Contents ( 71)
- THE
- DAUGHTER
- MICHELLE FRANCES
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It was like you read in the newspapers, magazines. The awful thing that always happened to someone else, not you. This time it was happening. The baby wasn’t going to make it.
People were doing things to her, shaving her, rapidly telling her she was going into theatre, bizarrely gaining her permission. What? She had to sign! A nightmarish scrawl. A joke. On her. Then suddenly—
Leaving them all behind. She was going under. Somehow, despite knowing the outcome wasn’t going to be good, there was a sense of calm, peace.
Relief.
Dark.
Eyes open. A different view. Hospital still, but somewhere else. The panicked people all gone.
Almost immediately, a nurse appeared. Tall with bobbed dark-blonde hair, the same age as her absent mother. From her position lying down, Kate could see the nurse was carrying something tiny in her arms, which she promptly laid at Kate’s breast.
‘She’s a natural already,’ said the nurse delightedly, as the small creature began to suckle.
Dazed, Kate looked down.
A baby!
Her baby.
She looked again.
It really was a baby!
‘Is she all right?’ she said quickly, the nightmare flooding back.
‘Course!’
‘I mean, they’d tell me if anything was wrong with her?’
The nurse looked shocked. Laid a tender hand on Kate’s arm. ‘She’s perfect,’ she said. ‘Scored very highly in her Apgar. Nine out of ten.’
It sounded good, whatever it was.
Oh my God, she had a baby.
Her first visitors were two school friends, Lara Tomlinson with her enviable poker-straight white-blonde hair and her sidekick, Megan Taylor. They came onto the ward with a CD Walkman shared between them, but the single set of headphones rested on Lara’s head, with Megan bent sideways to listen in. They were singing lightly to The Rembrandts’ ‘I’ll Be There for You’, which was swiftly interrupted and replaced by the sound of them freaking out at the noise of another baby screaming blue murder.
‘How can you put up with that?’ asked Lara as she approached Kate’s bed.
Kate didn’t want to explain that Becky made the same noise, although she was thankfully asleep at that moment. Lara and Megan leaned over the cot, cooing at how sweet she was.
‘Did it hurt?’ asked Lara.
Kate grimaced. ‘Yes.’
‘Don’t think I could do that, push something that big out of my fanny.’
‘You don’t really have a choice.’
‘Well you do . . .’ started Lara loftily, leaving the rest of it unspoken: if you don’t get pregnant in the first place.
Kate looked down at the bed and then sensed Megan nudge Lara as they offered up the CD Walkman. They shared the music with her, raving about the new series that had just started on Channel 4.
‘Joey’s soooo cute,’ said Megan.
‘How you doin’?’ asked Lara and she and Megan burst into fits of laughter and Kate found herself smiling along even though she didn’t know what they were talking about.
She attempted to get back into the conversation. ‘How are the exams going?’