Chapter 3: Three - The Idea of You

Lucy could only breathe with her mouth open and she did so with her eyes closed, trying to block out where she was and why she was there. She didn’t care how it looked to the other patients or their visitors or indeed the numerous medics who hurried across the shiny floor with clipboards resting on their forearms and fixed half-smiles of reassurance and regret. She figured it was far better to sit propped up in this exposed bed in this very public day ward with her mouth open, keeping as calm as she possibly could, rather than have to explain that if she breathed through her nose, she could smell the iron-laden scent of her loss. It was especially strong to her, the earthy, blood-tinged odour of her baby leaving her body, as it wafted upwards. She knew that one strong inhalation might be all it took to push her over the edge.

. . . about the size of a small chicken’s egg . . . It will now weigh up to fourteen grams.

That might be true, but this baby was not as tough nor nearly as sturdy as she had thought.

I am so sorry that I couldn’t take better care of you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t keep you. I wanted to, more than you will ever know.

Jonah was talking. She turned to face him and took in snippets of his speech, allowing the odd word to permeate her own thoughts, liking the comfort of his warm tone, but at the same time praying for silence.

He sat forward on the blue plastic chair and, with her one drip-free arm dangling down, he thumbed the skin on the back of her hand as he spoke: ‘. . . that’s what the sonographer said, sometimes there is no good reason. It just happens . . . We can try again . . . when you are ready . . . no hurry . . . just a little procedure, you won’t feel a thing, that’s what the doctor said . . . then I can take you home . . .’

She screwed her eyes more tightly shut and pictured the little girl who lived inside her mind.

I’m sorry, darling. I am so sorry.

* * *

They were right; the procedure was strangely mundane. She was left with a feeling not dissimilar to period pain that a couple of co-codamol tablets almost instantly diluted, and when the pain had gone she wished for it to return, deciding that it was better to feel something. With her pyjamas nestling in the bottom of a plastic bag, along with a leaflet on what to do when she got home, Lucy sat in the front seat of the car wearing the jeans Jonah had packed in haste. She watched as he clenched and unclenched his fists on the steering wheel and sighed and exhaled repeatedly, trying to expel whatever lurked inside.

It was a feeling new to her, this awkwardness and the accompanying silence. As a couple they chattered aimlessly for hours about anything and everything, sharing their inner monologue and humming at will; their noisy interaction provided the background music to their lives. This cloak of quiet dampened their already dented spirits. This mute withdrawal was in itself enough to make her feel sad.

Lucy stared out of the window as dusk fell on the houses en route. When the traffic slowed, she gazed into windows and glimpsed the evidence of family life. She saw pink bunting strung up in bedrooms where little girls would lie under princess-inspired canopies. Tricycles that lay abandoned in front porches, and trampolines with high safety nets taking up too much of the garden, left idle for the night. And then a dad, pushing open a gate, holding the hand of his small curly-haired son, as they wearily trod the path towards home.

Lucky. Lucky people. Why couldn’t that be me?

‘Are you okay?’ Jonah asked for the millionth time that day, as the engine purred at the traffic lights. And for the millionth time she could only nod her response, anaesthetised by the shock of what had happened, still trying to comprehend that this morning she had woken up pregnant and now, as she travelled home, she was not.

How can that be? What did I do wrong?

Jonah helped her from the car, despite her protestations that she could manage. He opened the front door and flipped on the hall light and then, one by one, the three lamps in the sitting room. Yet no amount of lamplight could help tonight. The house seemed to have lost some of its magic, as if in their absence it had dulled the mirrors, kept the corners dark and the air a little too warm in respect of what had passed. And she was grateful that the atmosphere reflected her sorrow.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked again, and she swallowed the instinct to snap; he was, after all, only being kind. Lucy reminded herself that he didn’t know what to say, just as she didn’t know what to do.

She nodded.

‘How about a cup of tea?’ He rubbed his hands together and headed for the kitchen. Both were glad of the distraction of the task for very different reasons.

