Chapter 40
Rachel
I have been sketching my way through pregnancy, creating a time capsule of snapshots I can look back on in years to come.
Lawrence’s hand on my belly, the first time I felt the baby kick.
The cucumbers I couldn’t stop eating whole, as though they were apples.
Lawrence assembling the cot. The view from our newly decorated nursery window at night, a felt-moon mobile suspended in the foreground.
And Lawrence, captured one evening after coming home from the office, feet up, so absorbed in a baby book he didn’t even notice me get my sketchbook out.
But later that night, when I looked back at the picture, I was horrified to realise I had drawn Josh in Lawrence’s place. It was Josh engrossed in the baby book with his feet up. Josh who was so excited to become a dad, he was reading up on what to expect at every chance he got.
I ripped the picture into tiny pieces and squashed them deep, deep down into the kitchen bin. And then I stood and stared at the closed lid, my body stiff with shock.
Emma Lily Carmichael surprises everyone by making her entrance into the world on a bright Wednesday in May, two weeks ahead of schedule.
Lawrence – unlike his daughter – is late.
He headed out this morning for a full day of meetings, his mobile phone switched to silent.
As soon as the contractions kicked in I left messages at the office, but these seemed to be interpreted merely as updates, no action necessary.
He finally became reachable mid-afternoon, by which point I was incapable of forming full sentences and Polly had to do the bulk of the yelling at him, informing him the baby was nearly here and to get his arse down to the hospital immediately.
Just before he arrives – as I am midway through the long helter-skelter of pain and euphoria and exertion – I get out my phone and begin to text Josh, before Polly takes it gently from my hand, whispering, ‘No, sweetie.’
I don’t even know why I wanted to contact him, really. A primal urge perhaps, rising up inside me now along with all the others. Or perhaps I still feel guilty, that Lawrence was the one to tell Josh about the baby. My last text to him was an apology, because he hadn’t heard it from me.
But then comes another contraction, so the message to Josh remains unsent.
Which is probably a good thing, since he might have replied, and this is the point at which Lawrence finally clatters through the door, swearing and complaining about the traffic.
He asks the midwives if there are any free plug sockets for him to charge his phone, then informs them he has a mild phobia of hospitals and already feels a little faint.
But I just have to leave him to Polly, as the waves of noise and pain and pressure close over my head, pulling me into a place where I am utterly alone, with only one precious purpose.
And now, she has arrived, and it is so surreal, to feel her tiny weight in my arms at last. Finally meeting her, my unblinking gaze latched to hers, after endless nights of reading to her, and sketching the shape of her in my stomach, and talking her through the plot intricacies of the latest series of 24.
I felt I’d got to know her; but this is something else entirely.
My love feels boundlessly, extraordinarily vast. Already too big for my arms, this room, the world. A universe all of its own.
Polly has gone home to get some sleep, and Lawrence has nipped out for food, to update his parents and the rest of our friends, and probably check his email.
The room, temporarily, is empty. But I am not alone. I can hear nothing now but our two hearts, beating.
She is already, without a doubt, the best risk I ever took.
I dip my head to hers, which is thick with hair, drawing in the warm, milky smell of her. ‘I promise,’ I whisper, ‘I will be the best mother I can be to you. Always.’
I cannot stop looking into the tiny dark galaxies of her eyes. Right now, I only need her.
My daughter, after so many years of waiting, is finally here.