‘Think about how it makes her feel, knowing you want to keep this one.’ He shook his head as if tossing away bad thoughts.
Kate rubbed a hand over her face. ‘I thought I had a second chance to try again at being a mother, but maybe I’m kidding myself.’ She didn’t want to cry, but tears were building behind her eyes. ‘What about you? You were ready to walk out on me the moment you found out I was expecting. Have you told her that?’
‘That’s not the same at all.’
‘Isn’t it?’ She climbed out of the covers, onto her knees.
He made a move to go.
‘Listen to me, please,’ she said grabbing his sleeve, ‘as time went on, as she got older, I imagined she wouldn’t want to know me anyway.’
‘Stop this, will you? Can you hear yourself?’ He shook her hand off him. ‘You’re full of excuses. And what about this fifteen grand hush money?’
‘He asked for double that – for my contribution to Frankie’s upbringing and her wedding next year. It’s out of my own savings.’
‘That’s not the point though, is it?’ he said through clenched teeth, nostrils flaring.
She was losing him, right in front of her eyes.
‘Paul was already getting money from my dad every month for years. Mum and I had no idea about it.’
‘Was he now?’
‘Yes, three hundred and fifty a month. It’s eaten up most of her savings. Look, I know I’m not perfect, but tell me how I’m meant to be a better mother than my own? Do you know she left me on a train once when I was five years old? She went to buy a magazine from a kiosk, but the train started to pull out of the station. I couldn’t see her anywhere. I thought she’d abandoned me. I thought I’d never see her again. Then I saw her trotting along the platform, waving to the guard and they stopped the train. Do you know what the worst thing was? She didn’t realise how petrified I’d been. She didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. All I wanted was to be a better mother than that, but I found it so, so hard. I was useless, just like her.’
‘You would never have done anything so thoughtless.’ His tone softened.
She touched the sheet next to her. ‘Please come and sit with me.’
‘I’m not staying.’
‘How’s Mum? She’ll be wondering why I’ve not been to visit.’
‘She’s improving. I rang and left a message, asked them to tell her you’re not well.’
‘You didn’t say anything about…?’
‘No.’
In silence they listening to the squeal of a bed being pushed down the corridor.
Kate braced herself. She’d never seen James so upset. She had to be brave and face what was surely coming, but she wasn’t sure if she could. She needed him.
‘Frankie doesn’t understand why you didn’t keep in touch with her.’ James’s eyes followed the moving bed as it passed through the double doors.
‘I thought so many times about contacting Paul, to see how Frankie was, but how could I when I had this thing I did hanging over me? I went to the house once when I’d got back on my feet with a new job and a room to rent in a different town. I didn’t knock; I stood in the park next door, watching through the railings. I just wanted to see her, know she was happy and doing well, but another family came out. Paul and Frankie had moved away, and I didn’t know where to.’
‘When did you plan to tell me?’ James cupped his forehead.
‘I… I don’t know… it’s not an easy thing to admit.’ She dipped her head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Are you?’ He sounded tired, irritated. ‘I can just about understand why you wouldn’t tell me about Frankie, but the rest of it?’ He dug his hands deeper into his pockets. ‘So it is true what he said? That you shook her?’
She nodded, looking at the floor.
‘Can you try and explain to me what happened? I’m finding it hard to believe you’re capable of hurting a baby.’
‘I was at my wit’s end. She wouldn’t stop crying, wouldn’t feed from me. I’d been up with her all night every night for weeks. And this one night I picked her up and something in me snapped. I screamed in her face to stop crying and shook her maybe three or four times then Paul was there shouting at me and I bounced her down on the bed.’
‘Jesus, Kate. What if he hadn’t been there? What if you hadn’t stopped?’
