The Legacy of Eve, page 25
‘Well thanks for having my back, Caz. And sorry I scared you.’
‘Don’t mention it, even with all the drama it was still far more enjoyable than giving birth to my own children. Hey, you’re never going to believe this. Sally and Marcus the Sharkus are madly in love again and are renewing their wedding vows! And we’re all invited!’
‘Christ,’ Annie said. It seemed she’d missed a lot in the short while that she’d been in hospital. ‘I thought they’d only just started talking to each other again. That was quick.’
‘I know, it’s amazing what a bit of Botox will do.’
‘Do you think Marcus will actually be there?’
‘Apparently so. Sally says he’s making a huge effort, I’ve never heard her so happy. Maybe he’s finally realised that he has a damn good thing going on after all.’
‘I really hope so, for Sally’s sake.’
‘Either that or his bit on the side’s dumped him.’
‘Caz,’ Annie said crossly. ‘Don’t say that.’
She shrugged. ‘That’s life, Annie.’
‘How depressing.’
‘Yeah, you could look at it that way or you could instead be grateful for all the amazing things that you have in your life. And you, my darling, have many.’
‘I know. I’m so excited to be a mum, Caz. I just can’t wait!’
Caz laughed and gave her a hug. ‘Oh love. You’ve got no frickin’ idea what’s about to hit you. But you know what? I think you’re going to be just fine.’
Epilogue
Annie stood in the doorway, swallowing back the tears that were threatening to spill out of her. She tried to smile but it froze somewhere between a grin and a grimace.
‘He’s fine, duck. Go on, off you pop,’ Linda, her neighbour, said.
Annie nodded but she didn’t move.
‘Go on, Annie, it’s time,’ Linda said, kindly but firmly.
Annie took one last, lingering look at her son. He was sitting on the floor, his chubby little legs stretched out in front of him, a breadstick in one hand and a doll in the other, oblivious to his mother’s inner turmoil. In front of him another, older child, started banging some cups and he watched curiously, momentarily alarmed by the noise. Then he giggled. Annie nodded, to herself more than anything. Linda was right, it was time. She left, closing the front door quietly behind her and listening intently in case Cole started crying and calling for her, but there was no sound except the happy noises of toddlers playing.
She hurried down the garden path and on to the street, passing her house and walking towards the high street. She brushed a tear aside and crossed her arms over her new trench coat, which she had bought to mark the end of her maternity leave, along with the animal-print dress she wore underneath.
An odd thought entered her head. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If I am not with my child, am I still a mother?
She couldn’t bear it. The separation hurt as though she had been physically severed from Cole. It didn’t matter that they would be back together again by the end of the day; it was still a raw, guttural pain. It was mother’s guilt, she knew, everyone had warned her about it.
‘The first couple of days will be brutal,’ Caz had said knowingly. ‘You’ll cry more than your baby. But it gets easier. Before you know it, it will be the new normal. Just enjoy it. A hot cup of coffee. Lunch with colleagues. Adult conversation. It’s okay to enjoy it.’
Right now, she couldn’t imagine ever enjoying it. How could she be away from Cole for a whole day? For days on end? She wanted to cling on to him forever, possibly letting go of him when he turned eighteen, or then again, possibly not. But she had delayed her return to the office twice already and now Cole was thirteen months old, and it was time for her to go back to work.
Gabe had kissed them both before he left, promising that he’d be back in plenty of time to pick Cole up later that afternoon. Annie wanted him to do shorter days with Linda at first, until he got used to the new routine. Gabe had been working at a start-up for the past year and although he lived in a semi-state of fear of them going bust at any second, he had a much better work-life balance, with a boss who didn’t care where or when he worked, as long as it got done. The flexibility suited him, and so did fatherhood. He may have less hair than he did a year ago, and he could probably do with shaving the whole lot off and being done with it, but he was more content than she had seen him in a long time. They both were.
Annie couldn’t believe that it had been more than a year since Cole was born. The days, which passed so slowly at the beginning as they got to grips with the challenges of being new parents, had started to speed up at some point and now it felt like her maternity leave had gone in a flash. Caz was right, of course, she’d had no idea what was about to hit her, but she’d found out soon enough. Sleep deprivation, sore boobs, leaky nappies, teething, fevers, she’d experienced it all tenfold. At any given moment she could have fallen apart with the sheer relentlessness of it all but fortunately for her, she’d had plenty of people around her who had kept her standing.
