Page 4 of Lessons in Love at the Cornish Country Hospital

For more than seven years Danni had thought she’d been in love with Esther’s ex-fiancé who had strung her along, doing everything he could to convince her that they were star-crossed soulmates, whose difficult childhoods meant they understood one another in a way no one else could. She’d never crossed the line with Lucas, thank God, and in the end the love she had for her best friend had been far more powerful. It was only when she’d met Charlie that she’d understood what love really looked like, and that had heightened her desire to have a family of her own. But she’d been scared she’d left it too late. They were both in their late thirties, and she knew better than most that meant her fertility would have declined.

They’d decided just a year into their relationship to try for a baby, and she’d done her best to manage her hopes, talking to Charlie about the kind of life they could build together if they never had children, all the adventures they could have with Maggie and Brenda. But deep down she didn’t know if she would ever really have come to terms with that, or whether Charlie would have either. He was a children’s author, after all, adored by thousands of kids who loved his stories. And Danni still had a gap she needed to fill, one that had been there since she’d lost her father. She adored her brother, Joe, and they were really close, but that parent-child bond had been lost when their father had died. She desperately wanted it back, except this time she’d be the parent, and she was going to do everything she could to be the best one she could possibly be.

She’d made a great start by choosing Charlie to be her little boy’s father, because she couldn’t envisage a better man for the job. He’d been there every step of the way since the positive pregnancy test just a month after they’d decided to start trying. Charlie couldn’t do enough for her, and he treated the pregnancy like the miracle they’d felt it was. He’d welcomed the extra scans as much as she had, and he’d never missed a check-up, evenwhen it had meant driving all through the night from a stop on his latest book tour, on the other side of the country, as he had that morning. He’d gone straight to the hospital, and she’d got there earlier than needed, so she could be there to meet him, which was why they still had more than twenty minutes before their appointment. There was only one other patient waiting for a scan ahead of them, so at least there was a good chance of them going in on time. Danni was desperately hoping so, because her bladder was already feeling the strain of all the water she’d drunk in preparation for her appointment.

‘I can hear your stomach rumbling from here.’ Charlie grinned as the grumbling noise, which had started the moment Danni sat down, reached fever pitch.

‘I should have had some breakfast, but I couldn’t face it at the same time as all that water. Now it’s sloshing around in there like a hot water bottle and I’m so hungry I could eat one of those sandwiches from the hospital restaurant that curl up in the corners.’

‘I’ll go and get you something now.’ Charlie was already halfway out of his seat.

‘Don’t be silly.’ Danni reached out to try and stop him, taking hold of his arm, but he gently shook her off.

‘You had low blood sugar at one of your check-ups and you remember what the midwife said?’ Charlie raised his eyebrows.

‘That I need to make sure I eat regularly, and not skip meals, even if I’m on a busy shift.’ Danni pulled a face. ‘I’m starting to wonder if it was such a good idea having you at every appointment.’

‘I always thought I’d make a great midwife, that’s why I listen so attentively.’ Charlie laughed.

‘Did you really? Funny you’ve never mentioned that before.’ Danni couldn’t help laughing, too. ‘I think we’d better see howwell you cope with the delivery before you decide on a change of career, don’t you?’

‘Maybe, but one thing I’m confident I can do is rustle up something a bit better than a curly-edged sandwich, and we’ve still got fifteen minutes until we’re due to go in. So as much as I love you, I’m not taking no for an answer this time.’

Just as Danni was about to protest again, her stomach gave another loud rumble and the baby kicked hard. ‘Okay, seeing as even our son is complaining about the noise now, I think I’d better let you go.’

‘I’ll be ten minutes at the most, I promise.’ Charlie gave her a quick kiss and headed out of the waiting area.

‘You’ve got a good one there.’ The woman sitting diagonally across from Danni gave her a shy smile. She barely looked out of her teens, and she was strikingly pretty with dark hair and bright blue eyes that looked glassy with emotion.

