Chapter 20
‘Do you think we can call this evening a date?’ Noah asked Eva after he’d given her a bottle and she sat on his lap in the rocking chair beside her cot. He still didn’t think he was much good at this parenting lark, but she was definitely calmer the last few days. Maybe her gums weren’t quite as sore now another couple of teeth were poking through. Or maybe it was because Paul hadn’t shown his face again… yet. He’d cancelled their arranged meeting and rescheduled for a few days’ time and Noah hadn’t exactly been sorry to put it on hold. It gave him a chance to think about things. Not that he’d come to any conclusions or found any answers.
With Eva on his hip, he stood up and pulled the curtains closed. ‘Not going to answer me?’
She belched in response and then smiled up at him. He couldn’t deny every time she gave him that look, it felt special and it made him feel that if she wasn’t in his life, he would lose more and more pieces of Cassie. It made him treasure the time with her all the more and perhaps his patience as a result contributed to her being that bit more settled.
Eva hiccupped and Noah plucked a story book from the shelf beside her bed. The house was liveable for now, but this room was the most comfortable and homely. Eva came with a lot of paraphernalia and it was the room he’d made the most effort in – he’d put stencils on the walls, there was the rocking chair that Cassie had picked out and all of the other baby bits and pieces including the colourful mobile, the soft toys, the changing table and brightly coloured, wipeable mat, and a nice, sturdy bookcase filled with the books Cassie had bought for her daughter.
He read the title out loud. ‘Goodnight Moon.’ Eva promptly took the book from his hands and grasped it in her own. ‘Oh, you’re reading tonight, are you?’
When he laughed as he watched Eva, it made him realise he hadn’t been doing a whole lot of that lately. He was usually on tenterhooks waiting to mess something up. But perhaps that was parenthood all over, even temporary parenthood, if that’s what this turned out to be.
The thought left him more unsettled than he would’ve liked.
Custody. When Paul had said the word the other day, he’d been within his rights. It didn’t matter what Noah felt about the guy, did it? The man was Eva’s father and it was a good sign if he was determined to be in her life, wasn’t it?
Noah suspected he might feel better about it all if Paul had even tried to bond with Eva when he was here, but he hadn’t.
He started to read Goodnight Moon when Eva finally relinquished the book.
As he read, Eva’s little hands reached out to touch the brightly coloured pages, Noah paused at the end of each one to let her savour the vivid colours, the joy of story time when she wasn’t yet able to read for herself. Their parents had been big on story time, and judging by the amount of books Cassie had bought for Eva, despite her being nowhere near ready for most of them, so was Cassie.
It was Eva who closed the book and he turned it over, read it again, by which time her eyelids were growing heavy, she wasn’t as interested in the pages this time.
He stood with her in his arms, he dimmed the lights until they were almost as low as they could go and corrected the curtains so that the sunlight could no longer filter in via the gap he’d left.
He took Eva over to her cot, ready to lower her in but he felt her breath against his cheek and he froze on the spot.
‘Dadda,’ she said again. All he could do was stare at her.
‘Dadda…’ She said it a third time, almost as if she was convincing him he wasn’t hearing things.
Noah had had surprises over the years, he’d had special moments like when he passed his driving test when he was sure he’d failed, or on his twenty-first when an old friend from way back had come over from Cyprus to help celebrate, or the day he’d joined the air ambulance crew in London and couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have such a job. But none of those moments had made him feel the way he did right now.
He cleared his throat after planting a kiss on Eva’s forehead. ‘No, I’m Noah,’ he said, for the sake of full disclosure.
But his words were ignored. ‘Dadda, dadda, dadda…’ She was trying it on for size with a big smile for good measure.
And all at once he wished Cassie were here, that his sister could’ve seen this. ‘Oh, Eva…’ He pressed a kiss to her forehead. He couldn’t lower her into the cot. He didn’t want to let her go.
He didn’t move from her room until the doorbell chimed.
