He had learned along the way, from experience and Geraldine’s advice, that when a baby was tired and they were set for bed, you shouldn’t ignore it. No riling them up or keeping them awake for your convenience; get them down and it would be easier in the long run. Knowing Maya, she’d understand his delay in getting to the door so he lowered Eva into her cot theway he usually did at bedtime, he stroked her head and said goodnight in his soft voice and then he switched off the light, leaving only the soft glow of the night light on top of the chest of drawers before he tiptoed out.
‘I’ve come at a bad time, haven’t I?’ was the first thing Maya said when he opened the door.
He whispered, ‘No, you’re here at the time we agreed, but I was ten minutes late putting Eva down.’ He beckoned her inside. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t have to whisper all night.’
‘You’re quite the expert by the sounds of it.’ She matched his volume.
‘Why don’t we head out to the back porch with a beer each?’ He led her into the kitchen, grabbed two beers and headed outside.
‘I’m tempted to look in every time I go past her room,’ he admitted when they were settled on the bench. To get to the back door it meant going past Eva’s bedroom, but it was handy where it was positioned because it meant he’d always be able to hear her if she needed him. There was a baby monitor Cassie had bought, somewhere, he just hadn’t found it yet and with the cottage so small, it hadn’t really been a problem so far.
‘I was the same when Isaac was little,’ said Maya. ‘I’d sneak in and watch him sleep; it was mesmerising.’
‘I’ve done it too, then with a little snuffle from Eva I freeze in full-on panic that her eyes will ping open and all that hard work to settle her will be out of the window.’
‘I remember that feeling all too well.’ She looked out at the river, back at the house. ‘It’s a beautiful evening.’
‘It’s been a lovely summer,’ he agreed.
‘Are you managing to get organised here?’
‘I’d call it organised chaos right now. And if I didn’t have Geraldine helping me out the way she does, it’d be a whole lot worse. She insists on cooking for Eva and sometimes she tidiesthe house, which I told her not to, and now I’ve reached the point where I tidy up before she arrives so I don’t have to feel guilty all day that she might be back here doing it.’
‘She probably does it because she’d be at a loose end when Eva sleeps.’
‘She said the same.’
Their eyes met briefly until Maya looked away and took a sip of her own beer.
‘Would you ever live anywhere else but here?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Not now. I love it. It’s beautiful, it’s peaceful, it’s home. Do you think it might feel that way for you too some day?’
‘Only time will tell, I suppose.’ And he couldn’t help wondering whether she might have a lot to do with his feelings about the town too.
Noah had sailed through most of his life facing challenges as they came, moving forwards in his career exactly the way he wanted. And then his life changed in an instant. But, he had to keep reminding himself, so had Eva’s. That’s what had kept him going on the days when he felt sorry for himself, when he felt selfish for being pissed off at how this had altered things for him.
Noah had had a good life in London, a routine of sorts, even though it had no permanency, not until he’d been appointed Eva’s legal guardian after Cassie died. Even living with Tahlia hadn’t been considered with regards to the long term. She’d moved in, she helped with the mortgage, it had all just worked itself out. Perhaps that had been his mistake; he should’ve questioned what they both really wanted, then he might have realised how different they were.
He and Maya got talking about The Skylarks, both the red team and the blue team, about Frank the engineer and how long he’d been there, about the Whistlestop River Freewheelers and their camaraderie between themselves and everyone else. It hadbeen the same with his previous air ambulance crew; you had to work as a team or the job would be a bust. But what Whistlestop River and the air ambulance had over the team he’d left was a sense of belonging to the place as well as to the job. Perhaps that was to be expected in a smaller town compared to the big city.
‘What made you want to become a pilot with the air ambulance?’ Noah asked when he’d finished recapping on his career journey in response to Maya’s similar question.
‘I was fascinated by aviation as a kid.’ Her whole face lit up with passion. ‘I funded my training when I was able and studied really hard, did the hours on the ground, the time in the air. I started as a helicopter pilot for a sightseeing company in and around Dorset. Then I worked for a charter company flying businesspeople all over the place. But I’d always been in awe of what the air ambulance did, since I was a little girl and saw an emergency evacuation after a helicopter landed on the school field.’
‘Wow, that’ll do it.’
When she laughed, the sound was welcome in his world that felt as though these days, it was one stress added on top of another. ‘I love my job, most days. The losses are hard, the bad outcomes.’
It didn’t matter that she was the pilot and not attending to the patient directly the way he was; she felt the pain as much as the critical care paramedics on board. They were a team.
They looked out at the river, the evening stretching out ahead of them. Noah’s hand shot up to swat at a mosquito.
‘Perils of living near the river,’ she laughed.
‘Yeah, didn’t really have this problem in my place in London.’ The mosquito left him alone for now. ‘How’s your son getting on at university?’ He was enjoying her company, more relaxed than he’d been in a while, and he wanted to know more about her.
‘Really well.’ She filled him in on Isaac’s study path, his passions, but as she finished, the frown she sometimes showed was back.
