Page 99 of Before You Say Goodbye

“How are you doing this?” he asked her.

“Marley, darling, that’s really not very helpful,” Emma murmured. Autumn cried out then, pushing harder. She’d had enough. She just wanted the baby out. And then, all at once, hewas. He’d rushed from her insides and she’d never felt relief like it. She’d given Marley permission to cut his cord, and watched as the midwife passed him her son. Marley stared at the tiny pink miracle in his arms, his mouth opening and closing at the wonder of this new person, his eyes blinking back tears. Autumn would never forget the look on his face when he dragged his adoring eyes off the wriggling newborn he was holding to tell her she had a son. In that moment, Marley looked more like his brother to Autumn than he ever had before. A deep sob escaped her throat. How she wished Bowie was here. She called out his name, collapsing back onto the bed. Beside her, she heard Marley burst into tears. He stepped forward, laying the baby on Autumn’s chest.

Bowie’s brother and mother wrapped their arms around Autumn and her baby son, and they’d cried and cried, all three of them together, over his tiny blonde head.

Emma had tried, many times, to describe the way Autumn would feel the first time she saw the child she’d created, but she had been right when she’d eventually concluded with the words, “I can’t even explain. Just wait.” Before she’d held her baby boy that first time, Autumn had been entirely deluded. She’d believed that she could imagine what Emma had gone through when they’d lost Bowie. As she stared at her son in her arms, the true reality of Emma’s loss smacked her in the face. In that moment, she couldn’t fathom how she would ever survive if anything happened to this tiny little person. She had been embarrassingly ignorant. She didn’t know how Bowie’s mother was still standing. When Emma drew closer to give Autumn a hug before she held her grandson for the very first time, Autumn held her much tighter than usual.

“Thank you,” Emma whispered. She ran her fingertips through the baby’s wispy blonde hair. Autumn, weary but deliriously happy, told her that she was welcome. Emma pacedthe room with the baby, her face frozen in a grin, chattering happily to the bundle of joy she was holding, telling him all about the family he had waiting for him and how badly they were going to spoil him. Autumn reached for Marley’s hand, overwhelmed with emotion.

“We’re going to be OK,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss her forehead. She nodded. In the past six months, they’d become experts at speaking openly to one another about something nobody else knew anything about, and braver when it came to showing each other affection. They knew they didn’t have to worry about his family. The Whittles had no reason to suspect anything untoward had occurred between the two of them. Marley had loved Bowie with unabashed ferocity and, as far as they knew, would never do anything to hurt his brother. The idea that her child might be his would not cross their minds. Marley would die to protect his brother’s baby as readily as he would a child of his own. His protectiveness of Autumn would be chalked against that and they both felt safe in this knowledge. The Whittles knew that what Autumn and Marley had gone through together in New York had given them a unique closeness.

They were best friends. She was closer to him than she was to anyone else. Still, their bond did not come close to the bond that the twins had shared, and Autumn knew — though her own heart was on the mend — his would never heal. Bowie’s absence was at the forefront of his mind every minute of every day. Their mother’s loss was similar in a way and Emma and Marley had become ever more inseparable as a result. Autumn reasoned that it was only possible to feel such pain if you’d lost someone who was woven into the very fabric of who you were as a person.

Over the course of her healing, Emma started to suspect Marley, Autumn and Maddie might have helped Bowie along. She became obsessed with the notion, asking Marley about it at least once a day.

“You can tell me the truth,” she would say. “I know that your commitment to Bowie was a complicated love story, that you really meant it when you said you’d do anything for him. And I know you’re liberal monsters. I raised you that way. I won’t judge you, I just want to know.”

She was convincing, but Marley never faltered.

He stuck to their story like glue and so did Maddie and Autumn. They never talked about it, but Autumn assumed they’d concluded — like she had — that Emma would torture herself if she knew the truth. That she would never forgive them, never look at them the same again, never respect the fact Bowie had been more than ready to die. The truth wouldn’t help her, it would only hurt her. It was better if she never knew.

* * *

“I want to call him Ben,” Autumn said. Marley smiled at her in the rear-view mirror. It was the afternoon after the birth and they were going home. They’d dressed him in a tiny white all-in-one and matching hat. Despite sending him an obsessive stream of texts to remind him, Marley had forgotten to bring the scratch mittens. Autumn was sitting in the back seat, holding his hands carefully to prevent him poking his beautiful little eyes out. She thought it best not to mention this to Marley.

“I thought you hated traditional names?” he said.

“I don’t hate them,” she said. “I just think they’re boring. But ‘Ben’ isn’t. ‘Ben’ has meaning. To you, to Bowie, to me. Benjamin, maybe, so we don’t get confused.”

It just felt right to her. She desperately wanted them all to know how important they were to her. She knew that the family must be terrified that she might take the baby away from them, but Autumn had never wanted anything more than to stay. She was well aware that having a baby would be hard work and wasalready completely overwhelmed. She needed them. All of them. All of the time.

She’d expected them to be with Marley when he came to pick her up, but he’d been alone and she felt a little disappointed. She knew they’d be excited and she’d been looking forward to seeing them all delight in her son.

“They’re all as high as kites,” he said ruefully. “I told them they’d overwhelm you and could wait one more hour. I had to scream at them to make them listen, so they won’t be talking to me when we get home.”

She knew that his solitude was not just for her sake. He’d walked into her room with his arms already open and ready to receive her son. He wanted him to himself for a while longer. He’d been crying, she could tell, but didn’t ask him about it. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how conflicted and overwhelmed he must be feeling. She’d watched him carrying the baby to the car. His eyes not straying once from her son’s perfect little face.

“This is easy.” Marley grinned. Autumn raised her eyebrows at him and laughed. Benjamin, if that was to be his name, was sleepy and satiated now, but Marley had not yet had the pleasure of hearing how loud he became when he wasn’t.

“They’re going to fight over him,” he said. She looked down at her newborn, peeping out at her from under his hat. His eyes were big and blue, like Bowie’s. They made Autumn feel as though she were in a dream.

“What a lucky little person you are,” she told him, “to have so many people who love you so much already.”

* * *

Marley sat Autumn in an armchair opposite the sofa so that she could watch his family carefully pass her baby between them. She had to fight the urge to snatch him back. She reminded herself that he was in the hands of people who wouldgive their own lives for him. It didn’t make her feel any better. Marley handed her a coffee and perched himself on the arm of her chair. He couldn’t take his eyes off Benjamin either.

She was suddenly afraid of everything. Scared that the baby might be hurt, that something might be wrong with him, that she would do something to harm him without meaning to, that somebody else could upset him, that he might disappear as quickly as he had appeared.

“Well, hello there, little Astro,” Bluebell said when it was her turn to hold him. Everybody laughed.

“Actually, Autumn has a name for him,” Marley said. They turned to look at her and she swallowed hard, unsure anymore if this would actually be all right. Ben was not her dad, he was theirs. Perhaps Maddie would want to name a child of hers after him. Or Pip. Or any of the others. She faltered, but Marley nudged her.

“I’d like to call him Ben,” she said, her eyes darting to the man who was the closest thing to a father she had ever had. He looked utterly astounded.

“Benjamin, actually. If it’s all right with all of you, of course?”

One by one, wide smiles spread across their faces. Emma blinked tears from her eyes. Marley winked at his mum.

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