“A boy baby or a girl baby, Mummy?” Edwin asked.
“We don’t know, darling. We’ll have to wait and see.”
“It might even be twins again,” Vera said, and a short silence fell.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Ruth, and she smiled gratefully at me.
“Lousy!” she said. She did look rather pale, and somewhat separate from Dominic and Vera’s mood of gaiety.
Edwin began to suggest names for his new sibling.
“Are those all names fromThomas the Tank Engine?” Dominic asked him with mock suspicion.
“Of course, Daddy!”
Ruth declined any pudding, but Vera ate two portions, a highly unusual occurrence. I had never seen her look so delighted.
I slipped away from the family as soon as I could, but passed Dominic in the kitchen as I headed for the annex.
“It really is lovely news,” I said, and he smiled at me, a trace of our old friendship around his eyes, but his lips pressed slightly too tight in acknowledgment of the other thing.
“Thanks, Laura,” he said.
I felt increasingly out of sorts during the afternoon, and I abandoned my textbooks and retired to bed early.
A few days later, I was sitting in the kitchen with Edwin on my lap, my suitcase by the door, waiting for Ruth to drive me to the station, when the phone rang.
“Mother,” I heard Ruth say.
“Then you’ll have to cancel it,” she said.
“I’m having the scan where I choose,” she said. “No, I’m not telling you.”
There was a longer pause.
“I’m not listening anymore. I know what I’m doing. If you try to override me in this, I’ll—”
After a few seconds more, she hung up.
She was white-faced when she stepped into the kitchen. I slid Edwin down from my lap.
“Go and draw me a picture, would you, lovely boy? For me to take home for Christmas?” I asked him. His gaze swung to his mother and back to me.
“I want to see the trains,” he said.
“You will. In a little while. I’m just going to make Mummy a cup of tea first.”
He sighed and trotted off. Ruth sat at the table with her head in her hands, and I made her a milky tea. She looked up and smiled wanly when I placed it in front of her, and then grimaced and slid it away.
“Thanks. Sorry. I’ve gone off it,” she said. “That was my mother, trying to get me to see some doctor she knows. She’sdead set against me having a home birth, but there’s no way I’m setting foot in a hospital again.”
The color was returning to her cheeks until I asked, “When do you think your due date is?” She reached out suddenly and grabbed my hand.
“Oh, Laura. I can’t talk to anyone.” She began to cry—loud sobs, hunched over the table, her tears leaving dark stains on the wood.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
She made a groaning sound, as if her abdomen hurt.