‘I don’t know, I just don’t know. I’ve gone over and over it.’ She rubbed her hand over her face. ‘But I didn’t shake her hard, I swear to you and she wasn’t hurt; she was quiet for a moment, but when she cried again it was deafening, high-pitched. I thought I had hurt her, and I was so scared. Paul picked her up and soothed her, said we’d have to take her to the hospital if she didn’t calm down, but she did; she was fine. I understand how serious it could have been, how dangerous it is to shake a baby. I honestly didn’t realise at the time. I’ve lived with the shame ever since. The mother who could have given her own child brain damage or worse. That’s why I found it so hard to tell you.’
‘To Frankie, it’s all excuses. You didn’t have to abandon her.’ He approached the bed and stood over her. Lines gathered on his forehead.
‘How could I stay when I wasn’t fit to be her mother? I convinced myself she didn’t need me.’
‘But you are her mother. You can’t suddenly give that up.’
‘I know and I should have told you. I’m so ashamed of what I did.’ She bowed her head, tears falling down her face.
‘So you should be.’ James’s stare bore through her. ‘Do you know there’s something called Shaken Baby Syndrome? Frankie could have suffered with any number of things from a cardiac arrest, a bleed to the brain, a fractured skull… Shall I go on?’
Kate shook her head, wiping her tears away.
‘Are you really the same person I’ve spent the last ten years loving? Because right now, it doesn’t feel like it.’
Kate sat back on her heels, head still bowed. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ Her voice was nothing more than a whisper.
‘There’s a long list of injuries according to the internet. She could have died, Kate. It only takes shaking a baby for five seconds to seriously harm them.’
A nurse walked past glancing in their direction. Kate waited for her to be out of earshot.
‘I didn’t mean to lose control, no matter what Paul says, it was an impulse out of frustration, which I know is no excuse. It was a crazy, crazy moment of blind anger, frustration, exhaustion all rolled into one. And I worried that if I could do that, what else was I capable of? I didn’t deserve to have her in my life.’
‘You took it out on an innocent baby, Kate.’
‘I know, and I hate myself for that. There is nothing I can say to change it, but the truth is I was so bone tired, and Paul wasn’t helping. He thought I should be able to manage her on my own, that if I kept handing her to him every time I was struggling, she’d never bond with me. But how could I stay when I might be a danger to her? So, I ended it with him and left. I rented a room on my own for the next six years, dropping in and out of jobs and relationships. I saw a therapist for most of that time. One boyfriend’s mother helped me enrol at college and I started to move on. I didn’t tell anyone where I was. By the time I met you a few years later, I was in a better place in my head; I had a good job and I’d learned to live with my mistakes.’
‘Did you still love him when you left?’
‘Yes, I did.’ Kate stole a glance at him, his head bowed. She had to be completely honest now if they had any hope of staying together.
‘So why swear to me you didn’t want children when you already had a grown-up daughter?’ His voice rose again in disbelief.
‘I didn’t want more, that was the truth, because I was too scared to and it suited me that you didn’t want kids either. But when I fell pregnant and saw the tiny heartbeat of our baby, I felt such a rush of love. I’d never felt that with Frankie. I believed I’d been given a second chance to nurture a new life. I thought maybe enough
time had passed that I could try again at being a mum.’
‘And still you didn’t tell me,’ James said in a weary voice.
‘How could I?’ She lay down and stared at an old piece of tinsel stuck to the false ceiling. How many patients had been lying there over the past twelve months, staring up, wondering when their pain would end? A new garland had been pinned up earlier that day by a couple of giggling young nurses.
James pushed his fingers through his greasy hair. ‘Why did you go ahead and have Frankie if you didn’t think you could be a good parent?’
‘I thought maybe I would be once she was here. I thought it would come naturally. But people don’t tell you how hard it is. All the magazines show photos of perfect mums with their clean, happy, gurgling babies, and tell you how it’s the purest form of love. That wasn’t my reality. I didn’t bond with her like everyone expected me to.’
He turned half circle so she couldn’t see his face.
