One Tiny Miracle... (10 page)

‘You’ve got transport and everything sorted?’ Ben checked.

‘Dad and Mum are coming,’ Celeste informed him. ‘Come over in the afternoon if you like—I’ve got some friends coming round and we’re going to have a little barbeque…’

‘Shouldn’t you take it easy the first few days?’ Ben asked dubiously.

‘That’s the plan,’ Celeste said with a flash of her old cheek. ‘I’ll get them all in and out in one hit!’

They could have headed home then, except they didn’t. Ben was playing sailor while Celeste lay in the bottom of the little boat, her feet up on the edge, and listened to the dreamy lap, lap of the water. She couldn’t remember being this relaxed since Willow’s birth, since before Willow was born, since for ever, really…

When she opened her eyes to tell him so, she suddenly wasn’t relaxed any more.

Because he was watching her, just sitting quietly watching her. When Celeste’s eyes opened, he didn’t look away, he just stared, and she stared right back at those contrary green eyes that both reached for her and resisted her. They stared in silence, reliving their one and only kiss in their minds, and all it did was confuse
her, because in that second she was sure that without Willow there would be love between them.

Without Willow.

It was an impossible place and one she never wanted to visit. She could see a flash in his eyes and it could have been the breeze or the sun glare, or it might have been tears, because there was regret etched on his features, and regret laced with anger in hers.

Because without Willow, they’d be mere colleagues now.

Without Willow she’d never have been living opposite him.

There could be no without Willow and there could be no them.

‘Rotten timing, huh?’ She wasn’t making a joke, and she wasn’t making a stab in the dark as to how he was feeling—because out on the water, when it was just the two of them, with no past, no future, just this moment in time, there was no question of either of them denying it.

‘It is,’ Ben said, and he didn’t have to elaborate—he’d stated his case from the very beginning.

‘So I’m not going mad and imagining things, then?’

‘You’re not going mad…’ He touched her hair, just holding one heavy curl in his fingers, and
how
he wanted to tell her, to explain, but how? Heath’s warning was ringing in his ears. This was her day off from worrying and he didn’t want to darken it with his grief, couldn’t burden this very new mum with his fears for her, for her child.

‘I just can’t do it.’ Ben settled for that.

‘I know.’

‘I said so from the beginning.’

‘You did.’

‘Can we still be friends?’ Ben asked, and her answer was the same as the one ringing inside his own head.

‘I don’t know.’

Maybe this was their last kiss but it was the sweetest she had ever tasted.

He bent her head and brushed her lips and if real men didn’t cry, that excluded Ben, because she felt the brush of damp eyelashes on her cheeks as his mouth met hers. It was the most fleeting of kisses but it was so mingled with regret and love that it would stay with her for ever.

She didn’t have to tell him to take her home afterwards, he just started up the engine, Ben driving, Celeste pulling on massive sunglasses and trying not to cry.

The whole journey home was neither pleasant nor wretched, yet contained no more kisses.

‘Do you want to come in?’ she offered when he pulled up at her gates. She knew exactly what she was offering, knew because the air was so thick with want, there could be no doubt in either of their minds.

‘Celeste…’ His knuckles were white where he gripped the steering-wheel. ‘Go inside.’

‘Just for tonight,’ she pleaded. She wanted a proper kiss goodbye, was greedy for more, and was trying to convince herself she could handle the morning after. Rejection was surely her forte—except she loathed it now.

‘’Night, Celeste,’ he replied.

H
E PROBABLY
should have popped over.

Set the tone.

Resumed being nothing but friends.

Only it was too late for that now.

Autumn was coming. Every night the wind stripped a few more petals from the sunflowers. Heading for home from work nearly a week later and sick of the constant reminders, Ben pulled out the gangly stalks and went to shove them on the compost. About a hundred seeds scattered in the garden while he did it and Ben gritted his teeth. So much for forgetting! If he didn’t get the seeds up he’d need a scythe next year just to get to the front door!

She was everywhere.

