Seven Lies (ARC)
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dered if you might be able to come over. I wanted to catch you before
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you left for work, you see. There’s still time, I’m sure. But I’m getting 07
these quite overwhelming twinges. I’ve been up since around three.
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They come and go, you know, as they’re supposed to, but I just couldn’t
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get back to sleep. And I’ve been waiting to call you and— as I said— I
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thought you might be up by now.”
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“When do you need me?” I asked.
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There was a long silence.
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“Shall I come over now?” I asked. “I can bring a few bits with me; I
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can shower at yours instead.”
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“Yes,” replied Marnie. “Please. If that’s okay.”
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She told me that she loved me, really loved me, which was very un-
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usual and, truthfully, entirely out of character. We didn’t have— have
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never had— that sort of friendship. We don’t profess love a heartfelt
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way or make promises of forever. Perhaps that has been our undoing.
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But, regardless, it revealed to me that she really was very frightened,
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that she really did need me.
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I liked it, that feeling of being needed. And being needed by Marnie
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specifically. I felt that I was sliding backward along the thread of a spi-24
derweb, toward the place we used to be, when it was just us, and we
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were friends, and there was nothing to complicate that simple fact.
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I pulled on my jeans and a jumper, yanking my charger from the
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socket and throwing it into my leather holdall. I had bought it for Jona-
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than as a Christmas gift the year before he died. I took a few things
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from the pile of clean clothing on the chair in the corner of my room—
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underwear, a spare T- shirt, a small towel— and packed them as well. I
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grabbed my washbag from the bathroom. I tucked my toothbrush into
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the front pouch and found all manner of other products there, too—
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shampoo samples and a comb with missing teeth and an array of tam-
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pons in colorful plastic packaging and mascara with black paste crusted
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around the seal— and I zipped it up and threw it all into the bag as well.
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I darted down the stairs— two at a time, smelling my stale breath as
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my breathing came quicker— and I arrived at Marnie’s in less than half
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an hour, shiny with sweat and pink- cheeked, but delighted to see relief 06
spreading across her face as she opened the door.
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A man walked past us in a suit and an animal- print tie, his hair still
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damp and a briefcase swinging from his fist. He must have seen me,
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marathon red and panting heavily, and Marnie, heavily pregnant and
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standing in the doorway in a calf- length peach nightdress. He turned
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his head away quickly. “Morning,” he muttered.
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“Morning,” sang Marnie.
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As he disappeared around the corner, Marnie’s hands shot out to the
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side and grabbed the door frame.
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“Oh, not again,” she murmured.
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She stepped backward, cradling her stomach in her arms.
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The flat fell into chaos around her. I could see the TV screen danc-
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ing in the living room, and the radio in the kitchen was turned up and
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music was filtering down the stairs. The hallway was littered with
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clothing: cardigans over the banister and scarves piled in a corner and
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the pegs on the wall overflowing with jackets and coats. There were
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endless trails of things in all directions: tea- stained mugs and empty
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water glasses heading toward the kitchen, and half- eaten biscuits and
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sweet wrappers and unopened crisp packets through to the living room,
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and muslins and onesies and miniature socks scattered on the stairs.
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I contorted my shock into a huge grin.
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“It’s happening,” I said in a sort of singsong way and I did an awk-
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ward jig, shifting my weight between my two feet and clapping my
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hands together without ever really separating them.
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Marnie groaned.
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“Okay,” I said. “Okay. You’re having a contraction.”
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“No shit,” she hissed, waddling back toward the lounge.
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I watched her walk away, her feet turned outward, her hands pressed
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into her lower back, and I felt immediately overwhelmed. I tried to re-
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mind myself that this was all entirely normal and that women did this
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every day, all over the world and at all hours. But it felt far from ordi-06
nary. We had first known each other as children, and then as young
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women, and as wives, but with her as a mother? The magnitude of that
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felt impossible.
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Marnie yelped.
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I rushed after her.
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She was lowering herself onto a gigantic blue inflatable ball.
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“Right,” I said. “Of course. Yes. Deep breathing. That’s the way. In.
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Out. In. And then— ”
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“Are you joking?” she said. “Stop that. Shut up.”
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“Okay. Yes.” I said. “I’ll just wait here.”
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I perched on the edge of the sofa, holding my leather bag between
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my legs. She bounced vigorously, up and down, fiercely blowing air
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through her pursed lips. Eventually, she leaned backward, stretching
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her chest and stomach up and out, and then she sighed. She began gen-
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tly bouncing, lifting and lowering her considerable weight.
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“Should we be going to— ”
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“The hospital?” she said. “No, not yet. But they are getting longer.”
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“How are you doing, anyway? Sorry about that. And for getting you up
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so early. Just”—
she waved her arm at the surrounding
madness—
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“everything’s got
a bit out of hand.”
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Marnie abhors mess; she categorically cannot stand it. This, curi-
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ously, is one of the very few things on which we absolutely agree. We
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work in very different ways. We are our bests in very different situa-
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tions. I like silence or just the quiet murmur of voices. She likes the
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radio or music or the television, preferably all three. I am introverted: 31S
I need my own space and my own company and to be alone. And she
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is a textbook extrovert, confident and outgoing and thriving off other
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people’s conversations and opinions and those interactions that drain
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me so quickly.
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I’ve said it already, haven’t I? She is light and I am dark. But untidi-
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ness made us both useless.
