The people who said, ‘I don’t know what to say, because I have no idea what you are going through, but I am so sorry, and if I can help,’ they could stay.
I culled a lot of friends in those months. But Marin, Nate, Finn and even Steve made the cut.
Finn, dear man, would come round with supermarket groceries when Luke was a tiny baby. He’d bring it all in, put it all carefully in cupboards, tell me just to sit up at the counter and direct him. I got used to it, got used to his calm, gentle presence. He wasn’t asking anything of me, he wasn’t expecting to be entertained, he just was kind and practical.
In times of tragedy, practical helps.
It meant I didn’t have to drag food and boxes of nappies home from the supermarket when my heart hurt so much, I thought I’d cry with the physical pain.
My mother was my birthing partner. My mum had never had it easy, but she was strong. My father used to say there was a rod of steel in my mother’s spine and he was right, there was. There was a rod of steel in mine too. And together the two of us got Luke into the world squirming, roaring, a long baby with lungs like a sailor. He was going to be tall like his father, we decided, wiping away tears and sweat. The changeover midwife – because the original had gone off because the labour had lastedtwenty-eight hours – said, ‘Will we call the dad?’
Mum and I looked at each other and neither of us had cried. We just held on to Luke.
Marin was almost the first person into the hospital with lots of useful things, soft baby onesies and cream for my nipples just in case I decided I was going to breastfeed, because the jury was still out on that one. I cried when I saw her because she was ripe with pregnancy then, nearly nine months gone and her baby was going to have a father.
I felt so bereft and I sobbed when Marin was gone.
‘It’s the baby blues,’ the nurse said kindly, putting an arm around me and a note on my chart simultaneously, probably recommending the psych team come in to assess me.
It wasn’t the baby blues – it was the widow’s blues, which is a different song altogether, like a long jazz note blown on a sax, wavering into the night. ‘My man left me...’
It still surprises me now, the word ‘widow’. Widows are supposed to be older, having had a lifetime of love, but I’d had so little. I’d imagined us growing old together and onceJean-Luc was gone, that dream died with him. Everyone gets one love story and I’d had mine.
Yet now ... it must be Shazz and Christie with their pushing me to go on dates because I keep thinking about it now. It could never be what I had withJean-Luc but could I have happiness again? Just a hint? Someone to hold me, to kiss me, to remind me that I’m a woman in her forties, that there’s plenty of life ahead.
There’s no time limit on grief – so what if I am ready for someone new?
The day before Luke’s birthday, Mum phones about the surprise present and she sounds a bit flustered on the phone.
‘Did you get it?’ I asked, glad that the puppy code emergency would soon be over and that the little bundle of fur which was allegedly a terrier girl puppy, would be ours.
Mum had gone to pick up the dog and this evening, when we went to Mum’s for dinner, his present would be there. I don’t know which of us is more excited – me or Mum.
‘I did –’ says Mum, hesitantly.
‘Is she OK? Did she get sick all over the car?’ I asked.
We’d had a small poodle when I was little, an adorable bundle of grey who loved eating grass and doing tiny, discreet vomits on the rugs.
‘No. Well, the thing is ... they gave me two,’ says Mum rapidly. ‘Someone didn’t come for the other one and – well, I took her.’ She says this last bit in a rush and I laugh. Of course she took two!
‘So we have two puppies?’ I say, half laughing. In for a penny, in for a pound.
‘Yes. I had to, Bea. I couldn’t separate them. They snuggled together and cried. I’ll send you a picture.’
She didn’t really need to send anything. It wasn’t just Luke who wanted something fluffy and warm to love: I did too.
‘Beautiful,’ I sigh. ‘We’ll be over to you in ten minutes.’
Luke never suspected a thing.
He and I chat about the party the next day, whether he’d get homework from school that night because ‘it is my birthday...’ and he looks at me sideways and says: ‘Where will the hamster sleep? They can’t sleep outside because they’re tiny. I’d like him – or her – to sleep with me but it’s fine if he can’t, because he might get lost in the bed the way small things get lost in couches, the way Rhianna from my class lost her pet rat. She called it Snowy because it was white and rats are clever but I’d never ask for one, Mum, because I know you’re scared...’
Inside, I glow with happiness.
The thinking part of my brain is already going over the logistics of having two small dogs in the house. The crate to keep them in for puppy training was certainly big enough: it had fitted a Rottweiler puppy once from someone on the road where Shazz lived. I had soft blankets, puppy food, food and water bowls and even training mats to put on the floor so that the dog would know where to pee. I doubted this would work at first but you’ve got to try.
My mother is at the door as we drive up. Her cardigan is definitely sporting puppy slobber but her face is alight.
