by Dani Atkins
Ryan smiled across at his wife and I saw her responding grin, saw the way it wavered for a moment as she realised who was standing beside him, and the brief wave she then sent in our direction. As soon as the music stopped, Chloe began marshalling the group to their next activity. I watched, fascinated by her multi-tasking skills, as she crouched to deal with a tearful child, directed another one speedily to the toilets, and listened to at least three others who were shouting out questions.
‘Was Chloe ever a teacher?’ I asked, marvelling at the way she appeared to be able to deal with ten queries at once.
‘No. A librarian,’ Ryan replied, which was funny enough to make me laugh if I hadn’t been distracted by the look of love and admiration in his eyes as he watched her. Did he ever look at you that way? A voice in my head silently asked. As though you’d just done something truly amazing? A memory suddenly unfolded, like an inflating lifeboat, and filled my head with the answer. Just once. Ryan had looked at me in a very similar way when I’d told him that I was pregnant. That was a good day. The best day, I remembered sadly.
A small shape dressed in pink suddenly detached itself from the group of children, and came hurtling across the width of the room towards us, like a tiny guided Exocet missile. Hope’s face was split with a wide grin, and I was pretty certain mine held an exact mirror image of it.
‘Maddie. You came to my birthday party!’ my child cried with such obvious delight that I felt something – that might have been either joy or pain – catch in my throat. I dropped down to my knees and was almost knocked over when her small body collided with mine, like a magnet, finding its way home. I burrowed my face into her shoulder, until I was sure my eyes were bright, but dry. I was still down at Hope’s height when a pair of slim legs in dark denim jeans came into view. I got to my feet, rising up through a cloud of Chloe’s perfume, wondering why it seemed so distinctively familiar.
‘Mummy,’ cried Hope with delight, pulling away from me and reaching for Chloe’s hand. ‘Look, Maddie’s here, she did come.’
Ryan shot a slightly concerned look at the woman he’d replaced me with, but he was worrying unnecessarily. Whatever Chloe really felt about me being there was buried deep beneath her perfectly pleasant manner.
‘It’s good to see you again, Maddie. Thank you so much for coming.’ Those words would have stuck in my throat like a fish hook, but Chloe certainly sounded sincere enough.
Strangely she looked more comfortable here on neutral territory than she had the week before in her own home. Her cheeks were flushed to a soft, becoming pink, which looked undeniably attractive against the pale blue of her jumper. It also made her look about sixteen years old, and made me feel ancient. She bent her head to drop a kiss on Hope’s forehead, and her blond hair swung like a fluffy cloud upon her shoulders. If she was a storybook character, she’d be the Good Fairy, and me . . . I glanced down at what I was wearing, and regretted my choice of black . . . I guess that made me the Wicked Witch.
It was certainly something I felt I could read on the faces of several of the mothers when Chloe led me towards them.
‘There’s tea and coffee, or wine, if you’d prefer,’ she said. She gave a small high laugh, and it was only then that I realised she was nowhere near as comfortable around me as I had first thought. ‘Keeping the children happy is easy; it’s the mothers you have to worry about.’
I glanced up and saw many of those mothers staring at us as we approached the lounge area where they were sitting out the party. I swear I caught glimpses of disappointment on the faces of a few of them. Were they hoping that Hope’s natural mother and her stepmother would make a scene at their daughter’s birthday party?
The thought jabbed at me suddenly like an electric shock. Our daughter. Not just Ryan’s and mine – that was obvious, but also Chloe’s and mine. From now and going forward, we were both going to have to learn how to share something that I already knew was the most precious thing in the world . . . to both of us.
There were a few too many Charlottes and Emmas among the group of fashionably dressed mothers for me to remember who was whose mummy. So I just smiled and nodded and tried not to feel like the outsider they clearly all knew that I was. There was only one truly awkward moment when a husband of one of the Charlottes came up and thrust a neatly manicured, slightly pudgy hand towards me like a weapon.
