Chapter 2 #2
‘What?’ Beckett looked at the midwife, expecting her to challenge this.
While he knew that sometimes new mums stayed only a few hours in hospital, and others opted for home births, this was surely different.
Mary had given birth in a church emergency apartment.
She didn’t have a nappy with her. She had a scarily tiny baby to take care of, and no one to look after her.
She’d been so distressed, she’d thrown herself at Beckett.
Literally, at his chest, and clung onto him for dear life.
What if Simon had picked her up instead, or Razza?
The prospect of how they’d have handled it made Beckett’s fists clench.
‘It’s Mary’s choice,’ the midwife said with a shrug, clearly itching to get home herself. ‘She’ll have a visit from the community team tomorrow, and then the follow-up appointments will be at home too, given that she doesn’t have a car.’
‘You don’t have a car?’ Beckett was gobsmacked. Mary lived in the absolute middle of nowhere. There were several inches of snow on the ground.
‘Well, if I did I wouldn’t have called a taxi, would I?’
Not for the first time that evening, he felt the urge to shout very loudly at whoever should have been helping her. Parents. A best friend. The baby’s father. What the hell were they playing at?
‘Mary’s family will be coming straight over now this one’s made an early appearance. To be honest, she’ll be far better taken care of by them than on a busy ward.’
Mary caught his eye, and he saw the flash of desperation.
She didn’t have any family to take care of her.
But for now, she did have him. Tanya would have to wait.
* * *
The storm had blown over, but Beckett wanted all his concentration on the snow-covered roads, so he let Mary doze undisturbed in the car, despite his concerns.
Once back at the cottage, he left her bag in the porch before gently nudging her awake and helping her inside, the car seat in the crook of his free arm.
He stood in the living room as she unstrapped the baby and slowly lowered herself onto the sofa, eyes drifting closed. She looked so fragile, yet Beckett was in awe of the strength she’d displayed earlier.
He shuffled, reduced to his standard social awkwardness now the urgency was over, and Mary’s eyes sprang open.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said after a moment of confusion at why this man was still in her living room. ‘How much do I owe you?’
Beckett jerked his head back, startled. That hadn’t even entered his mind.
‘Nothing! I’m not charging you for this. I’d refund you for the other journey if it wasn’t locked on the system.’
‘What then? You look like you’ve been sent to the headmaster’s office for a crime you didn’t commit.’
Beckett cleared his throat, shuffled a bit more, then accepted that neither of them had the time or energy to faff about.
‘Your family aren’t coming, are they?’
Mary dropped her eyes to the carpet, cheeks reddening.
‘My parents are living in Chicago. For various reasons, I haven’t actually told them about this yet.
And my brother… he’s very busy promoting his latest book, How To Be Perfect Like Me, or something like that.
His idea of help would be to send me his latest podcast.’
‘What do you need?’
This seemed like a relatively straightforward question to Beckett, but after an initial stunned silence, Mary crumpled. Tears began streaming down her face at an alarming rate as she clutched her baby, rocking back and forth and gasping for air.
Beckett carefully took the infant and strapped him back into the car seat, then did what he’d been wanting to do since Mary had opened her front door, several hours ago. He gathered her into his arms and held her while she sobbed.
* * *
‘I’m sorry,’ Mary said for about the hundredth time as she used the last of the box of tissues on the chipped coffee table to blow her nose. ‘I guess it’s the hormones. I’ve cried more in these past few months than the rest of my life put together.’
Beckett suspected there were other reasons for that apart from hormones, but what did he know? He waited while she sat back, straightened her T-shirt and tucked her long hair behind her ears.
‘I just… I can’t remember the last time someone asked me what I needed. And, to be honest, the answer to that is so terrifyingly overwhelming, I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘Okay. Let’s start with the essentials.’ Beckett nodded at the car seat, then got out his phone and pulled up an NHS list of newborn-baby equipment. ‘What on this list do you have, and what do you need that I can find at 1a.m. in the middle of Sherwood Forest?’
It turned out Mary had nothing on the list apart from some blankets. However, after managing a sort of breastfeed while he’d been eating pizza with Pastor Moses, she’d decided that all she needed urgently was more nappies, cotton wool or non-scented baby wipes and maybe a spare sleepsuit.
‘What about a cot?’
‘I was going to order one online, but, you know, there are so many to choose from. All these options. They’re so expensive I was worried about getting it wrong.’
Beckett got off the sofa and pulled a drawer out of a cabinet on the other side of the tiny living room. He was going to empty it out, but there was nothing in it. ‘Apparently this was good enough for me. So, I’m sure that, for now, it can be good enough for… Does he have a name yet?’
Mary looked as though she was going to start crying again.
‘It doesn’t matter. You have weeks, don’t you, to decide?’
She nodded, mutely.
‘Had you narrowed it down to a shortlist?’
‘I didn’t know if I was having a girl or a boy. So when I talked to them, I called them Blob.’
‘Yeah. Probably best not to go with that in front of the midwife.’
They looked at baby Blob for a few moments.
‘Could do Bob? As a temporary thing while you decide?’
Mary glanced up. ‘That would work. Thank you. For this, and everything else. I can’t even imagine what would have happened without you.
And I’m sorry I’m being so useless and pathetic.
I’m not normally like this. Well. Until last March I wasn’t.
The last few months have been a lot. I think I’m still in shock. That, and totally knackered.’
‘Mary, you just pushed a human being, who you grew yourself, out of your body. With no pain relief and only a horse vet to help. I think that’s as far from useless as it gets.’ He put the drawer down on the coffee table. ‘Let’s see if this works, then I’m going to find some nappies.’
Mary fetched her baby blankets from upstairs, and they fashioned a bed in the drawer using a thick towel as a mattress, then Beckett left her to it, wondering whether Mary’s life wasn’t the only one that had changed for good that night.