‘I know.’ Danni returned her smile, but the other woman still looked as though she was on the verge of tears despite her attempts to hide it. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m just being stupid, getting myself all upset over nothing. Sitting here wondering if I’m the only person going to their twenty-week scan on their own.’ The woman tried and failed to sniff back the threatened tears.

‘Oh sweetheart, I’m sorry, but of course you’re not the only one to do this on your own.’ Danni got up and moved to her side. ‘If you need some company, I can go in with you. I know you don’t know me from Adam, but my name’s Danni, and I’m a doctor in the emergency department here, if that helps.’

‘That’s so lovely of you, but I can’t ask you to do that. You’ve got your own appointment to think about. Like I said, I’m just being stupid.’ The woman gave a shuddering sigh, seeming to win back control of her emotions as she did so. ‘I’m Chloe, by the way.’

‘Nice to meet you Chloe and, no pressure, but I’m more than happy to come in if you don’t want to do it alone. I know the twenty-week scan is a big one with all the checks. Are you planning to find out the baby’s sex?’

‘We had a private gender scan at sixteen weeks, so I already know I’m having a boy.’

‘Me too!’ Danni hadn’t missed Chloe’s mention of ‘we’ when she’d referred to her private scan, but she wasn’t going to probe further and risk upsetting her again. Anything could have happened in the past four weeks to change the ‘we’ to a ‘me’.

‘My partner Mike was at the gender scan and he was so thrilled to finally be getting a boy; he’s got two daughters already, you see.’ Chloe gave her another shy look. ‘They’re such lovely girls and I keep telling him he’s being old fashioned, but he said he can’t help it. He’s always wanted a son… I thought when we found that out that he might make the effort to be here for the next scan, but he seems to think there’s nothing special about this one now that we know the gender, and he’s really busy with work.’

‘He probably just wants to take as much time off as he can when the baby arrives.’ Danni hoped she was right. ‘Are his daughters excited about being big sisters?’

‘They really are. Alice is at uni, but Zara comes over whenever she can. She’d have bunked off college to be here with me if I’d told her I was coming on my own, so I kept it to myself. It would hardly be a good look when I teach at the same college, but nothing would have stopped her if she’d known her dad wasn’t going to make it.’ Chloe gave an audible swallow, suddenly looking even younger than before and it was hard to believe she had a step-daughter at university. There was something about the girls’ names that was ringing a bell too; Alice and Zara, she was sure she’d heard them said together before, but the joys of pregnancy-brain seemed to have hit herwith a vengeance just lately. Chloe sighed, interrupting Danni’s thoughts. ‘It’s times like this when I miss my mum more than ever. She’d have wanted to be here for me. I was only seven when she died, and sometimes it’s hard to even remember her, but somehow, I still know for sure she’d want to be a big part of all of this.’

‘Of course she’d have wanted to be here with you; it’s hard to imagine a mother who wouldn’t.’ Danni hadn’t been able to stop her voice catching on the last few words and Chloe gave her a level look.

‘You can though, can’t you?’

‘Is it that obvious?’ The last thing Danni wanted was to turn the conversation around to her, but maybe it would make Chloe feel better to realise that her life wasn’t quite as perfect as it might look from the outside.

‘It’s probably not obvious to everyone, but it is to me.’ Chloe pulled her shoulders back and shook her head. ‘When my mum died, my dad remarried quite quickly and my stepmother is… well, let’s just say, we’ve never been close. I always seemed to be in the way, and she had two sons who were clearly the centre of her world, along with my dad. There never seemed to be any room for me, no matter how small a space I tried to take up. I don’t know, but I think somewhere along the line I learnt to spot a kindred spirit.’

‘You’re right in a way, except the woman who has no room in her life for me is my own mother. I lost my dad when I was eight. She couldn’t wait to ship me and my brother off to boarding school, and she’s never really been interested in either of us since. But we’re lucky; my partner, Charlie, was adopted, and he’s got two wonderful mothers in his life. It means there are plenty of women around who I can ask for advice, so I’m not really missing out.’ Danni was vaguely aware that she was tryingalmost as hard to convince herself as she was Chloe, but there was no point harking after something she was never going to get.

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