by Kate Hewitt
Lara’s eyes narrowed. ‘Then it’s a good thing I’m in charge and you’re not.’
It felt as if the very air between us was shimmering with tension. I’d put up with Lara’s crap for nearly fifteen years. I’d turned a blind eye, shut up when I’d needed to, ignored all the rude, racist and derogatory remarks she’d made, because she was my boss and, despite everything, despite her, I still loved my job.
But now a line had been crossed. Because Sasha was just like me, and I couldn’t let her feel the way I had for so long. I couldn’t live with myself if I did, not when I knew how the pain and shame felt. How they corroded you from the inside out, even a decade and a half later, until you felt like nothing but rust.
‘Do you know how much I know about you?’ I said, and Lara looked startled. My voice was quiet and steady, surprising me because I was terrified. ‘How many things you’ve said to me that could get you fired?’
She let out a huff of scornful laughter. ‘Seriously, Anna?’
‘Seriously.’ I stared her down, my heart thumping. ‘I get that you’re a bit of a personality at Qi Tech, Lara. You’re your own thing, and so people put up with you. But in today’s climate? Today’s viral climate? I could get you fired.’ The words came out of me low, deadly and completely serious.
She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes narrowed to dark slits, her crimson lips pursed. ‘If anyone’s going to be fired,’ she said in a deceptively pleasant voice, ‘I assure you, it’s you.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so, Lara. In fact, I’d think very carefully about Sasha’s complaint. Because it won’t be her head on the chopping block if this all comes out, if the media gets hold of it. It will be yours.’ And then I turned and walked away from my boss, and went to the toilets, where I promptly threw up from nerves.
I knew it was all talk on my part. I couldn’t get Lara fired. In fact, I’d just about fired myself, and the blow came two weeks later, when Lara called me into a meeting with Qi Tech’s CEO. The company was being reorganised, and my position was no longer needed. I was offered a standard severance package, enough to manage for a few months, at least. Lara requested I clear out my desk immediately, ‘to make things easier’.
‘So is the whole company being reorganised?’ I asked her as I took down my photo of me and Milly, and another one of her parents. ‘Or just HR?’
Lara didn’t even look at me as she answered. ‘You knew this was coming, Anna. You can’t threaten me and expect to keep your job.’
‘No, you’re the only one who can make threats.’ I spoke wearily, too worn out to pursue it.
I see Milly a few days later, and it occurs to me, as we sit in her living room sipping herbal tea, that I hadn’t texted her right away about being fired, as I once would have. At least, I think I would have, but I’m not sure of anything anymore. Did I ever tell Milly what was really going on in my life? Did she ever want to know?
‘You left?’ Her eyes widened as she looked at me, hands laced over her lovely big bump. ‘Why?’
‘Well, technically, I was fired.’
‘Fired? Oh, Anna…’
‘It was over a sexual harassment case. I wasn’t willing to let it lie.’ I pause, waiting for her to ask more. Why not, Anna? What happened? Do you want to tell me more? What can I do to help?
But she just shakes her head slowly and says, ‘What will you do now?’
‘Update my CV, I suppose. Possibly retrain. I got a fairly good severance package, at least. Who knows?’
‘Well, at least you have some time, with your severance pay.’ Milly sighs and stretches her arms over her head. ‘Can you believe how big I am? I feel like a house.’
I stare at her for a moment, amazed that my news is being brushed over so quickly. I’ve been fired, and it warrants only two minutes of conversation. But perhaps it has always been this way, and it’s just that I’ve never minded. Perhaps it’s not fair of me to start minding now. And so I tell her she looks beautiful, and ask about her birthing classes, and nod and smile and sip my tea. But in my head I’m miles away. I’m barely listening at all.
With more time on my hands, I spend it with Jack. I help paint the upstairs of the house in Stroud, and I sit with him in the empty sitting room, drinking wine and eating takeaway, unable to keep from the temptation of imagining how life would be if this was our house, our life. Trying not to want it too much, because as lovely as Jack is, I’m still not sure how serious about me he is. He’s never said and, true to form, I’ve never asked.
