I look thoughtful at saying that out loud and Zahra comes over and puts a hand to my arm.
‘All these beautiful children they’ve brought into my room too. I didn’t want to scare them because they’re so tiny so I hugged them all, but I don’t know them either.’
‘I need to tell your sisters to take it easy on you. They’re all so happy and relieved that you are well, I don’t think they realise that you’ve been inundated with so much.’
She wipes a tear from the side of my face. ‘I think I feel guilty, Zahra. I feel bad I’ve put Grace through some repeated trauma of losing someone, of having no recollection of any of these people.’
‘Hush now. That’s the last thing you should be feeling. Now the focus should be on you.’
‘And Emma… is divorced? Did you know Simon?’
Zahra pops her head around the door to see who may be listening.
‘Yes, he was famous in this hospital for all the wrong reasons. I’d seen his penis and I hadn’t even slept with him. If you ask me, we thought your sister had some sort of brain injury herself for sticking with him for so long…’
I laugh and cough a little and she sits me up in bed to steady myself.
‘Jag is a good guy. I went to a party after they got married. They hired a restaurant, it was lovely.’
‘Was I there?’
‘I don’t recall. I think I would have remembered you.’
For the minute, I seem to be clinging to Zahra. Everyone else is firing information at me and waiting expectantly for me to react.These are my daughters. I got married. I’m dating a bloke I met on a plane who looks like Aquaman.And I stare back at them wondering when and how everyone got so grown up. And who on earth is Aquaman? Shit, does your new boyfriend have webbed feet?
Zahra doesn’t lay that on me. She pauses for a moment to take my pulse and observe my monitors as Beth walks into the room, her small baby, Jude, in her arms.
‘Is it OK if I just take a chair and feed the little one?’ she asks.
I smile. ‘Of course, you numpty.’
Beth beams to hear my reply and I watch as she removes the little man out of his sling and retreats to a corner of the room. Beth came in and, like Meg before her, launched herself at me before realising she had a baby strapped to her bosom. Beth has a baby. Scrap that, she has two babies. How is that possible? To me, she’s my sister at uni who came back at Christmas and told us she’d shagged a lad in the laundry room on top of a tumble dryer. His name was Paul. She showed us a picture and Meg said he looked hairy like a hobbit and then Beth threw a Rubik’s cube at her face and cut Meg’s lip open. This is the stuff I remember.
‘How old?’ Zahra asks.
‘Two months.’
‘Is it Jude like the song?’ I ask her.
‘Naturally.’
Beth was the muso sister. She made mix CDs for everyone and gifted them us at Christmas and most of the time we told her she was a cheap bitch for doing so. But she lived her life for gigs and festivals and she’d be the person who you’d want on your team for any music-based quiz.
‘How is it I remember all the lyrics to that song but I can’t remember you having your baby?’ I ask her.
‘Everyone knows the lyrics to that song. It’s something all of us just learn subliminally through time.’
I hum it to myself. ‘Tell me the story of how he was born,’ I ask her.
‘It was May. We didn’t even make it to the hospital. Jude was eager to get out into the world so I birthed him on the floor of our flat. Will delivered him. He had Emma on FaceTime…’
‘Way to go, Mummy…’ Zahra adds.
‘FaceTime is the phone call on the screen thing, right?’ I ask.
Beth nods, trying to piece together what I do and do not know.
‘And Will…?’
