Saved by Their Miracle Baby

by Alison Roberts

  Normal...

  That had something to do with whatever nebulous feeling Noah had been aware of.

  A normal family?

  He was still pondering the odd mix of feelings the appointment had generated when he was walking beside Abby as they left the ultrasound section of St John’s X-ray department.

  He could feel a new—strong—connection to Abby now. A connection to the tiny being whose heart function he’d just been watching. His son. Abby was the mother of his son, which made them...a family.

  And families should be together if that was at all possible.

  He could make it possible. Only this morning, he’d been idly clicking through offerings on a real estate website as he’d eaten his breakfast and he’d come across a house that was not far away from where Lisa and Hugh lived. Abby’s extended family. A real house, not an apartment. With a garden that was big enough for a small child to have adventures in. He could make an appointment to view the house. He could take Abby with him to see what kind of changes would need to be made to make it wheelchair friendly. They could make it work. Couldn’t they?

  The doors of the lift slid shut after the only other person got out at the next floor.

  ‘Abby?’

  She tilted her head up, her eyebrows raised in a question mark.

  Noah took a deep breath. ‘I think we should get married.’

  * * *

  ‘Oh, my God... He asked you to marry him? Noah proposed to you?’

  ‘Not exactly. He said he thought we should get married. That he’d found a house not far from here where we could all live together happily ever after.’

  The ironic tone in Abby’s voice made Lisa’s heart sink. ‘So what did you say?’

  ‘Well...nothing right then. Someone else got into the lift. But we went for a walk outside. In that strip of park behind the hospital that’s got that creek running through it. I’ve never spent much time there because the paths aren’t great for wheels but it’s really quite pretty. There are daffodils out at the moment.’

  Lisa’s nod was impatient. ‘I don’t want to hear about the scenery...’ She adjusted baby Amy in her arms so that she could latch onto her other breast. ‘I want to know whether we’re planning for a wedding as well as a new baby in the family.’

  ‘No...’ Abby made it sound as if she’d asked an obviously stupid question. ‘Of course not.’

  Making sure Amy was latched on and sucking properly was a good excuse not to say anything for the moment. To weigh up whether she should say what was becoming an increasing concern to both herself and Hugh—that the change in Abby’s joie de vivre in recent weeks had more to do with Noah’s distance than adapting to a major life change or the inevitable challenges that motherhood was going to present.

  ‘We’re not a couple,’ she’d been telling them right from the start. ‘We’re just friends and it’s never going to be more than that. And, yeah, we’re having a baby together, but that makes it good that we’re friends. Better than being strangers or bitter divorcées, yes? Much easier, if you ask me.’

  But Lisa wasn’t so sure about that. Because she knew her sister.

  ‘Talk to me, hon,’ she said softly. ‘Is it such a bad idea to marry someone that you’re in love with?’

  Abby’s jaw dropped. ‘I never said I was in love with him.’

  ‘You didn’t need to.’ Lisa could feel the weight of the baby changing in her arms as Amy slid into sleep. She moved her daughter so that she was upright on her shoulder and began to rub her back. ‘I know what it feels like, remember? I was in love with Hugh and then we split up and I had worst weeks of my life. I tried to convince myself that I’d get over him. That it was partly because I was trying to get used to that new job and life would get back to normal eventually...and then you decided to sort things out.’

  ‘Ha...’ Abby shook her head. ‘You were such a misery guts I had to do something. It was painfully obvious that you needed to be with Hugh and when he turned up on the doorstep, it was just as obvious he felt the same way. So that was when we hatched the plan to get you somewhere irresistibly romantic so he could tell you how he felt and persuade you to spend the rest of your life with him.’

  ‘Maybe Noah feels the same way and he’s just not ready to admit it. It took Hugh some time to realise how much he was missing me.’

  Abby shook her head. ‘We talked about that. I said that having a baby together wasn’t a good enough reason to get married. That I couldn’t marry someone that wasn’t in love with me. And he said...’ Abby paused for a moment to clear her throat and take a new breath—as if she was fighting off tears. ‘He said that he couldn’t offer that. To anyone. Ever. That he believes that he’s not capable of feeling like that ever again but...but that he does care. A lot. That he would do his best to be a great husband. And father. That...um...friendship was actually a good base for any kind of long-term relationship and that maybe it would last longer than a lot of marriages.’ A sound that was halfway between a sob and laughter escaped. ‘Especially when the sex was great...’

  ‘Oh... Abby...’ A piece of Lisa’s heart was breaking. She’d only ever wanted happiness for her sister and Abby had tackled every challenge in her life with such determination and good humour. She so deserved to be in the happiest part of her life, like Lisa was. ‘It’s not enough, though, is it?’

  Abby shook her head. ‘It would be settling for something less than ideal, that’s for sure. I suspect it would eventually destroy whatever friendship we’ve got. We might end up hating each other.’

  Lisa’s sigh was heartfelt. ‘You deserve so much more than that. You need someone that’s going to totally adore you. Someone who can’t live without you any more than you want to live without him.’

