“I’m going to miss you guys, too. Don’t get too attached to my replacement because I’ll be back before you know it.”
“You take your time,” Angela said. “Don’t rush it. Enjoy your time with the baby.”
I nodded, taking in her words. No one mentioned Aiden. No one acknowledged that this was my second child. I bit my lip and fought against the rising tide of guilt threatening to take hold.
“Jake will be waiting for me.” I stood a little too fast and felt the blood rushing to my head. My joints ached a little, but the kindness of my colleagues had bolstered my energy levels and I felt strong enough to take on the world. I was ready for the next challenge ahead, especially with Jake waiting for me in the carpark. He had been my rock through the bad times, there with an outstretched hand to catch me when I fell. And believe me, I fell a lot. I had fallen into darkness after Aiden died.
“Call us when the baby is born. We all want to meet her,” Amy said. She bit her lip and I could see her mind whirring with thoughts of my lost boy, the one who’d walked away from her and never came back.
“Yes, bring the little one into work, won’t you? It’s been ages since I had a cuddle with a newborn. My Oliver is nearly three now, if you can believe it,” said Tricia, her eyes misty with thoughts of her grandson.
“Of course,” I replied. “I can’t wait for you all to meet her.”
I bundled up the cards and presents into a plastic bag and picked up the large bunch of roses with the price carefully peeled away from the packaging. We stood awkwardly near the door and for the first time, I saw hesitation on their faces. I saw contemplation, and I knew what they were all thinking about.
Amy brushed tears away from her cheeks. We might not have mentioned Aiden’s existence. We might have all made the unconscious decision to not utter his name while we celebrated the new baby, but Aiden was close, so close I could almost see him standing in the shadows next to the pigeonholes and the corner table. He was in Amy’s tears, and in the knowing smile on Sumaira’s face. He was in my heart, buried in my arteries, mixed into my blood and my DNA, and every atom that made me ‘me’.
I said my goodbyes and made my way down the steps and out into the carpark, the same carpark I had run through that terrible day when my Wellington boot had sloshed through the rainwater and my sock had hung precariously from my toes. Then I saw the silver Audi, and Jake’s smiling face in the driver’s seat.
“How did it go?” he asked, as I piled the presents and flowers into the backseat. We’d need to sort the baby seat out soon, I mused. It was only three weeks until my due date and there was much to be done.
“Good. You should see the gorgeous doll Amy bought for Bump.”
Jake frowned. “You look wiped out. I was going to suggest we go for some tea to celebrate, but I think you need a warm bath and an early night. Shall we order in from Da Vinci’s instead?”
I leaned across the gearstick to plant a soppy kiss on Jake’s cheek. “That sounds perfect.”
As we pulled out of the carpark, I couldn’t help but turn and give the school building one last look. I’d been working there for five years now, and I should’ve been used to the sight of the old Victorian building by now, yet somehow it brought all those feelings rushing back to the surface. And then, she kicked. I clutched my belly and felt the second kick.
Yes, I know you’re there. There’s room in my heart for you too.
3
Bishoptown School is a primary and secondary school in one. They added a newer building to the back of the old Victorian building about twenty years ago. Kids under eleven are taught in the older building at the front, and the kids from year seven upwards study in the newer block behind. I met Jake when I was one of those kids.
He was my teacher.
It sounds creepy. It isn’t.
Jake started at Bishoptown just before I started studying for my GCSEs, but he didn’t teach me until I started my A-Levels. He was an art teacher and I was an art student. He was young, only twenty-eight, and had just moved up to Bishoptown from a small town outside Brighton. Of course I noticed he was gorgeous back then. We called him Handsome Hewitt. But I was far too enamoured with my own beau, Rob, to even give my teacher a second glance. And then Aiden came along…
Six years ago I was a mess. I hadn’t worked properly since Aiden’s death, aside from a part-time job in a supermarket, and I survived solely on the inheritance Mum and Dad left after they died in a car crash. It was Jake who sought me out, who got me a job in the school, who pulled me out of the pit of darkness and showed me that it was possible to turn on a light switch and save my own life. Finding him—or rather, him finding me—convinced me that I wasn’t cursed after all, just unfortunate enough to lose my son and parents in less than four years.