I watched them as they became silhouetted by the sun. I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face, my love for them was so huge.

Chapter Fifty

Aisha

When Lucy and I had caught each other’s eye, I had felt wistful for a moment, reflecting on the camaraderie our Baby Group had shared. It had been such a bonding experience; we had invested a lot in our relationships, but for such a short amount of time. It was quite odd really – we had been living in a pregnancy and baby bubble; a parallel world of milk-drunk babies and sleep deprivation.

But although Lucy and I had become fast friends, I had always felt she was keeping something back, as though she’d been in possession of a box of secrets she hadn’t decided whether to let me look into. Occasionally snippets had escaped, only for her to have slammed the box shut and locked it up again. How right I had been.

After the ceremony, Susie caught me daydreaming.

‘You okay?’ she asked. She intimated towards Lucy and Oscar, who had already turned their backs to us and were walking away with Albie. ‘I really didn’t think they would come.’

‘It’s fine,’ I replied. ‘I made peace with it all a while ago. And they weren’t all bad, those Baby Group days. I have some fond – if slightly foggy – memories.’ I smiled.

‘Me too. Thank you for being such a great friend to me. I remember so vividly that afternoon you rescued me from Boots during that horrific colic phase he had.’ She shuddered. ‘So much for my plans to be an “Earth Mother” – they went out of the window in week one!’

‘Ah, the colic era. It was, I recall, the time of the poo-mageddons for me!’ I giggled. ‘There was one day when I had to change Joni’s whole outfit five times. I mean what was in my breast milk? And God, do you remember when I accidentally fake-tanned her cheek and almost got arrested by the health visitor?’

Susie clutched her belly as she laughed. ‘Why people do it twice, I don’t know,’ she chuckled.

She must have noticed my cheeks colour slightly when she made that comment because she stopped and gave me a curious look.

I fiddled with a button on my dress. She clocked me.

‘Aisha, are you trying to tell me something?’

‘I’m not meant to say anything… It’s still early,’ I whispered. Susie’s eyes widened. ‘But yes, there is another one on the way… due mid-February. Utter madness, I know. Don’t tell anyone!’

‘You crazy woman!’ she teased, before putting an arm around my waist and whispering into my ear: ‘I’m thrilled for you, for all three of you, I really am. You’re an amazing mother. A complete natural.’

I looked across at Jason, who was engaged in a competition with Ian to see who could swing their daughter highest. He was holding Joni under her arms, whooshing her upwards, like she was as light as a blade of grass as she shrieked with delight. I thought how lucky I was. He had been a changed man since we got the result – that he was not Albie’s father. There was a joy and a lightness about him that I hadn’t witnessed in a long time.