‘Don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Lawrence. Francesca’s dad.’
I smiled politely, having no idea which particular six-year-old he was referring to, and realising it didn’t matter. My hand lifted to shake his, but before I could introduce myself he gave a loud and hearty guffaw. ‘And we don’t need to ask who you are. You’re obviously little Hope’s—’
‘—cousin,’ cut in an Emma or a Kate sharply. ‘This is Maddie, Lawrence. She’s a relative of Hope’s. Second, or third cousin, isn’t it?’
She had bright green eyes, more brilliant than a cat’s, and I was pierced under their emerald glare like a bug on a stick. I glanced down at her expensive-looking top, fully expecting to see it emblazoned with the words Team Chloe. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ she pressed. Her eyes dropped down meaningfully and I suddenly saw that several party guests had made their way back to their parents’ side. There was a saying my own mother used when I was a child; something about little pitchers having big ears. It had always struck me as a slightly ridiculous expression, which had suddenly become exceedingly wise. I was surrounded by far too many people who could blow my daughter’s safe little world apart. It was for her I lied, not for Ryan or Chloe.
‘Yes. I’m a cousin,’ I said, lying more convincingly than a professional poker player.
I cried when they brought out the birthday cake. It was made in the shape of a castle, and I knew without even bothering to ask any of the surrounding mothers that Chloe had made it herself. The lights had been dimmed and when Chloe walked in proudly holding the creation with its six blazing candles, my eyes went to where Ryan was standing with his arm securely around Hope’s waist as she stood on a chair, little cheeks puffed out far too early in readiness.
There had to be ten metres and about twenty people between us, but they all seemed to suddenly evaporate away as Ryan looked across the distance at me. He was smiling with his lips, while his eyes were saying sorry, two thousand sorries, one for almost every day that I’d missed.
It’s hard to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ when you’re crying. But I did the best I could.
‘Can I open Maddie’s one next?’ Hope asked, running over to the box she had no chance of lifting down unaided. Ryan smiled and crossed the lounge to the enormous pile of birthday presents, lifting mine down for her. He ruffled her hair affectionately before stepping back. ‘You can open whichever one you want, Pumpkin. They’re all yours.’
Hope’s small hands ran excitedly over the ribbons, and like an efficient scrub nurse in an operating theatre, Chloe was suddenly beside her with a pair of sharp scissors, ready and waiting. She sliced through ribbons and foil paper, and then stepped back to allow her little girl to do the rest.
I hadn’t anticipated coming back to Ryan and Chloe’s home following the party. To be honest, I’d been more than ready for the peace and solitude of my new home. I was used to hospital, I was used to quiet, I was used to six years of silence. At some point during the party I finally understood why Ryan had tried to warn me in advance. When you’re a parent, you get a slow indoctrination into the world of children, but when you’re suddenly dropped into it, it feels as if you’ve unexpectedly crash-landed on Mars.
‘Maddie is coming back to our house, isn’t she?’ Hope had asked, putting Chloe in an impossibly awkward position. Good manners meant she had to say: ‘Of course, if she wants to,’ though I suspected the response she’d much rather have given was: ‘Over my dead body.’
The party had been an education, and not just in the habits of six-year-olds, which I watched with all the fascination of a David Attenborough documentary. A
nd here we have the lesser-hyperactive six-year-old . . . As interesting as it was to watch Hope and her posse of friends, watching Chloe and Ryan had been even more illuminating. Ryan had become exactly the kind of father I’d always known he would be. He was caring and loving, firm at times – when he needed to be – but also fun. ‘I want to be a good dad,’ I remembered him whispering in the dark of the night, as we snuggled together in his bed. His hands had glided over the almost imperceptible bump, low on my stomach. ‘I want to give this baby everything I have; all of my heart, all of my love, all of my time.’ My hands had slid down and linked with his over the tiny human we had made together. ‘Lucky baby, look who you’ve got as a daddy,’ I’d said softly, happily content in the safe haven of a life I never got to live in the end.
