She didn’t hide it when she spoke:
‘Failed again, have I? Are you worried that this might slow my return to my career? Because career comes first, after all. Don’t worry. I’ll drop the baby off with a baby minder as soon as I possibly can, or better still, I’ll get Ted to give up his job and he can mind her. Because that’s what men are for – to mind the babies while the women go out and rule the universe. Have I got that right?’
She glared at her mother, no longer caring that the full blast of the rage was uncoiling within her. In her arms, India fretted and began to cry.
Sam knew India was sensitive to everything that went on around her and she cradled the baby close to her chest, holding that soft little head against her, nuzzling into the beautiful downy hair. ‘Sorry, honey,’ she whispered softly.
‘What do you really want, Mother?’ she asked in louder tones.
‘I wanted to see if you were all right, but if my being here upsets you, I’ll go. I’d just like to hold her perhaps ... I haven’t held her often,’ Jean said awkwardly.
Sam stared. Jean was in full control of every situation.
Except this one, it seemed.
‘That’s because you didn’t appear to want to,’ Sam said, truthfully. ‘You look uncomfortable when you’re holding India, as if you can’t wait for it to be over.’
Her mother licked dry lips. ‘It’s true I’m nervous, but I want to get to know my granddaughter.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I just do, please.’
It was the please that did it. Her mother never said please for anything – not in that way. Oh yes, she had perfect table manners and said please and thank you when they were at the dinner table, butpleasein that longing way ...? Never.
‘You can sit beside me on the couch and you can hold India on your lap for a moment,’ said Sam, not sure why she was doing this.
It would be the quickest baby-holding ever, she decided.
Jean moved so she was sitting beside her daughter.
‘Take off those necklaces,’ Sam said irritably. ‘They’ll just get tangled up and hurt her.’
‘Oh, right,’ said her mother anxiously, messing up her hair in the process of removing the necklaces. Then she held out her arms as if she was about to accept a present.
‘Not like that,’ Sam said, ‘like this.’
‘OK.’
Sam was still not sure if this was the right thing to do or not, but she passed India over to her mother. ‘You’ve got to support her head.’
‘I know that,’ said her mother gently, and she held the baby tentatively, awkwardly. ‘I read every baby book there was, learned all the facts. But I still wasn’t very good at it.’
Sam paused. She didn’t think she’d ever heard her mother say those words before.
‘I wasn’t a good mother,’ said Jean quietly, head bent over India. ‘I’m really sorry that I wasn’t because I’m not the motherly type and you were afraid, weren’t you, you were afraid you were going to be like that? I know, I could see it in you because I was like that.’
‘Mother, spare me the psychobabble,’ said Sam, but she said it half-heartedly.
‘No, I came here to say this and I’m going to say it,’ her mother said with the air of someone who had never backed down from a challenge in her life. ‘I thought I was a failure.’
‘Youthought you were a failure?’ said Sam. She reached in and adjusted India so the baby was nestling more comfortably against her mother’s bony frame.
‘This feels nice,’ said Jean. She leaned in and smelled India’s soft curls. ‘I was bad at it,’ Jean went on, ‘bad at all of it. My maternity leave was hell, I couldn’t do all the things the other women did, I felt a failure, not maternal. But you, you got to choose.’ She looked at Sam over India’s head. ‘Your generation gets to choose. You don’t have to have children, you have choices.’
‘Are you saying you didn’t want to have kids?’
‘No, no,’ said her mother, sounding slightly panicked so that India, picking up on the tension, began to fret.
