The South West Series Box Set

by Rebecca Paulinyi

  Lee giggled. “Absolutely,” she said.

  ***

  “How do we know what we need?” James asked, looking around at the furniture, clothing, toys and other equipment that filled the shop.

  “I don’t know, to be honest - and we don’t want to go crazy, we’ve still got months to go…”

  “I know, I know, but it’s exciting to get the room ready, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t think… you don’t think it’s tempting fate, buying stuff now?”

  James took her hand. “No, I don’t - the scan was good, there’s no reason to think things aren’t going to go smoothly. You’re young - yes, you are Lee - you’re healthy, and I’m going to take care of both of you.”

  “Well, then,” Lee said. “I think we need a cot, and a changing mat, and maybe we could take a look at the clothes…”

  “We can definitely look at the tiny little clothes,” James said with a grin.

  ***

  When they got back to their home, bathed in the orangey glimmer of the setting sun, the car had a few more things than they had planned to purchase - but it made Lee’s heart glow, seeing them there in the boot of the car. When he carried the packages and bags upstairs to the spare room - which was to become the baby’s nursery once he or she was old enough to sleep in there - Lee was more excited to unpack them than she was about her own belongings. The smaller room that James used as an office, they had decided to make into a small spare room. It would just about fit a double bed, and since it would be used far less than the baby’s room, it made sense to change them. The computer and other office equipment was to go into the corner of the living room.

  “I feel like I’ve come in like a tornado and turned your whole cottage - your whole world - upside down,” Lee said as she surveyed the chaos that the house was in thanks to her arrival - and the future arrival of their baby.

  “You did,” James said, pulling her close to him with his hands on her waist and leaning his forehead against hers. “You turned it upside down, blew all the cobwebs away and made it an infinitely better place.”

  He kissed her until she felt dizzy, and when his lips left hers it took a few moments before she felt like she’d regained her breath enough to speak.

  “So I won’t apologise for the mess then?”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “I am sorry, though,” Lee said when she felt her heart rate was close to normal. “If I upset you earlier. I don’t want you thinking I’m not all in with us. That I’m planning for it to end. Because believe me, I’m all in.”

  James’ smile was infectious. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have got cagey with you - you’re a lawyer, you’re bound to think of the legalities. And I know you’ve been burnt before, so you’re going to be more cautious.”

  “But you’ve been burnt too,” Lee said, stroking a few errant hairs from his forehead with the tips of her fingers. “By someone changing their mind. And I should have been more sensitive about that.”

  Chapter 19

  While James cooked dinner downstairs, Lee unpacked the bags from the baby shopping spree, leaving the big items - like the cot and the rocking chair that Lee and James had decided would be great for middle of the night feeds - until James was there to help her. The moses basket though, that she could manage on her own. The clothes she carefully unpacked, unable to believe that in a few short months she would have a baby that was small enough to fit in those little babygrows.

  “Do you think we should paint this a different colour?” James said, appearing behind her as she folded the baby grows and blankets that they’d bought.

  Lee glanced around the room; there was nothing wrong with the white walls, she supposed but it would be nice to make it a little brighter.

  “I think that would be lovely,” she agreed. “Maybe with some stencils on the walls?”

  As their dinner grew cold downstairs, they were both a little misty eyed, looking around the room that held so many of their hopes and dreams for the future.

  The following day was filled with unpacking; James moved things around so she could have half of the wardrobe, and surprised her at lunch time by heading out for some bread and returning with a brand new chest of drawers just for her.

  His willingness to let Lee move anything, change anything, repaint anything made Lee feel at home - but in truth, there was nothing there that she massively wanted to change.

  “Have you lived here with anyone else?” Lee asked as they hung clothes side by side. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer - but she had a morbid curiosity that she couldn’t ignore.

  “You mean, like a flat mate?”

  “Yeah. Or… a girlfriend?”

  “No,” James said immediately ,and her heart soared at this simple word. “The last woman to live here was my grandmother - I promise you that. This has been a bachelor pad since I moved in, and now it’ll be a family home.”

  “Good,” Lee said, hanging the hanger with a little more force than she planned.

  “Would it have bothered you, if I had?”

  “I don’t know,” Lee said. “But I definitely like thinking that we’re making brand new memories here, together.”

  ***

  After a few hours, the house looked a lot closer to its previous neat and tidy state - with a few additions that Lee had brought with her. Lee stretched out on the sofa, her head resting on James’ lap as he put something on the television in the background, and she felt the efforts of the day make her ache a little.

  “This pregnancy thing is hard work,” she said with a yawn. “All I’ve done is unpack boxes and I feel ready for bed!”

