She was relieved to see that no one whatsoever was in the corridor. She could see as far as the nurses’ station at the end by the door, and it seemed that nobody was there, even. She could hear some faint sounds coming from behind various doors along the hall, the sounds of birth, in different stages. These were noises she herself had been making only a few hours before. Hope really didn’t wish to listen to another second of anyone else’s miraculous moment, but she was shattered, mentally and physically finished, and could hardly move.
Hope looked at the door next to where she had stopped. There was a long window in it, and through that, she could see a large slumped man sleeping in a chair in the corner. His mouth was wide open and she could hear his loud snoring through the thick door. She could see the end of a hospital bed and, just beyond that, she glimpsed the edge of a see-through baby cot, just like the one she’d had in her own room. The empty one.
But this cot wasn’t empty; she could see two tiny little feet paddling against the Perspex. The baby was awake.
The door Hope was leaning on wasn’t a sliding door …
Yet it was.
A giant, inexplicable universal magnet drew Hope into the room. She was utterly helpless to resist. A cosmic grappling iron had been thrown out, latched itself to her heart, and was now reeling her in.
She leant against the door and it opened silently, causing her to almost fall into the room. As she stepped forward, slowly and quietly, she put her bags down, and Hope took in every detail of the room as it revealed itself to her, inch by inch.
The big dark man was definitely sound asleep.
The baby was sleepy-eyed, but gurgly happy, wriggly and blinking at her first daylight.
The mother was turned towards the wall and breathing very deeply in her exhausted slumber, with her blonde hair splayed across her sweaty face.
The whole room was bathed in winter morning light.
There were bags and phones and jackets and bottles of water and a banana skin and a brush and a car seat.
All the same sort of normal stuff Hope and Quiet Isaac had had in THEIR room. In readiness for THEIR baby.
The car seat. Yes.
Isaac was sitting downstairs in the underground car park waiting for her. She needed to go, but something kept her in this room, watching the family just being, being together, as if she were entirely invisible. She could hear them all breathing in their very different ways. She saw the same dancing dust in the light. She noticed that was the only movement besides the rise and fall of the man’s chest and the woman’s ribs, and of course the happy writhing of the infant, which she was so drawn to.
Hope risked a step closer. She had to see the baby up close. She wanted to look. A step wasn’t enough, so she took another. And another, until she was standing right next to the bassinet. The newborn saw her and immediately stopped gurgling as their eyes locked on to each other. Lovely open eyes. ALIVE.
The baby was exquisite. Unmistakeably female, she had flawless bronze skin, a mass of curiously straight black hair, large deep brown eyes and the most deliciously dribbly kissy lips. She was perfect. She was life. And she was looking right at broken Hope, who could physically feel her heart mending as they gazed at each other. The longing was mammoth. Here, staring at Hope, was her missing piece, everything she surely needed right at that moment to be happy. It was precisely then, in this crazy stopped slice of time, that Hope suddenly became aware that she was lactating. She felt the wetness from her nipples making stains on her blouse. She looked down, and confirmed that it really was happening: her body wanted to feed that baby.
And it was precisely then that little Florence reached her hand up. Her perfect hand with her beautiful tiny pinkish nails, trying to connect with Hope. The wrist was so small, and circled with the hospital wristband identifying her name. Florence was looking for her mother. Hope wanted to be that more than anything, ever. In an instant worthy of a fresco by Michelangelo, Hope tentatively reached out her hand, into the bassinet, and into the tiny perfect fingers of Florence Lindon-Clarke, who immediately grasped her. This was Hope’s could-be life. Hope knew instinctively that the baby wanted to be picked up and held close, and that in a matter of seconds she was probably going to yell for that to happen. She mustn’t cry. The man and the woman would wake and find her there.
Boom. It happened. Without so much as a second thought, Hope snapped. She crossed the line. In the fuzzy haze of Hope’s dreadful sadness, she couldn’t possibly discern the boundaries of right or wrong. How can a person know their own mind when their own mind is absent? Hope’s whole body was doing what it NEEDED. For her, right then, it was indisputably right.
In less than ten seconds the baby was lifted out of the cot and into Hope’s big overnight bag, nestled on top of Hope’s nightie, zipped up and heading out of the door.
Out.
Quick.
Out.
Hope made sure the door closed gently behind her with a soft flump, nothing to disturb either parent. As she