In his head, in his dreams, and as he walked into the house, he headed upstairs to change and his eyes moved straight to the beach, to where he’d first seen Celeste, instead of to the picture of Jen on his bedside table.

‘What do I do?’ He picked up the silver frame and stared into his wife’s clear eyes and wished for just two minutes of her time.

Two minutes of her logical, practical advice, which
was a stupid thing to wish for—as if he should even be asking Jen about Celeste!

He wanted her to tell him, just a sign, one little sign, only he didn’t even know what he was asking for.

And then he looked at the whole picture, not just at Jen.

He ran a finger over the swell of her stomach to where their baby lay, touched
her
only through glass, touched what he’d never, not even once got to hold.

But there wasn’t time to wallow. He had visitors that evening, which proved difficult, and then he was called into hospital to deal with an emergency at around 10 p.m. He could hear the pounding music from Celeste’s neighbours as he drove past her unit and despite his best intentions, it was difficult to ignore. However, he determinedly drove on, hoping the party would wind down early, or that she’d taken Willow and gone to her parents’. Surely a wild party next door was the last thing a new mum needed only a few days after bring her babe home.

Still, it wasn’t his problem now.

‘Sorry!’ Belinda looked up from a packed Resus as Ben made his way over. ‘You’re about to get a page saying we don’t need you after all.’

‘Sure about that?’ Ben checked, because the place was steaming.

‘We were alerted for two multi-traumas,’ Belinda explained, ‘and on top of this amount of patients, I thought we should call in some extras, even though you’re not rostered on.’

‘Where are the trauma victims?’

‘One died en route and one’s not too seriously injured.
I’m just about to ring the parents—who’d have teenagers, huh? Perhaps I should have waited to call you.’

‘Better not to wait and see.’ Ben really didn’t mind being called in, it was part of his job. ‘I’ll give you a hand now that I’m here.’

‘No, you won’t,’ Belinda contradicted as she looked at some X-rays on the computer. ‘Go and get some sleep—this is just a usual Friday night.’

‘I really don’t mind,’ he persisted.

‘Well, I do,’ Belinda said. ‘You’re covering for me tomorrow, remember.’

‘Ah, yes!’

‘And I’m rather hoping that you
won’t
be calling me in.’ She winked at him.

‘Going somewhere nice?’ he asked.

‘To a fabulous hotel in the City.’ Belinda smiled. ‘A million miles away from here.’

‘You and Paul still going strong, then?’

‘Absolutely. You know you really shouldn’t knock the internet.’

Ben just groaned—she never let up! ‘Okay, then, I’ll head home. Just buzz if you do need help, though.’

He would actually have preferred to be working—wished that Belinda had handed him a pile of patient cards and asked him to wade his way through them, because as he turned into his street, instead of slowing down he speeded up a touch and turned up the car radio. Really, whatever was going on at the flats wasn’t his problem. There were parties there every other night, and he couldn’t forever be checking that Celeste was okay…

A group of teenagers was spilling onto the street, and
despite the car radio on loud he could hear the doof-doof of the music. Though he had driven past, regretting it, resenting it even, he executed a hasty U-turn, flashed his lights at the drunken idiots and pulled over. Opening the gates and heading up to her unit, he saw the lights were on. Hearing Willow’s screams from inside, he knocked at the door.

When there was no answer he realised how scared she must be.

‘Celeste,’ he called during a tiny lull in the music. ‘It’s me, Ben.’

‘What do you want?’ He could see she’d been crying when she opened the door.

‘I heard the noise on my way back from work. You can’t settle her in this. You should have rung me…’

‘You wouldn’t have been home,’ Celeste pointed out, but despite her flip retort he could tell she was still close to tears. ‘It’s only a party…’

Which it was—a very loud party, but next door to a very new baby and a very new mum, who just hadn’t needed it tonight.

‘I can’t get her to feed, and the nurses said it had to be every three hours at the most,’ she said forlornly.

‘Come on,’ he announced. ‘Let’s grab her things and you can both crash at my place.’

