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?
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 late one evening for a crafty bonk in the penthouse with some girl of the night and ended up getting more than he bargained for when a famous royal waltzed out of the en suite in just a smile. I was fired on the spot, which I think was pretty harsh, but I’m not sure they really liked me anyway. Another time I attempted to work at the meat counter in Morrisons but soon became convinced I’d developed mad cow disease. In the end James said it was probably best I stayed at home, that we’d start trying for a family instead so I wouldn’t get bored. Of course that didn’t go according to plan and I was left in limbo, wondering just how my fairy tale had been sabotaged by the Brothers Grimm.
‘Finally!’ James turns to face me, a grin spreading from ear to ear. ‘Don’t know what all the fuss was about!’
‘Hurry up now then, before he catches hypothermia.’ Rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet, I watch as James carefully lifts Cory out of the car, seemingly less afraid of breaking him than he was a few days ago.
They look nothing like each other. James is all bulk and olive skin whereas Cory is dainty and fair like myself. I turn away from them, take a quick glance up and down the street, somewhat edgy despite having reassured myself over and over that the message inside the card the other day didn’t mean what I initially thought it did. And anyway, it’s now safely in a hospital bin several miles away, hopefully buried underneath sloppy veg and trashy celebrity magazines. I have to forget about the card. I have to forget about everything which has gone before just like I always promised myself I would. I made the right decision nine months ago, I absolutely did.
We live in a modest semi-detached house in Chester, with spectacular views over the River Dee and the meadows which lie beyond. Tonight is miserable though, with threatening clouds, the colour of a fresh bruise, hanging low overhead. Thanks to a diversion on a busy main road north of the river, cars are nose to nose on our normally idyllic country lane, their exhausts exhaling toxic breath as their engines slowly purr. ‘Hurry inside with him,’ I say to James, already making my way down the driveway. ‘He’s going to end up with radiation poisoning or something.’
‘Hypothermia, radiation… You’re losing it, love.’
‘Why do you say that?’ I shoot him a look over my shoulder.
‘Sorry, just a saying, you know.’
I catch hold of myself, knowing deep down that James didn’t mean