Chapter 8 #2
I saw your brother in town. He says he hasn’t been over to see your new place either yet. I told him I could come over when he does, kill two birds with one stone. Not that you’d want to kill us, lol! At least I hope not! x
Zoe heaved out a sigh. She’d always be grateful that their divorce was amicable and they could be grown-ups about it, but she didn’t want to do this.
After considering many replies, she decided to put her phone away.
Maybe the right one would come to her later, but she didn’t have the time or energy to find it now.
Instead, she wiped down the surfaces of her treatment room, her stomach grumbling as the aromas of the lunch she was missing reached her.
As she tidied, she half wondered if Billie would fail to show again, but at one on the dot her phone rang.
‘I’m here,’ was all Billie said, and Zoe went out to meet her at the front door of the surgery, ushered her inside and then locked it again.
Billie was slender, and her features were taut, in the way that someone who lives with constant worry looks, but closer up she was far prettier than Zoe recalled from that brief glimpse of her in the van the day she’d passed it on the road.
‘Thanks for coming down,’ she said as she led the way to her room. ‘How are you settling in at Hilltop? I’m new around here myself, actually. It takes some getting used to – it did me, at any rate.’ Zoe closed the door to her room and gestured for Billie to take a seat.
‘It’s fine,’ Billie replied, with that same flat tone she recognised from earlier on the phone. ‘It’s as good as anywhere. For now.’
‘You don’t plan to stay long term?’
‘If you mean did I plan to be single, pregnant and living with my dad in the back of beyond at twenty-three, then let’s just say it wasn’t on my life’s bingo card.’
‘Do you want to talk about it? I mean, say no if you like, but you’re lucky – its lunchtime, the surgery is closed and I don’t have anyone waiting to come in for a while yet. We wouldn’t be disturbed.’
‘I’d rather not. Unless I have to.’
‘Of course you don’t. It might help if I know something of your circumstances, but it’s not the law or anything. You say baby’s father isn’t around? Are you still?—’
Zoe froze, her stomach dropping through the floor.
The look on Billie’s face told her that things were far worse than the father simply skipping town, and she could have cheerfully slapped herself for jumping to silly conclusions.
It was unlike her – she was usually so professional and diplomatic about these things.
There was something about Billie that flustered her, but for the life of her she couldn’t work out what it was.
‘All you need to know,’ Billie said in a very deliberate tone, ‘is that he’s not around and he never will be. I don’t want to talk about it now.’
‘Right.’ Zoe went to her desk. ‘But you have your dad, you said. That’s good. I’m sure he’s a big support.’
‘I try not to bother him. He’s had his own problems since Mum died.’
‘Your mum died? Billie, I’m so sorry. When was this?’
‘It’ll be two years at Christmas.’
‘It must have been hard.’
‘It was. I had Luis, and he was amazing, so it wasn’t so bad for me. Until I lost…’
Billie’s shoulders sagged. The whole of her seemed to sag, as if her soul had left her body.
Zoe saw in her eyes dullness where there ought to have been life and hope.
It worried her. Pregnancy and motherhood was hard enough, harder still when the new mother wasn’t able to experience the reward in it.
She paused, studying her for a moment. She wondered whether Ottilie ought to come and talk to her.
Something had obviously happened to the baby’s father – seemingly the Luis she’d mentioned – and whatever it was, it had been tragic enough to take him from Billie’s life forever.
Ottilie knew more about that kind of loss than Zoe did.
Not that Zoe hadn’t suffered her share of tragedy, but if anyone was living proof that things could and would get better, then it was Ottilie.
‘So it’s just you and your dad up at Hilltop?’
‘Does that matter?’
‘Of course not. I’m only trying to get a sense of your circumstances so I can help you better.
It’s nice, actually, to be able to get to know my mums-to-be on a more personal level.
When I worked in Manchester, I had so many on my list I barely had time to say hello during the appointment.
’ She left a gap for some kind of response, but when there was none, Zoe gave a mental shrug.
There was plenty of time and no need to rush things – she felt confident she could gain Billie’s trust and get her to open up.
She decided to stick to business for now.
‘Do you have a care plan from your previous midwife?’
‘Didn’t she send it over?’
‘I’m afraid not. I wondered if she’d given you physical paperwork…you know, a little folder or something. We used to use those, years ago. You had to carry them around everywhere.’
Billie shook her head and regarded Zoe as if she was wishing she could find her off switch.
‘OK,’ Zoe said, choosing to ignore the withering looks, ‘I’ve got some medical records, so we’ll have to muddle through as best we can. I’ll contact your old midwife to see if I can get more info for next time I see you.’
She went to her computer to pull up the relevant pages.
As she did so, she noticed Billie staring out of the window.
Absent, looking but not seeing, a hand resting on her belly.
Her sadness didn’t only fill the room; it threatened to suck the oxygen from it.
Zoe was no stranger to sadness, but she’d never experienced it like this, and she hoped, looking at the younger woman now, she’d never have to.