Lucy dumped the plastic bag on the sitting room floor and made her way to the sofa. She sat back on the soft cushions and kicked off her trainers, staring at the ashes in the hearth. On the cushion next to her sat her baby book, cast aside with the corners of its pages folded over so she wouldn’t lose her place. But she had lost her place and was now no longer in the queue for motherhood. It felt like being sent back to the starting line just as she got on to the home straight. She opened the book and scanned the index, turning to the page where she read:

Miscarriages are quite common in the first three months of pregnancy. Around one in five confirmed pregnancies sadly ends this way. The reasons for miscarriage are many and varied. Early miscarriages (up to ten weeks) can happen because there is something wrong with the baby, such as a chromosomal abnormality, or it could be due to other medical problems. A miscarriage in the first few weeks can often feel like a period, with spotting or bleeding and mild cramps or backache. This can progress to heavy bleeding, with blood clots and quite severe cramping pains.

‘What’s that you’re reading?’ he interrupted her. ‘Shall we put this away?’ he asked, making the question redundant and treating her like a child as he reached down and took the book from her grasp. He placed it on the bookshelf, hiding it behind a row of books on the French Revolution. He placed her tea on a coaster on the table by her side.

‘Thank you.’ She gave a weak smile, her voice still croaky from lack of use. As Jonah sat on the seat beside her, she picked up her knitting and positioned her hands, looping the wool around her fingers and scanning the pattern, continuing to click the needles and wind the wool.

‘What are you doing, darling?’ he asked with a catch to his voice.

Lucy looked up at him, as if it were odd that he was asking the question. ‘My knitting. It’s not finished.’ She held up the lacy matinee jacket for him to see.

‘You don’t have to finish it, Lucy.’ He spoke softly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course I do. It does matter.’ She looked at him quizzically, as if the suggestion were ridiculous. She fixed her eyes on the wool and carried on. ‘I’m sorry you missed your training thing at work.’ She never lifted her eyes from her task.

‘It’s not important. Nothing is as important as being here for you when you need me.’ He placed his arm along the back of the sofa, resting it on her shoulders in a loose hug.

‘Thank you.’ She smiled, briefly.

‘Are you—’

‘Please don’t ask me if I’m okay.’ She cut him short, pausing from her craft and speaking with a little more of an edge than she had intended.

There was a beat of silence while she stilled her needles and stared at the floor.

‘I’m sorry, Lucy. I guess I don’t know what to say to you. I feel useless. I want to make it better, but I don’t know how,’ he confessed.

‘You don’t have to say anything. Nothing at all,’ she stated, calmly. ‘But it’s nice to have you here by my side while I get this finished.’ And just like that, she once again found the rhythm and began to knit.

‘Okay, then.’ Jonah nodded and stretched his legs out in front of him, as if settling in for the evening at the end of any ordinary day.

It was only minutes later that Lucy noticed the slight slump to his posture and the way his head tipped back in a doze.

She worked industriously, as the evening slipped into the night, feeling the ache to her bones and grit beneath her eyelids. It was a little after midnight that she slipped the left needle into the front of the first stitch, inserting it from left to right. She then pulled the first stitch over the top of the second stitch, and using her left needle she worked her way along the hem, finishing off.

Sitting back with a tired sigh, an aching back and a cramp in her fingers, she laid the little garment on her lap and ran her fingers over the delicate matinee coat, pleased with her work. It still needed the ribbon threading through the bodice and the three little white buttons attaching at the top, but that could wait; there was no rush, not now. Lifting it gently, she laid it on her arm and raised it to her face, imagining the tiny newborn that might dwell inside it smiling back.

