October 1999
“She’s so tiny, Joe—I keep thinking I might snap one of her arms like a little twig when I’m putting her clothes on . . .”
“You won’t, babe. She might be small, but she’s tough. Like her mum. Gorgeous like her mum too.”
He leans in to kiss the baby’s forehead, and then repeats the gesture with Jess. Jess doesn’t feel very gorgeous right now. She’s more tired than she thought it was possible to be, her boobs are so sore even her bra hurts, and every time she goes for a wee she feels like her insides might fall out.
She bursts into tears at dog food adverts, and she smells of sour milk and desperation, and she’s wondering how she’s going to cope with the pretty much equal amounts of love and fear that she’s currently experiencing.
None of it felt real until the baby was actually here, a living, breathing, red-faced thing, by turns furious and serene. Having her here, looking after her, being the one responsible for keeping this precious thing alive and well, is nothing like she thought it would be. It’s harder than she ever expected.
She remembers her mum, weeping with frustration when she found out that Jess was not only leaving home, but planning on raising a child with Joe Ryan—who might as well be the living embodiment of Satan.
“You have no idea,” her mother had said, her voice raised louder than she’d ever heard it before, “what it’s going to be like! You have no idea how hard it is to care for a baby—you’re only a child yourself!”
At the time, it had infuriated her. Made her even more determined to prove them wrong. To show them that she wasn’t a child—she was a woman. A mother. A person with a life of her own.
Now, she silently admits, she is starting to suspect that Mum might have been right. She is only just eighteen, filled with self-doubt, swamped with anxiety, exhausted—even when the baby is asleep, she stays awake, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest to make sure she’s still breathing.
Jess had thought the battles had all been fought—the terrible scenes at home, the frantic scurrying for cash, putting her A-levels on hold, Joe finding work at a mechanic’s garage. His foster dad looking her up and down like she was a piece of meat hanging in a butcher’s shop window.
Her parents had, of course, been horrified when she told them her news. They’d insisted she was ruining her life—that she should see a “special doctor” to make this awful mistake go away. When she resisted, there was screaming and tears and recriminations and, worst of all, her father’s sad, solemn sense of disgust that his little girl had disappointed him so severely.
The threats of getting Joe arrested had followed—once they’d accepted that she was keeping the baby, they wanted her to stay with them. Perhaps they thought they could persuade her to put it up for adoption, or at the very least get him out of their lives.
She remembers yelling at them: “Get him arrested? What for? Being in love isn’t bloody illegal, you know!”
Looking back, it all feels unreal now. She was brave back then—full of anger and rebellion. She loved Joe. He loved her. They would love their baby, and build a life together. It was so simple.
At least it had seemed simple—because she didn’t know any better. Even after they moved here, to this cramped, damp one-room flat in Manchester, it still seemed simple.
They had no money. They had furniture from charity shops, and ate instant noodles, and listened to music all the time because there was no television at first. Their neighbors were loud and scary, and the streets outside would have terrified Jess not so long ago.
But she had Joe—and that was all that mattered. Joe was tough and strong and streetwise, and he would look after them. She didn’t need her parents, or their judgment, or their sour-faced disapproval and simmering sense of repressed misery. She had everything she could ever want here, with him—the boy who had ram-raided her heart on that first day at college, and been at her side ever since. It was hard to imagine a problem that being with Joe couldn’t solve.
Now, though . . . well, now, she is worried. Now she is frightened. She doesn’t know anything about babies—the first newborn she ever held was her own, after almost two days in labor, handed to her triumphantly by an Irish midwife who told her “she was grand.”
Gracie came home with them two days after that. Jess had climbed the stairs to their third-floor flat, the baby clutched in her arms, her body and spirit battered and broken. Joe had cleaned everything, put flowers in a vase, had the baby station set up with nappies and wipes and lotions. He’d done everything right—but she was still so very, very scared.
Secretly, she was convinced that the baby didn’t like her. Getting her to feed was a constant battle, her nipples a war zone, those unfocused eyes staring up at her as though they were saying, “What? You’re my mum? Surely I deserve better . . .”
They’d been at home for a week now, and she was wondering when the magic was going to happen. When she’d start to feel like the women in books and films feel. When she’d stop crying, and bleeding, and start behaving like the super-competent adult she wanted to be.
