She picked her phone up again and stared at the picture of the baby.
Spencer. They’d called him Spencer.
A lump rose in her throat and she began to cry big, fat, gluey tears. She wiped them away, desperate to focus on the picture, desperate to see a likeness, but this baby’s face was so fresh, so new, that it hardly had a hint of its own identity, let alone a similarity to someone else’s.
What was she going to do about this? It was obvious that, in the mad rush of labour, delivery, and sleepless nights, Scott and Teresa hadn’t got around to letting people know. Or they hadn’t got around to lettingherknow.
She sat with the feeling that suspicion produced for a few seconds, a low drag in the pit of her stomach, then told herself to stop being silly. They were busy and sleep-deprived, that was all. They probably thought they had told her.
But that meant they might be wondering why she hadn’t made contact to congratulate them. Anna frowned. She wasn’t sure how to handle that. Leaving a comment that hinted at their omission might seem like a dig, but she also didn’t want to say nothing. That would be rude. They might think she was jealous.
Oh… Maybe that’s why they hadn’t told her.
It got awkward sometimes with Scott and Teresa when something was said or done to highlight the fact that they still had what she’d lost, but she wouldn’t have thought that would mean they wouldn’t tell her about the baby being born, especially with the name they’d given him. She hoped they didn’t think she was jealous, even though she was, just a little bit.
She closed her eyes and hugged the phone to her chest.More than just a little bit, Anna. Stop kidding yourself.She wanted what they had so much that sometimes it became an actual physical pain, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t celebrate their happiness too.
Wiping another stray tear away, she woke her phone up. She wouldn’t leave a comment on the Facebook post, that seemed too casual, too impersonal. Phoning in the middle of the night was also not a good idea. She’d text. Hopefully that would hit the right note.
She typed quickly, congratulating her sister-in-law on the birth of her lovely baby son, and letting her know that she’d love to come and see him for herself over the weekend. If they felt up to visitors, of course.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘THANK YOU SO much! They’re gorgeous.’ Teresa lifted the pair of dungarees Anna had bought from the wrapping paper, letting them dangle. ‘They’re impossibly huge, though!’
Anna thought they looked impossibly small, but she nodded in agreement anyway. All her attention was taken up with the warm bundle of pinkness in her arms. The baby was looking at her, his greyish-blue eyes intently staring at her face and his little mouth making different shapes. She wasn’t sure if he was testing it out, finding out what it could do, or whether it was purely involuntary. It was fascinating.
‘Are you okay with him?’ Teresa asked. ‘I can take him back if you’re not.’
Anna smiled wryly and looked across the room to her sister-in-law. ‘Are you sureyou’reokay that I’ve got him?’ she asked. ‘I’m a total newbie at this.’
Teresa nodded. ‘To be honest, it’s a bit of a relief. He’s lovely and, on one hand, I can’t get enough of him, but on the other… Let’s just say I now know how dairy cows feel. The boy is perpetually hungry!’
‘How much did he weigh when he was born?’ Anna asked, jiggling the baby slightly because he’d started to wriggle.
‘Not even three kilos,’ Teresa replied, looking incredulous. ‘Which was a bit of a shock, given how long it took him to arrive! I’d thought a small one would pop out more easily.’
‘You had a long labour?’
‘Didn’t Gayle tell you all this when she phoned?’
‘Um… Not really.’ Anna concentrated on making eye contact with the baby, avoiding her sister-in-law’s gaze.
‘I’m flabbergasted,’ Teresa said, flopping back even further into the pillows of the armchair. ‘Richard keeps joking she’s stopping people in the street to give them a blow-by-blow account of the delivery, followed by a complete rundown of his vital statistics.’
Anna made a non-committal noise and concentrated on making expressive faces at her nephew.
‘What?’ Teresa said, her tone full of suspicion. ‘Anna?’
‘Erm, well… She didn’t actually call,’ Anna said, wincing slightly, but quickly added, ‘or if she did, I must have missed it.’
Teresa frowned. ‘That’s odd. Scott and I were exhausted, so he asked his mum and dad if they could share the news.’
Anna tried to make her smile look sincere. ‘It probably was a mix-up due to all the excitement.’
Teresa pressed her lips together. ‘You don’t think she, you know… did it on purpose?’
Teresa had Anna’s full attention now, even as the baby began to fidget harder in her arms. ‘No.’ She shook her head slowly, ignoring the sinking sensation in her stomach. ‘What reason could she possibly have not to tell me?’
