Playing Nice

by Delaney, JP

  “That’s a great idea. Or what about godchildren? We were saying only the other day we should get Theo baptized now that we’re starting church. We could ask Miles and Lucy to be godparents, and we could be David’s as well. So there’s something formal to recognize the relationship.”

  “Brilliant.” At the realization that there might be a middle way after all, relief flooded through me. “And the two of them could have playdates. After all, they’re the same age—”

  “Exactly.” Maddie nodded. “I’m sure that’s the right response to this situation. Dialogue and cooperation and good communication…What are you doing?”

  I was rummaging in the fridge. “Making us all blueberry smoothies for lunch. I promised Theo I’d do it before I picked him up. It was his turn to choose.”

  11

  MADDIE

  IN SOME WAYS, LEAVING the NICU was almost as traumatic as going there had been. The nurses and junior doctors had become my friends. But there was too much pressure on space for Theo to stay a moment longer than he had to, and eventually he met all the criteria for being moved to the special care baby unit, or the fattening-up room as the nurses in the NICU jokingly called it.

  “Your baby’s a fighter,” Bronagh said as she wrote up his notes for the last time. “We’ve a pretty good track record with preemies, but I’ve never known one catch up as fast as him.”

  “How’s David Lambert doing?” I hadn’t been able to shake off the sense that David and Theo were like A Tale of Two Babies—that despite being admitted on the same day, one had somehow turned left while the other turned right, their fortunes forever diverging from then on.

  “Paula told me he’s on the mend. They operated on him for a heart duct that hadn’t closed, and that seems to have sorted him out.”

  “I’m so pleased!” I said. “Will you tell his mother I said hello?”

  Bronagh nodded. “And this is for you, Pete.” A little shyly, she handed Pete a card. On the front was written Happy Father’s Day. “We make sure all our babies give cards to their dads on Father’s Day—it’s a little tradition around here,” she explained. “But that’s on Sunday and you won’t be here, so…” I could tell Pete was touched.

  We were only in the special care unit for a week. Theo continued to put on weight and sailed through the car-seat test, when the doctors hooked him up to the monitors and strapped him into a car seat for as long as it would take to get home. Pete and I were given training in infant CPR and the loan of an oxygen tank and mask, just in case he ever stopped breathing at home. And then—just like that, eleven weeks after I woke up with a splitting headache and a strange leaden feeling in my womb, and still two weeks before my actual due date—we were out of hospital, discharged, a proper family at last.

  “Welcome to the world, little man,” Pete said triumphantly as we walked out the hospital doors, lifting the baby seat like a lantern and slowly spinning around so Theo could see. “From now on, things are going to get better.”

  Except it wasn’t that simple. Once, getting Theo home had been the only thing I wanted. Now it was strangely disorienting. When you were used to being able to glance over and check your baby’s status on a monitor, not having one there seemed odd. The noise of the machines had become so familiar, its absence was deafening—the bleeps and chimes continued in my head, insistent as the chorus of a song. Instead of relaxing because we were home, I felt increasingly anxious. I worried that we’d scald the inside of Theo’s mouth by overheating his bottle, or accidentally push him under the water when we gave him a bath, or drop him when he was wet and slippery afterward. I checked on him every ten minutes while he slept, to make sure he hadn’t stopped breathing. And when he sniffed a few times, I was convinced he had an infection and made Pete rush us all straight back to the NICU.

  The doctor checked Theo over, then said quietly to me, “And you? How are you coping?”

  “I’m fine. Just a bit stressed out.”

  “Depressed?”

  I shook my head. If anything, I was the very opposite of depressed—full of nervous energy.

  “Well, if you do get the baby blues, don’t ignore them. There are antidepressants your GP can prescribe that won’t pass into your breast milk.”

  I didn’t tell him I’d already started supplementing with formula. Breastfeeding reminded me too much of the NICU. I’d hidden the oxygen tank, too. I only had to catch sight of it to feel sick.

