The Daughter in Law

by Nina Manning

  Just remembering the way things were for me as such a young girl, I wept for myself now. I could feel the baby was close to arriving. The pressure was building down below. I knew that feeling too well. I didn’t know if I was ready to go through it again.

  But I knew I had and even after everything I had said to Ben and how much I hated him for deserting me, for not calling or texting and for not being here, right now in these last weeks when I needed him the most, he was all I could think of. He was all I ever wanted and needed.

  As I clung to myself on the bed, I let the raw emotions fall out of me and tried to let the natural process of crying temporarily heal me.

  Annie

  I could hear the crying through the ceiling. Once or twice I hovered by the door listening. But I knew it couldn’t go on forever. It wasn’t good for the baby for a start and besides, I couldn’t abide the relentless whimpering.

  I prepared a simple snack of milk and breadsticks for her. She was still sobbing when I went in. She didn’t turn. I laid the tray down next to the bed and perched myself on the edge. I put a hand reluctantly on her quivering leg.

  ‘Daisy. This isn’t good for you or the baby. I can’t say I’m not sad too. I feel as though I have lost a son. But we just have to deal with it and get on with it for the sake of the baby.’ I let those first words soak in and waited to see if they had taken any effect before I continued. Her leg stopped quivering under the weight of my touch.

  ‘I have brought you a snack. You’ve not eaten all day. I’ve brought you something to take the edge off. I know you don’t want to take the tablets anymore. I know how much you favour a holistic lifestyle, but they might be necessary. Well, they are necessary. But for now, why don’t you sit up and have a nibble on something?’ I waited patiently for several minutes before Daisy finally turned and sat up. The mound of her stomach peeped out under her T-shirt.

  Daisy’s face was red and blotchy, her eyes puffed out.

  ‘I know… I know I need to take the tablets,’ she said between gulps. ‘I don’t think I was ever well enough. Even before Eve and Ben.’

  ‘I know, dear, I know.’ I patted her leg. I could feel the relief sweep through me. Finally she was succumbing. ‘It won’t be forever. It’s just for the safety of the baby. You have a lot of responsibility for that unborn child. If your emotions are all over the place, you aren’t really responsible for yourself. You just need a little help. That’s all.’

  She nodded compliantly as she took the plate from my hand and began nibbling lightly on the breadsticks.

  I then handed her the tablets. ‘That will help you sleep. Although you must be exhausted.’

  She just nodded this time.

  I tried to conceal my thrill at her compliance.

  Daisy raised her head and looked at me sorrowfully. She forced herself to swallow the breadstick which looked positively painful and pulled her face into a weak smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered so quietly it was barely audible. But I knew she was grateful, that poor pathetic girl only had me. There wasn’t one soul left in the world who cared about her.

  I didn’t feel any sorrow for her as I left her in the room that night – although I made sure that all sharp objects were removed from her room and the bathroom, just to be on the safe side.

  I had been where Daisy was. I had felt the utter hopelessness at life, over and over again the world had punished me.

  In the end, we get what we need, not what we want.

  Daisy

  From that day on I stopped fighting. I allowed Annie to run things the way she wanted. She was right. Back then when I was just a fifteen-year-old kid, I took full responsibility for my part. Callum took his responsibility and paid the ultimate price in many ways too, but I bore the brunt of the guilt. I had so many more emotions that tormented me for years afterwards. That still tormented me to this day.

  After Callum’s wife found us, I took a week off school then I asked my mum if I could go back. I wasn’t desperate to get back to classes, or face the torrent of subtle micro aggression that would seep from the mouths of those girls I had considered to be my friends a mere few days earlier. Nor was I in in any hurry to face the condescending look and tone of the teachers who would try and conceal their disgust but would always see a minor, a young girl who had had sex with the bloke they shared the staff room with. But to stay at home and be tortured by the look from my mother, who felt I had failed her in so many ways already, was the worse of the two evils.

  But despite my contesting, my parents, whom I had never seen more united on any topic, told me I would never be returning to that school. If at the time I felt as if my life was completely ruined and that it was my punishment, then it was only because I had yet to discover what true misery felt like.

  The first week after I left school for good, I missed Callum so much it became a permanent pain in my chest, rising into my throat and making it difficult to breathe. I couldn’t think of anything or anyone else. He filled my every thought in my waking moment and haunted every dream. I couldn’t be rid of him. I walked around the house feeling much like a spare part and endured the looks of disappointment from each of my parents if I would happen upon them on the stairway or coming out of the bathroom. If they were feeling particularly hard done by that day, they would ignore me altogether.

  Of course, I had no idea what it was I needed or was craving from them; I was a mere child being treated like an incompetent adult.

