A Mother’s Sacrifice. Gemma Metcalfe

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      He smiles, releasing some of the tension in his shoulders. ‘Sorry, I keep having flashbacks, you know.’

      He doesn’t need to elaborate. The image of Cory lying motionless on the hospital trolley isn’t one which will disappear from my own memory very easily. ‘I know, but he’s all right. He’s safe now.’ My voice holds a confidence which doesn’t quite reflect how I feel inside. How can I ever really guarantee his safety? Tragedy strikes all the time, doesn’t it? Especially in newborns. SIDS they call it, sudden infant death syndrome. I googled it repeatedly while pregnant, begged James to invest in a breathing monitor, but he rolled his eyes and told me I panicked too much. Perhaps I’ll broach the subject again; always better to be safe than sorry.

      ‘There were some cards on the mat when I nipped back earlier – news travels fast.’ James nods in the direction of the bed to where four or five cards are piled on top of one another.

      ‘I guess people have been waiting for this moment almost as long as we have.’ I sit down on the edge of the bed, wincing as I do, and pick up the first card in the pile. ‘You are all right, aren’t you?’ I ask as I begin to open the card, the distraction allowing me to avoid eye contact.

      ‘Perfect. Why wouldn’t I be?’

      ‘No reason.’

      The first card is from my Auntie Kath and ‘Rosie the Dog’. The second is a Moonpig special from James’s cousin, typed in Arial black with a photograph of me and James on our wedding day on the front. Slightly odd but I suppose the thought was there.

      ‘This one’s just addressed to me.’ I lift up the third envelope in the pile, my name scrawled across the front in what appears to be red fountain pen.

      ‘Secret admirer?’ James winks at me, which, even after eight years of marriage, still has the ability to flip my stomach over. ‘Open it then,’ he says after a second.

      I shove my fingers down the side of the flap and prise it open. On the front is a picture of a stork carrying a baby wrapped in a light-blue blanket. ‘That’s weird,’ I say, holding it up for James to see. ‘We haven’t announced the gender yet. Not unless you’ve sneaked it onto Facebook without me knowing?’

      He barely lifts his eyes. ‘Of course I haven’t. Who’s it off?’

      I open it up, stare down at the scrawled red handwriting inside, my mind unable to process what I am reading.

      ‘Lou, who’s it off?’

      I snap it shut, my stomach twisting into a knot as the words inside begin to knit together in my brain. ‘Erm, just a woman from antenatal class, you don’t know her.’ I place it beside me on the bed and cover it over with my hand.

      ‘A psychic one?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘The blue blanket on the front. You all right, Lou?’

      The embossed lettering on the front of the card burns my palm, and yet I daren’t lift up my hand. ‘I think I’m just exhausted. And visiting time is over. Best you go get some rest.’ I hold my breath, praying he leaves without pushing me further.

      ‘If you’re sure.’ He stands slowly, his heart seemingly in his mouth as he passes Cory over to me. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to holding him.’

      ‘Put him in the cot.’ I gesture over to the small, see-through cot with my eyes.

      ‘Really? I thought…’

      ‘He’s asleep.’ My words come out sharper than I intended. ‘You shouldn’t indulge babies. The book says.’

      ‘Well, if the book says.’ He laughs and rolls his eyes but thankfully places Cory down in the cot without further question.

      ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then.’

      ‘Yeah, see you tomorrow. And Lou…’ he says after a moment. ‘I am happy. More than I ever could have imagined.’

      Tears prick the back of my eyes and I know without any doubt that I can never allow James to see inside the card. No matter what has gone before, I am a mum, my baby is safe, and my husband is happy.

      Surely that’s all that matters?

CHAPTER THREE

      Louisa

      Now

      ‘The bloody clasp is jammed and I can’t undo it.’ James shakes his head at me from where he is wedged into the small gap between the front and back seats of the car, his breath steaming up the rear window. ‘The cold’s probably expanded the metal.’

      ‘I think that might be heat.’

      ‘Who made you such a smart arse?’

      ‘Obviously not you.’

      He shakes his head but a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.

      As I wait for my highly intelligent husband to figure out the workings of a Mamas & Papas car seat, I stamp my boots against the frosted gravel which crunches underfoot, the winter chill causing my toes to tingle. ‘Told you we should have bought a four-door.’

      ‘Not now, hey, Lou.’ James rakes his hand through his hair. ‘It can’t be that bloody difficult.’

      ‘Should I try?’ I ask, edging closer to the window. I reach out and place the tips of my fingers against the cold glass, lightly tracing the outline of Cory’s nose and mouth. ‘Please get him out. I think I’m having physical withdrawal symptoms from him.’

      ‘Stop being so bloody dramatic.’ James proceeds to huff and grunt as his fingers fiddle with the metal clasp. He’s becoming agitated, something he’ll never admit to but he definitely is. I jangle the house keys against my thigh, the first throes of panic threatening to overtake as my imagination pictures a fire crew, the steely blade of a chainsaw, fiery embers raining down upon my son’s hands and face.

      It’s now just over forty-eight hours since I brought Cory into the world. It’s quite surreal to arrive home with him. If I’m honest, I can’t quite believe the hospital allowed us to take him. And yet here he is, a living, breathing person as opposed to a figment of my imagination. He’s pretty much how I imagined him to be in my dreams, slightly more slender, his fingers longer and his lips fuller. He definitely cries more than I imagined and I never once dreamed of changing a nappy like that first one back at the hospital.

      ‘Come on, James, he’ll be frozen solid.’ I know I need to calm down and savour the moment, to not allow my anxiety to smear the memory of arriving home with Cory. We are, after all, supposed to be ‘making memories’, a phrase which regularly pollutes Facebook, a phrase which pre-pregnancy made my heart sink into my stomach because my memories back then consisted of sitting in my pyjamas watching back-to-back episodes of Friends and eating Häagen-Dazs out of the tub. I’ve never worked, not really. Once I tried to work as a receptionist at a hotel in Manchester but I messed up a booking reservation. A well-known footballer arrived СКАЧАТЬ