She was about to say no, about to close the door, but a small fight was erupting in the next unit, and, however much she didn’t want to need help, tonight she did.

‘Please, Celeste…’ Even inside her flat the music was just as loud! ‘Pack a bag and come and stay at my house tonight,’ he begged again.

She would have argued, but she was too relieved. She wasn’t sure if it was her own tension or the noise that was upsetting Willow, but after six weeks of tender care in the special care unit, Celeste was scared enough being on her own with her, without the invasive noise and chaos of next door.

She was trying to clip Willow in her little seat to carry out to the car, but Ben had other ideas. ‘Just put her in her pram. It will be just as easy to walk…and she can sleep in it.’

She would never have walked outside with the party mob there, but with Ben she felt safe. He pushed the pram and bumped it down the steps as Celeste locked up. The gates to the units were already open and with his arm around her they walked in swift silence away from the noise along the street and only when it faded in the distance did he talk.

‘You should have called the police.’

‘What, and have my neighbours hate me?’ Celeste said ruefully as they walked along the street. There was a nearly full moon, which provided plenty of light, the music was just a thud in the distance and she could hear the welcome sound of the water now. ‘It was only a party…’ she said again.

‘It’s no place…’ He didn’t finish the sentence, but Celeste knew what he’d been about to say.

‘It’s all I can afford, Ben,’ she told him quietly.

‘I know that.’

‘There was a small house in town for about the same price—I should have rented that, but I wanted to be closer to the beach. The flat seemed fine when I
inspected it. I didn’t think to ask to see it at eleven o’clock on a Friday night…’ She took over the pram, and was walking more quickly now. Willow, overtired, was still crying, and Celeste was both annoyed at him and at herself. She was trying so hard to cope, so hard to do right by her baby, yet at every turn she seemed thwarted, at every turn life tossed her another curve ball…‘I’m doing my best,’ she said as they arrived at his house. ‘Though, I’m sure you don’t think it’s good enough—’

‘I never said that!’ Ben interrupted.

‘No, but you think it!’ she retorted. She was angry at him and she knew she shouldn’t be. It wasn’t his fault, he was being perfectly nice, but his home, his order, his everything only seemed to highlight her own inadequacies.

‘Why don’t you feed her?’ Ben suggested soothingly. He carried the pram and the baby up the stairs and past his stunning bedroom to a rather nice guest room, where he parked the pram. ‘Rest on the bed, the view’s lovely. You can both relax and get Willow calm and settled…’

‘And her mum too…’ She was just a bit embarrassed at her outburst. After all, it wasn’t his fault how he made her feel.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll find some sheets to make up the bed.’

‘Thanks,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Come out when you’re ready.’

‘I need…’ He was turning to go and she stopped him, rummaging through Willow’s bag. ‘Is there anywhere I can warm up her bottle?’

‘Sure,’ he said.

‘Actually…’ she picked up the hot little bundle that was her sobbing baby ‘…could you hold Willow for me?’

‘I’ll do the bottle,’ Ben said, in an annoyingly calm voice that only made her appear more frazzled. ‘I know where everything is.’

He took the bottle and she changed Willow while her screams quadrupled. She felt like howling herself. She knew he’d been expecting her to just lie on the bed and flop out a boob, to feed her baby herself…

She felt such a failure, felt so close to crying that she barely managed to thank him as he returned a couple of moments later with a warm bottle. He sort of hovered for an uncomfortable moment as she sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed and took it from him. Then Willow’s mouth clamped onto the teat as if she’d been starved for a week and the only sound was of gulps and tears as an overtired baby finally took its bottle from an overwrought mum.

Although Willow was gulping her bottle, she kept jumping and startling while she was doing it. Celeste kicked off her sandals and lay back on the bed, pulling Willow in tighter, but every time she almost relaxed, the baby would suddenly startle as if the noise, the angst, the panic from her mother was all about to start again.

It was nothing unfamiliar to Celeste.

