A high-pitched sigh cuts through the silence and Angela takes the little baby monitor from her pocket, the display popping with green lights as it transmits the tiny voice to us from somewhere else in the house.
‘She’s awake,’ Angela says, with the ghost of a smile. ‘Would you like to see her?’
‘Yes, I’d like that.’ My heart swells in my chest at the thought of seeing Mia again, a sunburst of warmth right at my core. ‘I’d like it very much.’
She gives Zoe’s monitors one more check and kisses her gently on the temple, then leads me back out to the entrance hall. I follow her up the grand curving staircase, each step wide and shallow as it sweeps up to a first floor landing lit by a chandelier. The staircase continues upwards to a second floor, another landing, past bedrooms and bathrooms, a library and a home gym, the little voice on the monitor burbling and chattering all the way. At the end of the landing, Angela opens a door and beckons me through. The nursery is at least five times the size of the little box bedroom at my house, with every conceivable gadget, toy and labour-saving device for new parents. It’s tastefully decorated in yellow and pale blue, one wallpapered wall busy with images of colourful tropical birds. Angela pulls up half-closed blackout blinds on two tall windows, bathing the whole room in afternoon light.
‘It’s a little bit different to when I was growing up with my brothers and sisters in Toxteth,’ she says, leaning down into a cot in the corner. ‘Back then it was five to a room, two in each bed and the littlest in the bottom drawer.’
She lifts the baby up onto her shoulder, supporting her head and whispering into her ear. Tiny hands clutch the folds of her grandma’s cardigan. A soft white sleepsuit, tufts of blonde hair standing up off her head as she gurgles happily. Angela walks over to me and turns around so I can see her face, this little miracle baby.
Mia.
55
‘This little one is the only thing that’s keeping us going,’ Angela says, jiggling Mia gently on her shoulder. ‘Such a happy baby, just like her mum was.’
Mia gives me a gummy grin, her chuckle lighting up the room, and at the sound of it I feel my heart lift. Angela sees me and her expression softens.
‘Would you like to hold her for a minute, while I get her feed ready?’
I nod. Angela smiles and hands Mia over to me, settling her gently so she nestles in the crook of my elbow. I rock her slowly from side to side, that perfect weight in my arm, soft and warm and beautiful. Mia looks up at me with her big blue eyes, smiling and giggling, a little hand reaching up to my face, tiny fingertips brushing my cheeks. A little bundle of life, pure and untainted, untouched, this one good thing that has survived in the midst of so much tragedy and grief.
Angela takes a clean baby bottle from the cupboard and puts it into a Perfect Prep machine next to the changing table. She presses buttons on the machine’s display and it whirs into life, preparing a formula feed for Mia.
‘Sometimes I just come in here and sit with her and cry,’ Angela says. ‘She’s all I have left of my girls, now. Of either of them. I look at Mia and I see my daughters. It doesn’t matter how she came to us, the circumstances.’ The machine beeps and she takes out the bottle, screws the lid on, shakes it and squirts a little milk onto her wrist. ‘I wasn’t sure, before she was born, whether I’d even be able to look at her. But as soon as I saw her, as soon as I held her, it was love. I knew, right from that first minute.’
The emotion comes out of nowhere, rising higher and higher, a tidal wave, a tsunami that I’m powerless to stop. And just like that I’m crying, tears rolling down my cheeks.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry, Angela, it’s just, she’s so, so beautiful. And with what happened to Zoe. It’s all so sad.’
I’m smiling through my tears, and Mia is smiling back at me.
‘She likes you,’ Angela says. ‘I think she remembers you.’
She shakes the bottle of milk, tests the temperature on her wrist again, nodding to herself.
‘Right then, Miss Mia. Tea-time.’
She settles herself in a big armchair next to the cot and I pass Mia back to her, supporting her head with my right hand. Angela gives the bottle one last shake and puts it to Mia’s lips. The baby latches on immediately and begins enthusiastically guzzling milk, tiny hands across her chest, blue eyes blinking up at her grandmother.
‘Could you pass me one of the muslin cloths?’ Angela indicates the chest of drawers. ‘Top drawer on the left.’
The drawer is full of neatly folded muslins and I unfold a pale pink one from the top of the pile.
‘She likes to suck on the corner of these, doesn’t she?’ I lay the cloth gently across Angela’s shoulder, ready for any milk that might come back up. ‘My godson was the same, he was still doing it until just before he started school.’
Angela smiles and returns her attention to Mia as she feeds.
I look around the room at the cot, the changing table, the little fabric books and toys, the play mat, all the paraphernalia of new life. Mia is safe here, with the people who love her. This is where she belongs. I think of my little box bedroom at home that will never be used, a hollow opening up inside me.
I’m glad I made the trip here, but it’s time to go.
‘Ellen?’ Angela is looking up at me, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘Thank you. For what you did for Mia.’
I nod, try to give her a smile. ‘I’m just glad she found her way home to you again.’
She smiles back and it is the saddest smile I have ever seen. ‘So am I,’ she says. ‘So am I.’