  Abby nodded this time as a tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. ‘Like you and Hugh,’ she whispered. ‘But that’s never going to happen.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘But I do.’ Abby’s eyes were shimmering with more tears. ‘Because I can’t imagine feeling like this about anyone else. And it’s Noah’s baby that I’m having. No one else could ever be the real father.’

  Baby Amy chose that moment to release a loud burp and this time it was a genuine huff of laughter that came from Abby.

  ‘You said it, Amy.’ She was still smiling through her tears as she reached out. ‘Enough self-pity,’ she announced. ‘It’s time I had a cuddle. I haven’t even told you the most important thing that happened at that scan. We found out that Amy’s getting a boy cousin. I hope she doesn’t boss him around as much as you bossed me.’

  ‘I never bossed you. You were far too bolshie to let that happen.’

  Abby’s inelegant sniff advertised that her tears were done with. ‘Might have been better if I had let you be in charge, huh?’

  The reference to what had caused Abby’s disability in the first place—pulling her hand from her big sister’s grasp and running into traffic—was a reminder of so many other things. Like the guilt Lisa had always carried that had made it difficult to step back far enough for both the sisters to forge their own futures.

  But that had changed in the last couple of years. She had met and fallen in love with Hugh. Abby had embraced her independence and her life had been an inspiration for any young woman, disabled or not. But now she had met and fallen in love with Noah and was faced with a future as a single parent. What were the chances that Abby’s future could end up being as happy as Lisa’s?

  She handed over her baby. A cuddle was definitely what Abby needed. She just wished there was more she could do. She looked at her sister’s head bent over her niece and could imagine that she would look just like this in a few months, holding her own infant. Only she would be looking even more beautiful bathed in that unbelievable glow that came from nowhere as you held your own baby for the very first time. Surely that would melt wh
atever barriers Noah Baxter had around his heart if that was what was keeping him from giving Abby what she needed?

  Because broken hearts could heal. Sometimes, though, she knew it felt safer to leave the bandages on and the only way of finding out whether healing had occurred was if they got ripped off, but that wasn’t something that could be forced. It was generally up to fate as to whether it happened or it didn’t happen and usually you didn’t even see it coming because, if you did, you’d protect whatever it was that was safely cocooned beneath its bandages. It was only afterwards that you realised that it had happened.

  Like falling in love could be for people who’d been hurt in the past.

  Could seeing your baby be just as powerful?

  Lisa could only hope so. That it might prove to be powerful enough to be the miracle that could dissolve the barriers that were fragmenting Abby’s life.

  * * *

  Things were coming together.

  Slowly but surely.

  A bit like the surgery Noah was completing, the crick in his neck and having to blink away blurriness occasionally as he peered through the magnifying glasses, letting him know that he’d almost reached his limit for the precise and painstaking reattachment of nerves, blood vessels and tendons in the small hand on the table in front of him as he reattached the ends of two fingers that had been amputated by a door.

  The poor mother of this child had had no idea the three-year-old girl had poked her fingers into the crack and that, by opening the door further, she had caused the horrific damage. She was always going to feel guilty, even though it could never have been deliberate, but Noah could help by doing the best job he could in attaching the fingertips and children were amazing in the way they could heal. There would be scars, of course, but he was confident that, in years to come, the function of these tiny fingers would be just as good as if the accident had never happened.

  Would the mother’s guilt fade as well?

  Noah could strip off the headpiece as his registrars took over the splinting and bandaging of the hand and the anaesthetist began to reverse the anaesthetic. It was only then, as Noah could see things that weren’t magnified enough to let him work on precise structures that would have been invisible to the naked eye, that he realised what a beautiful child this little girl was, with her tumble of golden curls and dark lashes that lay on chubby, pink cheeks.

  Three years old.

  The age his own daughter would have been if she’d lived.

  Not that Noah let himself think of things like that for more than a microsecond. Or even let them become anything more that something that was registered in a deep part of his brain—like a newspaper headline when you had no intention of reading the article beneath. He knew how to cope. He simply focused on something else. Something immediate and real. It was a form of mindfulness that worked well.

  ‘Leave the tips of the fingers completely exposed,’ he told his registrar. ‘We need to be able to check the colour and temperature and capillary refill in the nail beds. Let’s top up the hand block as well. I don’t want her in too much pain when she wakes up. I’m going to go and talk to the parents.’

  Noah checked the wall clock as he left Theatre. He still had time to get to his appointment and then make it to his dinner date with Abby. Not that it was any kind of “date”, of course. They hadn’t even kissed since they’d found out about the pregnancy.

  It had taken months to even get to a point where friendship wasn’t strained and awkward but it was finally happening and Noah knew it had a lot to do with his modus operandi. The mindfulness of having a focus that was real. Palpable. Preferably with a time limit that meant it needed constant attention, like the huge project he’d taken on in the last few weeks when he’d finally taken possession of the house he’d purchased after Abby had refused to consider his offer of marriage.

