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“I didn’t want the bad to rebound on Charlotte. You blaming her and resenting her.”
“I don’t!” he cried, standing in agitation, his hands slicing the air in frustration as he pulled himself back from pressing his case with more physical persuasion. “I wouldn’t, Nina!” he pleaded. “She’s not to blame for anything. She’s just an innocent little kid, for God’s sake!”
His vehemence made her head pound. Her mind clutched wearily at the truth he spoke and limply let it go. Reason and logic could be argued until the end of time. It made no difference to the realities seeded by emotions.
“You hated seeing me use the breast pump,” she said flatly.
It silenced him, cut the feet out from under his principled posture. Principles were fine things. The problem was in living up to them. He sank back onto the chair. He expelled a long breath as though trying to lower a dangerous high of pent-up feelings. His face was grim, jawline tight, eyes shuttered as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“That’s true. I did,” he admitted, as though tearing the words from his conscience. “Though not for the reasons you attribute to me, Nina. It was because I felt guilty.”
She frowned, not understanding.
With an anguished look at her, he reached out and stroked his fingers gently over the hand lying close to him. “Please listen to me, Nina. I’m sorry you read different things into my feelings. The last thing I wanted was to give you pain.”
Her fingers lifted instinctively to tangle with his, to link, wanting his warmth, wanting so much more from him. Her eyes clung to his in hope, aching for him to allay the apartness she felt.
“The first night we made love, I had a talk to Charlotte beforehand, telling her it would be good if she slept through,” he confessed. “She did. With the result that you had to use a breast pump, which you obviously found unpleasant. I then told Charlotte she’d better wake up as usual, but she’d got the hang of sleeping through and there was nothing I could do about it. You shouldn’t give a little kid confused messages, on again, off again. It wasn’t her fault.”
Nina stared incredulously at him. He really thought Charlotte took in what he said to her?
“None of this is her fault.” His eyes begged her forgiveness. “It was me. It was me!” His face twisted with guilt. “I was being selfish, wanting us to have the night together like we used to. I’m dreadfully sorry, Nina. I just didn’t realis
e how it would affect you.”
Nina’s stomach clenched. She had misunderstood, misjudged. It was crazy for Jack to have felt guilty, but she could see that he did, given his propensity for fantasy communication with his dog and Charlotte.
“If you’d shared your worries with me, I could have helped,” he went on regretfully. “Told you about cabbage leaves. It might have saved you all this pain.”
“Cabbage leaves?” she repeated dazedly.
“One of my friends told me about them. His wife got sore breasts from feeding their baby, and she used a cabbage leaf compress in her bra to get them better. It worked, too.”
“Why? How?” Nina couldn’t believe it.
Jack shrugged. “There’s no known scientific reason for it, but it does work. You keep the cabbage in the refrigerator so the leaves form a cold compress. When they warm up in the bra you replace them with cold ones again. My friend was joking about how many cabbages he had in his fridge, but he wasn’t joking about it fixing up the problem. We could have tried it, Nina.”
We…It was she who had set them apart, not Jack. She should have given him the benefit of the doubt and put fear aside.
“I know lots of things about problems with babies,” he added anxiously. “My friends have poured them out to me. I guess that’s why I thought they were little monsters. Nobody bothered telling me the best things. Like the funny expressions Charlotte gets on her face and how good it feels when she’s happy.”
Her heart swelled with so many mixed emotions Nina couldn’t find words for them. The realisation thumped into her mind that it was her fault it had come to this, her fault for not opening up to Jack, not trusting him, her fault she could no longer feed her baby. It would have been all right if only she had spoken, shared, as Jack said they should, the bad, as well as the good. How had she got so twisted up?
Her eyes filled with more tears.
“Don’t cry, love,” Jack begged. “Tell me what I can do.” He grabbed some tissues and gently dabbed the wet streams trickling down her cheeks. “If there’s something you want…”
“I’m sorry,” she choked out. He wasn’t to blame at all. She was.
“It’s okay. If it helps to cry, you cry. But don’t think you’re a failure as a mother, Nina,” he said earnestly. “You’re a wonderful mother. The best. Any kid would be lucky to have you as their mum. The breastfeeding bit doesn’t matter. It’s the love that counts, and Charlotte knows she’s loved.”
The warmth in his voice washed over her, soothing the painful torments in her mind. He dabbed her cheeks again as she struggled for control of her tear ducts. Her head ached, her body ached and her heart ached. She was a mess. Nevertheless, she pushed herself to make the effort to speak.
“Thanks for coming to the rescue, Jack. With Charlotte, I mean.”
“I’m her dad,” he said gruffly. “I wish you’d take that on board, Nina. You’re not alone. Unless you really prefer it that way.”
His pained expression needed answering. “I don’t,” she said simply.
