The First Time I Saw You: the most heartwarming and emotional love story of the year

by Emma Cooper

  The noise from my mouth has disappeared and been replaced with the lilt and dip of my breathing. I take tentative steps into the kitchen, one hand holding Bean, the other holding the counter, my balance still wavering between left and right. I listen to the stillness for a moment, my hand reaching for the light switch, and I blink against the brightness. My legs shake as the tap fills the glass with water, my knuckles white and tense as I hold on to the counter. I drain the glass and glance at the clock. I must have missed the taxi: a car horn, a knock on the door, the door being slammed, edges its way into my subconscious, but it could have been any day, any time. I’m not sure what is real and what I’ve made up. I can’t have been unconscious for long – the sun was already setting when I had picked up my case.

  ‘Bean?’ I ask, my eyes filling and overflowing on to my cracked lips. ‘Bean?’ I ask again. I refill the glass and drink it faster. This will wake you, come on now, Bean, wake up. But Bean is tired.

  My hand grips the banister and my stomach tightens. My feet wait until the pain has passed until I take the next step.

  The bathroom wall is cold beneath my palm; each step feels more difficult than the last. Cold water rushes from the tap into my hands, splashing my face, awakening my senses.

  ‘Bean?’ I ask again. But my baby is fast asleep.

  The mattress sinks as I sit down and reach for the phone.

  ‘Charlie? It’s me.’

  ‘I know. Caller ID.’

  ‘I, I think I’ve fainted. I’m fine, but . . .’ My voice is detached and reassuring; his reaction is not so detached, but it is reassuring.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah . . . I think so. I’m a bit shook up, I was going to the airport—’

  ‘No. No airports. I’m on my way home, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Is Helen with you?’

  ‘No, she couldn’t come. Caitlin is poorly.’

  ‘Call the hospital. Now, Sophie. I’m hanging up.’ I call the hospital and tell them what has happened, my voice breaking.

  Bean hears me: what is all the fuss about? It stretches and turns. Relief cascades down my cheeks and pools beneath my chin.

  ‘Is baby moving?’ the midwife asks.

  ‘Yes.’ I gasp with relief.

  ‘And how do you feel? Have you lost any blood?’

  ‘No, I think I’m OK. I think I just fainted. I’m still having a few Braxton Hicks, but they have been happening a lot in the last few weeks.’

  ‘I would like you to come in, Sophie, so we can check that everything is as it should be. Some of the roads are still flooded but we could send an ambulance? See if it could get through?’

  ‘Yes, please . . . thank you.’

  I pull the duvet over me as my stomach tightens, glancing at the clock before closing my eyes.

  Week Thirty-Five

  Contractions Forty-Five Minutes Apart

  Samuel

  My breath is scraping the back of my throat and I stop for a moment. The incline of the hill stretches ahead, and the uneven ground is putting my treadmill training to the test. I’m feeling confident, though. I mean, I’ve only tripped over five times so far. I take a moment to focus the end of the telescope towards the drop by the side of the road, a road carved out of a forest which has been here for years, deep foliage and trees entwined in a bed of damp and moss. My knees are the colour of shite and I stink to high heaven, not exactly the image I wanted to present to the mother of my child, but, if I remember correctly, the cottage is only a bit further up this hill. Just a bit further.

  What will I say to her? I ask myself. ‘Hello, sorry it took me so long, but that hill was a fucker’? I’m not sure that will strike the right tone. Michael interrupts my conversation; he taps forwards but there is a dip in the road. He swishes back and forth; there is something else there, something in our way, and he beats against it until he finds the end. It feels like a broken tree trunk. We take our time but manage to climb over it.

  How about . . . I resume my conversation . . . ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not trying hard enough to find you, I’m sorry for not telling you how much I love you?’ A bit corny, don’t you think? How about asking her why she didn’t tell you she is having your baby? Why don’t I wait and see what she says? Fair enough. What are you going to say about Michael? Michael stops, and I stand still. I’ll say, ‘This is Michael, he helps me from falling on my arse.’