Slowly, without disturbing her husband, she stood and carried the knitted coat in her palms, up the stairs and into their bedroom. Reaching up to the top of the wardrobe, she pulled down the wicker and leather hamper. Carefully, she laid the coat on the bed and placed the hamper on the duvet next to it. She loosened and released the leather straps from their brass buckles and smiled as the lid opened with a creak. Inside she had taken the trouble of lining the base with crisp white tissue paper, which she now opened, and in the centre she gently laid the little knitted item, carefully covering it in an envelope of white tissue before fastening the leather hamper straps and reaching up to put the basket back on top of the wardrobe.

She placed her hand on her stomach. Her body was having difficulty catching up with proceedings. She felt the shock wave of nausea as she stood up straight, and her boobs were still a little tender. She swallowed as she approached the bed and clicked on the bedside lamp. It was as she pulled back the duvet that her head spun, her legs buckled and her breath caught in her throat.

There, in a large, butterfly-shaped stain, were the rusty remains of her loss.

‘Jonah!’ She screamed out his name. ‘Jonah!’ she cried again, louder this time, as she sank down on to the mattress, burying her face in her pillow as she howled. Her grief filled her up and took her over. Her body coiled against the once red mark, now brown and nothing more than a darkened crust against her skin as she wept.

She heard his footsteps thunder up the stairs and then in an instant his arms were around her, holding her tightly as she wept.

‘I wanted my baby so badly!’ she cried. ‘I wanted her with me!’

‘I know. I know my love.’ He held her close to his body, rocking her, as if this might help.

‘I don’t know what I did wrong, Jonah.’ Her words came in short bursts, struggling to get out between her breaths, fractured with sobs. ‘I took my folic acid, I napped, I ate right, I did it all, I did everything it said in my book, but I lost her anyway. I’m sorry, Jonah . . .’ She sobbed until speech was impossible and all she could do was lean into him and close her eyes.

‘You don’t ever have to apologise. You did nothing wrong, my darling, nothing. And we will try again – when you are ready we will try again and the next time it will all be fine. We have to put it behind us and carry on. We’ve got each other and that’s all that matters right now. I love you, Lucy. I love you so much.’

Lucy gripped his shirt with both hands, her fingers trembling, as if afraid to let go.

* * *

Three days later they sat at the breakfast table in the kitchen, both dressed for work and munching on wholewheat toast, hers smeared with marmalade and his dripping with butter and jam, and both sipping tea. The rain lashed the French doors and a neighbour’s dog howled in protest at something or other.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Jonah asked again. ‘Because there is no rush. You must take the time you need.’

‘Yes! I shall be fine. I am fine. But I won’t be if you confine me to barracks for another day. I might possibly go nuts, so let me get back to work and carry on with my life. The sooner I can do that, the sooner I can get back to normal.’

‘You know, don’t you, that if you don’t feel up to it at work or you change your mind, you can just call me and—’

‘And you will come and rescue me. I know. You have already said.’ She bit her toast and blinked slowly.

‘I’m fussing,’ he admitted, as he placed his empty mug in the rattling dishwasher, ‘but that’s my job, to fuss over you, in case you had forgotten.’

‘I had not forgotten.’ She took a gulp of her tea. ‘And I love you for it.’

He gave her a quick kiss before dashing to clean his teeth in the downstairs shower room that lurked under the stairs.

Lucy laid the remainder of the toast on her plate and closed her eyes, leaning on the breakfast bar to stop the tremor in her hands, as she breathed deeply.

You can do this, Lucy. You’ll be okay . . .

* * *

Mercifully the rain had stopped by the time she hovered on the platform at the train station. Her eyes drifted to the billboard in front of her. It carried an advertisement for baby formula with a big blue-eyed baby staring down at her. She looked away and straight at the news stand, where every other magazine featured a young, beautifully coiffed celebrity beaming into the lens as they held up their precious bundle for the world to see. It might have been her imagination or a new sensitivity to the topic, but it sure felt as if every advertisement, every newspaper, every programme and every song featured babies. She saw an incredibly high percentage of pregnant women, and nearly every other person on the street seemed to be pushing a buggy. It was all she could do not to scream or turn on her heel and run back down Salusbury Road, all the way home.

