remission since then. She’s still frail, forgetful, old. But she’s here. She and my father visit on occasion, and I try to bring Alice to them once a week. Everything feels stronger between us, but with the passing of time it also feels fragile. We are all counting the days, and we are grateful for each one.
‘Mummy, I’m going to stop!’
‘All right, darling.’ I watch, trying to hide my apprehension as Alice drags her feet along the ground to stop herself, and then she nearly topples off the swing. She’s not quite four and a half, a bit young for a big girl swing, but I am trying not to be one of those mothers who hovers.
I did for a long time, an over-the-top reaction to having missed the first few weeks of her life, and so I fretted over every sneeze, pored over every potentially delayed developmental milestone, read every parenting book I could get my hands on.
It was a way of being in control, of feeling like I was coping, or even being successful at this whole motherhood thing, when inside I still so desperately feared that I wasn’t. In the park or the baby groups that I made myself attend, I felt as if everyone could see I was faking it, and I imagined silent, accusing or judgmental looks as they assessed my mothering capabilities and found them lacking.
Eventually, though, one painstaking step at a time, I developed more confidence. I started to believe I really was a mother. I was able to go off the antidepressants, and without them I could still see the horizon.
When Alice was six months old, she weed on herself while I was changing her nappy, and I laughed and tickled her tummy before the memory of that first awful nappy change slammed into me.
And then I felt so unbearably thankful, that I had moved past that. That, by grace alone, I’d been able to. I started to cry, and then I almost called Anna, because in that moment I missed her so much. I wanted to tell her, to have her share in my joy. But I didn’t, just as I never have once in all these years, because I know our conversation wouldn’t go like that, and I was never sure what I would actually say to Anna if I saw or talked to her again.
‘Careful, sweetheart.’ I take an instinctive step forward as Alice gets off the swing. She stumbles, tripping over her own feet, something that seems to happen a worrying amount. The paediatrician assured me that developmental delays are common with preemies, and I shouldn’t be too worried that she isn’t hitting the targets with her motor skills, that she seems to be so clumsy.
She’s on track, all things considered. Be grateful.
And I am.
Now, before I can catch her, she’s fallen forward and skinned both her knees. ‘Alice!’ I hurry over, but she’s already clambering up, brushing the bits of gravel off her legs.
‘I’m all right, Mummy.’ She grins at me, proud of herself for being brave. ‘I’m all right.’
‘So you are.’ I pull her towards me and kiss the top of her head, just because I can. Because I never want to take her for granted. Then we turn and start walking back towards home.
Alice slips her hand in mine as we walk along, the sun shining on this gentle April day, the cherry trees above us giant puffballs of blossom. I listen to her tuneless humming as I mentally review what is in our fridge that I can make for dinner.
In the four years since Alice’s birth, I have not gone back to work. I never even thought about it, because why would I leave Alice with a childminder or in a nursery while I went to be with other children? I don’t want to miss a moment. I can’t, at least not yet, and there’s no real financial need for me to, so Matt and I are both happy with the decision.
I unlock the front door and Alice skips in ahead of me, running to the wicker basket of toys in the kitchen and getting out a few of her favourites. I switch on the kettle and open the fridge, humming softly as I scan its contents for the makings of a meal.
Alice is soon absorbed in some little plastic figurines on the floor – fairies or princess or a combination of both.
I get out a packet of mince and an onion and start frying and chopping. As always when my hands are busy but my mind isn’t, my thoughts drift – first from Alice’s preschool play next week, to the taster day at the local primary in a month’s time, to the second vision test her preschool informed us she needs to have since she didn’t do brilliantly on the first one, and then to what I want to talk to Matt about tonight, my heart tumbling in my chest at the thought. And then, as I so often do, I think of Anna.
I have not seen her since she walked out of my house. I don’t know if she still lives in her flat in Totterdown, or what she does for work. I searched for her on Facebook once, but she didn’t have a profile. I didn’t think she’d had when we were friends, either.
I go over and over that last day, the charged words, the accusations hurled, the finality of it all. Did it have to be that way? Did it really have to be that way? During those last moments, it felt as if we were hurtling towards a terrifying precipice, and no one knew how to stop or even slow down.
I still hadn’t been well, not truly well. Anna’s words had preyed on all the insecurities that had been my demons since I’d given birth. Even worse, she opened up a chasm between Matt and me; after she’d left, the click of the door seeming to reverberate through the room, I’d turned to him.
‘Did you really say that?’
‘Milly…’
I knew then that he had. ‘You told Anna that you didn’t think I should be a mother?’ My voice was a hoarse whisper as I clutched Alice too tightly to me and she began to squirm.
‘I didn’t say it like that. For the love of… Milly. I was at a low point, and so were you. I was thinking out loud – not even thinking, just… I don’t know, moaning. Grieving. I wondered if we should have gone down the whole donation and IVF route, that maybe we’d been trying too hard… I was tired and afraid and it was late, Milly. That’s all it was, I swear.’ He looked at me pleadingly, his eyes full of fear.
I shook my head, unable to forgive him so easily. Unable to forgive myself, because perhaps Matt had been right. Perhaps Anna was. Perhaps I should have been the one walking out the door, and she should have kept Alice in her arms. I glanced down at my daughter and saw her face grow red as she began to cry, as she always seemed to do with me. I had no idea what to do, how to comfort her. I stared at her helplessly and after a few awful seconds Matt took her from me. Then I went up to bed and slept.
Thankfully we survived those first weeks and months, although it wasn’t easy. I had a lot of healing to do, and a lot of forgiving of myself. At one point, encouraged by my therapist, I looked up my birth records and discovered that my birth mother had suffered from serious postpartum depression. It both saddened and relieved me, to know that. To understand why she’d given me up, and also why I’d felt the way I did. Genes mattered, but in a different way than I’d feared.
Matt and I also started therapy together, to work through our feelings surrounding Anna, my diagnosis, all of it. And, day by day, step by step, we made it. But our friendship with Anna didn’t.
At one point, the therapist suggested we contact her for some sort of closure.