  My feet are eager, but Michael slows me down: Watch it, look, there are broken trees all over the place, step this way, not that way, careful, don’t rush. But the cottage is around the corner; I’m almost there. Fate snips away at a piece of thread, and as I step over another tree trunk, my foot misses the tarmac and instead the ground moves, gradually at first, until the whole world shifts. The solid earth from beneath my feet slides away, and for a moment I’m suspended, my arms flailing at my sides, trying to gain some balance. I look up to where the road bends round, to where Sophie is waiting for me and then: I fall.

  My feet no longer hold me up; my arms no longer hang at my sides. Instead, as I tumble and roll, my limbs flounder around me: useless, hopeless. North becomes south with a pain in my hip; a scratch across my face. East turns to west as my backpack escapes my shoulders; the thick, dense smell of decay covers my body. Dead leaves – dark and musky – cling to me as brambles pierce through the denim of my jeans, impaling themselves into me, ripping my skin: demanding blood. Up has become down, left has become right, until my foot strikes something hard: a rock? A piece of wood? And I hear my voice scream out.

  My body is weightless: there is no gravity pulling me down; there is no light at the end of the tunnel; there is nothing.

  I’m lost.

  Week Thirty-Five

  Contractions Thirty Minutes Apart

  Sophie

  The wood of my front door is blocking the fists that pound against it. My bedroom curtains remain open, the moon hanging amongst the clouds that hurry past; they have another place to be, another sky to decorate. I’m not sure if I have been asleep: images of Ian, Mum, of Charlie lying in his bed and of Bean suspended in its pink pool – motionless – have danced in front of me, and I can’t honestly say if my eyes have been open or closed. Ripples from either side of my stomach clench and twist as I try to stand; my steps towards the stairs are slow and disjointed.

  ‘Miss Williams?’ A male voice is shouting. Bang. Bang. Bang. The sound knocks inside my skull. ‘Miss Williams?’

  I lean forward towards the peephole and focus on the outline of two paramedics, a man and a woman. I draw back the chain and open the door.

  ‘Sorry, I was sleeping,’ my mouth says, my words forming normally, just as my body is standing upright in a normal position, and I offer them coffee which they decline as they walk into my home. Normal behaviour for an abnormal day.

  They sit in my lounge; they talk about the weather; they tell me how bad the roads are, but how they are beginning to clear. We would like to take you to hospital and get you checked, they say. Baby is moving; everything is normal.

  They carry my case; they usher me through hospital corridors, past curious glances and well-meaning smiles. They scan Bean. My baby is too big now to be seen in one piece; instead I get glimpses of each part and I try to fit them together to make a whole picture: like fixing the parts of a jigsaw. A hand passes across the screen: a little wave – Hello, I’m here, I’m fine. The midwife clips the elasticated bands around my stomach.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asks me with a kind smile.

  ‘Yes, please.’ I close my eyes as she leaves, listening to the rhythm of Bean’s heart filling the room. Not the usual thump, thump that you hear in a Disney film or the ‘gu-gum’ that Patrick Swayze dances with Baby to. This beat gallops, bends and flexes, climbs and descends. She returns with a cup and then pulls the printout towards her.

  ‘No sign of any contractions, so that’s good. And your blood pressure is almost back to normal. It was quite low when the paramedic
s checked you and your bloods show that you’re anaemic. So take it easy, OK? We’ll give you a prescription for some iron tablets.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, and rest the bottom of the cup on top of Bean, who kicks it, wobbling the heartbeat. ‘Will I be able to go home, then?’

  ‘We’ll give it another five minutes. Make sure there are no contractions.’

  The consultant strides into the room, his beige mac flying behind him. His tired eyes scour the printout, dart to my chart and smile at me.

  ‘Everything looks good here, Sophie. Have something to eat, take a bath and then get some rest. You’re not far off now, and you’ll need all of your strength to bring this little one into the world.’ He glances at the wavy lines on the green-checked paper, nods and leaves for the night. The midwife yawns behind her hand, squints at the screen and grins.

  ‘All clear.’ She releases me from the elastic and turns off the machine. As I leave the room, my stomach constricts, but I’m used to Bean’s tricks now.

