‘Babies come in all sizes,’ he said dismissively. ‘Why would you be scared of slips of cotton?’
‘I’ve never held a baby.’
He didn’t respond.
‘It sounds stupid, but when I found out I was pregnant…’ She exhaled heavily. ‘I was in a such a bubble. The life growing inside me felt so permanent.’
He placed a suit of the palest blue-and-white stripes onto her little pile. ‘The baby will be permanent.’
‘No.’ She bit her lip. ‘It’s hard to explain,’ she said. ‘In my head, I knew that my pregnancy would end,but the moment I held that little suit, I laid it on my stomach, trying to imagine—trying to make it make sense that it would be a real baby with needs, Sebastian. And…’
She swallowed down the confession in her throat, not sure she wanted to admit that she’d wanted someone with her when the reality of the baby hit her. But she hadn’t had anyone. Her family was dead. Her parents were not like the parents in books or TV shows who rubbed their daughter’s back and told her everything would be okay. But she didn’t want to be alone anymore, and he didn’t have to be either.
‘And?’ he pressed gently.
‘I was scared when I realised the baby would come and I had no experience of something so small, so precious. But then I remembered I didn’t need the experience. Iwasa child once. An unhappy child. And I—’
‘Will do things differently?’
‘It’s all I can do.’ She waved at the room she’d readied for their baby. ‘My brother and I had a room like this. A nursery. It was a cold room full of disapproving looks.Thisroom will never be like the one I shared with Michael, with nannies who did their job. They kept us clean, fed us and kept us quiet.’
She swallowed tightly. ‘But my parents, they wouldn’t have known where to start if they’d had to change our clothes or give us a bath. We didn’t exist in their worlds. We were barely seen, and God forbid we were heard. But I will know where things are, because I’ll have put them there myself. I’ll know which toy the baby likes to play with in the bath. What their favourite comforter is at bedtime.’
The pulse in his cheek throbbed.
‘What I’m saying is,’ she started again, realizing she wasn’t explaining herself very well, ‘it’s okay to be scared.’
‘What makes you thinkI’mafraid?’
‘Because I saw it in your eyes.’
‘We are not the same. We have not lived the same lives,’ he told her. ‘We do not feel the same fear.’
‘But youdofeel it?’ she asked.
He didn’t respond.
‘We could make up the crib together. It will help. The more things I ready for the baby, the more confident I feel,’ she explained. ‘And I have ducks. Duck comforters, duck sheets. Lots of ducks.’
His gaze narrowed. ‘Where is the crib?’
‘It hasn’t arrived yet, but it should soon.’ She waved at the empty space set aside for the antique one she’d fallen in love with online. ‘It will go there.’
‘You mean the baby is to sleep in here?’ His eyes darkened. ‘Away from you?’
‘Not initially, but—’
‘The baby should be with you at all times. It’s your job to watch them. To make sure they sleep on their backs and not their sides. It is your responsibility not to close them in another room and forget them.’
His Adam’s apple dragged up and down his throat. He turned on his heel.
‘Sebastian?’ she called after him. Confused.
‘Play with your ducks, Aurora,’ he called over his shoulder.
She wouldn’t go back to the cold existence of doing what everyone else thought she should be doing. She wouldn’t be seen and not heard. She needed no one’s approval on how she chose to do things. How she chose to live her life. But—
‘Why are you so upset I’m putting a crib in here? It’s a nursery!’