‘You and Susie were keeping a secret from me,’ she said, ‘you still are from Harry. Don’t you ever wonder how it would be now if your child had been born?’
‘Yes, recently, of course I have. Ever since your scan and now this I’ve wondered if my child would have been a boy or a girl, what their name would be. Christ, it would be at university now.’ He stopped so abruptly that Kate tipped forward to see if he was all right.
‘James?’
His fist was pressed to his mouth, eyes wet, rimmed red. He swallowed before he spoke.
‘Kate, are you sure you want our baby?’
‘Yes, I do. More than anything.’
‘And what about Frankie? Would you have told me about her if I hadn’t found out?’
Whatever she said would sound inadequate. His forehead was full of lines she was certain hadn’t been there before. He was waiting for an answer, but she didn’t have the one he wanted.
‘I think so. I know I intended to at some point.’ She wanted to reach out to him, but he turned away.
‘How do I know you’re not going to leave us too?’
‘I won’t, I promise.’
‘You can’t know that, can you?’
‘I’m older now and I understand more about Mum and why she behaved like she did with me, because she didn’t have either of her parents and was starved of love. I had my dad. He was kind, caring and patient with me. I didn’t suffer the cruelty Mum did. I want to make this work – with you, the baby and Frankie.’ She rubbed the heel of her hand in a gentle circle over her bump.
‘You can still build a relationship with Frankie, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Do you think she’ll let me?’
‘You have to try. She’s your daughter. You’re lucky to have her.’
‘I know, I am.’
At that precise moment there came the lightest flutter of the baby moving, like a butterfly beating its wings for the first time.
‘I can feel the baby. Do you want to see if you can?’ Kate knelt up on the bed and moved closer. She positioned his hand and pressed gently.
‘Oh.’ He pulled back an inch.
‘You felt it?’ She hoped it was strong enough for him to make a connection with their child.
‘I think so, there was definitely something.’ His eyes were wide, and he was almost smiling.
Kate sat back down.
‘And what about you? Are you sure you’re still happy that I’m having our baby?’
He nodded.
‘You were so against it; you’ve never explained why.’ She held her hand out to him, but he dipped his head, looking at his watch.
‘I have to go now.’
She nodded and didn’t try to stop him. Hopefully, he’d tell her when he was ready.
After he’d gone, she tried to call Frankie again, but there was still no answer. She wasn’t going to give up on her daughter this time, not now she’d come this far.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The next morning, James collected Kate from hospital. The doctor told her if she started bleeding again, she was to contact her GP straight away. Failing that, she should present herself at A & E.
The trees dripped melted snow leaving the pavements slushy. With her hand to her bump, she trod carefully back to the car while James steamed ahead with her bag in his hand. She stopped at a stretch of ice blocking her path.
‘James… please wait,’ she called, not sure if he was too far ahead to hear her. He stopped, turned and looked at her as if he’d been called by a whining child.
‘Can you help me? I don’t want to slip again.’
He stomped back in thick boots, avoiding her eye and offered her his elbow. She clung on to his arm, grateful to feel his strength. He slowed his pace, steering round ice and piles of shovelled snow until they reached the car. He opened the door for her.
‘Have you stayed in touch with Frankie? Are we going to visit her before we leave?’ she asked.
James didn’t answer straight away. ‘I have but I don’t think visiting her is a good idea. She needs some time.’
His words clunked about in her head like shrapnel. She’d failed her daughter again. Far from being able to start afresh, she’d churned up the past and made it worse. Whatever made her think she could change? She’d run away from her responsibilities and lived a new life. She’d lied to James but also herself.
Once in the car, she was grateful for the noise of the engine bursting in on the silence. Was this the end of their relationship? What about their baby, their business? She wanted to ask him so many questions, but he was fixed on the slippery road ahead.