  I’m glad to be home, glad to be back in my bed, but I can’t get comfortable; the pain radiating inside my stomach has become more intense. I turn on the light and get out of bed, rubbing my stomach. Trying not to panic, I reach for my phone. It has been almost exactly thirty minutes since the last twinge. They are starting to feel different, as though there is an elastic band stretching around my stomach and somebody is pulling and pulling it towards my spine. I breathe deeply and then, as quickly as the pain came, it is gone, and I feel fine. I feel normal. See, nothing to worry about. But still I reach for my phone.

  ‘Hi, how’s the journey?’ I ask Charlie in a bright and breezy voice: nothing to see here, everything is perfectly normal.

  ‘Good, the roads are clear. Are you OK? You sound weird.’

  ‘I’m fine, just, you know, a bit shook up.’

  We chat for a while, Charlie saying it will help him stay awake, but another twenty-nine minutes passes and the elastic band begins to pull, wrapping its way around my tummy and sinking into my back.

  ‘You should have tasted the scallops, Soph, they were amazing . . . Soph?’

  ‘Mmmmm,’ I say, glad to only have to be making a sound rather than a word.

  ‘You sure you’re OK?’ I exhale as the band begins to slacken and release its grip.

  ‘Mmmhhmmm, just tired. I think I’m going to get some rest. Drive safely, but hurry home . . . I miss you.’

  ‘Right. See you,’ Charlie replies.

  I hang up, and then look at the clock reproachfully.

  ‘Not yet, Bean. Please.’ I run my hand along the crest of my bump just as the door knocks again.

  This time at the end of the spyhole is a face that is strangely familiar to me.

  ‘Hello?’ I shout, my lips close to the door.

  ‘Ah, hello!’ shouts an accent that I recognise, one that stretches and retreats at the end of every sentence. ‘Is that you, Sophie?’

  ‘Um, yes,’ I reply into the wood and then glance through the looking glass where the man is frowning and leaning towards the door.

  ‘Grand! Would you mind opening the door? Bloody Russell is blowing the hair right off my head!’ I unlock the catch. ‘Ah, there you are.’ He leans forward. ‘He was right, you’ve got weird coloured eyes and no mistake.’

  My heart begins punching my ribcage, trying to get out. I push open the door as this tall Irishman enters my home with a clap of the hands, with huge strides and a smile that I’ve desperately been trying to find.

  ‘Now where is my great eejit of a son?’

  Week Thirty-Five

  Contractions Thirty Minutes Apart

  Samuel

  The darkness smells like rotting vegetation and decay. It climbs in through your pores and sticks to your insides.

  My foot is stuck, quite literally, between a rock and a hard place and has something wrapped around it which I am trying to untangle. My tongue licks my dry lips and tastes blood, while my ankle scrapes and scratches against the rock every time I try to move it. Time passes. I think time is passing: the moon flashes a smile at me every now and then, things scurry about; vegetation moves and snuffles, heaves and turns. Far, far below me is the main road that leads into town and I occasionally hear the sound of a truck, of a car, of life going on as I lie here in the shadows.

  ‘Help!’ I shout again, but my voice is hoarse and shaken as the damp bites into me, teasing the skin along my arms and legs into bumps as though I have an allergy – maybe I’m allergic to the cold. Barbs sink into my palm as I pull and try to manipulate my foot free. I put my chin on my chest and pull as hard as I can to release my ankle. A guttural sound emits from my mouth, my heel pushing against the pain. A crack, a shift, a wave of dirt crashes forward and my foot is free.

  My weight is too heavy for my ankle and it buckles as I try to stand, my feet sliding downwards again, but I manage to grab the branches of a tree, stopping myself from falling.

  Michael is out here somewhere but I can’t find him. He could be anywhere, suffocating under dirt, being crushed beneath the wheel of a truck, snapping and splintering into pieces, his carcass discarded along the roadside like rubbish left to decay and rot. His demise opens a crack in my chest and the security he gave me is now filled with panic. My hand grips on to the branch, one leg crooked and bent as I try to shift my weight on to the other one. My hand follows the branch towards the trunk, and my feet take tentative steps towards it. I follow it down to its base where I begin feeling around for a replacement for Michael. I can’t find my way out of here without him. Another car passes; the moon winks – until I see him: Michael the Second. He’s broader and made of darker wood and is a bit gnarly around the edges, but he can swish and tap just as well as his older brother.

