I knew she wouldn’t leave my father. He was a good man. It’s just that people have very different definitions of ‘good’.
She signed that I should go, be free and enjoy my life. That was all she ever wanted for me.
‘I should’ve saved you from him.’
Her face was white as a sheet. Only now could I see how much she blamed herself.
‘You couldn’t have. He isolated me from everyone, made me feel like it was all my fault. I couldn’t tell anyone, I was so ashamed.’
‘Oh love, I thought you were ashamed of me! So I kept my distance.’
I hugged her again, as tightly as I could. It was all so obvious now, how he’d manipulated me. I would never forgive him. Never.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
HENRY
Felicity Grace Field decided she was going to make her entrance into the world two weeks early. Lucinda had convinced me to stay in London for another few days to help Neil finish off decorating the nursery. At 3 a.m. I heard panicked voices outside my bedroom door – my mother shouting at Neil about the overnight bag, Neil shouting at himself for misplacing the car keys, my sister shouting at both of them to stop creating a stressful environment for the baby. I jumped out of bed and lunged into the hall, where Lucinda stood in a puddle of liquid in her bare feet.
‘What’s going on?’ I said, stupidly.
‘I’m having a baby,’ she replied, still managing a sarcastic tone.
‘Like, now?’
‘Like, yeah,’ she said, imitating my gormless voice.
Just then my mother arrived with slippers in hand and an overcoat. I stood there, immobile, watching as they both struggled to get her dressed for the hospital.
‘Henry! You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem,’ my mother shouted and told me to help Neil look for the car keys. I obeyed and found them in full view on the kitchen table, as Neil walked past them unseeing for the umpteenth time.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Neil said, wide-eyed and panic-stricken. ‘I don’t think I’m ready for this.’
‘Right. Okay, well, I’m not sure we can really factor that in at this stage.’
‘How the fuck am I going to drive? I don’t think I can even see properly, my eyesight’s gone all foggy. Is that normal?’
I drove. Lucinda had Mum and Neil on either side of her, puffing out their cheeks and exhaling air through pursed lips like two demented blowfish. I’m not sure it was helping but I could see by Lucinda’s face that she was just glad of the quiet. It was an improvement on all of the shouting. I was quietly congratulating myself for being the rock in the situation and pulled up outside A&E.
‘Here we are,’ I said, as though I were dropping them off at the airport for a fortnight on the Costa.
‘This … isn’t … maternity,’ Lucinda said in a very low, threatening voice and then emitted what could only be described as something akin to a cow bellowing. I stamped my foot on the accelerator and followed the signs for maternity before once more pulling up at the door. After helping them out, I parked the car and, by the time I got back, everything was over.
‘It’s a girl,’ my mother whispered through tears and I hugged her tightly under a broken fluorescent light that flickered overhead. I couldn’t quite believe that we had arrived as four people and we would be going home as five. ‘They’re delivering the afterbirth now.’
‘Mum, please, no details.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she said, smacking me lightly on the arm. ‘It’ll be your turn one day.’
Would it? I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a father. I didn’t want to inflict what I had experienced on anyone else.
‘You can come in now.’ Neil popped his head around the door. He was wearing a plastic apron over his clothes, as though he had delivered the baby. He was crying. ‘Happy tears,’ he said and I couldn’t help but put my arms around him. It was endearing to see him so vulnerable.
The room was buzzing with the sense that something important had just happened. Then I saw my sister, her dark fringe pushed back off her face with sweat, her nakedness covered with a sheet and a little dark-haired head resting in the crook of her arm.
‘Felicity, it’s time to meet your uncle Henry.’
And then I was crying. Which didn’t seem to matter so much because the baby was crying now too. Then we all laughed and cried until the nurse told us to get out because she had to show Lu how to get Felicity to ‘latch on’. She wasn’t going to get any rest, that was for sure. Ever, probably.
We spent the night at the hospital together, none of us wanting to break the little bubble of joy we had created. Well, that Neil and Lu had created, to be precise. A new person had joined our family and, without saying as much, we all seemed to be united in the conviction that her experience would be better than our own. We would become better people for her. The process had already started. Perhaps this was why people referred to new life as a miracle, because it had the power to change everything.
I suddenly had an overwhelming longing to see Martha, to tell her everything that had happened. I wanted her here, to be with my family. To be a part of it. I went on a breakfast run and picked up some more things for Lu – basically an excuse so I could call Martha, but there wasn’t even a dial tone. I told myself that her phone was switched off. Simple explanation. While waiting for the coffees, I sent a string of texts with baby emojis, which was so out of character, she might have assumed I had been kidnapped and it was an attempt to communicate my location. Yet as the hours passed and there was still no response, I started to feel like something was wrong. I had explained everything in the note I’d left, but maybe she’d changed her mind. Maybe I was coming on too strong. I was still second-guessing myself when I walked back into the delivery room and almost bumped into someone. A man. My father.
‘What’s he doing here?’
‘Henry, it’s okay,’ Lu said.
It wasn’t okay. It was very far from okay, but the thing about having just given birth to a human is that your feelings trump everyone else’s.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ I said, leaving the takeout behind me.