locals. ‘She’s really only up once, so I can cope with that.’
‘Wow, that’s good.’
‘We wait up and feed her just before we go to bed and then she wakes about three-ish and then sleeps until the morning. Can’t complain.’
Alice nodded, clearly impressed. ‘That's really good going. You're lucky to have such a settled routine already. I bet there’s no luck involved, though, if I know you. You’re very organised.’
Nina shrugged. ‘I guess we’re lucky. Sophie has helped a lot with some great advice, such as the bath routine before bed and a dark room at night. It’s still early days, but so far, so good.’
Alice leaned in closer, peering at Faye. ‘She's absolutely beautiful, Nina. You must be over the moon.’
‘I am. It still feels surreal sometimes, but she's here, and she's perfect. Really perfect.’
Alice straightened up and nodded. ‘She is for sure. Enjoy every minute. They grow up so fast. Before you know it, she'll be running around causing mischief.’
Nina laughed. ‘I can't wait for that, actually, but for now, I’m loving the baby days.’