  Most of all, though, I felt alone. It was so difficult to tell Pete that I still felt no maternal attachment to Theo, only a terrible helplessness. Once I tried to explain to him what it was like, how I felt as if I were only babysitting someone else’s child, someone who’d be furious with me if I screwed up, and he looked at me, baffled.

  “But of course he’s our baby. Who else’s could he be?”

  “I don’t mean I think he’s someone else’s baby. I mean I feel as if he is.”

  Nor did I tell him that the exhaustion, the chapped nipples, the emotional numbness, felt like my punishment for not being a good mother. Pete so clearly adored his son, I’d have felt disloyal even bringing it up.

  Sometimes he’d start to say something about the NICU—“Do you remember when those other parents…” or “Wasn’t it weird when that doctor said…”—and I’d cut him off.

  “I don’t really want to think about all that. Let’s put it behind us, shall we?”

  “Of course. That’s a really healthy attitude, Mads. Let’s look to the future.”

  I’d read that, for some women, the maternal bond came slowly. So I assumed that was what would happen in my case. And it did start kicking in more when Theo was about three months. I’d gotten used to the half smiles and grimaces he made when he was trying to poo—Pete always seized on them as evidence of his affectionate nature, though to me they were simply an indication that Theo found pooing very satisfying. But one time, after I’d given him a bath, I’d wrapped him in a towel and laid him on the floor as usual when he looked up at me and grinned. A part of me knew he was just pleased to be warm and dry again, but that look, the mischief and contentment in his little blue-gray eyes…For the first time, I felt a relationship with him. I wasn’t just a milk machine. I was the center of his universe, and even if he wasn’t yet the center of mine, we were definitely in some kind of planetary orbit, locked into a relationship that would last forever. I thought: When I am old and gray, you will be my adult son, and the sudden sense of permanence made me gasp.

  Looking back, it wasn’t surprising it took so long. I’m not someone who falls in love at the drop of a hat. It took me almost a year to fall for Pete—we used to joke that he didn’t so much date me as lay siege to me. Why would I fall in love with a stranger in a plastic box, one who was probably only passing through my life for a few short weeks? If there had been any maternal reflex in me at all, it was the one telling me not to risk getting emotionally involved. I had to wait for him to move on from being in danger, to become a person with a future, before I could allow myself the luxury of loving him.

  12

  Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 14B: Email from Peter Riley to Miles Lambert.

  Dear Miles and Lucy,

  First, thank you for your email, Miles, and for coming to see me in person before that, which can’t have been an easy thing to do. As you say, this is a very difficult situation that none of us chose to be in, but we really appreciate that you’re trying to deal with it in a civilized way. We fully intend to do the same.

  Having discussed it, we would be very pleased to take up your offer of getting together at your house, and we think it would be good for Theo and David to meet as well. Maddie remembers Lucy from the NICU and says hello.

  We’re free all day Saturday. Theo tends to be at his best in the mornings, so shall we aim for about 10:30?

  Best wishes,

  Pete

  13
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  PETE

  COME SATURDAY, WE PACKED Theo into the back of our Golf and headed over to Highgate. I’d allowed plenty of time to find somewhere to park, but as it turned out, I needn’t have. Where we lived, it was always a scramble to find a space, but the roads in Miles and Lucy’s neck of the woods hardly had any cars parked in them at all. It was because the houses were so big and far apart, I realized—fine, wide Victorian villas, with large sash windows and raised ground floors. Very few had been turned into flats, either, which meant even fewer vehicles competing for spaces, while some, like the Lamberts’, had off-road parking. We pulled up a few yards from their house and sat waiting for the clock on the dashboard to reach ten thirty, while behind us Theo puffed tunelessly on a plastic kazoo.

  “On reflection, that might not have been the best toy to bring,” Maddie said after a while.

  “I didn’t bring it, he found it on the backseat,” I pointed out. “And it’s good for his speech to use his fine mouth muscles. But I’m sure David will have lots of other toys to play with.”

