A Mother’s Sacrifice

by Gemma Metcalfe

  Louisa is no stranger to me…

  She doesn’t see me watching her, as she completely disregards her tea-making session a mere five seconds into it, perhaps realising that to pour boiling water into two mugs while holding a baby is a recipe for disaster. Of course she could have placed him down, or asked for help, but I doubt the thought even entered her pretty little head. He is ‘her’ child after all, and nobody is easily going to come between them. That isn’t a great concern to me though. I enjoy a challenge.

  The little hospital ‘gift’ has most certainly had the desired effect. She is trying to disregard it, to place it at the back of her brain while telling herself there is a logical explanation. I know that is what she’ll be doing… because, as I previously mentioned, I know Louisa very well indeed. Unfortunately for her though, any attempt at logical thinking soon becomes drenched in anxiety until it is extinguished, her sanity reduced to flaky ashes which can be blown away in a puff.

  The baby is exquisite though, all pale skin and red hair.

  Yes, I prayed for a child just like him… and God has most certainly granted me my desire.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Louisa

  Now

  ‘Hey, Lou, look, I think he might be smiling.’

  I place my Kindle down on the nightstand, having not read a single word, and look over to where James is lying, Cory propped up on his thighs wearing nothing but a nappy and a smile. He’s now two weeks old and changing by the day. ‘Well, it does says in the book that babies properly smile around six weeks old; until then it’s most probably wind.’

  ‘Balls to the book. You’re a little prodigy, aren’t you, son?’ James sticks out his tongue and widens his eyes at Cory who wriggles around in response, his eyes transfixed on his daddy’s face as if it’s the most amazing thing he has ever seen.

  ‘He does pull that face a lot though, normally before taking a dump.’ I hold in a laugh, knowing that any talk of nappies sends James into a frenzy.

  ‘Oh God no.’ He covers his mouth with his hand as if he’s about to heave. ‘I’m still recovering from that one last week. Seriously it was horrific, right up his back like a lamb korma.’

  I laugh. ‘You’ve told me a million times. It can’t have been that bad?’

  In actual fact I had panicked when James had explained the colour and texture to me. I waited until he went shopping before calling the GP’s surgery, the snotty receptionist informing me that unless it was white there was no cause for concern. I wanted to ask her where she’d got her practitioner’s licence from but didn’t because the surgery is only on the doorstep, meaning it’s conveniently placed in case of emergency.

  It’s now mid-December, meaning the temperature has plummeted into the minuses. We have central heating throughout the house but I still worry about Cory getting cold. ‘Pass him over now. I need to change him into his sleepsuit.’

  James scoops him up and passes him over to me, always careful to keep his head and neck supported. ‘I need to go to sleep now anyway, I’ve got an early start.’

  James went back to work today after two weeks’ paternity leave from his job as an anaesthetist at the local hospital. ‘I haven’t even had a chance to ask you how your first day back went,’ I say, feeling a stab of guilt. ‘How was it?’ I place Cory down onto the duvet and lay out his yellow sleepsuit to the side of him, ready to dress him.

  ‘So so,’ says James through a yawn. ‘We had a girl come in virtually at death’s door this morning. Tried to give herself an abortion by all accounts. It wasn’t pretty.’

  I glance over at him, my heart suddenly racing. ‘Did she survive?’

  James sighs. ‘She did, yeah, thankfully. Makes you wonder though, doesn’t it? Why in this day and age people feel the need to go to such lengths.’

  I shrug, quickly averting my gaze. ‘Anyway, best you get some sleep. Like you say, you’ve got an early start.’ I place Cory on top of the laid-out sleepsuit and proceed to bend his arms into the openings. I try my best to ignore the slight shake of my hand, telling myself it’s been a long day and I’m in desperate need of sleep.

  Half an hour later, I lie on top of the covers, hearing James’s gentle snores, which are somehow comforting rather than annoying. My mind clogs up with one thought after another, none of them completely whole. Eventually I begin to feel my muscles grow heavy and somewhere deep inside of me fear takes hold, almost as if my body knows what my subconscious is planning. My eyelids fall, a little at first… then all at once.