Gracie interrupts her self-pity by grabbing hold of her finger. Her grip is intense, and her tiny nails with their pink and white half-moons are perfect. Jess gazes down at her, and smiles. Every now and then, something like this happens—just when she’s at her lowest, feeling defeated, there will be a small but delicious moment. A moment that makes her feel like maybe, just maybe, the baby doesn’t hate her after all.
Joe stands looking at them, a silly grin on his face. His dark eyes are sparkling, and he looks so happy. Like he’s won the jackpot of life.
“See?” he says, stroking a stray strand of hair from Jess’s face. “She knows you love her. You won’t break her arms, and you won’t drop her in the bath, and you won’t leave her in the shop by mistake, and she’s not secretly plotting to kill you in your sleep as soon as she can hold a knife . . .”
Jess makes a “huh” sound and has to smile. These are all things she has suggested might happen, during her darker times. They sound stupid now, sitting here, surrounded by love and the temporary sense of euphoria that a baby’s finger-grip can induce.
“How come,” she asks, “something as tiny as this baby can completely dominate our lives? She doesn’t even have moods. She doesn’t even have opinions. She’s just a little creature who can’t even roll over or sit up or feed herself, but somehow she’s in charge, isn’t she? How does that happen?”
Joe sits on the sofa beside her, and places an arm around her shoulders. Even now—even feeling like a wet dishrag, drained of all energy—Joe can make her heart beat faster. Somehow, he can always make her feel better—special, loved, cherished. Like everything is going to be OK.
“I don’t know, Jess. It’s clever stuff, isn’t it? And it will get easier, honest. I remember when one of my older foster sisters had a kid. Little boy. She was knackered, on her own, and I’ve no idea now how she coped, now I know how hard it is. But I remember her saying, just when she was ready to give up, just about ready to give him away or chuck him out of a window or drink a bottle of vodka, he started to smile—and that changed everything. Like evolution has programmed it all to happen like that.”
Jess nods, and gazes at the tiny face of their daughter. Their daughter . . . Even thinking it seems weird. It’s not that long ago she was going on illicit dates with Joe, scrawling his name on her exercise books, recasting Heathcliff with his face during English lessons. Daydreaming about him when they were apart, worshiping him when they were together, finally finding out why girls liked kissing so much. Finding out, obviously, why girls liked doing other things as well—or Grace wouldn’t even exist.
“I hope it does get easier,” she says, leaning back into Joe’s chest. “Because I feel like a complete failure at the moment, Joe. Like I’m letting you down, and letting her down, and just . . . making a mess of everything. I love her so much, I really do, but it seems like I’m doing everything wrong. I was a lot better at analyzing Shakespeare than I am at doing this. I never thought I’d miss Hamlet, but college seems so simple in comparison.”
She feels him tense slightly, and looks up at his face. He’s smiling still, but it looks sadder somehow, and she knows she’s accidentally upset him. She knows he worries that he’s derailed her life, dragged her down into his instead of letting her soar off into her own. She knows his own childhood was a bitter and painful thing, and that he’s never felt truly loved or wanted or needed.
“I don’t regret a thing, Joe,” she says, reaching out to touch his face gently. “None of it. I have you, and Gracie, and it’s enough. Ignore my hormones and listen to what I’m saying—I will love both of you forever, and as long as we’re together, everything will be fine.”
“Us three against the world,” he says, kissing her fingers.
He gets up, and walks toward the record player. It’s an old one, salvaged from one of their charity shop missions. Everyone’s getting CD systems now so it was only a fiver. She watches as he chooses a record, slips the black vinyl from its sleeve, places the needle in position.
He holds out his hands, and awkwardly, she clambers to her feet, still holding Gracie. He wraps them both up in his embrace, holding them tight, as the music starts.
She knows what it is before it kicks in. It’s their song—the one they’ve listened to and sung to and danced to for over nine months now. “Baby, I Love You” by the Ramones.
The baby nestled between them, they slowly dance around the room, stepping across frayed carpet and in front of the shabby sofa and past windows that show only the gray streets and rain-sodden buildings beyond. They ignore the sound of their neighbors rowing, and the smell of the kebab shop below, and the creaking of neglected floorboards beneath their feet.
As Joey Ramone serenades them, his voice at once mournful and uplifting, they dance to their own beat, and to the beat of the music, and to the beat of their baby’s heart.
Suddenly, she knows that he’s right—that everything will work out. She’s exactly where she’s meant to be, with exactly the people she’s meant to be with.
With Joe’s hands on her waist, and their baby in her arms, she feels like the richest woman in the world.