There was Gabe of course, who had been a total legend. Mike and Val had helped in their own ways – Val had confronted her fear of London to make weekly visits in the early weeks so that she could clean, cook and do the laundry while Mike looked after Cole and Annie went off to have a bath, or a nap, or meet a friend for coffee. Although she hadn’t taken up residence in the end, Diana came up one weekend a month and was surprisingly good with Cole. He adored his nana and Annie had to admit, grudgingly, that the woman was a natural with babies. She’d shown an increasingly desperate Annie a trick for how to hold him when he was colicky and unsettled which had stopped him fretting almost immediately. Annie was so grateful that she had even managed to bite her tongue when Diana started harping on about baby number two. Still, though, in the midst of baby one and with no intention of ever going through it all again, Annie had wanted to bash her over the head with a rattle.
There was her counsellor too. Annie had kept her promise to Gabe and told the midwife about the anxiety and paranoia she had experienced throughout her pregnancy, and she had referred her to a local counselling service. It had been good to talk to someone, to be able to grieve the absence of her mum again, not as a child as she had done many times before, but as an adult and now a mother herself. But the depression that had gripped her when she was pregnant had not returned. The nightmares were a distant memory now. It was as though Cole’s birth had pressed a reset button in her and she no longer felt a compelling need to fixate on what she didn’t have or what she had lost. Instead, she wanted to celebrate what she did have.
Because she had so much. Not only her family that she was linked to by blood but her other family too. Caz had been the listening ear she needed when she wanted to cry, or laugh, or do both at the same time. Linda, who had popped round regularly for a cup of tea, had been a constant source of practical advice and support. She had been the obvious choice when Annie and Gabe started thinking about childcare, and Cole was so familiar with her that his settling-in sessions had gone seamlessly so far.
Brian had been terrified of holding Cole at first, in case he broke him, and even now he still looked at him with a mixture of suspicion and affection. Ian thought it was hilarious and it had become a running joke. It was safe to say that Brian wasn’t a baby person. But he loved Cole, just as he loved Annie, and she knew that as Cole got older, their relationship would develop. Until then, he was fun Uncle Bri, the giver of the best birthday and Christmas presents.
And then there was Lil. The bond between Lil and Cole was almost visible in the air between them. They worshipped each other. There was a likeness between them that was almost physical, although Annie had never been able to put her finger on what it was. Whenever she entered the room, Cole’s face lit up like she was Father Christmas personified. She was the first person he giggled at, the first one he crawled towards. Annie had already threatened that if his first word was ‘Lil’ and not ‘Mama’ she was going to be furious. But secretly she enjoyed watching them together and she knew how much it meant to Lil too. She didn’t have children, or grandchildren, of her own but Cole was the closest thing to it.
Lil was sensitive to their relationship though and Annie suspected that she was worried about overstepping the mark and treading on the real grandparents’ toes. She’d even turned down an invitation to attend Cole’s first birthday party because she said it should be a family affair, and when Annie insisted that she was family, Lil had welled up but remained resolute. Annie didn’t understand it, but she had accepted it.
After nearly a decade of speculation, she’d finally found out how Lil and Brian met. Annie had gone out for a drink with Bri one evening, her first since becoming a mother, and they’d drank too many Aperol spritzes and got tipsy.
‘So, go on then Bri, tell me the story of you and Lil,’ Annie had urged, leaning forward intently.
Brian chuckled. ‘All right then, since you asked so nicely.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I was in a really bad place, Annie. I’d left home, I had nowhere to go. It was Christmas Eve and I’d spent my last twenty quid on a wrap of speed and two cheap bottles of wine so I could get blotto.’
He paused and Annie nodded at him to continue.
‘For some reason I decided to go to church. I have no idea why because I’ve never been into religion in my life, but I was off my face and I wanted to go and sing some carols. By the time I got there, the carol service had finished and so I sat on one of the pews, alone, singing jingle bloody bells at the top of my voice.’
‘Oh Brian.’
‘Anyway, in she walked, and she sat down next to me. We sat there for a while, in silence. I remember feeling comforted by her presence, even though I had no idea who she was. There was something about her whole demeanour that soothed me.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘Eventually she asked me if I wanted to talk, and I said no. But then I don’t know what happened, it all came flooding out, like I’d been holding it all inside for so long and the gates had finally burst. I told her everything that had happened to me – but that’s a story for another day. Once I had started talking, I couldn’t stop. I must have kept going for half an hour at least, just a steady stream of verbal diarrhoea. And she just sat and listened.’
Annie took Brian’s hand as he continued. ‘She asked me where I was staying and I said probably the local squat, and then she invited me to spend Christmas Day with her. I agreed but I had no intention of going. The following morning, she came to pick me up.’
‘Wow,’ Annie said, imagining glamorous Lil at a squat. She couldn’t see it at all.