He had learned along the way, from experience and Geraldine’s advice, that when a baby was tired and they were set for bed, you shouldn’t ignore it. No riling them up or keeping them awake for your convenience; get them down and it would be easier in the long run. Knowing Maya, she’d understand his delay in getting to the door so he lowered Eva into her cot the way he usually did at bedtime, he stroked her head and said goodnight in his soft voice and then he switched off the light, leaving only the soft glow of the night light on top of the chest of drawers before he tiptoed out.
‘I’ve come at a bad time, haven’t I?’ was the first thing Maya said when he opened the door.
He whispered, ‘No, you’re here at the time we agreed, but I was ten minutes late putting Eva down.’ He beckoned her inside. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t have to whisper all night.’
‘You’re quite the expert by the sounds of it.’ She matched his volume.
‘Why don’t we head out to the back porch with a beer each?’ He led her into the kitchen, grabbed two beers and headed outside.
‘I’m tempted to look in every time I go past her room,’ he admitted when they were settled on the bench. To get to the back door it meant going past Eva’s bedroom, but it was handy where it was positioned because it meant he’d always be able to hear her if she needed him. There was a baby monitor Cassie had bought, somewhere, he just hadn’t found it yet and with the cottage so small, it hadn’t really been a problem so far.
‘I was the same when Isaac was little,’ said Maya. ‘I’d sneak in and watch him sleep; it was mesmerising.’
‘I’ve done it too, then with a little snuffle from Eva I freeze in full-on panic that her eyes will ping open and all that hard work to settle her will be out of the window.’
‘I remember that feeling all too well.’ She looked out at the river, back at the house. ‘It’s a beautiful evening.’
‘It’s been a lovely summer,’ he agreed.
‘Are you managing to get organised here?’
‘I’d call it organised chaos right now. And if I didn’t have Geraldine helping me out the way she does, it’d be a whole lot worse. She insists on cooking for Eva and sometimes she tidies the house, which I told her not to, and now I’ve reached the point where I tidy up before she arrives so I don’t have to feel guilty all day that she might be back here doing it.’
‘She probably does it because she’d be at a loose end when Eva sleeps.’
‘She said the same.’
Their eyes met briefly until Maya looked away and took a sip of her own beer.
‘Would you ever live anywhere else but here?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Not now. I love it. It’s beautiful, it’s peaceful, it’s home. Do you think it might feel that way for you too some day?’
‘Only time will tell, I suppose.’ And he couldn’t help wondering whether she might have a lot to do with his feelings about the town too.
Noah had sailed through most of his life facing challenges as they came, moving forwards in his career exactly the way he wanted. And then his life changed in an instant. But, he had to keep reminding himself, so had Eva’s. That’s what had kept him going on the days when he felt sorry for himself, when he felt selfish for being pissed off at how this had altered things for him.
Noah had had a good life in London, a routine of sorts, even though it had no permanency, not until he’d been appointed Eva’s legal guardian after Cassie died. Even living with Tahlia hadn’t been considered with regards to the long term. She’d moved in, she helped with the mortgage, it had all just worked itself out. Perhaps that had been his mistake; he should’ve questioned what they both really wanted, then he might have realised how different they were.
He and Maya got talking about The Skylarks, both the red team and the blue team, about Frank the engineer and how long he’d been there, about the Whistlestop River Freewheelers and their camaraderie between themselves and everyone else. It had been the same with his previous air ambulance crew; you had to work as a team or the job would be a bust. But what Whistlestop River and the air ambulance had over the team he’d left was a sense of belonging to the place as well as to the job. Perhaps that was to be expected in a smaller town compared to the big city.
‘What made you want to become a pilot with the air ambulance?’ Noah asked when he’d finished recapping on his career journey in response to Maya’s similar question.
‘I was fascinated by aviation as a kid.’ Her whole face lit up with passion. ‘I funded my training when I was able and studied really hard, did the hours on the ground, the time in the air. I started as a helicopter pilot for a sightseeing company in and around Dorset. Then I worked for a charter company flying businesspeople all over the place. But I’d always been in awe of what the air ambulance did, since I was a little girl and saw an emergency evacuation after a helicopter landed on the school field.’