They caught the afternoon ferry and sat opposite one another drinking plastic-tasting coffee. James pulled his coat collar over his neck and shut his eyes, leaning his head against the salt-stained window. She stared at the seafoam ruffling out of the back of the ferry. She should have told him about Frankie when he told her about the pregnancy with Susie. The truth was there had never been a right time. She should have just said it, but she’d not found the courage to. Now he’d found out the worst way. The baby gave a little flutter as if it understood. She rubbed her bump soothingly. Almost fifteen weeks. The cracked skin on her knuckles had split into tiny red cuts. She licked them like a wounded paw.
James sniffed and checked his watch. ‘We’ll be landing in fifteen minutes.’
Kate heaved open the salt-corroded door out to the deck and bowed her head into the wind. She breathed in a lungful of clean air. Needle pricks of salty spray bombarded her face. The sea was choppy, and she swayed drunkenly across to the railings. He obviously didn’t think she could see the silvery trails of tears on his cheeks. He’d trusted her. From those early days until now. And she’d lied to him in return. What was wrong with her? How did she always manage to destroy her relationships with every single person she was close to? She leaned over the barrier, watching the waves lash the side of the ferry and breathed deeply, trying to keep her balance.
She took out her mobile and clicked it on, hoping to see a missed call or text from Frankie. No new messages. Every cell in her body dragged down. As she put her phone back in her pocket, it pinged. A notification from Twitter. Not again. There was a tiny picture on her screen she could only see properly if she viewed the post. She ought to delete it, but the problem was it was already out there for everyone to see. Pulse racing, she clicked open the app. Yet another profile she’d never heard of, @BabeOnFire101. Click.
AND THE WORLD’S WORST MOTHER AWARD GOES TO… @katemarshall !!!
Below it was a GIF of a woman nodding and saying the words flashing underneath: Worst of the worst. As if she didn’t feel bad enough already. She blocked and reported the account. Who hated her this much? They seemed to know about Frankie, but Paul was adamant he’d never told anyone. She wracked her brains, but there was no one who sprang to mind that she could have upset enough to be this vicious.
The growling engines slowed to a soft vibrating hum. Kate rejoined James and they shuffled back to his car behi
nd a queue of people and waited for the ferry to dock.
* * *
On their drive home they passed a church where people were spilling onto the pavement with lanterns on sticks. The throng of voices singing ‘Away in a Manger’ followed them as they drove by and seemed to linger in the crisp air right up to when they pulled onto their drive.
‘Why don’t we go and pick a tree tomorrow?’ she asked, determined to stay positive. The snowman air freshener continued to sway after the car had stopped. The spicy cinnamon aroma made her want to rush indoors and bake cakes. She imagined letting their child help her stir in the mixture with James making them laugh with his ho, ho, ho, impression of Father Christmas. She twisted a loose button on her coat.
At last James spoke. ‘We’ll see.’ He got out and took their luggage from the car boot and slammed it shut, shaking the whole car.
She stayed sitting for a moment and pictured a line of suitcases in the hall, guessing his moving out would be permanent this time. The usual wreaths and webs of lights were hanging from neighbours’ front doors and hedges. Manufactured promises of joy and goodwill to all men.
Slowly, she eased herself out of her seat. As she stood, James was there to take her hand.
‘Be careful, it’s icy near the doorstep.’ He linked her arm through his and led her to the house.
The light in the hallway was already on and she could see that the only bag there was her own. Perhaps he hadn’t finished packing and the cases were still upstairs. Maybe she was the one moving out. She eased open the living room door. He flicked a switch. The glow of coloured fairy lights warmed the darkened room. The decorated tree filled the corner. She turned to him open-mouthed, and his face half lifted in a smile.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
He sloped off to the kitchen. Kate climbed the stairs. Maybe he was being kind before he told her they were over. She could hear him fill the kettle. Was he rehearsing in his head how he would tell her? Perhaps the suitcases were open on the bed half packed, so he didn’t need to say anything.
A Mother Like You Page 21