Chapter 2
BECKETT
To everyone’s relief, Mary’s baby boy slithered into the world with a face scrunched in determination and no apparent issues or anything to worry about.
Patty, the woman who’d opened the door, had immediately fetched another woman, Yara, who she assured Beckett was a medical professional, and Yara had handled the actual birth while Beckett held Mary’s hand and tried to find something helpful to say.
He only felt grateful that Yara waited until she was wrapping the baby in a towel to reveal that her specialism was large animal dentistry.
‘I can handle a haemorrhage, help avoid infection. Hooves, trotters, paws. The basics don’t change.’ She shrugged, while Patty rushed off to let in an on-call midwife who, it turned out, lived only four streets away.
Beckett had witnessed births during his obstetrics training, but had still been mesmerised at seeing how Mary transformed as soon as the midwife helped her into a sitting position and placed the squirming baby onto her chest. Any trace of fear and agony melted into pure wonder as her son blinked a few times, then gazed solemnly into his mother’s blue-grey eyes.
Beckett turned towards the window, almost overcome at witnessing such an intimate, yet monumental moment.
He was swallowing hard, willing himself back under control, when the midwife appeared at his shoulder.
‘Here you go, Daddy, introduce yourself to your son while I help Mum with the placenta.’
Before Beckett could protest, the bundle wrapped up in a small towel was pressed into his arms. He was too dumbfounded by the past hour to figure out if it would be worse to correct her about who he was, and therefore probably have to leave, when he’d promised Mary he wouldn’t, or risk the mistaken identity escalating into something that came across far worse in the long run.
He went with his default life-strategy, turned away to give Mary some privacy, and kept quiet. The baby felt as light as the dwarf lop rabbit he’d had as a boy, the feel of tiny bones making him nervous he’d break something.
It was startling – mind-blowing – that here he was cradling a whole new person. Someone with their own individual personality and unique set of DNA. A whole uncharted life ahead of them.
‘Here we go.’ Patty brought him back to earth by bustling in with a tray of mugs. ‘Plenty of milk and sugar for Mummy. I’ve been in your shoes, love – six times, would you believe it? – and this’ll be the best cup of tea of your life.’
Yara took a drink and left them to it, then once Mary was back on the sofa, a bath towel draped over her like a blanket, the midwife settled on a footstool to get started on the admin.
‘I don’t suppose there’s anywhere Mary can clean up before she leaves?’ the midwife asked.
Patty beamed. ‘There’s a shower room right on the other side of that door.’
‘Is it normal for a church to have a shower?’ The midwife glanced up from her laptop.
‘It’s our brand-new church apartment. Here in case of emergency. This is our first one!’
‘Brilliant. Mary, if your partner fetches your things from the car, he can help you get freshened up.’
‘Yeah, I’m not her…’ Beckett said, cheeks hotting up.
‘We aren’t together,’ Mary added, half hiding behind her mug. ‘Just friends.’
Patty’s eyes swivelled between them, looking interested.
‘Don’t look so worried!’ The midwife laughed. ‘You’re not the first, by a long shot. Whatever works for you. Either way, Mary needs a change of clothes and her toiletries, and this little man definitely needs a nappy and something snuggly to wear.’
‘Is it okay if I fetch your bag?’ Beckett asked Mary, because he wasn’t going anywhere unless she said she didn’t mind.
‘Maybe leave him here?’ she said, smiling as she nodded at her son, to show she was fine about it.
Even so, after gingerly handing the baby to his mother, Beckett had to restrain himself from running down the corridor, across the small car park and back again. He was nothing to this tiny new family, yet felt startlingly protective of them.
While Patty dug through the bag for whatever Mary would need, she discovered a problem.
‘There’s nothing for baby. Did you leave another bag in the car, or at home?’
Mary leant back onto the sofa with a wince. ‘No… I…’ She glanced at the midwife. ‘I was in such a panic I must have forgotten it.’
‘No problem,’ Patty said. ‘I’m sure we’ll have some spares in the toddler-group cupboard. Let me ask Moses.’
She returned a few minutes later with a clean sleepsuit that was only a few inches too big, a nappy and a soft woollen blanket.
She also brought Moses, a Jamaican man who introduced himself as the co-pastor of New Life Church.
He bore a takeaway pizza box emitting a smell that had Beckett’s stomach gurgling with anticipation.