  His fingertips brush the inside of my thigh. ‘Close your eyes,’ he whispers, his touch slightly ticklish like the static from a balloon.

  My bare legs are raised and wide apart. I am without underwear and cold seeps into my nakedness, the hem of a garment I am not familiar with skimming my knees. ‘This won’t hurt,’ he promises, just as something sharp slides inside of me, my teeth clamping together in protest.

  ‘Stop, it hurts. Please.’ I try to shuffle away but there is no escape. I am locked in.

  A baby’s cry splices through the silence, yanking me forward. ‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ I say, guilt clawing at my chest. ‘It isn’t right.’

  ‘Shhh,’ he says, the sensation between my legs a spiked cocktail of pleasure and pain. ‘I’m nearly finished.’

  ‘Lou, I’m at work tomorrow. Will you see to him, please?’

  I wake with a gasp, the nightmare evaporating into cold sweat which lathers my chest. Cory’s cry fills the bedroom. ‘Okay, baby,’ I say, my voice thick with sleep. ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘I was just dropping off then.’ James’s voice is clipped. ‘Does he ever sleep?’

  ‘It would appear not.’ I sit up and peer out into the darkness, the nightmare now breaking up behind my eyes. It isn’t a first, or a second, or third come to that. Ever since I opened that card at the hospital, the same twisted dream has hounded me. It would seem that two separate memories, one entirely innocent and the other not so, have somehow tangled together and reworked themselves into a frenzy.

  ‘James?’ I reach out under the duvet and grab hold of his thigh, suddenly desperate to confess everything. ‘I keep having a dream.’

  ‘Least you’re getting some sleep then. Sorry, Lou, but I’m going to have to sleep in the spare room. I can’t work on no sleep. It’s dangerous.’ He jumps out of bed and makes his way across the bedroom, his footsteps heavy on the laminate flooring.

  I rub at my eyes, feeling a prickle of annoyance when the bedroom door slams shut. To give James his due, he has helped with the night feeds over the past fortnight, and there is no way he can deliver anaesthesia while sleep deprived. But still…

  Begrudgingly, I pull myself out of bed, Cory’s cry rising until it’s almost a shriek. I stumble over towards the Moses basket where I can just about make out his silhouette, the street lamp outside our bedroom window permanently suffering with insomnia. ‘Shhh, baby,’ I whisper to him, while turning around to unhook my dressing gown from the back of the door. I put it on, the heavy flannel still warm from where I took it off not half an hour ago. ‘I’m here, sweetheart.’ Bending down, I scoop up Cory, his tiny fingers like blocks of ice despite the central heating. Guilt washes over me. ‘Where have your mittens gone, hey? You’ll be scratching that beautiful face again.’ I kiss his head, take a moment to breathe him in. He smells of sleep and Johnson’s shampoo, the scent scrumptious enough to sell.

  I carry him over to the bed and sit on the edge, the soft mattress sinking under my weight. I flick on the bedroom lamp, blink a few times as my eyes adjust. Cory squints up at me, his eyebrows furrowing together, creating a cute little mono brow. ‘Well, you will go waking me up, you little sod.’ I stare deep into his eyes which, over the past few weeks, have begun to slowly darken, making me wonder if he will have brown eyes like James after all. The thought causes my spirits to lift. It would be nice for Cory to share some physical characteristics with James, would be nice for all of us. ‘What are we going to do
with you, baby? You’re a little night owl, aren’t you?’ My eyes sting and for a moment I feel like crying through sheer exhaustion. In the past three days I must have slept a total of ten or eleven hours, and even then I’ve been plagued by nightmares. I’m not angry at Cory though, how could I be? All he has to do is look up at me and I melt, feeling like a teenager meeting her idol for the first time. He really is beautiful to look at, his skin as white as porcelain and his hair redder than fire. He is a dainty baby, his features all in perfect proportion, reminding me of a Victorian pot doll. ‘So what is it this time, sir?’ I say, attempting to find light in the situation. ‘A tickly foot? Or do you require a freshly powdered bottom?’ He frowns up at me, as if already finding me embarrassing.