  We were both silent. The truth was, we were wrung out. The days since Miles had knocked on the door with his bombshell had been exhausting. We’d veered between hope and fear—hope that we could somehow make this work, and fear at what might happen if we couldn’t. Sometimes, in the depths of the night, I’d jolt awake, gasping with adrenaline. I could almost feel our family, our little unit, being pulled apart, like the segments of an orange. But then I’d tell myself it was going to be all right, that we had a plan. And that, after all, Miles and Lucy must be feeling exactly the same terror as us.

  “Why are we doing this?” Maddie said suddenly.

  I gave her a sideways look. “Meeting today? Or meeting them at all?”

  “Both. Any of it. Perhaps we should just have—I don’t know, politely refused to engage. Perhaps that would have been the best thing for everyone, in the long run.”

  “It’s not too late. We could make an excuse—”

  She shook her head. “I don’t really mean it. And sorry for snapping about the toy. I’m just nervous, I suppose.”

  “About the meeting? Or seeing Theo’s cousin?” We’d agreed not to use the words our son in front of Theo. He probably wouldn’t understand, but it was best to be careful.

  “Both. But mainly David. I just can’t help thinking—he’s our, our offspring. I carried him. And we have absolutely no idea what sort of person he is. That’s just crazy, isn’t it?”

  “Big car,” Theo said. I looked around. He was pointing at the four-wheel-drive BMW parked in the Lamberts’ drive.

  “Very big car,” I agreed. “But big cars aren’t always better. They put lots of dirt into the air, for one thing.”

  “Come on, let’s do this.” Maddie reached down and squeezed my hand, then unbuckled her seatbelt.

  * * *

  —

  WHAT DO YOU TAKE as a gift in that situation? We’d opted for flowers for Lucy, and we’d let Theo choose a small packet of sweets for David. He’d decided on chocolate buttons. I’d mentally run through all the objections Lucy might raise—some mothers were funny about sweets of any kind—but these were only 160 calories, the chocolate was Fairtrade, and, most important, I knew there were exactly ten buttons in every bag, so they were eminently shareable.

  We climbed the steps to the front door, which Theo managed by himself; rang the bell—more complicated than it sounds: It turned out the entry intercom was back by the gate into the drive—and then the door opened and there was Miles, casual in a patterned shirt, chinos, and deck shoes without socks. “Come in, come in, good to see you,” he said to me and Maddie, before eagerly crouching down to Theo and putting his hand up, palm out, in the universal gesture that means “high five.”

  “Hey there, Theo,” he said gently.

  Theo, for reasons of his own, chose to interpret Miles’s flat hand as a target to be punched. “Bouff!” he said as he hit him. Miles laughed and stood up.

  “Lucy’s through here.”

  He led us to the rear of the house, into a slate-floored kitchen the size of our entire ground floor. The blond woman I’d last seen outside the nursery was standing by a red Aga, making tea. Once again she was stylishly dressed, in tight white jeans and a shawl made of mohair or angora. “Hello!” she said brightly, coming over and kissing us both on the cheek. I sensed she was just as nervous as we were. “Oh, how kind.” She took the flowers and reached under the big ceramic sink for a vase.

  “And this is David,” Miles said behind us. Maddie and I turned as one.

  Miles had carried David in from an adjoining room, so he was at our height. He was smaller than Theo—a lot smaller—and in the flesh, you could tell at once there was something fragile about him. His fair hair was very fine, and his features were elfin, almost girlish, which made the resemblance to Maddie even stronger. He looked at us anxiously, a little dull-eyed, as if he’d just woken up.

  “Hi,” I said, stepping forward and shaking his little hand gently by the wrist. “I’m Pete.”

  “And I’m Maddie.” Maddie reached toward him eagerly with both hands, as if to take him, and David shrank back.