  ‘So, Michael the Second, where the feck are we?’ I lean on him for a minute as we alter the lens at the edge of the telescope, twisting and turning it until we can see some of the terrain. Trees tower above us, their trunks sinking deep into the bracken, their branches waving and pointing to the top of the forest, to where I fell, to where – somewhere up there – Sophie is waiting for me.

  ‘After you, Michael,’ I say, trying to keep the fear out of my voice, but it betrays me, and Michael the Second isn’t fooled. My leg limps, my mouth grimaces, but the trees keep pointing: Up there, they say, up there. Hold on.

  Week Thirty-Five

  Contractions Twenty Minutes Apart

  Sophie

  There is a giant Irishman sitting on my sofa. A giant Irishman who tells me that Sam is here in Wales, that he should be here in my cottage, that he left hours ago.

  ‘Let me call Mrs McLaughlin,’ he says, pulling on a pair of glasses and punching the screen of his mobile phone with slow, deliberate movements. I offer to make us a drink, which he tells me would be grand, my lips smiling at the familiarity of his mannerisms, at the love I already feel towards this loud man. My house is filled with his voice; the depth of it throws its arms around the sofa like long-lost friends, the strength of his presence stretching into every dark nook and cranny, mending cracks and smiling at the creases hidden in the curtains.

  I’m almost finished making the tea, when the elastic band begins to wrap itself around me; my focus slides towards the kitchen clock, which frowns and tells me they are coming every twenty minutes. I concentrate on the voice from the lounge: ‘Are you sure now, you’re sure he was on his way to Sophie this afternoon? And where was he getting a taxi from? Mac-what?’ I breathe slowly as the elastic begins to relax. ‘Mac-lun-uth?’

  ‘Machynlleth?’ I ask, returning to the lounge.

  ‘Our Sophie says Mak-hun-hleth?’ he repeats into the phone, my heart quickening. Our Sophie.

  ‘That is not what you said at all, Mrs M, it sounded nothing—’

  ‘That’s only half an hour away,’ I say quietly as Mr McLaughlin argues with Mrs McLaughlin. He looks up at me from his phone; his eyebrows have the same arch as Samuel’s, I notice; thicker, but each familiarity I fi
nd comforts me.

  ‘Our Sophie says it’s only half an hour away. Of course I’ve not rung the police yet, I thought he would be busy canoodling, didn’t I? Sophie? Yes, she’s grand, love, about ready to pop, though!’ He smiles at me, his cheeks rising, the skin around his eyes crinkling. ‘Of course she doesn’t know, do you think I’d be calling you if she did? For the love of God, woman, where are your brains?’ He holds the phone away from his ear while long-distance expletives fly across the sea and spray my lounge.

  ‘OK. Right-oh, I’ll give the police a bell, ask them if they’ve seen my stupid son and his friend Michael stumbling around the Welsh hills.’ He rolls his eyes at me, and a giggle erupts from my mouth. ‘I know, I know . . .’ His voice softens. ‘He’ll be grand, probably got lost and gone into a pub.’ He looks away from me and mumbles, ‘Love you too, Mrs M.’

  ‘Who, er, who is Michael?’ I ask as I pass him his cup.

  ‘Michael? He, well, you’d best ask Sammy about that one.’

  ‘How . . . how is he coping? With the . . . sight loss?’ Mr McLaughlin sags with relief.

  ‘You know, do you? About the accident?’ I nod as the elastic begins to twist.

  ‘Well, in that case, I can tell you. Michael is his cane, love, helps him get about.’

  ‘Let me, get the taxi numb—’ my mouth holds the rest of the sentence as the elastic thins and begins to drag my insides upwards to an imaginary summit, ‘—bers,’ I finish as the pain slides down the other side of the mountain.

  ‘Are you OK there, Sophie love? You look a bit . . .’

  I smile and straighten myself up. ‘I’ll just get my phone.’

  Beethoven plays as I’m put on hold while the taxi firm speak to the driver who picked Sam up from Machynlleth. Beethoven stops in full flow as they explain that Samuel was dropped off by the side of the road.