“Thanks,” she’d said, ungratefully. “I’ll think about it.”

My body knows what it’s doing, she thought. I’ll let nature take its course. I think I can trust in myself to be able to push these babies out on my own. People have been doing this since people have existed. How hard can it really be? Everyone has to be born, right?

Idiot. She hadn’t done well. She’d been washed through the birth, powerless, on a tide of modern medical intervention. They’d done well, the numerous, nameless nurses, midwives, doctors—without them she would have died, and the babies, too. But Lauren? She didn’t feel that she’d done anything but fail.

“You’re a hero, honey,” said Patrick. “You deserve a medal.”

I do not, thought Lauren. But she smiled, pasting it thinly over her pain.

After a moment, Patrick asked, “When are you coming out?”

“I don’t know,” said Lauren. “I don’t know when they’ll let me.”

“They don’t have to let you. You can discharge yourself.”

The idea seemed absurd. Lauren had assumed they were in charge. “Can I?”

“Of course. It’s not prison.”

Home. She could go home.

“I want to go home,” said Lauren.

“Let’s go.”

Lauren gaped at him. “Really?”

“Yeah. Why not? I brought the car seats. I’ll go and get them.”

“Honestly Patrick, I don’t think they’ll let me. What about the bleed, when they took me back into theatre—”

“Of course they will. You’re OK now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well then.”

“And there’s the other thing,” she said, “the tranquilliser. I’m still a bit high, to tell the truth.”

Patrick examined the size of Lauren’s pupils.

“Hmm,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Better.”

“The hospital didn’t say what it was, in the message, only that you became very upset and needed some medication. Did something happen to you?”

Yes, thought Lauren, someone tried to take our babies. I escaped. No one else saw. But then, it wasn’t true, everyone said so. They said it was a hallucination. And yet it seemed so real.

“Lauren?”

She’d been gazing, blurry-eyed, into the middle distance. For how long? She tried to remember what Patrick had asked her.

“What did you say?”

“I said that you can tell me, whatever it is. Did something happen last night?”

A flash of cold, a blinding light. Lauren’s nostrils filled with that muddy fish smell. Goosebumps, as all the hair on her arms stood up. Could it have been real?

“No,” she said, “not really. I thought I saw something. I thought there was someone here who couldn’t have been. Doesn’t matter now.”

“Of course it matters,” said Patrick, leaning in, all concern. “It sounds scary, you mean like a waking dream or something?”

“Yes, I think so. I wasn’t asleep though—I hadn’t slept, I haven’t slept properly in three days—”

“Well, that’s it then, isn’t it? You’re not crazy, you just need some sleep.”

Yes. That was it. So obvious.

Patrick went on, “No one can sleep in hospital, it’s so hot and noisy. You know, I read an article about sleep deprivation, it’s more important than you think, to get good rest. No-brainer, really.”