Page 46 of Out of Control

“You are so wise.” Joe kissed her on the cheek. “You are just as good as Rose would have been at all this,andyou’re not even related to Adele,andyou’ve never had children. Unless you’ve got a closet full that you’ve never told me about?”

That statement is hurtful to me in so many ways. But I’ll let you off because you know not what you say. But I will only be able to let comparisons to Rose go so far and then I will have to put my foot down.

Fiona cooked the evening meal and Joe watched football on TV, but every few minutes she heard him walk to the foot of the stairs and listen. Adele came downstairs alone when the food was ready. All remained calm and silent as the three of them started to eat the shepherd’s pie, carrots and broccoli. Adele devoured it with gusto and made no reference to when they might have pizza or a takeaway.

“Fiona’s food is better than what they gave you in hospital then?” Joe said.

Fiona frowned. He had to treat his daughter like an adult otherwise this whole arrangement would go to pot. Adele merelyshrugged. She’d placed the baby monitor in the middle of the table and kept glancing at it. They’d nearly finished the main course when the first cries came simultaneously through the baby monitor and the open door into the hallway. Adele looked at her watch. “It’s only two hours since I fed and changed her.”

“Babies need a lot of looking after.”

Well done on stating both the obvious and the unnecessary, Joe.“I can put your plate in the oven and hold the pudding back, if you like? Or shall I check on her while you finish?”

“No, I should go. She’ll want her mum.” Adele disappeared, leaving her fork fully loaded with the next mouthful. Fiona put the plate in the still-warm oven.

Fiona and Joe ate their bananas and yoghurt to the backdrop of Adele’s one-sided conversation with her daughter sounding through the monitor. The attempted feed wasn’t successful and Adele’s voice changed from gentle cooing to tighter pleas for Natalie to go to sleep. There were several deep silences followed by squawks. Fiona assumed these were failed attempts to get Natalie to remain calm once she was out of her mother’s arms and in the cot. Joe was glancing edgily from Fiona to the stairs and back.

“I’ll go see how she’s doing, shall I?” Relief washed over his face as she took his unspoken hint.

Upstairs there were tears on Adele’s cheeks. “I should know what to do. Maternal instinct should tell me what she wants. But I don’t know. She isn’t even a week old and I’ve failed as her mother.”

“You haven’t failed and you won’t fail.” Fiona spoke firmly, even though she felt as much at sea as Adele looked — and just as emotional. Adele was bowed down by brand-new parental responsibility, society’s expectations and the feeling that, because giving birth was a natural process, looking after the newborn should come automatically too.

“Iama failure.” The anguish of Adele’s voice made Fiona realise she was being selfish by not taking the lead when the young woman was obviously mentally and physically exhausted.

“Let me take her.” Fiona held out her arms, not wanting to take Natalie because of the emotion that handling the tiny infant generated, but knowing it was the only fair and reasonable thing to do. “You can finish your dinner and Natalie and I will sit at the table with you so that she can see you.”Did babies recognise their mothers by sight at this age? It didn’t matter, she was saying this for Fiona’s benefit only.“And later you can try feeding and changing her again.”

The dirty dishes were still on the table and Joe was on the settee scrolling through his phone. Fiona felt a bud of tension elongate and run across her shoulders. “Joe, please could you get Adele’s dinner from the oven and chop her a banana for pudding?” She glanced over at the wan girl taking her seat at the table. “And add a good splodge of golden syrup to the banana — energy is needed here.”

Adele gave her a grateful grin and Joe sighed exaggeratedly before moving his stockinged feet from settee to floor and going into the kitchen. Natalie remained calm in Fiona’s arms while Adele ate. The baby stared up into Fiona’s face, her clear blue eyes wide open in wonder. Fiona felt herself beaming back at the tiny bundle but also blinking hard to hold back her emotion. In another life she might have been holding her actual, related granddaughter. “Joe, would you like to hold her? She’s lovely and alert.”

Joe put down his phone and looked over Fiona’s shoulder. At the same time Natalie’s fists curled into tiny balls, her feet started to kick and the cries came loud and strong. Fiona thought about how much she’d willed this baby to cry after she was born; now she equally strongly wanted her to remain silent to give her mother a chance to eat and recuperate.

“That’s your fault, Dad.” Adele was spooning yoghurt, banana and golden syrup into her mouth as quickly as she could. “She was fine until she saw you. Maybe she doesn’t like men. You best stay away.”

There was hurt in Joe’s expression as he put his hands up in surrender. Fiona remained silent. She wasn’t going to mediate. It was up to Joe to sort that relationship. Adele took Natalie back upstairs to feed her. When she hadn’t reappeared an hour later Fiona went upstairs to check. The baby was asleep on her back in the cot and Adele was fast asleep, fully clothed on the top of her bed. When Joe switched on the TV again, she made him keep the volume low to avoid disturbing them.

Chapter 34

The next couple of days went by in a claustrophobic blur of tears — mostly Natalie’s but a fair few from Adele and a lot blinked and swallowed away by Fiona, plus one lot that she had to rush to the bathroom and let out with a towel stuffed in her mouth. The latter wasn’t just caused by her coming to terms with the life choices she’d made, but also the increasing hurt and confusion she was feeling around Joe’s continued comments about Rose.

“I know you’re doing what you think best, Fiona,” he’d said when Adele got upset over the difficulties of supporting a crying baby in a bath of warm water with one arm and trying to gently wash her with the other hand.

“I can’t do it without drowning her,” Adele was wailing.

Fiona had stood in the doorway of the small bathroom. There wasn’t room for two of them to kneel over the baby bath, which Adele had placed in the middle of the floor. Adele had requested that Fiona help with the procedure, but working as a double act wasn’t practical.

“Can you do it for me? I don’t want to kill her.”

“You won’t kill her. And I’m right here if anything does go wrong. But it won’t.”

Joe had been standing at the top of the stairs, from where he could whisper in Fiona’s ear. Adele was too wrapped up in her own difficulties to be aware of what was going on behind her. “If Rose was here, she wouldn’t be putting her daughter through this hell. She would be doing the bathing until Adele was over the birth, calmer and able to do it herself more objectively.”

Fiona had bristled. “How many times do I have to point out that I amnotRose. And my relationship with both you and your daughter is completely different to the relationship which the two of you had, or still have, with her.”

“I get that. But you’re the nearest thing to a Rose replacement we have.”

“I amnota Rose replacement.” There’d been a twitch across Adele’s back and Fiona hoped the girl hadn’t heard them. The last thing she needed was strife between her father and the woman who was giving both of them a roof over their heads. She lowered her voice. “And me doing the bathing instead of Adele is merely kicking the can down the road. It’s better that she is pushed to fly safely without stabilisers now, otherwise she will end up scared of handling Natalie and it will be me bonding with the baby rather than her mother.”

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