Frank was with them and probed at Bess’s own private life. ‘The last blind date didn’t work out?’
She grumbled. ‘No. The guy was terrible, ate with his mouth open for the entire date at a steak house and then sat with a toothpick getting the remains out of his teeth.’ She shuddered.‘There are literally no decent men left, Frank. They broke the mould when they made you.’
Frank laughed. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’
But Bess zoned in on Noah again. ‘I admire your honesty, by the way, although you might be erring on the side of TMI talking about a woman keeping you up all night.’
He and Frank exchanged a knowing grin. His shifts here so far had been unbelievably busy and he’d kept it professional as much as he could, wanting to get to know the people he worked with before he shared too much. He needed to suss out how things worked at Whistlestop River Air Ambulance compared to his previous job. He’d shied away from sharing his life story with anyone other than Frank, and Frank was the soul of discretion. What he’d also learned was that Bess had a penchant for finding out people’s life stories; Frank had warned him to expect questions soon enough, but watching her itching to dig into his personal life was kind of amusing and kept both him and Frank entertained.
Bess was tapping her pencil against her fingers at the desk in the office. ‘Eva… nice name… let me guess, legs as high as the Eiffel Tower, gorgeous curves in all the right places, a sensible job which means she’s likely lying in your bed right now given it’s a weekend.’
‘You’ve got a weird way of describing people,’ said Noah, enjoying this more than he should.
Frank butted in with a knowing wink in Noah’s direction as he shrugged on his jacket. ‘I’ve met her.’
Bess sat up straighter. ‘You have?’
‘She’s cute,’ said Frank, ‘in a chubby, squidgy kind of way.’
‘Frank!’
But Frank, amused at his own quick wit, waved and left them to it.
Bess poked her pencil into her pile of corkscrew curls. ‘It’s not like Frank to be disrespectful to the fairer sex.’
Noah couldn’t resist carrying it on a bit longer. ‘She’s got these little rolls of fat on her arms too; it’s a sign she’s eating enough.’ Bess’s mouth fell open. ‘Her legs, seeing as you mentioned those, are pretty short. She doesn’t have a lot of hair and very few of her own teeth.’
At Bess’s expression, he began to laugh. ‘I’m messing with you. Eva isn’t a girlfriend; she’s an eleven-month-old baby.’
Now she was alert to forthcoming information. ‘Wait… you have a baby?’
‘Yeah, kind of.’
‘You can’tkind ofhave a baby.’
She was right. Either he had one or not. Either he was the parent or he wasn’t.
This morning, after a disturbed night with Eva as well as heavy rain that lashed against the windows of the cottage, he’d driven to work and seen the brightest of rainbows in the sky. Before he thought about it, he was talking out loud, saying, ‘Eva, look at that, all those colours.’ And then he’d realised she wasn’t in the car with him but back at the old signal box cottage with Geraldine. It was moments like that one that reminded him how Eva was now a major part of his life.
But Noah was really struggling because whilst at first he’d been committed to bringing up Eva, as the days went on, he became more and more unsure that he was even capable. He didn’t feel cut out to be a parent, to be daddy to this incredible human being who deserved so much more than he had to give. Even today, when he’d left the house, he’d known Eva was way better off with Geraldine than with him. Geraldine made her laugh more, Geraldine knew what to do when she was upset and how to calm her down. Last night, Eva had been up three times, crying uncontrollably, and nothing he could do would make itstop. Geraldine had swooped into the house this morning with an air of Chanel No. 5 and a can-do attitude and scooped Eva up into her arms, settling her within seconds.
‘She’s teething,’ Geraldine told him. ‘Oh, you poor little thing,’ she whispered into Eva’s delicate blonde hair. ‘Noah, do you have a teething ring?’
One look from Noah gave her the answer.
‘Would you mind if I drove out to get one today?’ she suggested, calm as you like. ‘I have a car seat installed; we can check it now so you’ll know it’s safe.’
‘I have to get to the airbase.’ Yet he knew this was his responsibility. And only his. ‘But let’s go take a look, not that I’m an expert.’
With Eva in Geraldine’s arms, they went out to her car and she showed him the seat facing backwards and secured properly, much the same as the seat he had in his own car.
‘Anything that settles her down is fine by me,’ he said as they went back into the house. ‘And there’s cash in the box on the kitchen counter.’
‘Oh, we’ll deal with money things later, won’t we, young Eva?’ Her voice had changed to theuniversal baby toneas Noah referred to it, the slightly high pitch that fell to a low pitch now and then as though the seesaw in volume was somehow all a part of the illusion for a child. It was a voice he hadn’t quite brought himself to use yet. He was holding a part of himself back because he was scared, because he wasn’t sure. He had no idea whether he could really do this and if it wasn’t going to be a permanent arrangement for Eva then he needed to work out what was before their bond grew stronger and it left all of them open to intense pain and distress when it was broken.
At the airbase, Bess was still waiting to hear more about Eva, this baby hekindof had.
‘Eva is my niece. And it’s a long story…’ he said.
