My choice was Aiden.
And I never regretted it.
Not when he split open my skin coming out of me, not when he screamed bloody murder instead of taking a nap, and not when they found his red coat floating in the River Ouse three days after the flood. No, I never regretted my choice, not even seven long years after the flood when I finally, officially, had my son declared legally dead.
“Emma, do you want to open this one next?”
I blinked, and found myself back in the teachers’ common room, sat on the not-so ‘comfy’ chairs that had been arranged around a small coffee table. The left wall was covered by the teachers’ pigeonholes, and behind me was a small kitchen area with a few cupboards containing old cereal packets and a sink filled with mugs and teaspoons. How long had I been thinking about Aiden? From the looks on the faces around me, I’d not been paying attention for a while.
“Sure! Sorry, I was miles away.” I tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear and bent my head as I smiled and took the present from Amy’s outstretched hand.
Ten years ago, when Aiden died in the flood, I would never have imagined that I’d be working with the woman who allowed my son to wander out of school. But life moves on and people evolve. Despite everything, I forgave Amy for that day. She’d been stretched beyond her capabilities during the flood, and when her back was turned, my son did the improbable: He walked straight out of school, down to the dangerous river, and got caught up in the current and drowned. Those are the cold, hard facts. But whenever I thought of them, I disconnected myself from the reality of them. Sometimes I wondered if I’d disconnected from Aiden’s death completely. I wondered if I really believed he was dead, not just living like a wild thing on the Yorkshire moors somewhere, frightening hikers by jumping out from the heather and then scampering off to a cave to live like Stig of the Dump.
I pushed my thumbnail under the Sellotape and slowly peeled open the present on my lap. It was wrapped in a pink ribbon with pink wrapping paper of pretty birds and flowers. The paper was thick and hard to tear. Amy hadn’t just nipped to the newsagents on Bishoptown Hill for this, she’d gone to Paperchase or Waterstones for such pretty—and trendy—paper. Beneath the birds was a box with a clear plastic front.
“It’s beautiful.” I exhaled slowly, holding back the tears pricking at my eyes.
“Is it okay?” she asked, a quaver of anxiety evident in her voice. “I know some mums don’t like people getting such girly presents for their babies. But I saw it and it was so gorgeous that I just had to.”
I met her watery gaze with my own. I’d known Amy since I was thirteen or fourteen, though we’d never been close. She was someone who would hang around in the same circles as me, but not someone I would call on a Saturday night for a veg out and movie night. She had always been somewhat mousy, and would have been pretty if it hadn’t been for the long front teeth that prevented her mouth from closing completely. She had something of a stereotypical librarian demeanour. She was quiet, uneasy and awkward with most people, and I know Aiden’s death had weighed heavily on her mind all these years. Eventually, after my crippling grief had slowly faded, I’d ended up feeling sorry for her.
“Oh, it’s lovely,” cooed Angela, head of year seven.
“Pretty,” said Sumaira from the English department.
“I want to go back to being a girl and get one myself,” said Tricia, the other school administrator.
I looked down at the doll resting on my lap and tried hard to push the memory of Aiden out of my mind so that for once, just once, I could think about my future.
It’d been hard, this decade, harder than I’d ever imagined life could be, but it had not been completely filled with misery. There had been beautiful moments, like marrying Jake and finding out I was pregnant with his child. This should be another happy moment and I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to live in the present. So I pushed Aiden out of my mind—while saying a silent apology—and thought of the day I would give this beautiful doll to my daughter. It was porcelain, with delicate pink cheeks and wavy brown hair that fell to its shoulders. It wore a pink tulle dress with daisies stitched along the hem, and a butterfly on the shoulder strap.
“It’s perfect, Amy, thank you. Where on earth did you find it?” I asked.
“Well,” she said. “There’s an online shop that makes them custom to order. But they also had some ready-made and this was one of them. I fell in love with her and just had to buy her for you.”
I placed the doll carefully on the coffee table next to the huge, shiny card decorated with tiny baby grows on a washing line, then leaned forward in my chair and wrapped my arms around Amy. She patted me on the back, leaning over my protruding baby bump to embrace me.
“I wish I’d had a bump that neat when I was eight months pregnant,” said Sumaira. “I was out here!” She demonstrated with her arms and we all laughed.
“I keep thinking that one day I’ll wake up and be the size of a house,” I said, laughing with them. I’d been active before the pregnancy. Running had helped me deal with the grief and I’d been at the height of my fitness during the early stages of the pregnancy. I still felt some of that strength in my body. I certainly didn’t feel weak or encumbered. I did get some of the classic symptoms of being heavily pregnant, like swollen ankles and needing to pee twice as much, but I was a far cry from the comedic elephant-sized pregnant women you see on the television. Not once had I burst into tears at work—and I’d managed to get through the last eight months without craving pickles, too.
“We’re going to miss you around here, Price-Hewitt,” Tricia said, pulling me into another hug.
“I’m going to miss you guys, too. Don’t get too attached to my replacement because I’ll be back before you know it.”