Watching Chloe at the party had been even more poignant. She had an aura about her, as though she was exactly where she belonged. She was loving, patient, and kind. She was the mother I had planned to be: always there with a smile, a kiss, or a tender cuddle. The kind who would be on hand to share every last special moment in her child’s life. She was the better version of what I had planned and hoped to be. She was a better me than I think I could have been.
‘What is it?’ squealed Hope, ripping open the tape holding the flaps of the cardboard box and finally revealing the gift that had cost me far more than you’re probably meant to spend on a child’s birthday, unless you happen to have recently won the lottery, that is.
‘Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow!’ I smiled and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Three wows had to mean I’d got it right, didn’t it? Hope had circled the huge carved wooden pumpkin, as though expecting it to magically change into a coach at any moment. It was a good present, but not quite that good. I got out of my chair and went over to her.
‘There’s a little catch here,’ I said, guiding her fingers to a small brass fixing. ‘You have to slide it over like this.’ Together we opened the pumpkin, allowing the two halves to swing apart on their carefully crafted hinges.
‘It’s a doll’s house,’ she breathed in wonder, dropping to her knees to study the labyrinth of tiny rooms, each fitted out with miniature intricately carved woodland creatures, living in fully furnished splendour.
‘I got the idea when I saw your Lego house last week,’ I said, my words lost as Hope launched herself into my arms. ‘I love it, Maddie. It’s the best present . . . ever.’ That alone was worth spending the next month eating beans on toast for, I thought, turning to Ryan and Chloe as Hope once again began to examine every single occupant of the unique doll’s house.
‘It’s a lovely present. Very original. Hope’s going to have a lot of fun playing with it.’ It was exactly the right thing to say, and I wondered how much it had cost Chloe to say it.
Hope suddenly sprang to her feet and raced for the door. ‘I’m going to get some of the toys from my room. I want to put them in the Pumpkin House too.’ There was a slightly awkward silence after she left.
‘It really is a very special present,’ said Ryan kindly. His hand, I noticed, had come to rest on Chloe’s shoulder, as though soothing away a tension that perhaps I’d put there. ‘Where on earth did you find it?’
‘That’s the funny thing. I remembered there was a specialist shop down that road with the Italian restaurant we used to go to. We went in there a couple of times last year, just to look at the wonderful doll’s houses the guy made. Do you remember?’
The room was quiet for a moment, the only sound was the crackling of the log fire and the beat of my heart, that for some reason sounded so much louder than usual.
‘Not last year,’ corrected Ryan quietly, and I don’t know what was worse, the sadness in his voice or the sudden flash of sympathy on Chloe’s face. ‘I know the place you mean, Maddie, but it was seven years ago that we went there.’
Chloe
‘Why didn’t you tell me about that place?’
Ryan’s sleepy mumble told me he’d already fallen asleep. He was way ahead of me.
‘Blurgh?’
‘That place. The place that sells the fancy doll’s houses. Why had you never mentioned it to me?’
Ryan yawned, not yet all-the-way awake. ‘I suppose I forgot about it. It’s been years and years since I was there. If I’d remembered it existed, I would have told you about it, hon.’
I was silent for a few moments. Let it drop, or keep worrying away at it, like a wound you won’t allow to heal? Good sense didn’t stand a chance.
‘Well, Maddie remembered it.’
Ryan sighed and I knew he was now with me one hundred per cent.
‘For Maddie, it was only recent,’ Ryan reasoned.
His words opened a door on a corridor I knew better than to walk down, and yet I took that first dangerous step anyway. ‘That’s how it is for her though, isn’t it? All of her memories, all of her emotions . . . all of her feelings . . . they’re not in the past at all, are they? They’re still real to her. Everything she felt back then, she still feels now.’
I didn’t need to elaborate. Even half asleep and late at night, he knew what I meant.
