Silent Child(7)

“No more than usual.” I settled into the sofa. Despite my bravado, I was tired from all the fuss. It was nice to take the weight off my feet. In fact, I probably wouldn’t want get up again now, unless I needed the loo. I passed the card to Jake.

“It makes me sad, reading this,” Jake said. He stuck out a lip, imitating a pout.

“Why? I mean, I know John in the history department read the card wrong and wrote ‘sympathies’ but everyone else is happy for us. I hope he read the card wrong, anyway. Maybe he just feels very strongly about people bringing more children into the world.” My little joke turned sour in my mouth as I said the word ‘children’. It’s still there, that bitterness. For a long time I couldn’t look at other people’s children. I couldn’t even say the word. I stared down at my bump and tried to force those feelings away. It was time to be able to say a joke and enjoy it.

“Because we won’t be working together for the next year. I won’t be taking you to work and bringing you home. I wish I could take the year off with you. I mean, would it be so crazy? Would it be terrible?”

“It might be if we want to eat,” I replied. “You’d have to quit your job completely. They aren’t going to let you take the year off. Not both of us, anyway.”

“I know. But… what are you going to do all day?”

“Well, I think this one will keep me busy.” I laughed and pointed to my baby bump. But when I saw the tense line of his jaw and the way he gripped the card, I leaned across the sofa and held his forearm. “I know there’s going to be a lot of change happening in our lives, but it’s for a wonderful reason. You and I have created life and we’re going to get the opportunity to watch that wonderful life be born and grow up.” My voice cracked and I steadied myself before continuing. “This is our new beginning.”

Jake let go of the card and wrapped his fingers around my hand. “You’re right. Our new life together. I’m sorry I got freaked out.”

I shook my head and squeezed his arm. I truly believed every word I said. There was a dark part of me filled with bitterness and grief, I could not deny that, but the rest of me was hopeful and strong, filled with the optimism of a new baby and a new life.

My thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of our house phone.

“Shall I get that?” Jake was half-standing, but I pulled him back onto the sofa and pushed myself onto my feet.

“No, I want to stand up and move around a little. I think I’m getting cramp again.” I walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“Ms Price. Emma. My name is DCI Stevenson. Carl Stevenson. Do you remember me?”

The sound of his voice burst a bubble inside me and all the air left my body. I deflated, feeling myself double over. The room seemed to collapse around me, narrowing into nothing but the rushing blood in my ears, and the narrow spot of light by the telephone.

“Yes, I remember you.” My voice was breathless, only slightly louder than a whisper. Of course I remembered him. I gulped in a breath before I said, “You were DI Stevenson then, though.”

My heart beat against my ribs. Der-dun-der-dun.

“That’s right.” He paused. “Emma, you need to come to St Michael’s Hospital as soon as you can.”

Der-dun-der-dun.

Breathless again. “Why?”

“Because I think we’ve found Aiden.”





4


I’ve spent my fair share of time disorientated in hospitals. When I was five, I came to visit my dying Granddad and wandered away to find a vending machine. A nurse found me curled in a corner with my arms wrapped around my knees, crying about the scary balloons that everyone carried. They were the fluid bags from their IV drips.

There was Aiden’s birth, sixteen years ago. The nurse kept telling me I was lucky to be such a young mum—at least I’d get my figure back. “Try having a kid when you’re forty,” she kept saying.

Then there was the car accident. Mum was in a coma for a week before passing, but Dad’s death had been instantaneous after he flew through the windscreen when the brakes failed on the M1. Their accident had caused a traffic jam of over three hours that day. Twitter had been filled with angry commuters lambasting my father’s death because it made them late for work. But I still remember negotiating those twists and turns around the hospital, failing to remember which ward the nurse said, or finding out that they’d moved her to a different ward. The abbreviations made my head spin. ICU. A&E. CPR. DNR.

The truth is that I was relieved when she finally passed. By that point the doctors were uncertain whether she would ever regain her mental faculties after the trauma she had suffered, and I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that Dad had died while she slept. At least this way they both slipped away together.

In just one moment, I lost my clever mother and my caring father. Like the moment I lost my curious son.

As I burst through the door into the paediatric ward in St Michael’s Hospital, a shiver ran down my spine and I knew in my heart that I had found my son. In one mere moment what had been lost was found again. Moments are what make this life, aren’t they? A life is built on moments; seconds passing by. Some seconds are fleeting—part of a silly dream, or chopping up vegetables, taking the rubbish out, trimming our nails. Some are not.