  An hour later, and with Cory finally asleep and settled back into his Moses basket, I climb back into bed and close my eyes once again. Sleep tugs at my eyelids almost instantly but then a sudden thought jolts me back awake. In the morning, I am due my first home appointment with my health visitor, Carol, something I’ve been dreading. I hate the idea of a stranger snooping around inside my house, watching me, judging my mothering abilities.

  Or perhaps I’m just terrified she’ll mention my past.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Louisa

  Then

  Peeking out from under the duvet I am surrounded by darkness. I know I shouldn’t get out of bed because Mr Moon is still awake, watching over me until it’s time for the world to switch itself back on. Mummy once told me that a man lived on the moon called Aiken Drum. She said he had hair made out of spaghetti and played upon a ladle. I don’t know what a ladle is and I often wonder if his hair is spaghetti like the type I eat at school or spaghetti hoops, which are orange like my hair.

  I look for Aiken Drum but I can’t see him. I even jump out of bed and tiptoe across the freezing-cold floor made out of scratchy wood and towards the window where Jack Frost blows me a kiss. But Aiken Drum isn’t there, just like always. I wonder if he’s really real or whether he’s just made up like Santa and Daddy.

  Wrapping my Sooty dressing gown tightly around me, I tiptoe down the stairs. I don’t like Sooty any more; he’s for babies and I’m five now, or maybe six.

  Once downstairs, I turn on the television with the remote control. If you press the green button, it makes the TV come on. I used to think there were real people who lived in the television but I was very silly back then, not grown-up like I am now. I wish it was that easy to wake Mummy up, to just be able to switch her on and bring her to life. I wonder how she will be feeling when she gets up, whether she’ll bounce around the room like Tigger or have her sad face on like Eeyore.

  I pick up a shiny book with thin pages off the coffee table and flick through it. I can’t read the words because I don’t go to school that much and the pictures are rubbish, like photographs of people looking sad and a whole page all about make-up. I like it best when Mummy tells me stories with her mouth and face. She says she just ‘makes it up as she goes along’, but I think she’s a better storyteller than Roald Dahl. Monty and Mary is my favourite. It’s about two twin monkeys who get into mischief. My most favourite of all is a story where Monty and Mary get accidentally locked in the ball pool at Ikea, and have to stay there all night, playing among the multicoloured balls. When Mummy is having an Eeyore day, she says Monty and Mary have gone on holiday and will be back soon. She never tells me where they’ve gone on holiday though.

  My belly begins to crumble into tiny pieces and so I go into the kitchen and switch on the light. My eyes flick up towards the calendar, which hangs by its neck from a rusty nail stuck into the kitchen wall. I don’t understand what the numbers mean, but I like looking at my tiny brown handprints, which are supposed to be Rudolph’s antlers, and the picture of me in the middle which Miss Pearson took with her camera at Christmas time. She put some red paint on a paper plate in the middle of the blue table and I was allowed to dip my pinky finger in and dot my nose, which was really fun.

  After I look at the calendar, I stand on the kitchen stool, which is a little wobbly, and stretch really far into the cupboard until my hand skims a plastic bag. The bread is a little green in places, like snot, but I pick it out and pop two slices into the toaster. Peter, the man who comes sometimes to check on me and Mummy, said I should never boil water in the kettle, but Mummy never seems to mind, and she always says ‘ta, love’ whenever I give her a cup of tea, even if sometimes she says it’s ‘as weak as piss’. She smiles though and ruffles my hair so I think she’s only kidding.

  A few moments later, I juggle the hot cup of tea and a plate of toast in both hands as I make my way towards the stairs. It’s a little hard to carry both things at once but I stick my tongue out and make my eyes really wide so I can concentrate. As I pass the living-room door, I notice The Wizard of Oz on the television. Mummy says The Wizard of Oz is a classic, and that they ‘don’t make ‘em like that any more’. I like it too, but only the colourful bit, and not the witch who tries to hurt Dorothy or the enormous green Wizard who is just a head.

