‘We’re fine; go on, go see Daddy. Later you can tell Lisa about your ballet.’ Felicity knew it was inappropriate, she didn’t even know if being around her children would be too much for Lisa, but Megan didn’t like to see people upset and needed the reassurance.
Megan leftthe room backwards, not taking her eyes off her mum until she had to.
‘Oh God, Flick, sorry, how was the ballet?’ Lisa realised she hadn’t even asked.
‘Don’t you change the subject on me, Lisa Blake. Please, tell me. Did Ben go with you?’
Lisa swallowed. ‘No. I went alone. I was so scared, Flick.’ Her tears began again.
Flick hugged her a little tighter.
‘At first I couldn’t look at the screen, but the man was so bloody quiet, just clicking a button, staring at the monitor. He wasn’t saying anything. So I looked. There was nothing. Dark emptiness. No heartbeat, no flicker of life. Empty. A dark void where my baby should have been.’
‘Oh, Lisa.’
‘They took blood, saying about checking hormones. But I knew. It was mad. I knew. Theymust have known. But they carried on talking like it might not be true. Like we needed confirmation of what we’d all seen with our own eyes. My baby was gone!’
‘I’m so, so sorry for your loss, Lisa.’ Flick had to say it, the words felt so inadequate, but she didn’t know any others to convey how desperately sad she felt for her.
‘I should have gone… should have said when the painsstarted. Maybe it would have been different then.’
‘Oh, Lisa, I’m sure that’s not true. You can’t blame yourself.’
In the days that had followed, as she sat alone in the flat she shared with Ben, Lisa had done nothing but blame herself with the if onlys, the maybes and all the things she thought she should have done differently.
Felicity took a breath and attempted to makeher voice steady. ‘At that time there’s so much you have no control over; your little one was probably just not strong enough to make it.’
Little one, Lisa held on to the words. ‘My little one. The doctor said the “embryo” had gone, the midwife said the “foetus” hadn’t been “viable”, and all the while I was screaming and shouting inside. It was my little one, Flick; it was my baby. I lostmy baby, not an embryo, not a foetus, but my baby!’
Felicity could see the pent up anger in Lisa’s face as she spat the words.
‘Of course you had, Lisa. Your baby had been inside you the way each of mine grew inside of me. Why should yours be treated differently to mine? They all started out the same.’
Lisa looked at her, fresh tears welling in her eyes. ‘But I will neverknow what it is to hug my baby, what the future would have been, all the days we should have shared. I never got to see my little Pip’s face, to watch her grow.’
As Lisa sobbed Felicity continued, ‘No, you didn’t, and that isn’t fair and it is so horribly sad… but, Lisa, you must know, while your baby’s heart beat inside you it felt your love; Pip knew your love. You never got to holdyour baby in your arms, but Pip felt your love.’ As the words came out Felicity hoped they weren’t the wrong things to say, she didn’t want to make Lisa more upset.
Unable to contain herself Lisa cried, letting her tears flow freely and her sobs come long and hard. The recognition that she had lost her baby and that somebody understood her, condoning the grief she felt and the tears sheshed, overwhelmed her. When she lost her baby it had felt like the world had kept turning without even noticing that her world had shattered. Ben had said lots of things to try to pull her out of the deep, dark sadness she had felt, but she knew he didn’t understand the depth of her feelings – how could he, when for him the loss was a release from a future he didn’t want.
‘And Ben?’ Felicityventured.
Lisa took a shaky breath. ‘We should have split up before. Life in London, it was different to when we were travelling. Ben was different. He changed. I just didn’t see how much, until I was pregnant. And then, when I lost Pip, he was relieved. He hadn’t wanted the baby in the first place. He thought I was a “selfish bitch” for getting pregnant, that we were better off it beingjust the two of us. He wanted me to talk to the doctor about ways to “get rid of it”. Our baby, Flick, how could he say that? Of course, I refused. And that made him angry.’
Felicity’s gaze met Lisa’s – the pain of the memory was reflected in her face.
‘Did he hit you?’
Lisa bit a little too hard on her lip.Never a hit, arms held too tightly, a grab, a shove – always thethreat. ‘No. Ben’s a manipulator and a shouter, and when that doesn’t work, he’s a sulker.’ Lisa shrugged. ‘And look, he got his way. Just like he always does. Even my own body agreed that I was kidding myself, I wasn’t fit to be a mother. Ben was right, I’m not “mummy material”!’
That was the small part she had shared with Winnie. Lisa had never got as far as reiterating the exact anger-fuelledsentence that was branded on her mind; where Ben had spat every word, as he pinned her to the wall – punctuating the sentence with expletives – his hands too tight on her forearms, his breath too hot on her face. She had never shared the details of the loss of the baby with Winnie, or discussed her emotions – the way she had with Felicity – but telling Winnie she and Ben had disagreed abouthaving a baby and that Ben said she wasn’t ‘mummy material’ had set dear, sweet Winnie against him.
Felicity felt anger well inside. ‘Lisa, you know that’s not true, don’t you? You know it wasn’t your fault.’ She didn’t know Ben, but he sounded like a horrible bully. The things he said were inexcusable and cruel.
As Felicity went to speak Pete knocked on the lounge door and openedit just a bit. ‘Look, I don’t know what’s up, but Megan said… well, anyway, I thought you might like these.’
Felicity’s heart swelled at the sight of Pete with two glasses of wine in his hands. It was one of those moments she could feel how much she loved and appreciated him. She wanted to hug him as she watched him place the glasses on the coffee table.
‘Dinner’s nearly done,it’ll be about five minutes. Why don’t you both join us? Fred wants you to.’ Pete offered a small smile.