The party had just been the clincher. In the few days since she’d been home from the hospital, practically every time she’d sat down to quietly feed her babe, her mother had ‘dropped in’, offering all kinds of suggestions—‘Change her first,’ or ‘Change her after she’s fed,’ or ‘Hold the bottle higher,’ or ‘She needs winding,’
each well-meaning suggestion from Rita only exacerbating the tension further.

Celeste desperately wanted to be back in the hospital, wanted to be feeding Willow with knowledgeable staff offering quiet encouragement, or even to put her to bed in the hospital at night and go home, as she had last Sunday, missing her but knowing she was being well looked after—no, that Willow was being
better
looked after than she could manage by herself.

‘It’s okay, Willow, it’s all okay, Willow,’ she said softly, over and over again until finally Willow believed it, until finally her little jerks and startles stopped, and the gulps of tears faded. Celeste felt this unfamiliar surge of triumph as her baby relaxed into her, scared to move almost as Willow moved from resisting her to this passive, trance-like state almost—seemingly asleep, but still feeding.

She really was asleep, Celeste realised as she took the empty bottle from Willow’s mouth and watched her little eyelids flicker.

So asleep that if the party down the street relocated to outside the bedroom window, Celeste was quite sure that Willow wouldn’t wake up.

And she had done it all by herself.

She’d never been so alone with her baby and felt so much a mum at the same time.

Celeste stared down at the perfect features of her daughter, dark little eyebrows that looked as if they’d been pencilled on, her fine pointy nose and little rosebud mouth, and she thought her heart would swell and burst there was so much love inside it for her baby.

A scary love that knew no bounds—yet still she felt so inadequate.

This little scrap of a thing was just so utterly and completely dependent on her, there should be no room to feel anything else.

Except she did.

She didn’t want to move, didn’t want to put her down. She just wanted to stay safe on this bed, holding her baby, watching the bay with Ben just a call away. To simply hold onto this first ray of peace.

‘Don’t fall asleep holding the baby.’

She could hear her mother as if she were in the room with them.

And she was right, Celeste sighed, heading over to the pram and gently lowering Willow in.

As she headed out to the lounge, Ben, sprawled on one of the sofas, looked up from the show on the television he was watching and poured her a glass of wine. It was the second little ray of peace she felt. For the first time since Willow’s discharge from hospital, she felt as if she were home.

‘She’s asleep,’ she told him.

‘Good. How are you?’ he asked.

‘Better.’ She took a seat on the edge of the sofa opposite him. ‘You always seem to bailing me out. It won’t be for much longer.’

‘I know,’ Ben said, then suggested that she choose a movie, so she did, kneeling down as she worked through his collection, and as she did she told him her most recent news.

‘I mean, you won’t have to keep bailing me out because I’m moving back home.’

His wine paused midway to his mouth. ‘When?’ he asked and then took a long sip, holding it in his mouth until she replied.

‘Next weekend.’ Huge amber eyes flashed towards him then looked away. ‘Mum and Dad are painting the spare room for her and we’re moving the stuff throughout next week. It’s just not working, living here. You know what it’s like, and Mum and I are getting on a lot better now…’ She trailed off.

‘How do you feel about it?’ he asked shrewdly.

Celeste stared unseeingly at the DVD she was holding. ‘To be honest, I haven’t really stopped to think about it that much.’

So she did. She sank back on her heels and thought.

Out loud.

‘It’s not what I really want,’ she admitted. ‘I asked them a few weeks ago, but that was when I was pregnant. I never wanted to live there with a baby—but it’s best for Willow. We could manage on our own, but this way…’ Celeste took a deep breath. ‘She’s nearly two months old—it seems unbelievable. I could put her in the crèche next month and start back at work.’

‘Is your mum going to watch her for you?’

Celeste nodded. ‘Only for work—she’s warned me that she’s not a built-in babysitter so we’ve agreed it’s just for a year.’ And then she told him her other news. ‘I’ve spoken to Meg and she’s going to help me with my application to transfer hospitals.’