  James stroked her hair. “Have a nap then. We have nowhere we need to be this afternoon.”

  “I don’t need a nap,” Lee said, but she was yawning as she said it. Her eyes fluttered closed, though, and she felt James fingers stroking through her blonde hair as she drifted off into a dream world.

  “Lee? Lee?” She didn’t know how long it had been, but she was awoken by James’ voice calling her name.

  “Lee, are you okay?”

  She came to with arms wrapped around her stomach, and a concerned looking James hovering above her. “You were moaning, in your sleep,” he said by way of answer. “And holding your stomach. Are you feeling okay?”

  She took a moment to assess the situation and wake up, and after a few seconds she realised he was right; she didn’t feel okay.

  “My stomach hurts…” she said, prodding it gently with her fingers as if to find the source of the pain. “It’s really… cramping.”

  “Maybe you’re hungry?” he suggested, but the worried look did not disappear from his eyes and that made Lee feel nervous.

  “Maybe,” she said, sitting up slowly.

  “I’ll make you some lunch,” James said, keen to be doing something.

  “Okay. I’ll just nip to the bathroom.”

  She felt a little dazed from the sudden awakening, especially since midday naps were something she rarely partook in. She rubbed her stomach as she walked slowly to the bathroom, hoping that food would indeed make these slightly strange pains go away. She didn’t need to be worried, she convinced herself; it was just like the endless throwing up, another symptom of pregnancy.

  It was once she was in the bathroom that she realised there might well be a reason to worry.

  “James! James!” she shouted, hurrying out of the room much quicker than she had walked in.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m bleeding, James, I’m bleeding-”

  “Okay, okay.” He seemed to realised that she was panicking, and his voice took on a calm quality that, while it didn’t sound totally authentic, did make Lee feel a little bit better - like someone was in control. “Let me turn the hob off, and we’ll ring that number the midwife gave us. We’ll probably just need to go to the hospital, okay? Get it checked out. I’m sure it’s fine…”

  Lee wished she had his confidence,
but after a quick phone call confirmed that going to the hospital was the right course of action, she followed him silently out of the door and into the car. The local hospital was only a few minutes away, but Lee wondered if they would have to go to the bigger one in Torquay for something like this.

  “What if something’s wrong?” she whispered as James drove. “What if I’ve done something wrong?”

  “You’ve done nothing wrong,” he said reassuringly. “We’ll be there in two minutes, don’t panic Lee, please.”

  “What if all that unpacking was too much, what if-”

  She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. Instead she stared forwards, holding onto her stomach and hoping that this wasn’t going to end terribly.

  She let James do the talking when they walked into the hospital, after the quickest parking Lee had ever seen.

  “My girlfriend’s bleeding,” he said. “She’s pregnant, and she has stomach pains and is bleeding.”

  “Okay sir,” the receptionist said. Lee leant against the wall as he spoke, trying to take deep breaths and keep calm. “How many weeks pregnant is she?”

  “Um, around twenty weeks?” he said, glancing at Lee for help.

  “Twenty-two weeks,” she said with a groan.

  “And when did this start?”

  “About an hour ago,” James said.

  “Okay. Come back into room two - I’ll get a doctor to come and check you out. Can you fill in these forms, sir? And can you walk, miss?”

  Lee nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  She lay down on the bed as James filled in the forms in silence, except to ask her questions that he didn’t know the answers to.

  “Do you have a middle name?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Lee said. “Hannah.”

  He scribbled it down on the form, and then glanced at Lee, lying on the bed. “I can’t believe we’re having a baby and I don’t even know your full name,” James said, then seemed to realise the words had come out of his mouth.

  “Hopefully having a baby,” was all Lee could say, and James squeezed her hand and continued with the form.

  The doctor entered the room after a few minutes of a scribbling pen and occasional questions from James.

  “Good afternoon,” she said, reaching out for the forms in James’ hand. “May I?”

  James nodded, and for a few minutes she read through the information James and Lee had provided.

  “Okay, Miss Davis,” she said, with a gentle smile on her red lips. “I’m going to examine you, if that’s okay, and then I’ll do an ultrasound.”

  “Okay.” Her voice came out quietly, and she could barely recognise that meek sound.

  James held her hand through the examination, as she didn’t even consider feeling embarrassed at the fact her legs were in stirrups or that there was a doctor looking where she knew blood was flowing.

  “Okay, let’s take a look with the ultrasound, see what’s going on. Try not to panic, Miss Davis.” That was easier said than done.

  The excitement that had filled the room last time they had been in this position, about to see their baby and hear its heartbeat, was absent now; instead there was fear filling the room.

