Edwin galloped from the kitchen to wrap his arms around her middle, and Joel hung back in the doorway, a streak of flour on his cheek.
“Well, that’s wonderful,” I said. “I thought your scan was tomorrow?”
“Oh, it was, but I popped in this morning, and they said they could do it today. I couldn’t say no. It was so magical to see it. Him or her. I must ring Dominic straightaway and tell him.”
I brushed the flour from Joel’s cheek, and ushered both boys back into the kitchen.
“Could Dominic not go with you then?”
“No, like I said, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.” She licked her lips. “Would you like to see the scan picture?”
I looked properly into her eyes for the first time. A suspicion that she might not have actually had a scan had been unfurling inside me, and I hadn’t anticipated this offer of proof. But she was already reaching into her handbag, pulling out a little square image, handing it to me.
I held it gingerly. It showed a fuzz of white on black, and had Ruth’s name and the date at the top. She leaned over it, her hair beneath my chin.
“That’s the head,” she said, “and that’s the backbone. The legs are up there, and that’s part of an arm, you see?”
“It’s amazing.”
“You could see the little heart beating,” she said. “It was perfect. And, you know, I thought I might be disappointed it’s not twins, but I think it will be easier this way.”
“Yes,” I said, blinking unexpected tears away. My only personal experience of a twin relationship was a decidedly negativeone—my mum’s virtually estranged sister whose occasional postcards from exotic locations made my mum scowl. So it was ridiculous to feel sad for Edwin, sad for this new sibling of his. “And you don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“No. I don’t want to know. I want to meet this baby when he or she is ready to be met. Enjoy the moment.”
I nodded. “And did they tell you a due date?”
She froze.
I bit my lip. When she eventually moved, it was to twitch the picture from my grasp.
“End of August,” she said, and then looked at me.
“Okay.”
“I need to ring Dominic. Would you mind getting back to the boys?”
“Of course.”
I closed the kitchen door, not wanting to hear any of that conversation.
Later, when Edwin and I had returned from delivering both Joel and a box of fairy cakes safely to Michael’s cottage, Ruth showed Edwin the scan picture.
“That’s your baby brother or sister,” she said, smiling.
He wrinkled his nose at it. “It’s not very good.”
“The baby will look much nicer when he or she is born, I promise,” she said.
“I’m going to paint a picture of my baby,” Edwin said, heading off to the day nursery with the picture. “I’ll stick this on my treasure box.”
“Good idea, darling,” Ruth said. I must have looked surprised, because after he’d gone, she added in a slightly defensive tone, “Dominic can still see it when he gets home. It’s my baby at the moment. Once it’s born, he’ll fall in love with it, and everything will be fine.” She went upstairs to have a rest.
Later that afternoon it began to snow heavily, and for a number of days, the three of us didn’t leave the grounds of Summerbourne. On the eve of Valentine’s Day, Ruth made much fuss at the discovery of a parcel of sweets on the doorstep.
“Oh, Edwin, look. Jack Valentine has left us a present.”
She and Edwin were in high spirits that evening, eating the sweets and peering out of the windows to look for footprints in the snow from the mysterious gift giver. I had to confess that Jack Valentine had never ventured as far as my home in London, but evidently, here he was just as important as Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy.