‘Wow, that’ll do it.’
When she laughed, the sound was welcome in his world that felt as though these days, it was one stress added on top of another. ‘I love my job, most days. The losses are hard, the bad outcomes.’
It didn’t matter that she was the pilot and not attending to the patient directly the way he was; she felt the pain as much as the critical care paramedics on board. They were a team.
They looked out at the river, the evening stretching out ahead of them. Noah’s hand shot up to swat at a mosquito.
‘Perils of living near the river,’ she laughed.
‘Yeah, didn’t really have this problem in my place in London.’ The mosquito left him alone for now. ‘How’s your son getting on at university?’ He was enjoying her company, more relaxed than he’d been in a while, and he wanted to know more about her.
‘Really well.’ She filled him in on Isaac’s study path, his passions, but as she finished, the frown she sometimes showed was back.
‘You miss him,’ said Noah.
‘Yeah, of course.’
‘But that’s not what’s troubling you.’
Her fingers pulled at the label on the beer bottle. ‘I’ve a few things on my mind, that’s all.’ She tilted her head back to get the rest of the beer and when he offered her a second, she accepted.
He grabbed another two beers from the fridge, peeked in on Eva, who was fast asleep, and returned to the back porch.
‘It’s my ex,’ she confessed before taking a sip of her beer.
He should’ve known.
When she finished telling him all about Conrad’s plan to have Christmas and New Year in Ireland with Isaac, he asked, ‘And are you invited?’
‘I am, but I’m not going. I can’t for one thing, with work, but I wouldn’t want to either. It’s a way for Conrad to be in control, for him to get me to do what he wants and probably another attempt at making me see that I can’t live without him.’ She said the last part of the sentence louder and more dramatically. And then clasped a hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry…’ she cringed.
Noah shook his head. ‘The smoke alarm went off when I burnt toast a couple of days ago and Eva didn’t stir; I doubt you’ll have woken her. Getting her to sleep can be a challenge but once she’s asleep, she won’t wake unless she wants to and that’s usually in the middle of the night.’
He missed her smile when it faded again. ‘I know this is going to sound crazy…’
‘Try me.’
‘Sometimes I ask myself whether Conrad had that accident so he could get me to play nursemaid and be around him more. Ridiculous, I know.’
‘It’s not ridiculous…’ He wiped the condensation his hand had gathered from the bottle onto the leg of his jeans. ‘I’m not sure how to say this…’
‘I find it’s easiest to blurt these things out.’
‘I think I saw him.’ He spoke up before he could chicken out. ‘Remember happy hour at the pub that night?’
‘Conrad wasn’t there.’
‘Not inside, no. But when I was walking back here along the path beside the river, I’m almost positive I saw him running down the alleyway.’
She didn’t say anything straight away.
‘You’re sure it was him?’ she said eventually.
‘Not totally sure, but I saw the cast on the man’s arm.’
‘Right…’ She took a couple of sips of beer in quick succession before adding, ‘You know, I shouldn’t be surprised.’
‘You’re not angry?’
Her sigh was one of defeat; if it was him and he’d been waiting on someone hand and foot, he’d be cursing out loud and heading straight round there to demand answers.
‘You must think I’m crazy to put up with all his shit,’ she said.
Totally, which told him the man was manipulating her in a way she couldn’t escape from, like the cruelty of holding onto the leg of a dragonfly and watching its body wriggle around and try to get out of your grasp, except that it never quite could.
But he didn’t want to make her feel worse. ‘Not at all.’
‘I’ve been wondering if he’d been putting it on a bit, you know.’ Shaking her head, she added, ‘At least now I won’t feel guilty when I pretend I’ve been called into work and make him get a taxi to his hospital appointment.’ She grinned. ‘I’ll enjoy that.’
‘Are you going to confront him?’