  To compensate for their lack of affection I ate more than I should have done and I became quickly podgy. I was never interested in sports. That came later. My puppy fat and their constant dismissal of me was how I managed to get away with it. I was barely touched by either of my parents prior to my disgracing them, but after Callum there was certainly no hint at them wanting to be near me, embrace me or comfort me, so they would never have felt the slow gentle swelling beneath my clothes. Only I interpreted the missed periods, the sickness, the tiredness and eventually my abdomen taking shape into a small perfect round neat bump, to be a pregnancy. A baby made by Callum and me.

  Whilst there were odd uttered words to me about food that needed to be eaten or waiting in to receive a package for them, there was no real interaction. They could barely even look at me. So I began to take all my meals in my room and spend most of my time in there. They didn’t seem to mind. In fact they were relieved that I was out of their hair but not getting into any trouble. To them, the teenage body and brain was a minefield so the chaos and confusion that a young hormonal woman brought to the house was finally removed. They could almost go back to how things were before I accidently came along.

  When the small matter of me going into labour occurred, I admitted myself into the local hospital, and revealed my stomach to a quiet and compliant nurse who ushered me into the labour ward.

  I knew I would have to share this with my parents eventually but so far I had made little connection to the baby, instead pretending for all those months that it wasn’t happening. The midwife, Heidi, looked after me like I was her own child. She stayed by my side for those sixteen hours and when I pushed out the little girl, Heidi congratulated me as though I had won a gold medal at the Olympics.

  Of course, my parents had to be informed and when my mother arrived at the hospital, she was flushed and frantic. This was all mainly due to the horror that she hadn’t even had one inkling that I was pregnant. Heidi tried to congratulate me further in front of my mum, but it fell on deaf ears. She was quiet for some time, she even spent a few moments gazing at the little girl and holding her tiny hand as she slept, but once she had got over the shock she went straight into practical mode, dictating to me the exact process that would ensue over the next few days.

  Once it was done, no one would ever need know.

  The most important thing my mother needed me to realise was that Callum was never to know. This was not to get out to him. I suppose secretly a part of me had imagined a life with Callum, me and th
e baby all snug. Of course, I had revealed his name and the circumstances to Heidi in the throngs of labour, this burly woman who had a penchant for a few gin and tonics on a Friday night and an incompetence for respecting patient confidentiality.

  Two days later the home phone rang and it was Callum.

  Annie

  I knew everything. The way she had destroyed that poor family’s life. Wasted lives everywhere… who knew where Daisy’s daughter was now, or the man, the teacher? As for the wife… All of it was pure tragedy, caused by the mind of one young callous girl.

  I knew everything about her and I showed it all to my son. I told him his wife was not the woman he thought she was. This was the same girl I now treated like china, trying to protect the growing foetus inside her.

  Just as she had done before, she was carrying the baby in a completely healthy way. Some people just had the knack of it and some days I couldn’t hide my irritation.

  I knew she had concealed that first pregnancy from her parents and she had carried that baby to full term, without one complication. The papers peppered their reports of the seedy love affair with these seemingly irrelevant facts, even risking printing a photo of her. It caused such an outrage at the time, but it made for a much more enticing read and to then hear about the lengths a young Daisy went to conceal the entire affair from start to finish. Even risking her own and the baby’s lives by hiding her pregnancy. In some parts it clearly painted her as the malicious character I knew she was.

  And to think that my son didn’t have a clue about what dirty little secrets she was hiding when he married her.

  The role of a grandmother is to nurture the grandchild as if it was their own and in many cases be the go-to proxy parent when the actual parent is absent in body or mind.

  I knew Daisy was slowly losing her mind. She was a shadow of the girl she was when she arrived here at the beach house that day with my son in tow wearing those red high heels. She had already married my son without meeting me let alone considering I might have been inclined to witness the matrimony between my one and only son and his chosen life partner.

  Now she was more inhibited, flinched when I entered the room, and seemed to retreat into herself. I was there to protect her body, make sure she was fit enough to carry the child. I had bought a blood pressure machine online and took her reading daily. I ensured she took her iron supplements and vitamins every day.

  I found her this morning sitting in the lounge soaking up the warmth of the rays through the window

  ‘Why don’t you just get outside?’ I said feeling the agitation in my voice. The sight of her just sitting there was enough to rile me up. Sometimes I thought I was almost looking forward to seeing her in immense pain. Daisy barely looked up at me. The conversations were few and far between these days. We were both aware that I knew everything about her sordid past.

  The baby could be here within days. But there wasn’t anything I didn’t now know about pregnancy, labour and newborns. I felt almost like a professional midwife. It wasn’t going to be long now and I would finally be holding the child I had been waiting for.

  Daisy

  He only called me the once when I was back at home, and luckily both my parents were out, but I don’t suppose that would have bothered him. He was beside himself, one minute throwing accusations at me the next crying over the baby.

  After the phone call with Callum ended, I never saw or heard from him again.

  I was on the brink of turning sixteen and I had just given birth. I stayed at the hospital for two nights so they could monitor me, then the social services came and took her away.

