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She just wanted Ben for himself.
‘We’ve been waiting for them.’ The midwife cuddled her a little while later when she was wheeled back to bed and the tears finally flooded in. ‘You have a good cry...’ So she did, soothed that apparently it was completely normal to weep, to sob, that it was obviously hormones on top of an early delivery, estranged parents and a very new, sick little lady who was lying in a cot in Special Care, with a father who didn’t care a jot...
Trying to convince herself that her tears had nothing to do with Ben.
* * *
‘How is she?’
Ben had washed his hands and put on a gown over his clothes, even though he would only be looking.
‘Good.’ The special care nurse looked up. ‘I’m Bron.’
‘Ben.’
‘You’re the doctor who delivered her?’
‘Yep.’ Ben peered into the crib. ‘I’m a friend of her mum’s as well.’
‘Well, she had a good first night—she’s a restless little thing, aren’t you, Willow?’
‘Willow?’ Ben smiled, because it was the perfect name for her.
She looked so much better than yesterday. Tubes and machines didn’t scare Ben. If anything, they reassured him. She was a lovely pinky-red now, and pushing up against the side of the incubator as if she was trying to dig a little hole to climb into.
‘I’m just going to change her sheet—do you want to hold her up?’
It would have been appropriate for Ben to help, rather than just stand and watch—and the most natural thing would surely be to just hold her up as the nurse changed the bedding, except, feeling awkward, he declined. ‘No, thanks...’ He knew he looked arrogant, but it was a price he was willing to pay, so instead he just stood there and watched as the special care nurse changed the bedding, then wrapped bunny rugs into an oval and wrapped them like a little cocoon to help Willow settle. She was a scrap of a thing really, all spindly arms and legs and with a little pink hat covering her dark hair.
She was cute, but no cuter than any of the others he’d seen as he’d made his way over to her. They could have taken him to any baby and told him that it was Willow and he wouldn’t have known any different.
And then she opened her eyes.
Even though she couldn’t possibly be doing it, he felt as if she was staring right at him, just as she had in the ambulance. He stared back at her for a moment, and then once again it was he who looked away first.
‘Thanks...’ He gave a brief smile to the nurse. ‘Thanks for letting me see her. It’s good to know she’s doing well.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
BEN DROPPED IN on Celeste while she was still a patient and occasionally he saw her in the canteen and stopped for a chat and got an update as to how well Willow was doing.
She was doing so well.
Every day Celeste saw progress.
And not just with Willow. The ice was thawing with her mother too. She made the journey every other day, initially to see her granddaughter, but bringing in vital supplies for Celeste, then not so vital supplies and sometimes the occasional treat.
It was also Rita who provided an unlikely source of comfort as her milk supply steadily dwindled.
‘The more you stress about it, the worse it will be,’ Rita said firmly as Celeste sat in tears on the breast pump she hated so much, but at three weeks of age, Willow was only taking the tiniest of feeds from her mother before she became exhausted, and had to be gavage fed through a little tube that ran from her mouth to her stomach. Celeste was struggling to produce enough milk and hated the bland room where she would sit for ages, only to produce a paltry couple of millilitres.
‘It’s important that she gets my milk.’ Celeste gritted her teeth. The lactation consultant had said so.
‘It’s more important that she gets fed.’ Rita refused to back down—she was tired of the pressures that were being placed on her daughter and frustrated on her behalf. ‘I couldn’t feed you either, Celeste. I had to put you on the bottle when you were four days old.’
‘And look how I turned out.’
The weight had fallen off her, sitting there, often teary, jangling with nerves, huge black rings under her eyes thanks to endless two-hourly feeds, broke and a single mum to boot. It was actually her first vague attempt at a joke with her mother in ages and for a moment Rita didn’t get it. Then, as she opened her mouth to carry on with her lecture, she did, catching her daughter’s eyes and starting to giggle, as did Celeste.
‘You turned out just fine,’ Rita said when the giggles had faded and the tears that were never very far away these days filled Celeste’s eyes. It was the nicest thing her mother had said to her in a very long time. ‘Go and get some lunch.’ Her mum took the feeble offerings of milk, stuck one of Willow’s ID labels on the bottle and popped it in the fridge. ‘I’ll finish up in here. You go and have a little break.’
Except it didn’t feel like a break.
Celeste far preferred the safe routine she had established. Living in the small mothers’ area, she was happy with her spartan room and evenings spent chatting with other anxious mothers. Her days were filled with feeding Willow or expressing her milk, gaining confidence with Willow under the nurse’s watchful eye and taking for ever to choose what to order from the parents’ menu cards that came round once a day. Only every now and then her mother insisted that she ‘take a break’. And Celeste loathed it.
There really wasn’t much to do.
The hospital gardens were a misnomer, the gift shop had long since sold out of her favourite toffees and she’d read each and every magazine at least twice. She’d popped into Emergency a couple of times, but it had always been at the wrong time, the department full and busy, and she’d sat awkward and alone in the staffroom. But mostly she loathed the canteen, where the best way she could describe herself was an ‘almost but not quite’.
Almost a member of staff.
Almost a patient.
Almost a mother.
Except she had no uniform.
No ID tag on her wrist.
And no baby beside her.
Worse, her colleagues, if they were there, waved her over and after a couple of moments updating them on Willow’s progress, Celeste sat toying with her yoghurt, listening as Deb raved about the wild weekend she’d had and Meg moaned at length about her stint on nights that was coming up.
And then she saw him.
Pushing his tray along as he chose his lunch, Belinda was by his side, dressed in a tight black skirt and red stilettos, her raven curls tumbling down her back as she laughed at something he was saying, and Celeste felt something twist inside her.
Belinda was so ravishing, so sexy and confident and clever and just...so much better suited to Ben.
She was quite sure that if they weren’t already together, it was only a matter of time.
‘Celeste!’ So deep in thought was she that Celeste hadn’t even noticed that her colleagues were clearing up the table. ‘Did you hear us?’ Meg laughed at her absent-mindedness. ‘We’ve got to get back—you drop in any time.’
‘I will.’
‘And I’m sure you’re not thinking of it yet, but when you feel ready, you come and talk to me. Try not to let too much time pass without coming back...’
‘I won’t.’ She said her goodbyes and sat alone, glad of the break. Belinda and Ben wouldn’t come over. Registrars didn’t generally sit with the nurses, well, in the staffroom they did, of course, but not in the canteen. Meg had unsettled her—of course it was way too soon to be contemplating returning to work, but in a couple of months’ time, that was exactly what she would be doing—it was just impossible to comprehend from this vantage point.
‘How are you?’ Celeste was slightly taken aback by the warmth in Belinda’s voice, and even more surprised when she put down her tray and joined her. ‘How’s Willow?’
‘Marvellous.’ Celeste blushed slightly as both Belinda and Ben joined her.
‘Do you have any idea when you’ll get her home?’ Belinda pushed.
‘A week or two,’ Celeste said, ‘if she keeps on doing well.’ But she’d lost her audience, Belinda excusing herself to answer her pager and suddenly it was just Celeste and Ben.
‘You’ll be starting to pack up.’ Celeste dragged her mind to something that wasn’t about Willow. ‘It’s just a few weeks till you move into your new house now.’
‘Actually, it’s this weekend,’ Ben said. ‘The vendor was more than keen for a quick settlement and I’m all ready to move in.’
‘Oh.’ She was stirring an empty pot of yoghurt. ‘I was going to come home for a few hours on Sunday—the nurses are insisting I take a night off. I was going to pop over and say thank you properly...’