October becomes November, the days dark and cold and empty. Jack goes back to France for a few weeks, and as he doesn’t ask me to go with him – I was hoping, just a little – I stay behind and brush up my CV.
I stop by Milly’s, and listen to her talk about Braxton Hicks and the Bradley method of breathing during labour. I know so much about pregnancy and birth, I could write a manual about it. The Best Friend’s Guide to Pregnancy. Surely it would be a bestseller.
I send out my CV and don’t get any responses, and Jack texts to say he has to be in France for another week. I feel as if I am waiting for my life to begin, my real life, the one I’ve missed out all along, but I don’t know what it is. What am I waiting for? A job? A husband? A baby?
Then one morning, when the rain had finally stopped and the wintry sunlight made the frosted grass shimmer, Milly rings me.
‘Anna?’ Her voice wavers. ‘I’m in labour. My waters just broke, and Matt’s gone to Gloucester for a training day.’ Her voice wobbles, then breaks. ‘Please, can you come?’
Fifteen
Milly
It’s funny and wonderful how, in the moments that matter, your friends will be there for you. Even if things have felt awkward and stilted. Even if you think you might need to say sorry, although you’re not sure for what. Even though.
And when I feel those first contractions tighten around my belly with an alarming amount of pain, and then a gush of fluid, I know only two things: I want Anna, and she will come.
‘Have you rung Matt?’ she asks as we drive to the Royal Infirmary.
‘I’ve left three voicemails, but I think his phone is switched off.’ My voice high and thin with panic. ‘I thought the risk of preterm labour was over. I never thought this would happen so early…’ Too early. Six weeks is premature, maybe even dangerously so, but I can’t let myself think that way.
‘Do you think they’ll give you that drug to stop the labour?’
‘I hope so.’ But the contractions are coming with fierce regularity, and have been now for over an hour. What if they can’t stop it? ‘If only Matt left his phone on…’
‘He’ll check it soon,’ Anna says firmly.
* * *
‘You’re already three centimetres dilated,’ the consultant informs me after she’s done a check. Matt still hasn’t rung. ‘Although we’d often try to hold off labour at this gestation, I don’t think that’s going to be possible this time.’
‘But won’t she be too small?’ My voice wavers. ‘Six weeks early…’
‘Thirty-four weeks is still a good length of time,’ the consultant reassures me as she pats my arm. ‘And your body, along with your baby, is telling you she needs to come out, so that’s what’s going to happen.’
But I’m not ready. She’s not ready. What if she’s too small? What if she can’t make it, or she has chronic health problems? And why isn’t Matt here?
‘Milly.’ Anna speaks gently, looking right into my eyes as the unspoken tension between us evaporates as if it has never been. ‘It’s going to be okay.’
‘How can you be sure?’ My voice wobbles.
‘Because of what the consultant said. Because this baby is so wanted, so cared for already. I believe it, and you need to believe it as well. That’s what Alice needs right now.’
‘Okay.’ I manage a small, trembling smile. ‘Okay, I will.’
They settle me in a room to labour in, with a midwife coming in regularly to ch
eck my blood pressure, the baby’s heartbeat.
‘This is all happening so much faster than I thought,’ I say as Anna adjusts the blinds of the window overlooking the car park. Wintry sunshine streams in, bathing the room in crystalline light. I am lying in bed, already in a hospital gown, feeling as if I am playing at a role even though I can feel my tummy tighten and release. It’s painful, but not in an unpleasant way. Not yet, at least.
‘But that’s a good thing, in a way,’ she says. ‘You were getting tired of waiting, weren’t you? Now you don’t have to.’
‘Yes, but I wouldn’t mind waiting a bit more now.’
Anna smiles and comes to sit by my bed. ‘We always want what we don’t have, I suppose.’ For a second I think about asking her about these last few months, the unspoken tension that has existed between us, but the words fall silently to the ground before I can even think what they would be – Why? I’m sorry? Are we okay now?
