Page 40 of Out of Control

Keep the baby warm. Fiona found yet another dry, clean towel and attempted to swaddle the infant like the Christmas card image of baby Jesus. Impossible to do it properly with the cord still attached.

Don’t cut the cord. Infection and bleeding.

Check the mother. In what way? Adele was a picture of physical devastation. But the tears had stopped and as she leaned forward in her seated position on the floor, cradling her towel-clad baby, there was the hint of a smile. There was blood between her legs but it didn’t appear to be flowing from her in torrents. It probably looked worse than it was. Fiona crossed her fingers behind her back.

Get mother and baby medical help. As if on cue, a faint tinny voice sounded from the discarded phone. “Are you still there, Fiona? I’ve been shouting for fifteen minutes.” Was that how much time had elapsed? It simultaneously felt like seconds and days because the world had changed so profoundly; she had helped, for the first and probably last time, to bring a new life into it. “I’m in the car about five minutes away.”

Meeko was nearly here. Relief flooded her. For a second she closed her eyes and exhaled. Then she pulled herself back into midwife mode.

She dampened a facecloth with warm water and cleaned Adele as best she could while the new mother sat there, shell-shocked. The bathroom looked like a murder scene. The baby was making snuffling noises. At the bottom of Fiona’s checklist was something about putting the baby to the breast as soon as possible, but that looked too difficult, given the umbilical cord was still in place.

“One minute away!”

Fiona ran downstairs and opened the front door. When Meeko walked in, she pointed him straight upstairs.

Chapter 30

Meeko might have had a career as an ambulanceman. He was calm and kind and took charge as Fiona started to tremble now the immediate danger was over. In the hospital he sat with her in a corridor while Adele and the baby were checked over. He fetched her tea heavily laced with sugar to disguise the metallic machine taste and to soothe her constant trembling and little sobs. Only when she had drained two paper cups of the stuff did the shaking stop.

“Feeling better?” Meeko asked. “That was quite an experience.”

Fiona took some breaths and nodded. “Especially for Adele. She was so brave. It happened so quickly.”

They sat in silence. Waiting. Fiona tried calling Joe again and left another voice message. She watched the midnight minute tick over into the next day. “Happy Christmas, Meeko.” She turned her face towards his and wondered what it would be like to be kissed properly by those lips.

“Happy Christmas, Fiona.” He moved in his seat and she thought he was going to hug her like he’d often done before; a hug that was platonic on his part but which generated glorious, unrequited tingles within her.

He didn’t hug her. Something unknown divided them, like a gauze curtain.

They were invited in to see a freshly cleaned-up mother and baby. Fiona was glad she’d had the foresight to grab Adele’s ready-packed hospital bag as they went out to Meeko’s car. The girl looked tired and dazed, but happy. She was attempting to latch the baby onto her breast with little success.

“Try again in a while, I think baby’s just as tired as you are.” The midwife turned to Meeko and Fiona. “Well done, Grannyand Granddad!” The nurse beamed at them. “You did a good job with the home birth.”

“We’re not relations,” Fiona said immediately.

“Oh!” The midwife glanced questioningly at Adele, as though asking whether she wanted them to be there. Adele nodded. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

Meeko tactfully kept his eyes averted from Adele’s first attempts at feeding the baby until Fiona indicated that she was covered up and decent again. Then he disinfected his hands from the gel dispenser and went immediately to the side of the bed and stroked the downy, baby head. “She is gorgeous, Adele. You should be so proud.”

Fiona’s feet wouldn’t carry her the few steps from the door to the baby. She felt shaky all over again. This time it wasn’t the responsibility of managing the birth. It was a head full of regrets, of what might have been and what should have been.

“Fiona.” Adele appeared to be offering the baby up to her. “Come and see what you helped bring into the world.”

“You did all the work. I was a bystander.”

“You were essential backstage crew and you stopped me going beyond panic and pain into a zone that might have harmed Natalie.”

“What a lovely name.” Meeko was besotted with the little mite. He glanced over at Fiona. “This is the closest I’ve ever been to a birth and a newborn baby. My nephews and nieces were all a few days old before I met them. Come and have a look. She’s magical.”

Fiona forced her legs to move. “It’s the first time for me too.”

The baby’s eyes were closed and she looked like the most fragile thing in the world. But the tiny mite was also relaxed; baby Natalie had complete confidence that she would be kept safe. The infant hadn’t yet closed off any part of herself to otherpeople. She was open to being loved. Fiona was envious of her innocence.

Breaking down her self-built barriers against the love offered by others was tough. Barriers built because she believed a second betrayal would tip her into a bottomless abyss. This had even applied to her parents because they were almost guaranteed to abandon her through death. That was how she’d been able to function immediately after her dad’s passing, propping Dorothea up through the funeral arrangements, admin and aftermath.

But the doors to some of those compartments were slipping ajar. The subsequent light was surprisingly pleasant, warm even. The baby shower hadn’t been easy but it had left her glowing. Picking up with Rob had been scary but ultimately had left her feeling good. It had been painful to discover the extent of her mother’s loneliness, caused in part by Fiona’s control over their relationship. But now she could open that door wider too and do something about it. Fiona would never be as laid-back and open as baby Natalie, but she was making progress towards feeling pleasant warmth again. There was still a long way to go: she had to open up to Joe about the divorce and about Amber; there was the mystery of Meeko’s coolness to solve, and much else, as yet unrecognised, to do before all those compartment doors were propped open on a permanent basis. But it seemed achievable.

“Do you want to hold her?” Adele asked.

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