The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside

by Jessica Ryn

  It doesn’t matter in the end; she doesn’t have time to say anything before she’s pushing again.

  ‘Shit,’ she gasps when her contraction has ramped right back up. Dawn can feel a sudden burning down below and the pressure in her bottom is overwhelming.

  ‘What. What?’ Rob screeches, frantically pulling at her arm.

  ‘You are going to have to get my trousers off,’ she whispers, barely audibly. ‘The baby’s head is right there.’

  ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ she manages to say before she has to push again. Somehow Rob manages to wrestle her black Mark One trousers down to her ankles and actually screams when he sees what Dawn can feel between her legs.

  ‘Dawn, half the head’s out. I can see the nose… and its top lip.’

  ‘You. Need. To. Call. An. Ambulance.’ Dawn forces the words through the gaps in her panting. Even through the panic, the pain and the knowledge that the baby’s head had been in that position too long already without the chin popping out yet, she still wants to have a go at Rob for calling their baby ‘it’.

  ‘But I can’t leave you on your own,’ he wails. ‘The phone’s all the way out there.’

  ‘Do it. Now. Now, Rob,’ she says through gritted teeth.

  After Rob flees from the room, Dawn places one foot up on the side of the bath as she’d encouraged other women to do when their babies’ shoulders were stuck in the birth canal behind the pelvises of their mothers. She cups her hand gently over the damp curls of her baby’s head and pants like a mad woman. An almighty contraction takes over her entire body and she cries out, keeping her hands ready beneath herself to catch her.

  Nothing happens.

  ‘Rob!’ Dawn screams. She gingerly places her foot back on the floor before lowering herself to it. ‘I’m going to lie flat on my back,’ she tells him as he bursts back into the room. ‘Then I need you to pull my knees right back to give the baby more room. She needs to come out and she needs to come out with this contraction. Do you understand?’

  Rob has gone a strange shade of green. ‘No. No, I don’t understand any of it. What the hell is happening?’ he shouts through tears.

  ‘Calm the hell down, Rob, and hold my knee,’ Dawn says through gritted teeth.

  Rob looks around helplessly before nodding and grabbing the underside of Dawn’s knees. ‘Please say you’re going to be okay. I’d die if anything happened to you,’ he sobs. ‘An ambulance is on its way. They wanted me to stay on the phone but then you called.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. We can do this,’ Dawn says as much to herself as to him. She closes her eyes tight and waits for the next contraction. She doesn’t have to wait long. The new position has worked and as she pushes down, she feels her slide out. The pain is astronomical, but all Dawn can think about is her baby.

  ‘Pass her to me,’ she demands through her constricted throat, incredulous that Rob is holding their baby out in front of him like a football. Rob places her, face up on the lino, and scoots backwards until his back meets the wall and pushes into it as if wanting to go right through it and get far, far away. His face is the colour of fag ash and he won’t look at Dawn, just at the child in front of them. The child who remains blue and very still.

  To begin with, Dawn hadn’t wanted to let Rosie go. The relief when she’d taken her first cry after Dawn had scooped her from the floor and rubbed her hard with their soft Debenhams towel had carried her through the first two days. She’d kept her close, smelled her hair and thanked God for keeping her safe. Dawn had barely let anyone near her, not even Rob. Especially not Rob.

  Last night, though, Dawn had slept for hours. She gasps when she sees the time on the digital alarm clock on the bedside table. Day three of being a mum and she’s already slept in. She looks immediately to the space on her right where the Moses basket should be and she jolts when it’s not there. She’ll be fine. She’s with Rob. She’ll be fine, she repeats to herself.

  Dawn climbs out of bed and pulls on her jogging bottoms. She moves gingerly to the living room; her stitches still stinging as she walks, and heads straight to the Moses basket. She looks into the face of her baby. She takes in her bright eyes, her button nose, her adorable mouth.

  She sees nothing of Rob.

  Rosie starts kicking her legs. Pick me up, Mummy. Play with me. Hold me in your arms.

  Dawn touches her baby’s face with tenderness. She brushes her hand over Rosie’s hair and pulls it away again as if burned.