“You take your time,” Angela said. “Don’t rush it. Enjoy your time with the baby.”
I nodded, taking in her words. No one mentioned Aiden. No one acknowledged that this was my second child. I bit my lip and fought against the rising tide of guilt threatening to take hold.
“Jake will be waiting for me.” I stood a little too fast and felt the blood rushing to my head. My joints ached a little, but the kindness of my colleagues had bolstered my energy levels and I felt strong enough to take on the world. I was ready for the next challenge ahead, especially with Jake waiting for me in the carpark. He had been my rock through the bad times, there with an outstretched hand to catch me when I fell. And believe me, I fell a lot. I had fallen into darkness after Aiden died.
“Call us when the baby is born. We all want to meet her,” Amy said. She bit her lip and I could see her mind whirring with thoughts of my lost boy, the one who’d walked away from her and never came back.
“Yes, bring the little one into work, won’t you? It’s been ages since I had a cuddle with a newborn. My Oliver is nearly three now, if you can believe it,” said Tricia, her eyes misty with thoughts of her grandson.
“Of course,” I replied. “I can’t wait for you all to meet her.”
I bundled up the cards and presents into a plastic bag and picked up the large bunch of roses with the price carefully peeled away from the packaging. We stood awkwardly near the door and for the first time, I saw hesitation on their faces. I saw contemplation, and I knew what they were all thinking about.
Amy brushed tears away from her cheeks. We might not have mentioned Aiden’s existence. We might have all made the unconscious decision to not utter his name while we celebrated the new baby, but Aiden was close, so close I could almost see him standing in the shadows next to the pigeonholes and the corner table. He was in Amy’s tears, and in the knowing smile on Sumaira’s face. He was in my heart, buried in my arteries, mixed into my blood and my DNA, and every atom that made me ‘me’.
I said my goodbyes and made my way down the steps and out into the carpark, the same carpark I had run through that terrible day when my Wellington boot had sloshed through the rainwater and my sock had hung precariously fr
om my toes. Then I saw the silver Audi, and Jake’s smiling face in the driver’s seat.
“How did it go?” he asked, as I piled the presents and flowers into the backseat. We’d need to sort the baby seat out soon, I mused. It was only three weeks until my due date and there was much to be done.
“Good. You should see the gorgeous doll Amy bought for Bump.”
Jake frowned. “You look wiped out. I was going to suggest we go for some tea to celebrate, but I think you need a warm bath and an early night. Shall we order in from Da Vinci’s instead?”
I leaned across the gearstick to plant a soppy kiss on Jake’s cheek. “That sounds perfect.”
As we pulled out of the carpark, I couldn’t help but turn and give the school building one last look. I’d been working there for five years now, and I should’ve been used to the sight of the old Victorian building by now, yet somehow it brought all those feelings rushing back to the surface. And then, she kicked. I clutched my belly and felt the second kick.
Yes, I know you’re there. There’s room in my heart for you too.
3
Bishoptown School is a primary and secondary school in one. They added a newer building to the back of the old Victorian building about twenty years ago. Kids under eleven are taught in the older building at the front, and the kids from year seven upwards study in the newer block behind. I met Jake when I was one of those kids.
He was my teacher.
It sounds creepy. It isn’t.
Jake started at Bishoptown just before I started studying for my GCSEs, but he didn’t teach me until I started my A-Levels. He was an art teacher and I was an art student. He was young, only twenty-eight, and had just moved up to Bishoptown from a small town outside Brighton. Of course I noticed he was gorgeous back then. We called him Handsome Hewitt. But I was far too enamoured with my own beau, Rob, to even give my teacher a second glance. And then Aiden came along…
Six years ago I was a mess. I hadn’t worked properly since Aiden’s death, aside from a part-time job in a supermarket, and I survived solely on the inheritance Mum and Dad left after they died in a car crash. It was Jake who sought me out, who got me a job in the school, who pulled me out of the pit of darkness and showed me that it was possible to turn on a light switch and save my own life. Finding him—or rather, him finding me—convinced me that I wasn’t cursed after all, just unfortunate enough to lose my son and parents in less than four years.
I owed Jake all that I had.
As we pulled into the driveway to our house, I glanced across at my husband and let my eyes drink him in. Despite being ten years older than me, he was still attractive in a distinguished way. His wrinkles and greying hair didn’t matter so much. It delighted me that he dressed like a typical teacher, with corduroy blazers and patterned ties. On him it looked trendy and sexy, not dowdy like some of the aging geography teachers at the school.
He noticed my searching gaze and flashed me a questioning look. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged. The stressful afternoon washed away and was replaced by a feeling akin to real happiness. Sure, I’d had glimpses of happiness over the last decade, but they’d never remained, not like the spreading feeling I was getting now.
Could it be that my life was coming together? Was my happiness overtaking my grief for Aiden and my parents? They say that time is a healer, but I never believed them. I considered myself irrevocably broken after the flood. But it seemed that at last, those pieces were binding together.
Or so I thought.
*
Jake carried the presents into the house and I poured water into a vase and trimmed the stems of the roses. The kitchen came alive with the sounds of our movements, and the plastic bags rustled as Jake put the presents on the dining table. He began unpacking them one by one.