  Once I reach the top of the stairs, I put the plate of toast in the bend of my arm and turn the doorknob to Mummy’s bedroom with the other. Mr Moon has gone to sleep now and switched on his bedroom light. This means Mummy’s room is now bright and colourful, like when Dorothy’s house falls from the sky and lands in Oz.

  At first I think Mummy is playing a game. But Mummy doesn’t play games very often.

  Especially not with my skipping rope.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Louisa

  Now

  A sharp hammering peels open my eyelids. I squint up at the shaft of bright light which shines directly on me through the slender gap in the bedroom curtains, dust particles floating around as if trapped in a twister. Surely I haven’t slept all night? A quick glance to the right tells me that James isn’t by my side and the memory of him storming out of the bedroom several hours ago is like a slap in the face. The shrill knocking gains momentum, matching the headache which rests just above my eyes.

  Reaching over to the bedside table, I rummage around for my phone and, finally locating it, peer at the time. 9.50 a.m. ‘Shit, the health visitor!’

  I sit bolt upright, another thought hollowing out my insides. ‘Cory!’ I peer into the Moses basket, which is positioned to the side of the bed, exhaling a shaky breath when I realise he’s only sleeping. ‘Oh, thank God.’

  The knocking gains momentum, increasing in volume and speed. Shit, shit, shit. I look down at my pyjama top, the silky fabric stuck to my skin, dark patches spreading around my nipples from where milk has leaked out during the night. A quick glance over at the mirrored wardrobe reveals dark bags under my eyes, my hair like copper wire. Just ignore her. Ignore her and she’ll go away.

  ‘Mrs Carter. It’s your health visitor, Carol. Please answer the door.’ The letterbox clatters shut, causing Cory to wake, his cry like a flare in the middle of a desert. ‘Okay, I’m coming,’ I shout, before scooping him up and making my way down the stairs.

  The blurred outline of Carol behind the frosted glass sinks my stomach. Plastering a smile onto my face, I open the door wide, an icy-cold chill sweeping past me as I do. She looks me up and down, her expression unreadable. ‘You’re early!’ I say, my words emerging more hostile than I intend.

  She looks down at her watch and taps it twice. ‘I think you’ll find I’m right on time.’

  As she steps over the threshold, I notice a single card on the mat. The scrawled handwriting is solely addressed to ‘Louisa’.

  ‘Aren’t you going to pick that up?’ says Carol, her voice now coming from behind me as I make my way down the hallway towards the lounge. I chance a glance back at her, her appearance and manner reminding me of a pissed-off Susan Boyle. Her greying hair appears to grow outwards instead of down and her mottled green cardigan tries and fails to hide enormous breasts. ‘Well?’ she says.

  A wall of worry stops me from answering. I can’t allow myself to
think about the card right now. Somehow, I have to get through this home visit; at the moment that’s all that matters. ‘I’ll see to it later. If you’d like to come through.’

  Seeing the lounge through Carol’s eyes as I nudge open the door causes me to wince. A creased pile of washing balances on the arm of the leather sofa, Cory’s changing mat discarded in the middle of the carpet. On the glass coffee table, several stained mugs fight for space. I turn around to look at her, watch in horror as her nose begins to twitch.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter, absolutely mortified. ‘He’s been awake most of the night and we just slept in.’

  She pats down her cardigan, her eyes rolling over the width of the room. ‘Perhaps you ought to see to him… poor mite appears to have soiled himself.’

  A pungent aroma hits the back of my throat as she finishes speaking. Nice one, Cory, way to make an impression!

  ‘I really do apologise for this,’ I say a moment later, as I lay Cory down onto the changing mat, inwardly pleading with him not to kick his legs and arch his back like he normally does. I pop open his Babygro, Carol’s hot stare burning one side of my face, her incessant humming fraying my nerves. I hold Cory’s legs together at his ankles and slide the soiled nappy out from underneath him, doing my upmost to stick it together with one hand before discarding it into a nappy bag. Carol clears her throat loudly, her shiny black court shoe wordlessly reprimanding me as it taps incessantly on the carpet. ‘I bet you always catch mothers unprepared, don’t you?’