  Lee almost didn’t want to see the screen, but she couldn’t take her eyes from it. Her hand in James’, she felt his eyes looking to, and they waited desperately for the doctor to say something, anything - hopefully something positive.

  “Okay, I’m pleased to say that there’s a strong heart beat, and the baby looks the right size for a foetus of twenty-two weeks.”

  Lee let out a breath that she didn’t realise she had been holding, and felt tears sliding from her eyes, down her cheeks.

  “Now, the bleeding may simply be cervical changes. We’ll need to keep an eye on you, and I would recommend keeping off your feet for the next few days, so we can make sure the bleeding stops. There is a risk of miscarriage, but at the minute the signs are that it’s not going to come to that. I can’t promise anything, and these things can change very quickly, so you need to come back if anything changes, or gets worse, understand?”

  Lee nodded. It felt too soon to be pleased; it wasn’t an emergency now, but the doctor was saying she wasn’t out of the woods. She was terrified of doing something to endanger this pregnancy.

  “Rest, keep an eye, but I would expect the bleeding to stop tonight, okay? If it’s still happening tomorrow evening, then come back. I’m booking you in for a scan in four days, and we’ll check up on everything then, all right?”

  “Thank you,” James said, as Lee got herself ready to leave. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Not a problem. I need to go and fill in some paperwork at the desk, I’ll meet you out there, once you’re ready.”

  Lee stood, feeling the twinges in her stomach and trying to override the fear that she felt throughout her body.

  “Are you okay?” James asked, rubbing her back with one hand and picking up her handbag with the other.

  Lee’s eyes met his, and she burst into tears right there in the hospital room.

  The journey home was fairly silent and Lee was thankful it was only a few minutes. She felt uncomfortable; all she wanted to do was get into bed and quite possibly have a good cry.

  They got out of the car, James rushing around to open her door for her and as soon as they were inside their beautiful little cottage, James turned to Lee and said, “Do you want to go to bed?” Lee nodded warily. “Okay, I'll make you a drink and come up. Are you hungry?”

  Lee shook her head this time. “Okay,” said James. “I'll be up in five minutes. Shout if you need me.”

  When she was gone, James went to the kitchen, flipped the switch on the kettle and held onto the kitchen counter, trying to take deep breaths as his knuckles turned white from his tight grip. He needed to get himself together. He knew that he needed to calm down before he went to face Lee, but it was all a bit too much right now. Everything had been going so well, so amazingly well, but it hadn't occurred to James that something could go wrong, and now they were facing that possibility. And it was true - in that doctor’s room they felt a little like strangers. There was a coldness between them that scared him and the fact that he didn't know some basic information about the woman that he was living with, having a baby with, that he loved - all that scared him too.

  He knew that what he was feeling could be nothing compared to how Lee was feeling, which was why he took the few moments as the kettle boiled and the tea brewed to try to get his feelings under control, so that he could be what Lee needed: someone strong, someone she could depend on, someone who wasn't going to panic.

  Upstairs, Lee had immediately got undressed and slipped on her pyjamas on. What she really wanted was to have a shower to wash off the misery and dirt of the day, to make her feel like that trip to the doctor's had never happened - but she didn't feel up to it. Instead, she slid between the covers and closed her eyes, not really ready for sleep but needing a moment to be alone with her thoughts and her overwhelming feelings about the whole situation.

  She opened her eyes as James walked into the room, carrying a cup of tea and a plate of toast.

  “I brought it just in case,” he said and she tried to smile but found it too difficult. He sat down on the edge of the bed next to her and took hold of her hand; with the other he stroked the loose hairs on her forehead. She felt the tears sliding down her cheeks at that simple gesture and for quite a while the two sat there, not speaking but feeling a shared panic; a shared sadness that they hoped would be unfounded in the end.

  “I'm going to look after you,” James said. “I promise. You can stay in bed and rest and I can do everything.”

  “What about work? Lee said.

  “Gina will sort it out for you, so don't worry about that,” he said. “And as for me, I can figure something out. I haven't taken holiday in a long time; you're more important. You and this baby are more important than anything and I promise I'm going to do everything
I can to help you.”

  “What if I did something wrong?” Lee said, voicing her fears. “What if it's all my fault? What if I'm too old or I overdid it today?”

  “Lee,” James said. “You heard the doctor. This is not your fault. It's probably something completely normal - and even if it isn't, your age - which, by the way, is not old - or what you've done today hasn’t affected anything.

  He could see and hear Lee spiralling into more and more panic. “I'm scared, James,” she said. “And then in that doctor's room, what you said-”