Chapter 13 #3
‘This will be the test.’ Zoe finished her task and undid Ezra’s nappy. ‘They tend not to like this bit, so he might well wake up.’
She slipped it off, expecting him to erupt into a noisy protest, but amazingly he slept on.
It was as she was lowering him onto the scales that he almost roused.
His arms and legs began to pump, and his eyes opened, but Zoe noted the weight as quickly as she could and then nodded for Maisie to scoop him up and get him dressed again.
He made weak complaints as she did, but as soon as she was done and held him close, his eyes drooped, and before she’d rocked him half a dozen times, he’d dozed off again.
‘That wasn’t too bad in the end,’ Zoe said. ‘He’s filling out nicely too. Thriving, in fact. You’re doing everything right.’
Maisie beamed as she peered down at him.
‘You should put him back in the cot.’ Bridget’s voice came from the doorway again. They’d been so preoccupied with Ezra that Zoe had quite forgotten Maisie’s mum was still there. ‘You’ll make him mardy carrying him around all the time.’
‘I read something that says it makes them feel safe…’ Maisie looked to Zoe for confirmation, and she nodded.
‘I’m sure it won’t make him mardy. It’ll certainly help to strengthen your bond, and it’s actually as good for you to have lots of contact as it is for Ezra. The relationship between mum and baby is a very complicated one, and what you do often affects you as much as it does your little one.’
‘I still say you should put him down,’ Bridget said sourly. ‘He needs to learn to sleep on his own.’
Maisie hesitated, but then, with a look of defeat that pulled at Zoe’s already compromised emotions, placed Ezra gently into the Moses basket. ‘I suppose my arms are aching anyway.’
Zoe watched Maisie’s expression carefully as she backed towards where she’d left her bag, trying to gauge how she was feeling.
Bridget could be overbearing, something Zoe had been forced to combat right the way through Maisie’s pregnancy.
It seemed that even after Ezra’s birth, not much had changed, though, now Zoe considered it, she wondered why she would expect anything else.
She’d hoped, in vain, judging by the evidence of today, that Bridget’s attitude to Maisie and her son would soften.
Distracted by her careful observation, she didn’t notice how close she was to a tall set of bookshelves.
They housed a mad collection of household items – vases, bowls, mismatched plates and tacky ornaments, framed photos and a letter holder stuffed with yellowing papers – everything except books.
She spun to feel for the bag she remembered leaving at its foot, but misjudged the distance and collided with the shelves.
She soon discovered that they weren’t attached to the wall, and at any other time, she’d have given a stern warning about doing so before Ezra started to crawl.
As it was, the danger was confined to the immediate moment – the unit wobbled violently, and though Zoe managed to put a panicked hand to it to steady it again, half of the items on its shelves crashed to the ground.
She clapped a hand to her mouth and stooped to start collecting things, tears pricking her eyes as she noted that many of them had broken. It wasn’t like her to cry, even at such a disaster, but she hadn’t been right for some time, and this was another sign of it. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry!’
‘Get out of the way!’ Bridget snapped, shoving her aside. ‘I’ll clear it up – you’ve done enough damage!’
‘I’m sorry,’ Zoe repeated. ‘Let me help.’
‘You can help by getting gone! You’re done with Ezra, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, but…’ Zoe glanced up, and the look on Bridget’s face told her the best thing to do might be to flee the scene, just this once.
It was as she stood up and began to search for her things that something occurred to her.
Despite all the commotion, baby Ezra was still sound asleep.
A noise as loud as she’d just made ought to have roused him, even if he’d nodded back off.
In fact, it ought to have shocked him, but he was so peaceful, Zoe had to wonder if he’d noticed anything at all.
‘Maisie,’ she asked carefully, the ignominy of her recent accident temporarily forgotten, ‘is the house often noisy?’
‘It is while you’re here,’ Bridget said from the floor, where she was trying to screw the hat back on the tattered figurine of a flamenco dancer.
Zoe ignored the remark because she suddenly had more important things to worry about.
‘I don’t know,’ Maisie said. ‘About the same as everyone’s probably.’
‘But if it’s noisy, does it bother Ezra?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Maisie said blankly.
She wasn’t following Zoe’s train of thought, and Zoe couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. Before she’d fully considered the implications, Zoe clapped her hands together, as close to Ezra as she dared.
‘What the hell are you doing now?’ Bridget slammed the flamenco dancer onto the floor and leaped to her feet. ‘Are you soft in the head or something?’
‘I’m testing a theory.’ She paused, and as she watched Ezra sleep on, it seemed something clicked into place for Bridget, even if Maisie continued to look lost. Then, the debris of Zoe’s vandalism forgotten for her too, Bridget clapped her hands together, louder still.
And when Ezra didn’t react once more, she turned to Zoe with a silent question.
Zoe shook her head. And then she turned to Maisie. ‘I think I’m going to arrange some tests for Ezra. It’s nothing to worry about; it’s—’
‘He’s deaf!’ Bridget cut in. She started to bang on the coffee table, and once again, Ezra didn’t flinch. ‘See! Deaf as a post!’
‘I’m not saying that.’ Zoe noted the sudden look of horror on Maisie’s face. ‘We don’t know anything for sure – that’s why I want him to have tests. There might be another explanation.’