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I think she could probably have handled the pain and the discomfort
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and the fear of labor itself— I wonder now if she really needed me there 06
for those things— but she simply couldn’t function amid that much
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disarray.
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“I can see that,” I said. “What happened?”
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“I know,” she said. “The place is a state. I was trying to go with the
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flow, eat what I needed, and focus only on the contraction, and then I
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thought I might just tidy up a bit, just to get ready, you know, and then 12
everything got a bit intense, and, well”— she circled her hand over her
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head again— “it all looks like this now.”
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“Right,” I said.
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I knew what she wanted from me. I knew what she needed. I always
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had. And she had always known that I would deliver it, whatever it was
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that she wanted: without question, without complaint.
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“How about you stay there,” I said. “And I’ll do just a quick tidy- up?”
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Marnie smiled, and it felt nice that at this precipice, at the begin-
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ning of yet another stage of our lives, it was time again for “just a quick 21
tidy- up.” I think it reassured me— wrongly, as it happens— that things 22
weren’t going to change, that there was no reason to feel overwhelmed
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by the significance of this moment, that everything would be fine.
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Marnie bounced on her ball and I flitted between the rooms, gather-
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ing and rehoming clothing, clearing litter into the bins, and folding the 26
strangest, smallest, freshest- smelling blankets. I opened the windows.
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It was one of the first bright days of the year— I hadn’t needed a coat—
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and the breeze through the flat felt refreshing. When the apartment
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was spotless, I had a quick shower and then made us cups of tea— hers
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with plenty of milk, mine with just a thimbleful— and sat down on the
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sofa to watch the twenty- four- hour news channel and hold her hand.
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“Will you call my mum?” she asked.
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I hadn’t expected that. “What?” I replied. “Why?”
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“Perhaps she’ll want to be there? She might at least want to know
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what’s going on.”
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“Okay,” I said. “Are you sure?”
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She nodded.
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“Well, all right, then.” I went into the hallway and I hovered there,
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and I neatened the coats on the pegs and kicked a feather into a gap
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beneath the skirting board and I called her mother and I felt relieved
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when she didn’t answer. I left a brief, mumbling message that probably
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wasn’t particularly clear and returned to Marnie a few minutes later.
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By the early afternoon, Marnie’s contractions were three minutes
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apart and I called for a taxi to take us to the hospital. She changed into 16
a light summer dress. She said that she was too hot and uncomfortable
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for anything else. We sat together in the back and she grunted as we
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went over the bumps, her eyes closed as though the darkness made the
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pain bearable.
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We arrived at the hospital and she shuffled through the main recep-
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tion to the elevator and I was surprised when we arrived at the mater-
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nity ward. It had all the trimmings of a normal hospital— the pale walls 23
and a tiled floor and that smell of disinfectant— but something was
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different. Perhaps it was the lighting or the smiles on the faces of the
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staff or the pastel uniforms, but it didn’t feel quite so threatening.
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We’d passed so many sick people on our way through the corridors;
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ghoulish elderly women being transported along hallways in beds that
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made them look tiny. And yet here the patients were all swollen and
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sweating and bursting— literally— with life.
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A smiling midwife in a blue and white tunic led us to a side room.
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“Here you go, pet,” she said. “Get yourself comfy and I’ll be back to
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check on you in five.”
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Marnie held on to the bed frame and swayed from side to side, her
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cheeks puffed out, her eyes again closed.
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“Will you stay?” she whispered. “For it all? Until the baby gets here?”
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“Of course,” I said. “Of course I’ll stay.”
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Because where else would I have been?
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Audrey Gregory- Smith was born at ten past seven in the evening on 08
the twenty- fourth of April. She was small and angry and her face was
09
red and her eyes were squeezed firmly shut, closed almost as tightly as
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her fists. She had thin tufts of fair hair on her scalp, wrinkles across her 11
knees and elbows and knuckles, and pink pouting rosebud lips.
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Marnie clutched her little girl to her chest, caught between joy and
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panic, insisting simultaneously that she might be sick and that she
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might drop the baby and then suddenly shouting, “Who’s in charge
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here?” to a bustling room.
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I reached over to place my hand on top of hers. “You.” I didn’t want
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to frighten her, but wasn’t that the truth? “You’re in charge now.”
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“Oh, fuck,” she replied and then grinned manically. “Well, that’s a
19
worry, isn’t it?” And then she began to sob.
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I shushed her and stroked her hair away from her face.
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“Where’s my mum?” she asked. “Is she on her way?” She looked
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up at me.
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“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t think that her mother deserved to be
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there for a moment that important.
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“You did call her, didn’t you?” she asked.
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“Yes,” I replied.
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“Yes?” she repeated.
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“Definitely,” I said.
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“And she said she’d come?”
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“Not exactly,” I said. “She didn’t answer. I left a message. I guess
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she’s probably listened to it by now. I didn’t want to worry you. I thought N32
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that she’d come to the hospital. But I suppose . . . Shall I call her now?
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Let her know the good news?”
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“No,” said Marnie. “I don’t think so.”
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Which was exactly what I’d hoped she would say. Because this was
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a moment for the most important people in that child’s life.
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Chapter Thirty- Two
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k
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M
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arnie was staying in the hospital overnight, and so I traveled
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home by myself. I was thinking, in the taxi, as we slipped
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through the backstreets of the city, how much had changed in the
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course of that one day. And how world- altering days must happen to