  ‘You don’t have to live in it,’ he’d told her. ‘But we’re going to be co-parenting and I want you to be able to visit comfortably so I need your input for the changes that need to be made. I need the name of the architect you used to renovate your apartment, too, because I want this house to feel like that. Like...home...’

  The appointment this evening was to get the plans the architect had drawn up and then it was his turn to provide dinner at Abby’s place. He’d found a new range of ready-made meals and it felt good to be tapping back into something that had given them another connection in the first place. A block that was the same but different and one that might fill another gap in the foundation of the friendship they were rebuilding.

  It was also something so tangible it could be tasted, which made it as good as the paper plans they would have to focus on to discuss. It wasn’t that he was trying to avoid emotional involvement or anything, it was just being practical. Being positive and taking one step after another into the future without letting something get in the way—like being dragged back into a past that no longer existed.

  Like concentrating on being able to see those tiny fingertips that needed to heal instead of thinking about a little girl who had never had the chance to grow up. Planning practical changes to a house so that someone in a wheelchair could navigate easily between rooms and even floors, and not think of how different things could have been if his life had stayed on track. Supplying a meal that would hopefully tempt Abby to eat properly because she’d been looking a bit too pale and tired when he’d seen her in the hand clinic a couple of days ago.

  He’d waited until Steve had shown him just how much progress he was making with his new thumb and had shared the exciting news that he was starting work again next week, but when he’d left her office, Abby had brushed off his concerns by telling him she was fine. She always said that, though, didn’t she? Abby was more of a master than he was in finding positive things to focus on and facing any twists and turns in her life with the kind of courage he wished he had in such abundance. It was one of the things he admired so much about her but it could be a barrier as well.

  He had the distinct feeling there were things going on that she simply didn’t want to talk about but he was hardly in a position to expect more when they were still finding their feet in a new relationship. A friendship without the “benefits”. Two people that needed to find a way of being able to be parents together when the changes were derailing the lives they had both been living.

  But it felt like things were finally coming together.

  Maybe tonight they could find their way back to a level where they could really talk about things. The way they had that night, which seemed for ever ago, when they’d both talked about how they didn’t think it would be possible for them to make love to anyone.

  That was ironic enough to make Noah smile but there was sadness mixed in with the amusement. Life could change in a heartbeat, couldn’t it? With a trip on a staircase. Or a kiss that just made you want more. That gave you a glimpse of everything you’d ever wanted but knew you couldn’t have any more.

  Oh...man...

  Sometimes the mindfulness thing didn’t work so well. It was just as well he could see his young patient’s parents in the relatives’ room outside Theatre now. And they’d seen him. They were on their feet and they looked terrified.

  His smile was reassuring this time, with no hint of any sadness.

  ‘Good news,’ were his first words. ‘It’s all gone just as well as we could have hoped.’

  * * *

  ‘He’s thought of everything.’

  Noah’s smile was bright enough to be almost a beam but Abby couldn’t return it with anything like such enthusiasm. She was getting used to the way the elephant in the room could be ignored and she knew that Noah was only looking this happy because he had something to talk about that had nothing to do with the baby.

  ‘Look at this. Lowered workspaces in the kitchen and laundry.’

  ‘You’re over six feet tall, Noah. You should be h
aving your workspaces raised, not lowered. I hope you realise that I’m not planning to come over and do your laundry anytime soon.’

  Oh, dear... Abby knew she sounded tetchy but, dammit, she was feeling tetchy this evening. It wasn’t so much the elephant in the corner of the room right now—it was more that elephant that was pressing on her bladder.

  ‘Excuse me... I need to go to the loo.’

  It was the second time she had ducked off to the bathroom since Noah had arrived and taken over, putting the foil-covered boxes from the latest gourmet ready-made meal service he had discovered into the oven and then spreading the architect’s detailed plans all over the kitchen table.

  The worst thing was that this house that Noah was about to spend a fortune on to make wheelchair friendly was a smaller version of the rural mansion that Lisa and Hugh lived in. A perfect family home. The kind Abby would have dreamed of living in, if things were different.

  But they weren’t different. Okay, she and Noah might be in a better space now, having had more than three months to get used to the idea of becoming parents, but they were never going to recapture the kind of connection that they’d found when their friendship had begun. By the time she came back from the bathroom, Noah’s smile had vanished completely and she could tell he was treading carefully again.

  ‘I don’t expect you to do any laundry,’ he told her. ‘I’m quite happy to have a housekeeper available but I’m just thinking of the future. I don’t expect you to give up a career you love and I certainly don’t want to give up mine.’

  ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with the height of worktops in your house.’

  ‘What if I want to go to a conference sometime? And it’s your turn to do the childcare but it’s better to be at my house because it’s closer to his school or he’s got a hut in the garden that he likes to play in. And he gets muddy and you want to throw his clothes in the wash. Or cook him dinner.’