Eli is half-heartedly stirring a bowl of vegetable soup when my phone rings. I glance down and see it’s a call from my doctors’ surgery, so I answer. The still not-very-cheerful receptionist tells me that if Eli wants to call in after three, the doctor will fit her in for a quick check-up. I thank her and hang up.
‘Who was that?’ Eli asks, putting her spoon down, having apparently given up on her soup.
‘My doctors,’ I tell her.
‘Are you sick?’ she asks, and the slight panic in her eyes pleases me in a strange way. It’s nice to feel loved.
‘No! Lord, no. Nothing like that. Look, I don’t want you to be mad, but I figured since you were up here, and you’ve had some awful shocks recently, it wouldn’t do any harm to have a doctor give you the once-over. You’re awfully pale-looking and I know I’d rest easier if you had your bloods checked. Especially your iron.’
‘Mum, I had my blood checked three weeks ago. I’m fine. And I really don’t need to see a doctor.’
‘But what if you take another funny turn? Won’t you need to have a doctor on your side?’
‘It was a panic attack, Mum,’ she whispers. ‘I just have to work through them.’
‘But still, pet. You can’t be too cautious with pregnancy. Especially when this one’s been giving you so much trouble. And add to that all the stress of the last few days. Wouldn’t it be wise to get your blood pressure checked, too?’
‘I’m a nurse, you know. I know what warning signs to watch out for.’
‘And you’re also a nurse under a lot of strain and who hasn’t necessarily been on the ball all the time.’
Her face crumples. She sits for a moment or two in silence. I watch the tears pool in her eyes, watch as she tries to blink them away rapidly. I see the almost imperceptible wobble of her bottom lip. The crinkle of her chin. I know the look well. I’ve seen it often and cut her off at the pass before the tears more times than I can remember.
This time I stay silent, even though a part of me is annoyed at myself for making my daughter cry. I watch as two full, fat tears roll down her cheeks, as her eyes turn red, making her pale skin look even closer to translucent.
‘I just worry so much about you, Eli. You’re my whole world, you know that, and I want to make sure you’re okay. Can you just humour me? You know what I’m like and always have been. I know I’m overprotective, but it was just you and me for so long that I … well, I love you, and if you do this for me I’ll try to remember to back off. I’m sorry, pet.’
I know I’m hamming up my sadness. My guilt at being too overprotective. Using the ‘poor me’ routine to get my daughter on side.
‘Okay, Mum,’ she says. ‘And thanks for caring.’
‘Darling, that’s what I’m here for.’
More tears fall, but I feel the soft squeeze of her hand and I know that we’re okay. I squeeze her hand back gently, three short squeezes, which signify ‘I love you’. I’ve done it with her since she was a child, a secret code between us. It was something my own father used to do with me when I was little. It’s one of the only things from my own childhood that I’ve been able to share with Eli.
*
That sound. Rhythmic. Loud. Like a horse galloping. Like a train building up speed. A life preparing to be born. Real. So small, so tiny and so helpless but so very alive. Each beat telling me things are going to change and change for the better. My grandchild. This baby who’s going to make my life complete. Our lives complete. This innocent soul who’ll probably never realise how much she’ll mean to me. How much she’s wanted and loved already.
My heart races to try to match the beat of this tiny heart. I think of how I’ll hold her, rock her to sleep. Sit in the nursery in the house – a nursery I couldn’t provide for Eli when she was little – and sing nursery songs, whisper prayers, give gentle kisses on a soft head that smells of milk and baby powder and innocence.
Innocence. That’s what this baby is to me. A chance to start again. To help my daughter be the best mother she can be. To have another little person in my life who loves me dearly.
‘Baby sounds perfectly healthy to me,’ Dr Laurence declares. ‘That’s a good, strong heartbeat.’
Eli thanks the doctor as she sits up, wipes the gel from her tummy and pulls her top back down.
‘I told you everything would be okay,’ she says to me.
I just cry. This is everything I wanted and more.
I can’t let anything – not even those stupid emails – stand in my way.