* * *

Tansy was her first visitor of the day. She walked into her office and closed the door behind her, launching without preamble into her line of questioning.

‘It’s not like you to have a couple of days off; in fact, in the six years that I have known you, I’ve never known you to have one day off. I told everyone it must be the bubonic plague or a lottery win. They are the only two things I could think of that would keep you off work.’

‘You got me!’ Lucy held her hands up in submission. ‘I got the bubonic plague and then with my lottery win used the money to fund a cure. Hence my two days out of circulation.’ She concentrated on opening her email, flinching at the hundreds of messages that had accumulated in her short absence and feeling a stab of guilt, wondering how this feeling might be magnified were she to be off on maternity leave.

‘Well, it’s good to see you back. Benedict said to me the other day how he would love to see his godparents, and I said, “What a coincidence! Because Daddy and I would like to see them too.” And so I figured you guys need to come over for supper and kill two birds with one stone. How does that sound?’

Lucy looked up at the expectant face of her friend, who rarely asked anything of her. ‘Sounds like a plan, and how amazing that he is talking so well!’ she managed, ignoring the throb in her stomach and groin where her body continued to try to fathom what had occurred.

‘Well, okay, I admit he’s still not talking, but I can tell you that if he was, that is most definitely what he would be asking.’ She grinned as she made her way back to her desk, her parting words, ‘Good to have you back, by the way.’

Lucy felt the need to visit the bathroom, where she hastily removed the evidence of her miscarriage that continued to come from her and popped it in the sanitary bin, trying not to look at the tiny stains. Reminders. All that was left of her dreams of motherhood.

* * *

The next couple of weeks were hard. Lucy felt torn. In some ways it was a blessing not to have told the world that she was pregnant; it meant she avoided the embarrassment of having to set people straight when they asked how she was doing in that knowing way, sparing them both the ordeal. But at the same time, not having the support of those who loved her to help her through her loss left her feeling isolated. She spent a chunk of her working day secretly looking at thousands of threads online written by women who were in similar situations, and it helped a little. There were of course the odd one or two comments that left her reeling and confused; one was from MsNinjaZx6R: ‘It’s only like a heavy period, a bunch of cells. Get over it! Talk to someone who has lost a child; now, that’s hard.’

She sat on the train that night with her bag clutched against her chest and her mind whirring. Maybe MsNinjaZx6R was right; was she overreacting? How could she be grieving for ‘a bunch of cells’? But she was, and that grief was real. As she strolled the length of Salusbury Road, smiling nonchalantly at the mums pushing their buggies or clutching the hands of their toddlers, she felt her resolve weaken, her armour loosen and her smile fade. By the time she arrived home, without the will to search in her purse for her key, she rapped with weary knuckles, waiting to be let in. Jonah answered the door. And there she stood, aware of her mascara-laden tears running in thick streaks down her face, leaving a sticky, dark smear across the back of her palm; her nose and throat were clogged with distress and her heart and womb pulsed with longing.

‘Oh, my Lucy!’

He stepped forward and pulled her towards him, shutting the door behind her, as she cried into his chest. ‘I wanted our baby, so . . . so badly,’ she managed.

‘I know, and it will happen for us, darling, it will. Just you wait and see,’ he whispered. ‘I promise.’

Again she clung to him, wanting so desperately to believe him.

* * *

I like to imagine all the pictures and cards that you would have made at nursery school. I know that our kitchen cupboards and walls could only benefit from being covered in things that you had made and designed. It would bring me joy every time I looked at them. Oh! To see your little handprints smeared across a page in red or blue paint and to be able to frame the first Christmas card you made! I think that would be the most wonderful thing. I picture a badly drawn Christmas tree, coloured in with sparkles and glitter all over it. I bet you would love to get your hands covered in glue and pom-poms and bits of macaroni, and I think it’s these pictures, these glorious creations, that turn any house into a home, don’t you? And that’s a house I have always wanted to live in.