She walks purposefully to the door. Phoebe Harrison has somewhere to be.
CHAPTER 53
Kate loads a tub of sausage rolls and pork pies into the shopping trolley, which is already piled high with a selection of crisps, biscuits, scones and punnets of strawberries. She wasn’t quite sure what to buy for the occasion. In the past, she probably would have felt the need to make everything herself and for it all to be perfect, but now she opts for things that are easy and faff-free instead. Nobody is likely to really care about the food anyway. Today is about being together.
It feels strange to navigate a supermarket without a toddler sitting in the front, shouting instructions like the somewhat drunken captain of a ship.
‘No!’ ‘Apple!’ ‘Ba ba ba BA!’
But they agreed it would be easier for Kate to do this bit on her own.
She glances briefly at the time on her phone, the background photo of Jay and Rosie on Rosie’s first birthday six months agomaking her pause and smile. Rosie is wearing a glittery crown that she refused to put on at first but then wouldn’t take off for a whole week. In the photo, Jay and Rosie are facing each other, Rosie held in Jay’s arms and their hands on each other’s faces, Rosie’s little podgy fingers spread across Jay’s cheeks. Their mouths are open wide. They had been practising their lion roars. Kate had joined in the moment after she’d snapped the picture, the three of them roaring like a family of lions and then collapsing into giggles.
The photo brings back memories of the whole day. Erin had baked the most beautiful cake decorated with sea creatures and Rosie’s eyes widened as she’d had her first taste of icing and proceeded to have her little mind blown. Jay’s parents came down for the weekend and ran around in the garden, letting themselves be chased by their granddaughter. Kate’s mum had sat on a blanket beneath the apple tree and watched and Kate knew that she wanted to join in too but was feeling too tired. It had been one of her bad days. Brian had hovered nearby until Rosie had insisted that Grandpa give her a tiger ride and then he was on his hands and knees in the grass with a squealing little girl on his back, Miriam watching and smiling, tears glistening in her eyes. Kate had joined her mum, silently squeezing her hand. Neither of them had to describe the bittersweetness of the moment, happiness and sadness sitting side by side as they soaked up every precious second.
Thinking of her mum, a lump swells in Kate’s throat, tears pricking her eyes. She takes a moment to open her photos app and flick to an image that Jay captured last year of her mother and Brian together. They’re both half laughing, half crying,holding hands tightly, a pot of tea on the table next to them. It’s a photo that feels painful to look at sometimes, but she thinks it’s one of Jay’s most beautiful photos.
It’s made her so proud to think how his career has taken off this year. He’s now branched out from the parent and baby photos that launched his business to photograph all sorts of different relationships, but the element that has remained is the way he captures both the pain and joy of real, unfiltered human emotions. His photos of Kate and Rosie still regularly feature on Kate’s own social media, and through sharing her own unfiltered version of motherhood, she’s interacted with countless other mothers who have shared their stories too, making her feel less alone. It’s felt like having a tribe walking alongside her. And, God, there have been moments recently when she’s needed that tribe.
But she needs to get going soon. Remembering that she needs cream for the strawberries, Kate spins the trolley around swiftly, heading back in the other direction, glad for a task to distract her from her emotions. When she finds the section she is looking for, she grabs a few pots of clotted cream, then adds another couple for good measure. She has no idea how many people are going to turn up. Anyone who wants to be there is welcome, but you never know with these things.
Just as she’s about to turn and head towards the tills, she spots a woman standing dead still in front of the shelves of milk. Her eyes are trained on the lined-up cartons of milk, but she isn’t moving. She’s barely even blinking. She is dressed in a baggy shirt and a pair of stained tracksuit bottoms. In thefront of her trolley, squished up into a car seat, is a tiny and very pink-faced baby.
As Kate watches the woman, it’s as though the past year and a bit disappears. She is right back there beside this woman, standing in the aisle of a supermarket with her brand-new daughter, feeling as though she might melt from exhaustion and crack in half from terror.
So much might have changed about Kate’s life since those days, but it is still so easy to access everything she felt back then. The bone-aching tiredness. The brain fog. The constant state of bewilderment. It’s like recalling a familiar meal. She can almost taste it, all the flavours of that very particular period of time. Back then, she thought life would always taste like that.
Tentatively, Kate steps towards the woman.
‘Hey, are you all right?’
The woman’s head snaps around as though she’s been jolted awake. ‘Oh! Sorry. I was just choosing which milk to get. But I must have zoned out, I guess.’
‘How old is he?’ Kate asks softly, gesturing into the trolley.
The woman follows her gaze. ‘Two months.’
Kate makes a point of turning her attention away from the baby and towards the woman pushing the trolley. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Tired,’ the woman replies.
Kate smiles. ‘I’m not surprised. I remember that early bit so vividly. It’s really tough.’
‘It’s …’ The woman falters, her face wearing the expression of utter shell shock that Kate recalls so well. She blinks, a strandof unbrushed hair coming loose from her bun and falling in front of her face. ‘It’s … a lot.’
The baby lets out a little gurgle and the woman’s eyes dart towards the car seat, a look of panic appearing on her face. But the baby settles, eyelids closing again.
Kate nods. ‘Itisa lot. When I had my daughter, I felt like a bomb had gone off in my life. Like I’d exploded into a million pieces and wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to even find those pieces of myself again, let alone put them back together.’
‘And did you?’
She tilts her head, thinking about everything that has happened over the past year and a bit. ‘Yes, I did. But they got put back together in a different order.’
When she thinks about the person she was before having Rosie, the elements of that Kate are still there inside her now. But she is different too. Her daughter has forever changed her, in that way that certain people or places or moments do. She likes the version of herself that has Rosie’s fingerprints all over her heart.
She still isn’t really sure she knows what she’s doing. But she’s accepted that she probably never will and that’s OK. It doesn’t make her a bad mother. It makes her human.
‘It’s hard to imagine things getting better when they are so tiny and can’t even smile at you. I hope you’ve got a good support network to help you through this really hard bit. There’s strength in asking for help. And, believe me, you have so much good coming your way.’ As she says it, she remembers a conversation with her sister from just over a year ago when Erin told her the same thing and she hadn’t quite believed her, butit had given her hope. And then she came to see it for herself. ‘Things get so much better. They get so, so good.’