“Was Jane there?” he asked.
“No, she’s hurt her back.”
“Again?” Jake shook his head. “I guess that’s what you get when you let yourself get into that state. How did she do it?”
I bristled at his callous remark. Jane was middle-aged and overweight. She’d missed half the previous term with constant health issues. It was hard not to think that most of her problems would disappear if she’d just lose the weight, but Jake had a brain-to-mouth problem sometimes. He said what other people didn’t dare to. “She twisted her back putting her bra on.”
Jake let out a loud guffaw. “You’re kidding!”
“Hey,” I said, “it’s hard putting a bra on when your skin’s all damp from the shower.”
“Yeah, but still.” He shook his head and carried on removing the presents from the bag. “So Amy bought you this doll then? And you… like it?” He held up the box with the delicate doll inside.
“Yeah, why?”
“You don’t think it’s a bit… creepy?” He lifted the package higher as I stood with my hip resting against the kitchen counter, scissors in one hand and a rose in the other. His fingers dug into the plastic and I wanted to tell him to stop squeezing it like that. The plastic crackled as he moved it about, setting my teeth on edge.
When he put it down the tension abated and I managed a laugh. “Are you one of those people who cried when they had a clown at a birthday party?”
Jake pushed his glasses further up his nose and gave a half-smile. “Only psychopaths find clowns funny. It’s a fact. Just look at John Wayne Gacy.”
I shivered as I plopped the final rose in place and gathered up the wrapping from the flowers, the trimmings caught within the folds.
“Don’t forget to wipe the side down,” Jake said, nodding towards the slight puddle of water I’d left on the counter.
I rolled my eyes but collected a tea towel from the rack to soak up the mess. It was a running joke that Jake had needed to train me to pick up after myself when we first moved in together. He said he used to coach me with praise and slight nudges in the right direction. If I’d been good he’d take me out for dinner. For the first six months I hardly noticed at all. I’d never been concerned with mopping up a little spilled water or picking up my socks from the night before, not until I shared a living space with a neat-freak like Jake. Perhaps I’d been coddled too much by my parents after Aiden died. After all, I did remain living with them until they died. Then, when things became serious with Jake, I sold my parents’ cottage and moved into Jake’s luxurious three-bedroom property on Fox Lane, a stone’s throw from the school.
It was the opposite of my parents’ higgledy-piggledy cottage. My parents’ place was as quaint as an English cottage could get, with a thatched roof and narrow stairs filled with piles of books and old pieces of art. Jake’s house was colourless and neat. The ceilings were high and airy. My parent’s house had been painted in various shades of reds and browns, with low ceilings but plenty of windows to let in light. The kitchen had been filled to the bursting point with cast iron pans hanging from the beams and stacks of letters on top of the fridge. Jake’s kitchen was minimalist and stark, with white modern cupboards and a hidden fridge.
I set the roses on the table and took a step back, thinking how it was nice to have some colour in the kitchen for a change. Sometimes I missed the red walls of my old bedroom and the patterned duvets that inevitably lay in a tangled heap at the bottom of my bed. These days I slept—or rather tossed and turned—on crisp Egyptian cotton sheets in either ivory or white.
“Let’s go sit on the sofa and watch a box set.” Jake wrapped an arm around me and led me gently towards the living room.
“Don’t you want to read my card?”
“Oh yeah, of course,” he said enthusiastically. “Bring it with you. How have you been today? Any back pain?”
I almost laughed out loud. Of course there was back pain. And ankle pain. And then there was the baby ramming her foot against my internal organs. When I was pregnant with Aiden I’d been really squeamish about the thought of my baby sharing space with my kidneys and intestines and everything else squashed along
side the womb, especially when I learned that the body moves and adapts to make room for the baby. This time around I’d been determined to embrace all the joys of being pregnant. That had lasted until my first bout of morning sickness.
“No more than usual.” I settled into the sofa. Despite my bravado, I was tired from all the fuss. It was nice to take the weight off my feet. In fact, I probably wouldn’t want get up again now, unless I needed the loo. I passed the card to Jake.
“It makes me sad, reading this,” Jake said. He stuck out a lip, imitating a pout.
“Why? I mean, I know John in the history department read the card wrong and wrote ‘sympathies’ but everyone else is happy for us. I hope he read the card wrong, anyway. Maybe he just feels very strongly about people bringing more children into the world.” My little joke turned sour in my mouth as I said the word ‘children’. It’s still there, that bitterness. For a long time I couldn’t look at other people’s children. I couldn’t even say the word. I stared down at my bump and tried to force those feelings away. It was time to be able to say a joke and enjoy it.
“Because we won’t be working together for the next year. I won’t be taking you to work and bringing you home. I wish I could take the year off with you. I mean, would it be so crazy? Would it be terrible?”
“It might be if we want to eat,” I replied. “You’d have to quit your job completely. They aren’t going to let you take the year off. Not both of us, anyway.”
“I know. But… what are you going to do all day?”
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