She pats my arm. ‘Focus on your baby now,’ she says, almost as if she could hear those silent words and knew what they would be. ‘Focus on Alice.’
Alice. In a few hours, I might be holding her. The prospect fills me with fear and joy in equal measure. My mobile rings, and I snatch it up and see with relief that it’s Matt.
‘Matt—’
‘Milly?’ His voice is a ragged cry. ‘Are you okay? The baby – our little girl—’
‘I’m at the hospital. I’m in labour. Matt, she’s coming.’
He swears, which is so unlike him. ‘I’m stuck in traffic on the M5. I don’t know how long I’ll be. Maybe an hour—’
‘Just get here as quickly as you can. Anna’s with me.’
‘Anna? Oh, that’s good. That’s good.’
I smile at her, and she smiles back. No matter what still might be unresolved between us, I’m glad she’s here. I need her more than ever.
The midwife comes in, and so I end the call with Matt, and when she checks me, she frowns, which sends me into panic mode.
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Ye-es, but baby’s heart rate is a little higher than I’d like. I think we should have it monitored.’
A few minutes later I watch the screen of a machine that flashes a graph, jagged lines jerking up and down. I am starting to get scared.
‘Try not to worry,’ the midwife says. ‘I’ll have the consultant come in to check you, in any case.’
After she leaves, Anna rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘This isn’t something to get panicked about, Milly. Trust me. They’d tell you if it was serious.’ I nod, wanting so much to believe her, but I am starting to doubt. ‘How about we put on some music? I brought my Bluetooth speakers. Some mellow jazz to get everybody’s heart rate down, Alice included.’
She sets up the speakers and then the soulful saxophone notes of a jazz piece drift out. The music relaxes me, but not enough. I turn to stare at the jagged lines on the screen, wishing I knew what they meant and yet half-relieved that I don’t.
‘See, this isn’t so bad,’ Anna says as she sits next to me. ‘And Matt will be here soon.’
I nod, but after only a few minutes it all goes to pieces. The consultant comes in to check how I’m doing, and whatever she sees on the screen, she doesn’t like, because she barks out something to a nurse, and then the next thing I know she is telling me that my baby is in foetal distress and they need to get her out quickly.
‘Her heart rate is too high,’ she explains, her voice steady but clipped. ‘The best thing for you now is an emergency caesarean section.’
I stare at her, feeling my own rapid heartbeat, in time with my daughter’s. ‘But…’
Anna squeezes my hand. ‘This is for the best, Milly.’
I know that, but I still don’t want it, and I’m filled with an icy terror that at the very last moment things might still go terribly wrong. I’m wheeled to the operating theatre and prepped for surgery, while Anna waits outside, by the doors. I am alone, surrounded by faceless surgeons in green scrubs, all of them moving so quickly I know it’s urgent. It’s dangerous.
‘You’ll be holding your baby very soon, Milly,’ the consultant says kindly, and I hold onto that promise as they inject the anaesthetic and ask me to count backwards from ten. Before I get to eight, the world goes dark.
Sixteen
Anna
I stand outside the theatre doors, listening to the different sounds of the hospital around me – a beeping monitor, a woman in labour, the squeak of a trolley wheel. The last few minutes passed in a blur of motion as they rushed Milly out of the room and into surgery. As calm as I tried to be for her, inside I am filled with fear.
She can’t lose that baby. Her daughter.
‘Why don’t you wait in the visitors’ room?’ a nurse asks me kindly, more command than suggestion. ‘You’d be far more comfortable, and we’ll make sure to tell you when there’s any news.’
‘Milly’s husband is on his way…’
‘I’ll direct him to the visitors’ room when he comes.’
I find myself in a bland little room with a sofa and chairs, a coffee table and a couple of magazines a year out of date. I pace the small confines, too restless to sit. How long does a caesarean section take? When will I find out how Milly and her baby are doing? What if…?
But I don’t let myself think that way. I can’t, for Milly’s sake – and also for mine. I can’t imagine life without Alice in it, and she’s not even here yet.
