He tried to help her, he really did. He offered to take the baby for a few hours at weekends or to hire a nanny for a while to help her out but she seemed to take both offers as a personal insult, as if he were suggesting that she was incapable of looking after her own baby. Nothing he said was right as far as she was concerned and she seemed permanently cross with him for reasons that he just didn’t understand because he’d done absolutely nothing wrong.
One day she called him at work in a panic. ‘Lily’s got a fever, I don’t know what to do,’ she cried.
‘Calm down, I’m sure it’s fairly common in babies,’ he replied. ‘Have you given her some Calpol?’
‘Of course I bloody have! It hasn’t made any difference. I’ve been trying to get through to the doctors for ages but it’s constantly engaged. I think I should take her to A&E. It could be meningitis.’
Pete, who had been in the middle of an important meeting when she’d called, sighed. ‘I don’t think we need to take her to hospital, Kate, she’s probably just got a cold. Listen, give her another hour or two and let’s see how she is.’
‘You don’t understand, Pete, an hour could be too late – I’m going right now,’ and she hung up. Pete went back to his meeting and when it finished, he texted her to find out how it had gone. She didn’t reply so he called her, but it went to voicemail.
Starting to panic, Pete grabbed his things and rushed home to find the house empty. After calling her three more times, he was just about to head to the nearest hospital when Kate appeared around the corner, pushing Lily in the pram.
‘Kate, what the hell? I’ve called you a bunch of times, why didn’t you answer? How’s Lily?’
‘Oh she’s fine,’ Kate said. ‘Her temperature went down as I was getting ready to go to hospital so I didn’t bother going in the end. She’s sleeping it off now.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me? I’ve been worried sick!’
She turned and looked accusingly at him. ‘You weren’t that bloody worried! You didn’t even offer to leave work. I figured you didn’t care.’
He stared at her, feeling both hurt and irritated. ‘Kate, that’s not fair, I was in the middle of a really important meeting and I didn’t think it was anything to worry about. But you had no right to ignore my calls. Of course I care.’
‘It’s fine, Pete. I handled it on my own. I’m getting quite good at that these days.’
It was one of the many barbed comments that she had started throwing his way. He couldn’t seem to do anything right – he held Lily wrong, he changed her nappy wrong, he bathed her wrong. He became so anxious of experiencing Kate’s wrath that Lily sensed his nerves and wailed every time he picked her up. Long days turned into long weeks which, in turn, turned into long months. Work became his refuge and he found himself staying later and later to avoid returning to a crying baby and a crying mother. He felt terrible about it because he loved them both but he also found himself feeling increasingly resentful towards Kate for creating this toxic environment that he dreaded coming home to.
As time went on, things slowly started to improve. Lily got older and became more interactive and fun, and Kate became a bit less stressy. By the time Lily was a toddler, Kate seemed to have found her stride. She had stopped breastfeeding and her possessiveness over Lily subsided, which meant that he could be more involved in looking after her. She began going for runs, getting her nails done and meeting mum friends for coffee at the weekends. By then Lily was in a bedtime routine and so they had their evenings back and started enjoying takeaways, wine and movie nights again. She even agreed to let her sister Erin babysit once or twice so they could go out for dinner. Life started to go back to normal – not pre-baby normal but a new kind of normal which lay somewhere in between content and discontent. Routine at least, even if things between them weren’t like they used to be anymore.
So, when Kate suggested they try for baby number two, his first reaction was dread. He didn’t think he could go through all that again and he wasn’t sure that their marriage could survive it.
‘It’ll be different this time,’ Kate reassured him. ‘I know what I’m doing, I won’t be a first-time mum. And if I need help, I’ll ask for it, I promise. I won’t let what happened the first time happen again. I know it was tough for you, Pete.’
‘I don’t know, Kate, it was hard, so hard. For you more than anyone, darling. And we’re settled now, do you really want to turn our lives upside down again?’
‘I don’t want Lily to be an only child. And we’ve always talked about having at least two kids. I know it will be tough in the beginning, but it’ll be worth it in the long run, it really will. I promise you. This baby will complete our family.’
So, just a few weeks after they celebrated Lily’s first birthday, Kate presented him with two blue lines on a pregnancy test. The reaction was somewhat more subdued the second time around, the celebration slightly muted. He was just as anxious during this pregnancy but for different reasons – he knew what lay ahead this time and he was terrified. Not of the baby but of his wife.
When Maggie made her arrival into the world, things started off much better. Kate seemed calmer and more together. The distraction of having a toddler helped,