  Rosie’s hair is turning red.

  ‘See? She just wants her mummy.’

  Dawn stays quiet. Nausea fills every part of her insides as the last nine months tear themselves into shreds like cheap ribbon in front of her eyes.

  ‘Dawn? Earth to Dawn? I know you’re still tired, but just pick her up, can’t you? She wants you.’

  The door buzzer smashes through the silence. Rob gives Dawn a puzzled look and goes to answer the door, leaving Dawn alone with Rosie.

  He’s going to know. He’s going to see.

  ‘Where’s my favourite two ladies?’ Dawn’s best friend of three years sings out as she runs up the stairs and into the flat. Her bracelets jangle as she rushes into the living room, her long braids piled high on her head.

  ‘I’m here to do your post-natal check. Oh, yes I am,’ Mel coos into the Moses basket. ‘And how is Mummy doing?’ she turns around to face Dawn.

  Dawn looks out of the window. Mel knows her better than anyone, even Rob. If Rob doesn’t work out something is wrong, Mel certainly will. Dawn and Mel had trained and lived together at uni, experiencing the highs and lows of midwifery and recounting birth stories each morning over their toast and marmalade. Mel had been there when her mum died and her eyes tell her she’ll be there again now, if only Dawn will let her.

  ‘Mum and baby both doing well,’ Rob answers when it’s clear Dawn isn’t going to. ‘Rosie’s got a bit of a rash on her leg, though, if you could take a look?’

  Mel picks the baby up and walks her towards the window, inspecting her tiny leg in natural sunlight. ‘Looks like a touch of heat rash. Nothing serious. Perhaps just take one layer off. Generally, babies only need one more layer of clothing that we have on in the same conditions.’

  Dawn already knows this. She’s told countless women the same thing. Why is Mel speaking to them as if they don’t know how to look after their own child? Perhaps it’s a good thing that Mel is leaving to work overseas in a few weeks. Maybe she’ll take her patronising advice and judgey eyes with her.

  ‘She’s beautiful. And content. Looks like you’re both doing an excellent job.’ Mel lifts Rosie into the air and beams up at her.

  Of course Mel’s not judging her. She’s Dawn’s best friend. Where are these thoughts coming from? Dawn watches Rob and Mel as they chat about on-demand feeding and smile at the tiny red-haired baby. They look so normal. Mel by the window. Rob now holding Rosie.

  How could they not see what was happening? Why couldn’t they hear the noise that was inside her head? The voices. The threats. The accusations. The sudden knowledge that there’s only one way to silence them.

  ‘She isn’t yours,’ she says.

  ‘What the hell has got into you?’ Rob frowns as he carefully lays Rosie back down in her crib.

  Mel had made her excuses right after Dawn’s shock announcement and told them she’ll be back later.

  ‘I mean, why would you say something like that?’ Rob strides towards Dawn and crouches down in front of the armchair, taking both her hands in his. ‘I know you’ve been through a lot with the birth and stuff, but why say something so terrible just to hurt me? This isn’t like you.’ His eyes are full of concern and disbelief.

  ‘I’m not trying to hurt you,’ Dawn says, letting the words come out in slow motion. ‘I’m telling you the truth. She isn’t yours.’

  Dawn pulls her hands away from Rob and grabs onto the corner of the cushion on her lap. She holds in a breath, trying to slow her heart rate.r />
  Rob falls backwards from his crouching position and the floor vibrates under Dawn’s feet. He pulls at the collar of his T-shirt as if loosening a noose from around his throat and lets out a guttural sound that sits somewhere between a sob and a gasp for air.

  ‘It was the night me and the girls went out for my birthday.’ Tears pool in Dawn’s eyes and she blinks them away. Rob doesn’t need her tears; he needs the truth. She opens her mouth to tell. To explain, but the words get lodged in her throat.

  Tell anyone about this, and I will kill you. She can still see the outline of the man’s blurred face but can never make out his features, just the red hair.

  Rob stands to his feet and towers over her. ‘How could you be so bloody selfish. Stupid. Cruel,’ he hisses into her ear through gritted teeth. ‘You let me think she was mine – you let me marry you. What was I even thinking, getting married at twenty bloody years old?’