‘I never went back to that place. Lil invited me to stay with her. She cleaned me up and offered me a job. I’d never experienced such generosity in my life and there was no way I was going to fuck it up. Lil saved my life, and I wouldn’t be where I am without her.’
Annie understood. Her story wasn’t as dramatic as Brian’s, but Lil had changed her life too, when she walked into the café all those years ago. She had offered Annie a new path, one that had led her to a rewarding career, Gabe and, finally, Cole. The best life Annie could have asked for. Maybe Cole was right after all, maybe Lil really was Father Christmas.
On her way into the office Annie went into the coffee shop and ordered a cappuccino to go.
‘Annie! Lovely to see you,’ the owner said. ‘Where’s that little one of yours?’
‘Childminder,’ Annie said, trying not to cry again. ‘It’s my first day back at work.’
‘Good for you. I’ve missed seeing your smiling face every morning. Welcome back, this one’s on the house.’
Annie took the coffee gratefully and left, continuing down the road until she reached Lillian Gold Estate Agents. She paused outside the window and looked at all the properties for sale, none of which she knew anything about. She’d have a lot of work to do to get up to speed again. For a moment she was overwhelmed, and she almost turned around and ran all the way back to Cole, but then she spotted Lil, Bri and the new guy, who was not really the new guy anymore, chatting together with mugs of tea in their hands.
Bri saw her and waved. He mouthed ‘Annie’ and then Lil and the new guy, who she would definitely have to stop calling the new guy, looked up too. Lil smiled warmly, her face lighting up at the sight of Annie. Annie waved back, tentatively at first and then with more enthusiasm. Her phone beeped and she glanced down to see a message from her dad.
Good luck on your first day back, Annie. I’m so proud of you. xxx
She smiled. The guilt of leaving Cole was natural but it would lessen in time. Because wherever she went, they would be together again. She was a parent now, for better or for worse, through the good times and the bad, and nothing could change that. There would be times when she was with him and times when they were apart. But she would never stop thinking about him, loving him, from near or from far. She would be with him in spirit, forever.
If I am not with my child, am I still a mother? Yes. Always.
THE END
Acknowledgements
If you had told me a few years ago that I’d be writing acknowledgements for my third novel, I would have suggested that you go and have a little lie down. To have achieved my dream of writing one book is still unbelievable, so to have produced a hat-trick literally blows my mind. And I have many people to thank for helping me to get to this point.
To all the team at Bloodhound Books, who have supported me on my journey. Your enthusiasm, professionalism, expertise and belief in me is so appreciated. Special thanks to my editor Clare Law, who spent many hours making my manuscript as shiny as it could be.
To everyone who has read, reviewed, shared or supported my books. You give me the courage and inspiration to keep on writing and I hope that you continue to enjoy my work.
And to my sister, Zoe, who reads all my manuscripts – your encouragement, feedback and suggestions make such a massive different to both my books and my confidence.
Thank you to my biggest cheerleaders, my family, for always being there. In particular, my two daughters, Rose and Alice. Being your mother is my greatest achievement. I’m still learning on the job and I’m sorry that I don’t always get it right, but your unreserved love, positivity and patience makes the world a better place and me a better person.
To Sam, who gave me some invaluable insight into midwifery for this book and to the amazing midwives and doctors at The Whittington Hospital and Barnet General Hospital, who safely delivered my two babies into the world, keeping me calm when things got scary.
To all the mothers out there, the new ones, the old ones, the ones we have loved and lost. The ones who think they are getting it wrong when everyone else is getting it right. I promise you that we are all thinking the same. And to the dads, who we sometimes forget to thank, but who are just as important, special and amazing.
And finally, to my mum, Robin. You always believed in me and taught me that anything is possible, and I wouldn’t be where I am without you. There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t wish that you were still here, to watch me grow, have children of my own and realise the dream I had as a girl. I know how proud you would have been. But I’ve always imagined that you’re out there somewhere, watching over me from afar, so perhaps, in some way, you know already. You may no longer walk beside me, Mum, but you are always with me, and this book is for you.
A note from the publisher
Thank you for reading this book. If you enjoyed it please do consider leaving a review on Amazon to help others find it too.
* * *
We hate typos. All of our books have been rigorously edited and proofread, but sometimes mistakes do slip through. If you have spotted a typo, please do let us know and we can get it amended within hours.
info@bloodhoundbooks.com
You will also enjoy:
His Other Woman by Sarah Edghill
BUY NOW
Love best-selling fiction?
Sign up today to be the first to hear about new releases and exclusive offers, including free and discounted ebooks!
* * *
Why not like us or follow us on social media to stay up to date with the latest news from your favourite authors?
Natasha Boydell, The Legacy of Eve