  Looking back, I suppose I could have fought harder for her. I allowed my mother, the woman who never showed me any compassion or true unconditional love, to convince me to give away my daughter. Whilst I may not have known it then, just having her with me for a mere few days was worse than letting her go without ever laying eyes on her.

  It was only when the milk that was meant for her, to nurture her and protect her, filled my breasts and leaked out uncontrollably with nowhere to go, did I feel like the world had slipped beneath my feet. My mother made an extra effort to give me as much space as possible. She was there for the practicalities, dropping painkillers at my bedside several times a day. But I was lost, my mind a whirlwind of emotions.

  The midwife, Heidi, who betrayed my trust, but who knew I wouldn’t be keeping the baby, warned me not to name her.

  But I did. To me, she was Alice.

  I thought about Alice every day. What she looked like, what she sounded like, how she’d be soothed when she cried. But I signed her life over to complete strangers and vowed never to seek her out.

  Back at home, Dad busied himself straight away with work and was rarely seen and mum carried on as though I was recovering from a sprained wrist.

  I turned sixteen. A milestone some parents may celebrate generously but I stumbled upon a few badly wrapped presents on the kitchen table and I opened them with no one around me to wish me a happy birthday.

  Those few days after she left, I felt that pull, that longing, like a constant feeling that I had forgotten to do something, there was always this nagging feeling. It never really went away.

  ‘Hormones,’ my mum told me when I tried to explain it to her.

  Of course I would get over the baby. She was never really mine in the first place. Mum said with a high tone that she presumed would ease me.

  But that wasn’t how I felt at all. I felt she did belong to me and that she was taken from me without my proper consent. I was backed into a corner by agencies and authorities and my parents. But they neglected to realise that she was a part of me and would forever be so. I would never forget her. And I would always be tortured by her absence in my life.

  Weeks went by and the pain lifted only enough so I could function. Mum found me a job at the local leisure centre mopping the changing rooms and clearing out the lost property. That was what got me interested in fitness. I used to stand and watch the classes through the glass. Realising I was never going to go back to school, I applied for a diploma in fitness and nutrition at the college and got accepted for the following year. But just as I felt that there might be some sort of hope for me, I read a headline in the local paper.

  Teacher’s wife commits suicide over affair with pupil.

  I didn’t even need to read the article to know it was Callum’s wife.

  After I left home to go to university, paid for with a loan I’m still paying back, I received a letter from my parents telling me they were immigrating to Australia. They gave me a forwarding address for practicalities, but what was missing from the letter was the part that told me I would be welcome anytime.

  Thinking back to those days when I was a mother for merely a moment, it seemed obvious that I would become submissive once again when all my choices were removed. Here I sat in the third trimester of pregnancy, with just days to go, and I only had Annie. This time there would be no parents with their unforgiving looks of distain. I had never planned for a next time, but once I knew I was pregnant with Ben’s baby, I thought we’d do this together. But then could I blame him for running hundreds of miles away? I practically accused him of killing my best friend. No one takes that level of accusation lightly. I knew he wasn’t close to Annie, not in the way she tried so desperately to portray. Why would he want to stick around? What was there to stay for? I had, once again, managed to lose one of the most precious things in my life. I watched him go without a second glance. I felt that momentary pull. That familiar pang as he walked out of the door. Go after him, Daisy.

  Bring him back.

  Take your baby out of the hands of those strangers.

  Don’t let the most beautiful thing you have ever created be taken away.

  Don’t let Eve leave.

  I ignored it.

  The instinct.

  The pull.

  I let her go.

  I lost her.

  I’d lost him.
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br />   That night as I lay down to sleep, I listened to the low clanking sound of Annie downstairs as she washed up the dishes from dinner. I allowed myself to tune into the chiming of the pipes, the rhythmic sound that was now so familiar it didn’t alarm me, but almost brought me comfort at a time when very little could.

  I fell into a deep sleep that night and dreamt about giving birth at the beach house. I was outside in the dark and the cold, the labour was quick and painless.

  The baby fell out of me and was swept out to sea.

  The baby was Alice.

  Annie

  I woke with a start as though someone had shaken me violently. I jumped out of bed and almost ran to her room. I poked my head around the door and found her still sleeping. It was not yet 6 a.m.

  She was almost ready to have the baby. There was no way of telling without scans and knowing all her dates, and I had no desire to know about the exact day she conceived with my son.

  However, I had a feeling today would be the day that Daisy would go into labour. I had been watching her last night as she struggled with every step, stopping and bending over with the weight of the baby low in her pelvis.

  It was a strange day all in all. It felt like a day of new beginnings in many ways. Watching Daisy last night and knowing she was so close to delivering, I decided that it was time to let Ben go. Neither Daisy nor I had been in contact with him for such a long time and I knew deep down that he had made his decision. If Ben truly wanted to be a part of my life he would be here with us now. But I knew my son and, regardless of everything I had done to raise that boy well, he had thrown it back in my face. And for that I could never forgive him.