  He turns his back on Dawn and storms towards the table, landing a punch on the wall beside it.

  Rosie starts to cry.

  ‘And what were you even thinking that night? I just wasn’t enough for you, eh?’ He shifts back around, blood flooding to his face, both hands twisted into tight fists.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Dawn whispers.

  ‘Who was it? Actually no, scratch that, I don’t want to know.’ Rob holds both hands in the air, palms facing Dawn. ‘The fact of the matter is, you lied. For nine months, Dawn, nine. I can’t trust another word that comes out of your lying mouth.’

  ‘I don’t know who it was.’

  Rob flinches as if he’s been slapped. He picks up the mug of cold coffee from the table and gulps from it, turning around to face the window. ‘There’s been that many? Or just the one stranger whose name you didn’t think to ask?’

  Bile rises inside her. ‘I can’t remember much,’ she says, her voice hoarse with trying not to cry.

  ‘So, you were drunk? That is not an excuse.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’ Dawn shakes her head, trying to force her thoughts into place.

  And it hadn’t been. She had been drinking. But not a lot, she never did. She’d certainly never blacked out before. Not like that. Dawn gulps down some air and holds her head in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees. One minute she’d been having a drink in the bar, and the next… The tears fall, one after the other as she lets herself remember.

  Waking up on the floor of toilet cubicle had not been on the itinerary for her birthday night out. Things like that weren’t meant to happen in the nice bars. The wall tiles were clean and shiny. The door handles looked expensive. The overwhelming patchouli and lavender fragrance of high-end soap had got right down her throat, making her retch over the basin. The back of her head felt bruised and she tried to blink away the pictures in her mind. The man with the red hair. Her absolute lack of control over her own body. The numbness of her limbs.

  Tell anyone about this, and I will kill you, he’d hissed.

  The cleaner was scrubbing the sinks when Dawn emerged from the toilet cubicle. ‘I think I was spiked,’ she blurted out to him, fog thickening inside her head and between her words. ‘I would never have let him… touch me.’ A sob fell out and her throat felt sore and scratched. This man will know what to do, she thought. He’d help her find her friends and Mel will take her to the police, the hospital.

  ‘Pftt. How very convenient.’ The cleaner rolled his eyes at her in the mirror. ‘In my day when girls got paralytic and had sex with strangers in public toilets, they didn’t stand around looking for someone else to blame.’

  The words hit Dawn like a blow to the stomach. Was that what people would think? Had it been her fault? She blinks hard, trying to slow the spinning room, trying to remember how she’d got to the toilet cubicle in the first place.

  She stumbled through the empty club and out through the double doors into the cold night air.

  ‘Dawn! What the actual hell? Where have you been – I was just about to call Rob to see if you’d gone to his place. You weren’t answering your phone. We were so worried.’ Mel squeezed her phone back into her tiny handbag that was as blurred at the edges as everything else was.

  Through her wobbly vision, Dawn could see that Amy had her tongue down some guy’s throat, Claire was tucking into a bag of chips and everyone else they’d come out with must have gone home. Not everyone was worried, then.

  Dawn tried to grab hold of Mel’s arm. She missed the first time and then dropped it the second; her fingers were numb and clumsy. ‘I need to tell you something.’ A large van beeped as it thundered past, and Dawn jolted back, her heart hammering. Mel’s face and everything in her vision melted into strange shapes. All she could hear over and over were his words.

  Tell anyone about this, and I will kill you.

  She’d been foolish to tell a stranger. What if he had heard her? Could he hear her now? She mustn’t tell anyone else. Too risky. And what if she told someone and they looked at her like that cleaner had?

  She’d gone home, propped up by Mel and spent the next day wrapped in a duvet. Then somehow, she got out of bed, went to work and carried on with her week. It was amazing what the human brain could forget. For a little while, at least. Five weeks later, she found herself staring at a piss-soaked stick; two pink lines burning into her eyes.

  It would be Rob’s child, of course it would be Rob’s. A tiny person; half her, half Rob. What could be more perfect?