‘Is that what this is all about?’ Ryan’s arms reached out for me and pulled me against him. But for once there was no comfort to be found being held against the slow and steady beat of his heart. ‘I can’t help what Maddie might or might not be feeling,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘All I can tell you is that those feelings don’t exist any more for me. They haven’t for a very long time. You know that.’
I was crying now, and I really hoped he couldn’t tell, because I knew I was being foolish, I didn’t need to provide corroborating evidence.
‘I would have liked to have bought her that doll’s house, that’s all,’ I said peevishly.
‘You bought her a kitten,’ Ryan countered, trying to gently tease me out of the spiral that was sucking me down. ‘You nuked the doll’s house with the kitten,’ he said solemnly.
I smiled, even as the tears were tumbling into my pillow, remembering Hope’s face when I’d told her that we had one last present for her. How I’d run to our neighbour’s house to retrieve the carrier they’d been safely storing for me, the one with the tiny eight-week-old smoke-coloured kitten, that Ryan and I had bought for Hope.
‘Yes, I suppose we did,’ I said. This time even I could hear the smile in my voice.
‘And this way Hope has two amazing presents, from two amazing mothers. One of whom, incidentally, I am about to make love to.’
I should have gone to him then. But my husband’s words had conjured up an image of him making love to Maddie, even if was over six years in the past. It hung in the air between us like a spectre; there would be no getting rid of it tonight.
I turned my face and tenderly kissed his naked shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. Would you mind if I have a rain check on that? I have a horrible headache right now.’
And it wasn’t just an excuse I realised, because suddenly I really and truly did.
Maddie
‘My birthday present got gazumped.’
A rumbling laugh came from somewhere beneath my kitchen sink. ‘I think that expression only applies to houses,’ said Mitch, and despite the fact all I could see of him was a pair of incredibly long legs protruding from the cabinet, I knew he was grinning widely.
‘Yes, well, my present was a doll’s house, so I believe it’s still applicable.’
‘Fair enough. Can you pass me the mole grip,’ Mitch requested, holding out his hand in readiness for the tool.
‘That sounds like something you’d find in Farthing Wood,’ I said, staring helplessly at the array of tools scattered across the kitchen floor.
‘They’re the ones next to the Stillson wrench,’ he added uselessly.
‘You’re speaking in a foreign language. Do you mean the thing with the red handle, or the thing with the blue one?’
Once again Mitch laughed. ‘The blue one,’ he confirmed.
I passed him the tool and looked over at his young ap
prentice, who was making small explosive sounds as he played an enthusiastic game involving a toy truck and a robot on my kitchen table.
‘Would you like some more milk or biscuits, Sam?’ I asked, feeling more than a little guilty that his weekend with his dad had been hijacked in order to fix my leaking pipe.
‘No thank you,’ the seven-year-old replied politely, before returning to his game of mass destruction.
I’d been greeted with the sight of a steadily growing puddle of water, trickling slowly across my kitchen floor, when I’d returned from Hope’s birthday party the evening before. After mopping up the best I could, I offered a silent apology to Mitch’s late grandmother before placing her large fancy soup tureen beneath the dripping pipe. Her grandson must have been out, because he didn’t answer his mobile, so I left him a message explaining that I had a problem. I’d just climbed sleepily into bed when he messaged back, to advise me that someone would come round the next day to fix it. He certainly hadn’t hinted in that message that the ‘someone’ would be him.
It only occurred to me as I packed the final items into my overnight bag the next morning that I should probably have told Mitch I was going away for a few days, particularly if he was arranging for the repair to be done. I looked around for my mobile to call him, but before I managed to locate it, there were two resounding raps on my front door. If that was the plumber, it sounded as if he must have used a wrench to knock on it. I hurried to let him in, before he moved on to a heftier tool.
But when I pulled open the door no one was there; at least that’s what I initially thought, until I lowered my gaze and saw a small, dark-haired child standing beside a huge metal toolbox, which probably weighed almost as much as he did. They say you know you’re getting old when policemen start to look impossibly young, but I wasn’t sure what it meant when tradesmen looked like they still attended primary school.