Jodie winces, her hand shaking free from Niamh’s and going straight to her middle, and Niamh feels a lump form in her throat.
‘You okay, love?’ Paul asks, glancing up to the rearview mirror.
‘Aye, Daddy,’ Jodie says, but her voice sounds small and scared.
‘We’re almost there,’ he says. ‘I’ll drop you and your mum at the door and then go and get parked. Is Adam meeting you there?’
‘He is,’ Jodie says. ‘Becca is bringing him.’
‘Maybe I’ll just wait outside. There will be enough of you in there. I don’t want to be getting in the way.’
Niamh bristles. She wants to tell Paul he should be there with them but at the same time she doesn’t want to upset Jodie further by letting her know that she’s cross.
‘Okay, Daddy,’ Jodie says as they turn into the grounds of the hospital. She takes her mother’s hand again and Niamh feels that she is shaking.
‘It’s okay, love. I’ll be with you, and Adam too. And Becca.’
Jodie nods.
‘And I’ll be here. I’ll not move from this car park. You need anything, you let me know. I’ll be right here,’ Paul says, as they pull up at the doors of the Emergency Department. ‘I love you, Jodie.’
Niamh can hear the emotion in his voice and, if she’s not mistaken, a little bit of fear there too. That’s when she notices that his knuckles are white against the steering wheel – his grip being so tight. Maybe, she thinks, he does feel some of the pain too.
She guides her daughter into the Emergency Department and in a voice she doesn’t quite recognise she fills the receptionist in on what is happening. The young woman, probably not much older than Jodie, taps on her keyboard and directs them to sit down while showing no emotion or empathy on her face. Niamh supposes she sees this, and worse, every day but still, it wouldn’t hurt her to give a sympathetic nod.
‘When will she be called in?’ Niamh asks.
The woman scans her computer screen and shrugs. ‘It’s hard to tell but it’s not too busy tonight. You’re lucky.’
Niamh raises an eyebrow and gives her very best withering glare. The kind of glare that she normally only reserves for her very worst-behaved pupils. It’s the glare that says their cards are marked, their parents are being called and the detentions are being piled up. ‘Lucky’ is not the word she would use. Far from it.
‘I… I mean… it shouldn’t be long. The triage nurse should call you through in the next ten minutes,’ the receptionist says, wilting under her stare.
‘Thank you,’ Niamh says, tersely, tension thrumming through her body as she guides Jodie to her seat.
‘What if the baby is gone, Mum?’ Jodie says in a small, scared voice.
‘Let’s wait and see what the doctors say,’ Niamh tells her. ‘You never know.’
‘I know we’re young… and it wasn’t planned…’
‘I know, darling. It doesn’t make it any less scary.’
The double doors to the waiting room swoosh open and when Niamh and Jodie glance up they see Adam and Becca scanning the room. Adam is almost as pale as Jodie is, Niamh thinks. Becca has the same look on her face that she did that day eighteen years ago when she had brought Niamh to the hospital to hear that her pregnancy was lost.
It’s incredible to Niamh that even now, all these years later, she can so quickly recall almost every detail of that visit. She can feel the same feelings taking hold today and she wants to cry. But she knows it’s not her place to cry. Not now. Not here. Here, it is up to her and Becca to put on a brave face to guide their children through this. Children who just two weeks ago were living their best lives, falling in love and doing all the things that students with no real-world responsibilities did. Things have changed so quickly, and so completely and now it could all change again.
She raises her hand and waves to attract the attention of Becca and Adam. Within seconds, Jodie and Adam are hugging, Jodie finally sobbing, and Niamh finds herself just looking at Becca – both of them not sure what to say. Maybe, Niamh wonders, there just isn’t anything to say. She can hardly believe it’s only a matter of hours since they were walking along the beach in Donegal feeling reinvigorated and reinvented. It’s just a couple of days since they were joking about beingGILFs. And yet all of it could be over already. For now.
When the triage nurse calls Jodie’s name, she makes to stand up to accompany her daughter in for assessment. But as Adam stands up too, Jodie says, ‘It’s okay, Mum. Adam is going to come in with me. Is that okay? It’s his baby too.’
She has to fight the urge to say that of course it’s not okay. She is her mother. She has been accompanying Jodie to every medical appointment her entire life and up until very recently she has still been subjected to Jodie turning to her and pleading with her eyes for her mother to answer every question the doctor asked. But now she wants to go with Adam and leave her outside, unaware of what the hell is happening now? Oh, she is so not ready for this, but she realises she doesn’t really have a choice. Now is not the time to have a meltdown about her child’s growing independence.
She feels Becca’s hand lightly on her arm. A gesture in solidarity of ‘this is not about us even if we feel that it is very much about us’.
Niamh nods. ‘Of course, love. Of course. I’ll be here with Becca, and we will be doubling up on giving the receptionist the evil eye.’
‘What’s that about?’ Becca asks, as Jodie gives a watery, nervous smile and – taking Adam’s hand – follows the nurse through for assessment.
