Playing Nice

“Of course. But you go first. Tell me what you really think.”

“Well…” I tried to marshal my thoughts. Just like Don Maguire’s use of the word solution earlier, the word decision seemed to open up a great void beneath my feet. “It’s a shock, of course, so I may not be thinking very straight. But I suppose—if we’re really being honest—my gut instinct is that I don’t think paternity and genetics are all that important. Not compared with love. If Theo was adopted, would we love him any less? Of course not. Minding whether someone is your flesh and blood—what they are, as opposed to who they are—it’s so Victorian, isn’t it? Or even older. Neanderthal. And then there’s Theo. What would it do to him to suddenly be told, Oh, we picked up the wrong kid at the hospital by mistake, out you go? However nice Miles and Lucy turn out to be, it would shatter him.” At the thought of telling Theo he wasn’t our birth son, let alone that we were abandoning him for another child who was, my throat started to thicken and I had to pause. “I’m not doing it, Mads. I’m not breaking up this family.” I stared at her defiantly. “So that’s my view, and I’m pretty bloody wedded to it, actually.”

In reply, she stepped forward and kissed me.

“And that is why I love you, Pete Riley,” she said quietly. “Because of that.” She prodded the approximate location of my heart.

“So you agree?”

“Of course I agree. That is, I suppose I’ve got a whole bunch of emotions. When you showed me that photograph of David, just for a moment, I—” She shook her head. “But no, you’re right. Absolutely. The overwhelming question here is, what’s best for Theo? And the answer is—obviously—for him to go on being brought up by the best dad in the world.”

“And the best mum. Do you think the Lamberts will see it that way, though?”

“I don’t see why not. After all, they’ve had longer to think it through, and now that you’ve said it, it’s pretty obvious. Actually, I think that may be what Miles is hinting at in his email—that bit about putting the children’s interests first? He says he’s not trying to jump us into anything, but he’s clear that whatever we do, we should do by agreement, and for the children. That can only lead you to one conclusion really, can’t it? That we stay as we are. For their sake.”

I nodded. “Maybe we don’t have to make it as binary as swap or no swap anyway. We’re civilized people in a civilized society, for God’s sake. Maybe we can be part of each other’s lives some other way.” I snapped my fingers as an idea hit me. “We’re always saying it’s a shame most of Theo’s cousins are in Australia. Why can’t Theo and David be honorary cousins?”

“That’s a great idea. Or what about godchildren? We were saying only the other day we should get Theo baptized now that we’re starting church. We could ask Miles and Lucy to be godparents, and we could be David’s as well. So there’s something formal to recognize the relationship.”

“Brilliant.” At the realization that there might be a middle way after all, relief flooded through me. “And the two of them could have playdates. After all, they’re the same age—”

“Exactly.” Maddie nodded. “I’m sure that’s the right response to this situation. Dialogue and cooperation and good communication…What are you doing?”

I was rummaging in the fridge. “Making us all blueberry smoothies for lunch. I promised Theo I’d do it before I picked him up. It was his turn to choose.”

11

MADDIE

IN SOME WAYS, LEAVING the NICU was almost as traumatic as going there had been. The nurses and junior doctors had become my friends. But there was too much pressure on space for Theo to stay a moment longer than he had to, and eventually he met all the criteria for being moved to the special care baby unit, or the fattening-up room as the nurses in the NICU jokingly called it.

“Your baby’s a fighter,” Bronagh said as she wrote up his notes for the last time. “We’ve a pretty good track record with preemies, but I’ve never known one catch up as fast as him.”

“How’s David Lambert doing?” I hadn’t been able to shake off the sense that David and Theo were like A Tale of Two Babies—that despite being admitted on the same day, one had somehow turned left while the other turned right, their fortunes forever diverging from then on.

“Paula told me he’s on the mend. They operated on him for a heart duct that hadn’t closed, and that seems to have sorted him out.”

“I’m so pleased!” I said. “Will you tell his mother I said hello?”

Bronagh nodded. “And this is for you, Pete.” A little shyly, she handed Pete a card. On the front was written Happy Father’s Day. “We make sure all our babies give cards to their dads on Father’s Day—it’s a little tradition around here,” she explained. “But that’s on Sunday and you won’t be here, so…” I could tell Pete was touched.

We were only in the special care unit for a week. Theo continued to put on weight and sailed through the car-seat test, when the doctors hooked him up to the monitors and strapped him into a car seat for as long as it would take to get home. Pete and I were given training in infant CPR and the loan of an oxygen tank and mask, just in case he ever stopped breathing at home. And then—just like that, eleven weeks after I woke up with a splitting headache and a strange leaden feeling in my womb, and still two weeks before my actual due date—we were out of hospital, discharged, a proper family at last.

“Welcome to the world, little man,” Pete said triumphantly as we walked out the hospital doors, lifting the baby seat like a lantern and slowly spinning around so Theo could see. “From now on, things are going to get better.”

Except it wasn’t that simple. Once, getting Theo home had been the only thing I wanted. Now it was strangely disorienting. When you were used to being able to glance over and check your baby’s status on a monitor, not having one there seemed odd. The noise of the machines had become so familiar, its absence was deafening—the bleeps and chimes continued in my head, insistent as the chorus of a song. Instead of relaxing because we were home, I felt increasingly anxious. I worried that we’d scald the inside of Theo’s mouth by overheating his bottle, or accidentally push him under the water when we gave him a bath, or drop him when he was wet and slippery afterward. I checked on him every ten minutes while he slept, to make sure he hadn’t stopped breathing. And when he sniffed a few times, I was convinced he had an infection and made Pete rush us all straight back to the NICU.

The doctor checked Theo over, then said quietly to me, “And you? How are you coping?”

“I’m fine. Just a bit stressed out.”

“Depressed?”

I shook my head. If anything, I was the very opposite of depressed—full of nervous energy.

“Well, if you do get the baby blues, don’t ignore them. There are antidepressants your GP can prescribe that won’t pass into your breast milk.”

I didn’t tell him I’d already started supplementing with formula. Breastfeeding reminded me too much of the NICU. I’d hidden the oxygen tank, too. I only had to catch sight of it to feel sick.

Most of all, though, I felt alone. It was so difficult to tell Pete that I still felt no maternal attachment to Theo, only a terrible helplessness. Once I tried to explain to him what it was like, how I felt as if I were only babysitting someone else’s child, someone who’d be furious with me if I screwed up, and he looked at me, baffled.

“But of course he’s our baby. Who else’s could he be?”

“I don’t mean I think he’s someone else’s baby. I mean I feel as if he is.”

Nor did I tell him that the exhaustion, the chapped nipples, the emotional numbness, felt like my punishment for not being a good mother. Pete so clearly adored his son, I’d have felt disloyal even bringing it up.

Sometimes he’d start to say something about the NICU—“Do you remember when those other parents…” or “Wasn’t it weird when that doctor said…”—and I’d cut him off.

“I don’t really want to think about all that. Let’s put it behind us, shall we?”