‘Shall we leave the experts to it for a few minutes?’ he asked Beckett, winking as he placed the pizza on the kitchenette worktop. ‘I’ve got plenty more where this came from.’
‘Um. Sure.’ Beckett again looked at Mary to check whether she was okay for him to leave. As she nodded and smiled, despite the dazed exhaustion on her face and strand of hair plastered to one cheek, he couldn’t remember ever seeing anything more beautiful. Except, perhaps, for the baby in her arms.
He wanted to stay with them. Indefinitely, if possible. But he was already treading a fine line between hero and creep. He sent Tanya a quick text and followed Moses out of the room.
* * *
‘So, big night,’ the pastor said once he’d collected a fresh pizza box from a room where a handful of people were sitting on leather sofas.
They’d burst into applause when Beckett had walked in, standing up to shake his hand or hug him, before Moses led him into an office, where they sat down on either side of a cluttered desk.
‘My most heartfelt congratulations.’
Beckett was too hungry not to cram in half a slice before answering.
‘Thank you. But I should say, I didn’t meet Mary until this evening.’
Moses sat back, warm eyes gleaming with curiosity as Beckett explained what had happened.
‘Well,’ he said after a considered moment of silence, ‘I’d say that accompanying the safe arrival of a new baby warrants congratulations, whatever the circumstances.
Besides, from the brief interaction I witnessed between you, I’d be bold enough to suggest your story doesn’t end tonight.
’ He furrowed his brow. ‘A woman with no one to call on in an emergency like this is probably in need of a friend.’
‘I plan on being that for her. If she doesn’t mind.’
‘Son, she just squeezed your hand through one of the toughest moments of her life. She’s not going to mind.’
Beckett, who when it came down to it could probably do with a couple of friends himself, was starting to like this Pastor Moses.
‘Is it normal for a church to have takeaway pizza at almost midnight on a Sunday evening?’
Moses smiled. ‘It is not. I’ve got to get five kids up and out for school tomorrow while my wife hosts a women’s prayer breakfast. Believe me, I needed to be asleep hours ago for that to feel like a blessing.
But some of us stayed behind for a quick meeting after the evening service, and by the time we’d cleared up, the blizzard was in full force.
We decided to wait until it had passed, or at least the main road was open again, before venturing out. ’
‘You have five kids? Maybe you’d have been better off as impromptu birth-partner.’ Not that Beckett would have given up that role for anything.
‘All adopted.’ Moses grinned. ‘Hearing it through the wall was enough to make my insides coil up like a corn snake. Happy to let you take all the glory on that one, my friend.’
Moses carried on while they finished the pizza, asking how Beckett had ended up stopping at the New Life building, the wider impact of the weather, the church, nothing too serious.
Beckett tried to respond as if making conversation, rather than enduring a job interview, and his genuine interest prompted him to ask a few questions.
However, it had been too long since he’d sat with someone and simply talked, and he felt painfully out of practice, even if Moses’ easy manner did help the adrenaline of the past couple of hours to subside.
Eventually, Patty knocked on the door and poked her head in.
‘Mary’s ready to get going. Bill still has a car seat from when his grandson was staying with him, so he’s given it to her.’
‘Leant it,’ Mary called from somewhere in the corridor. Hearing her voice, Beckett quickly downed the rest of his squash and got up to join her.
‘Sorry,’ a strong Scottish accent, which Beckett assumed belonged to Bill, replied. ‘That’s not how we do things here. I’ll be downright offended if you give me that car seat back. When you’re finished with it, pass it on to someone else.’
As Beckett moved into the corridor, he saw Mary standing a couple of metres away, a bright orange car seat with the baby strapped in on the floor beside her. The people from the meeting room were lining the corridor like a send-off committee.
As he reached her, she whispered, ‘I can’t pass it on. I don’t know anyone else.’
Beckett’s chest tightened. ‘You know me.’
‘Any chance you might need a car seat in a year or so?’
He shrugged. ‘Might be useful the next time someone tries to give birth in my taxi.’
She gave him a mock-offended nudge with her elbow, ducking her head to hide a smile, and Beckett felt a strange glow inside his chest that he realised was happiness.
‘Come on. Let’s get you to the hospital,’ he said as yet another message pinged on his phone. He didn’t need to check the sender. He was in so much trouble with Tanya, dropping Mary off at the hospital couldn’t make it any worse.
‘Oh, no. I’m going home.’