‘Deaf or daft then.’ Bridget folded her arms. ‘It’ll be one or the other. That’s just the sort of luck we have in this family.’
Zoe tried to hold back her frown but failed. ‘I don’t think we should be jumping to conclusions like that.’
‘Nah,’ Bridget said as she went back to her clearing. ‘You’re more for jumping into my shelves and knocking them all over the place. I’ll be sending you a bill for this broken stuff, you know. Some of these things are heirlooms – we can’t replace them.’
It was tempting to remark that nobody in their right mind would want to replace any of it, and some things were only heirlooms to a very niche set of people, but Zoe resisted it. She had more important things on her mind than doing battle with Maisie’s cantankerous mother.
In the end, Maisie did it for her.
‘Mum! What’s wrong with you? Ezra’s deaf and all you can do is moan about your stupid shelves!’
‘You heard her – she said you can’t jump to conclusions,’ Bridget fired back. ‘You don’t know if he’s deaf or not.’
Maisie looked as if she might pursue the argument but then seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the energy.
She turned to Zoe, a silent plea in her wide eyes.
She wanted Zoe to fix this, and she had faith that Zoe could.
If it hadn’t been bad enough seeing Maisie cowed by her mother only minutes before, this was the extra push that threatened to send her over the edge.
During her career, though she’d always been sociable and friendly with her mums, she’d been careful to keep a line between that and actual attachment.
It wasn’t wise to get too close – better midwives than her had repeated this mantra again and again over the years that Zoe had worked to hone her own skills.
She’d been ignoring that rule far too often since she’d come to Thimblebury – with Ottilie, with Georgia, with Billie and Fern and Maisie…
and now it was about to come back to bite her.
She was far too emotionally involved here, and she was about to pay the price.
‘Zoe?’ Maisie’s voice was small, younger and more lost than it had ever sounded.
‘What do you think? You can tell me because…’ She let out a sigh.
‘Maybe I thought it already, but I didn’t want to.
Sometimes, when there was a noise, I thought it would bother him, but it never did.
I was going to say something, but I thought I was being daft. ’
‘I don’t know, Maisie. I wish I could tell you it’s all right, but I don’t know.
We need someone with more expertise than me to see him, and that’s why I’m going to refer him to a specialist. In the meantime, try not to worry.
He’s strong and healthy and seems very happy living here, and if it does turn out he has some hearing problems, then I’m sure you’ll all find a way to work around the issues as he grows up.
He can still have a full and active life, Maisie, even if he is deaf.
You might have to change the way you do things as he grows, but it won’t hold him back. ’
‘It will,’ Bridget said.
Zoe glared at her now, unable to keep it in. ‘That’s not helpful.’
‘What’s not helpful is you telling her things that aren’t true. Of course it will hold him back.’
‘Your attitude is what will hold him back,’ Zoe snapped. ‘I suggest you think about that over the next few days.’
Bridget at least had the decency to look a little ashamed at Zoe’s comment, and as she turned back to clearing up the broken bric-a-brac littering the floor around the bookshelves, Zoe collected the rest of her equipment.
When she looked up, Maisie was watching Ezra sleep, a look of profound sadness on her face but also acceptance.
Zoe could see she’d only had confirmed what she’d already suspected.
Mothers do always know.
Zoe cleared her throat, and Maisie looked up at her.
‘I need to get going because I’ve got another visit and I’m already running late.
Are you going to be all right? I know it’s tough – I’ve dropped this bombshell on you, and now I’m leaving you with it.
I’ll be at the other end of the phone, whatever you need.
I’m sure Billie will be too if you need to talk to someone other than me.
I’ll put the referral in as soon as I get back, and I’ll ask them to expedite, and I’ll make sure I pop back to do some tests of my own. ’
‘What’s expedite?’
‘It means I’ll ask them to get you a slot as soon as they can.’
‘Oh, right. Thanks.’
To her relief, nobody showed Zoe out. When she got to her car, she climbed in and took a moment to draw a deep breath, staring back at the house, hands clamped on to the steering wheel, filled with a sadness that she hadn’t wanted to show while she was in there.
Poor Maisie had overcome so much already on her journey to motherhood.
She’d been doing so well, growing in confidence and maturity, and now this.
Zoe was as convinced as she could be that Ezra’s tests would show some kind of issue.
She felt sure that Maisie would find a way to overcome the problems that might bring, but when she’d already worked so hard, there was no justice in the fact that she’d have to work even harder.
After a moment, she started the engine. She was about to pull away from the house when, from the corner of her eye, she noticed the phone she’d left on the passenger seat light up with the arrival of a text.
I think you were right about Louisa having the flu bug. Billie’s started to feel off today. Louisa is better, but her nose is running. Could you get more Calpol for her and some paracetamol for Billie on the way home?
No kiss. Alex always ended messages with a kiss. He was annoyed, or stressed, or both. Zoe had worked worse days than this, but she’d also worked far better ones too.
She sent a reply to ask if he was all right but got nothing back. Glancing at the clock on the dashboard and seeing that she was already running late for her next visit, she decided he would have to manage because she had a job to do.