  “He’s quite a shy little chap, I’m afraid.” Miles squatted down, still holding David, so David was in Theo’s eyeline. “We weren’t allowed to have other children around at all until a couple of months ago—he’s still very immunosuppressed. You’re just about the first visitors who Lucy hasn’t made scrub their arms with alcohol gel.”

  “Theo,” I began, meaning to prompt him to say hello, but Theo had already stepped forward. Being at nursery had made him confident with other children, and now he held up his hand dramatically, thrusting the bag of chocolate buttons at David for inspection like a policeman’s badge. “Ho!” he said proudly. David stared at him, uncomprehending.

  “He’s not allowed chocolate, I’m afraid,” Lucy said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said apologetically. “I thought, since it was a special occasion…”

  “It’s not that. He can’t digest it. He has a reflux condition that’s triggered by any kind of fat. When he gets an attack he has to go straight back on oxygen, which he hates.”

  “I’ll take that, Theo,” I said quickly, plucking the bag from his hand. He rounded on me, his eyes expressing his outrage, but I’d already pocketed it. I was probably going to make his own snatching problem worse by grabbing it like that, I reflected, but it wasn’t the moment to worry about that. “Why don’t you ask David to show you some of his toys?” I added.

  Miles gently set David down. He was unsteady on his feet, teetering wide-legged like a baby. From the bulkiness of his trousers, it was clear he was still wearing a regular nappy rather than pull-ups or pants.

  “Michaela?” Miles called.

  “Yes, Mr. Lambert?” A girl of about twenty appeared in the doorway. She, too, was blond, although her hair had black showing at the roots. She sounded Eastern European.

  “Could you take David, and show Theo where to find some toys?”

  “Of course. Come with me, Theo, they’re all in here.”

  “What toys do you like, David?” Maddie asked gently as Michaela picked him up. He didn’t reply, although his head turned toward her curiously. With a stab of horror I realized he hadn’t understood the question.

  He was brain-damaged. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise—the possibility had been drummed into us in the NICU, over and over. But week by week, as Theo had thrived and prematurity slowly lost its grip, we’d started taking normality for granted. Forgetting just how lucky we’d been.

  Or rather, how lucky Theo had been. Because—I now realized—the doctor who’d told Maddie how poorly our son was, and how he might not survive that initial episode of oxygen starvation unscathed, had been right. The child he had been talking about was David, and his mind was clearly i
mpaired.

  “David’s not very chatty,” Lucy said nervously. “He’s not nearly so advanced as Theo.”

  I looked at her, aghast. Was it possible she didn’t know? Or was she just using a euphemistic understatement for her son’s condition? The latter, I decided. It must be. She would have spent the last two years talking to doctors on an almost daily basis.

  But then I remembered how, even in the NICU, the doctors had always shrugged and said, We just can’t tell the future. It’s impossible to make a long-term prognosis until around the third birthday.

  Either way, I reflected, this was going to make the conversation we’d come here to have a whole lot more difficult.

  14

  MADDIE

  LUCY POURS US ALL tea, and then we stand and watch the children through the doorway of the playroom. They don’t play together. David sits on the floor with a baby gym, repetitively spinning the plastic animals around and around the pole, while Theo stomps around, pulling things off shelves and inspecting them. Eventually Michaela finds him a wooden train and he settles down to make it crash into mountains that he constructs from piles of Duplo, while she scurries around picking up the pieces.

  I can’t stop looking at David. My son. When I’d first seen him in Miles’s arms and reached for him, it hadn’t even been a conscious gesture. And although he’d shrunk back, my hands had briefly made contact with his ribs. The memory of that touch seems to linger in the ends of my fingers, like the sting after an electric shock.

  I glance at Miles and Lucy. Miles is watching Theo the same way I’ve been looking at David—devouring him with his eyes, a half smile playing across his face every time the train smashes into the Duplo. Lucy…Lucy is harder to read, her gaze flitting from one child to the other. When she looks at Theo she smiles, amused by his antics, but she seems anxious, too. And when she looks at David, there’s something altogether different in her eyes. Sadness, perhaps.