‘At the moment, I try to keep things calm.’ She filled him in a bit on the relationship between Conrad and Isaac. ‘I don’t have the best of relationships with my own father for reasons I won’t go into and I don’t want the same for Isaac.’
But he had a feeling it was a whole lot more than that.
She leaned back, closed her eyes. ‘My place is great but this house, Noah, is something to treasure.’ Her eyes opened again. ‘Did you know this was once the original signal box for the railway line that ran through the town?’
‘It’s been passed down through my family, a little slice of Whistlestop River history right here.’
‘Is that so?’
He nodded. ‘We actually came here a lot as kids, Cassie and me. I remember my grandad making kites with us. Cassie and I would run along the path next to the river when it wasn’t even windy, wondering why we couldn’t launch them into the air.’
‘That would’ve been heartbreaking for a kid.’
‘I do seem to remember it wasn’t only Cassie who looked like she might cry.’ He began to laugh. ‘And I can’t believe I admitted that.’
‘You must have loads of great memories with Cassie.’
‘I do.’ And he could probably spend a whole week talking about them and still not be able to share them all.
‘I didn’t know your sister but if she could see you right now, the way you’ve changed your life to bring up Eva, I think she’d be really proud.’
‘I hope so. That or she’d tell me, “Noah, you’re totally messing this up.”’
‘Siblings always have a way of telling it like it is.’
‘I don’t know what she’d think of my latest move.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘I’m not sure I’m the right person to be doing this and so I took steps to find Eva’s birth father.’
If she was shocked, she hid it well. ‘And how did that go?’
‘Crap at first. But then he tried to get in touch with Cassie. He wrote a letter which came to me, I called him and he’s been here to the house to meet Eva.’ When she stayed silent, he wondered what she was thinking. ‘It’s not that I want rid of Eva; I love her. But I’m her uncle, you know. Isn’t it better for her to be with her actual dad?’
‘Maybe… although that depends on why he wasn’t in her life in the first place.’
‘He left my sister and pretty much disappeared.’
‘So reliability isn’t his strong point.’
‘Maybe… although that depends on why he left.’
She smiled at his repetition of her own words. ‘I suppose. And if he’s her dad, he deserves a look in at least.’
‘I sense you want to say something else,’ he said, turning his body to face hers on the bench. He knew she was holding back.
‘Call it experience, but just because this guy is the biological father, it doesn’t mean to say he’ll be the best parent.’
‘But isn’t it his legal right?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know the ins and outs of custody. Cassie entrusted Eva to you. I don’t know what to advise apart from not to do anything rash.’
Both of them heard a grizzling coming from inside and Noah held his breath that it would stop, releasing it when the sound passed.
‘I won’t hand her over easily, you know.’
‘I know.’
For months, he’d thought that that was exactly what he’d do with a kiss goodbye and a ‘see you later’ from Uncle Noah, but now, with Eva a part of his life and his home, he already knew it wasn’t going to work like that. ‘She called me dadda earlier.’
‘Noah…’ She put a hand against her chest. ‘That’s really beautiful.’
He took a glug of beer and after he swallowed said, ‘Except that I’m not her dad.’
‘To her, you very much are.’
They finished their beers and when it was time for Maya to go, Noah wished he could walk her home. ‘I have Eva so I can’t see you home safely,’ he said. He’d love nothing more than to accompany her through Whistlestop River, along the main street, past the shops closed for the night and the pub with its beer garden likely filled with revellers making the most of the long summer nights.
‘It’s fine, I’m happy to walk on my own and I can handle myself, remember.’
He saw her to the door and wondered whether she was thinking the same as he was, that it had been a great evening, good company, and he wished it could end with a goodnight kiss.
But instead, he watched from the front gate as she walked to the end of the street and turned at the corner, giving him a little wave as she did so.
Maya could definitely handle herself, although not when it came to an overly attentive ex-husband, it seemed. He hoped for her sake she’d find a way of getting him to leave her alone, let her move on in her own way. Clearly a divorce wasn’t enough for the man to keep his distance.