Half an hour passes with agonising slowness, and no one comes. I flip through a Women’s Weekly, my mind pinging all over the place like a butterfly, unable to land anywhere for long.
Out in the corridor, I see a man holding a couple of glittery blue balloons walk by. A few minutes later, a pregnant woman, clearly in early labour, hands resting on the small of her back, lumbers past, her husband at her elbow. Then a couple of grandparents come, holding the hand of a little girl, maybe three or four, who is clutching a brand new baby doll. This is the place of new beginnings as well as happy endings. It has to be that way for Milly.
Then I start to think about my own pregnancy. I was seventeen weeks when it ended. I’d started to feel flutters. Even now, it hurts to remember those butterfly kicks. It’s the worst form of self-torture, but I begin to imagine a rosy what-if scenario, one I haven’t let myself consider before because it’s been far too painful. But now I imagine that I kept my baby, that I told my parents, that they supported me rather than threw me out.
But even as I envision this warm, fuzzy scenario, it starts to fall apart. I was eighteen years old, and I’d stumbled through the last six months of sixth form, sitting my exams without writing much more than my name. My pregnancy had ended just two weeks before I sat them. If I’d kept the baby, would I have passed my exams? Would I have taken them? And what about afterwards?
I wouldn’t have been able to go to uni; I would have had to live at home, and found some minimum-wage job. I would have had to depend on my bitter and resentful mother for childcare. Hardly a dream scenario, and yet I would have had my baby. A boy. They told me, afterwards – even though they didn’t want to – because I’d insisted. I’d needed to know, even though it hurt.
Now I release a ragged breath, my hands clenched so hard in my lap that my nails have made crescent moons in my palms. I can’t think about all that now. I have to focus on Milly. The visitors’ door opens, and a nurse smiles at me, the same one who suggested I wait in here.
‘Anna? Milly’s out of surgery, and she and her baby are doing well.’
‘Oh…’ A rush of relief floods through me, so I nearly sway. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘Would you like to see her?’
‘Milly…?’
‘No.’ The nurse’s smile is gentle, apologetic. ‘Milly isn’t awake yet. She had to be given a general anaesthetic, due to the urgency of the procedure, and it will be another hour at least before she’s ready for visitors.’
‘Oh…’
‘I meant the
baby.’
‘Oh.’ Should I be the one to see Milly and Matt’s baby first, even before they do? But I can’t exactly say no, can I? And I don’t want to. ‘Yes,’ I tell the nurse. ‘Thank you.’
I follow her down a brightly lit corridor to the nursery. ‘She’s a good weight for thirty-four weeks,’ she tells me, talking over her shoulder as she walks briskly along. ‘Five pounds three ounces.’
‘That’s great.’ I don’t know what a good weight is, but five pounds sounds tiny.
‘And healthy, too. Screaming her lungs off when she first came out. Here she is.’ She stands in front of the nursery and taps the window. ‘She’s the one on the left, with the striped hat.’
I lean forward so my nose is nearly touching the glass and drink in the sight of the tiny baby swaddled in white, her little pink and blue striped hat nearly covering her eyes, her mitted fists up by her face.
She is tiny, her skin a peachy yellow, which the nurse tells me is due to jaundice. ‘But she’ll be fine after a few sessions under the heat lamp.’ She pats my shoulder. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’
I stare and stare at those navy eyes, the plump cheeks, the tiny rosebud lips that make perfect cupid’s bow. I don’t mean to, but I look for recognisable features, something that will tell me she comes from my genes, but there’s nothing I can see yet.
And then she smiles, or perhaps grimaces, and I let out a gasp because she has dimples, one in each cheek. Just like me. Neither Matt or Milly have dimples; Jack doesn’t either. They come from me. Just me.
‘Anna!’
I turn, startled, feeling a bit guilty as I see Matt hurrying down the hall.
‘Thank God I found you. They’re telling me I can’t see Milly, she’s still in recovery…’
‘She’s okay, Matt, and so is your daughter.’
Matt turns to the nursery, scanning the plastic bassinets and their tiny occupants eagerly. ‘Which one is she?’