  Rob had been thrilled after the initial shock. Two days later he’d proposed and she’d accepted with shining eyes, laughing about how old-fashioned he was.

  Neither of them are laughing now.

  Chapter 28

  THEN

  Dawn

  DAWN HAS BEEN A mother for ten whole days and six hours. She’d spent the last five days in bed. Not asleep. Closing her eyes is too painful; all she can see is Rob’s face as he packed his suitcase. His gut-wrenching sobs as he said goodbye to Rosie.

  ‘I just can’t,’ he’d said through his tears. ‘I can’t stay. Can’t bring up some stranger’s child who you cheated on me with. Too many people have lied to me before, and I’ve let them get away with it. It ends now.’ Bitterness had leaked from his voice and filled the room with a sense of doom that hasn’t yet gone away.

  Dawn should have told him the whole truth. But she couldn’t put Rosie in danger. What if the man with the red hair came after her? Does he know, wherever he is, that his baby is in this flat? Would he come for her?

  After Rob left, the hours had blurred together and telling the difference between night and day became harder. Dawn clutched the duvet like a shield against Rosie’s cries and the sharp, unwanted flashes that stabbed their way into her mind. The toilet floor, the shame she carried in her gut as she pulled herself up, the cleaner’s face.

  The man’s red hair. Rosie’s red hair.

  It’s a relief to be left alone again in her room. Mel has finally left after spending twenty minutes having a go at her for keeping her dressing gown on for nine days straight.

  ‘And this flat stinks,’ she’d said. ‘Get dressed and I’ll open some windows. Maybe we could even go for a walk. It’ll do you good.’

  Ha. A walk. She’s funny. How could Dawn ever do something that takes the kind of strength required to put one foot in front of the other in a public place? It takes her hours to force herself to throw off the duvet and walk to the bathroom when she has to pee. Even then she tries to time it so that she doesn’t have to see Mel or the baby. Mel has been camping in the living room since Rosie was three days old and it’s become easier and easier to just leave her to it until she can hardly bear Mel to be in the same room as her. She doesn’t think she could stand the blame that she knows must get lodged in her eyes whenever she looks at Dawn. Blame that tells her she’s failed royally as a mother. Blame because Mel’s exhausted from doing every night feed for the past week. Perhaps it’s not even Mel she doesn’t want to look at. Perhaps it’s her.

&n
bsp; A few nights ago, Dawn had actually wished, just for a moment, that she hadn’t even ever been pregnant. What kind of mother did that make her? She’d kept her smile frozen in place and posed with Rosie as Mel took about a hundred photos.

  As soon as Mel had put the camera down, Dawn handed Rosie to her. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she’d announced, her voice as flat as her mood. ‘I don’t think I can do this anymore today. Not sure I can do it at all.’

  She hadn’t even looked behind her to see Mel’s reaction, she just let the bedroom door bang shut behind her before sinking into her bed. Dawn hadn’t realised it would be one of the last full sentences she’d say to anyone for several days. She’d assumed that she’d feel normal again after a decent night’s sleep.

  She’d been wrong.

  The last week has passed in a blur. Most days, Dawn barely moves from the bed and instead just sleeps and sleeps. That way, she can stay safe in that other place; the place away from Rosie. Away from Mel and her accusing eyes. She begins to lose all sense of time and her memory starts to play sneaky tricks on her.

  One morning, she wakes up to sunshine streaming in through the window. There’s a lightness to her brain and she gets all the way out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom to brush her teeth before she remembers that she’d ever even been pregnant, let alone birthed a child. She spits out the toothpaste and goes straight back to bed.

  It feels like days before she sees Mel again. She opens her eyes to see her sitting on the edge of the bed; her shoulders heaving, her body wracked with sobs.

  ‘What is it?’ Dawn asks eventually, forcing herself to lift an arm and place it across Mel’s back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says after several seconds. ‘I’ll try harder. You shouldn’t have to do all this. I’m her mum.’ Dawn heaves herself out of bed and re-ties her dressing gown.

  ‘I want to keep helping, I really do,’ Mel says. ‘But I’ve used up all my leave from work, and there’s only a couple of weeks before I have to leave for India.’