The Girl Before(84)

It will all come off, I think. All this mess, this superficial disorder. The blood, and Simon’s body, will soon be gone. The house will be pristine again. Like a living organism expelling a tiny splinter, One Folgate Street has healed itself.

I feel an overwhelming sense of serenity, of peace. I look at my reflection in the dark glass, feeling the house acknowledge me; both of us, in our different ways, ripe with possibility.





16. A railway signalman is responsible for changing the points at a remote junction. Against regulations he takes his son to work, but gives him strict instructions not to go near the line. Later he sees a train approaching, but before he can change the points he spots the boy playing on the track, too far away to hear him. Unless the points are changed the train will almost certainly crash, causing multiple fatalities, but if he does change them the train will almost certainly kill his son. If you were him, what would you do?

? Change the points ? Don’t change the points





NOW: JANE

I never do get to have a water birth, with Diptyque candles perfuming the air and Jack Johnson playing on my iPad. Instead I have a cesarean, following the discovery during a routine scan of a small blockage in my baby’s stomach—nothing that immediate postnatal surgery can’t fix, thank heaven, but it tips the scales from a natural to a medical birth.

Dr. Gifford is careful to explain the implications, and I undergo some further tests before it’s all agreed. After the birth I hold Toby for just a few bittersweet, wonderful minutes, then they whisk him away. But not before the midwife has put him to my breast and I’ve felt his hard gums working at my nipple, the deep pulling sensation reaching into my very core, right down to my tender uterus, followed by the tingling euphoria of letdown. Love flows from me into him, and his blue eyes crinkle, huge and happy. Such a smiley baby. The midwife says it can’t be a real smile, not yet, just some passing gas or a random quiver of his lip, but I know she’s wrong.

—

Edward comes to visit us the day after. I’ve seen him quite a few times during my final trimester; partly because of all the legal bureaucracy that followed Simon’s death, and partly because Edward has had the grace to admit he should have realized himself how dangerous Simon was. We’re in this together for the long term now, as co-parents; and if in the fullness of time we can be more than that—well, that’s a possibility, I sometimes think, that Edward no longer quite rules out.



I’m still sleepy when he arrives, so the nurse checks with me first, but of course I say to let him in. I want to show him our son.

“Here he is. Here’s Toby.” I’m unable to stop myself from smiling. But I’m apprehensive too. The habit of being judged by Edward, of seeking his approval, is too recent to have altogether faded.

He lifts Toby high in his arms and examines his round, cheerful face. “When did you know?” he says quietly.

“That he has Down syndrome? After they found the blockage. Nearly a third of babies with duodenal atresia have it.” The cfDNA test, so much more than 99 percent accurate, hadn’t been infallible after all. But after the shock and grief of the initial confirmation, there’s a part of me that’s almost glad the test was wrong. If I’d known, I would certainly have had an abortion; and looking at Toby now, at the almond-shaped eyes, the snub nose, and the gorgeous bow-shaped mouth, how could I possibly wish this life unlived?

Of course, there are worries. But every child with Down syndrome is different and it looks as if we’ve been lucky. He’s barely floppier than any other baby. His oral coordination, when he mouths at my nipple, seems good. He has no problems swallowing; no heart defects or kidney problems. And his nose, though stubby, is still recognizably Edward’s; his eyes, though almond-shaped, not so dissimilar to my own.

He’s beautiful.

“Jane,” Edward says urgently, “this may not be the easiest time to hear this, but you have to give him up. There are people who adopt such babies. People who choose that to be their life. Not people like you.”

“I couldn’t,” I say. “Edward, I just couldn’t.”

Just for a moment I see, deep in his eyes, a flash of anger. And something else too, perhaps: the tiniest glimmer of fear.

“We could try again,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken. “You and me—a clean slate. We could make it work this time. I know we could.”



“If you’d been more honest with me about Emma,” I say, “we might have made it work before.”

He looks at me sharply. I can see him wondering if this is what motherhood has done to me; if it has already somehow changed me, made me more assertive.

“How could I talk to you about it, when I didn’t even understand it myself?” he says at last. “I’m an obsessive person. And she loved to provoke me. She found it exciting when she managed to make me lose control, even though I hated myself for it. In the end I did break off with her but it was hard, very hard.” He hesitates. “She gave me a letter once. She said she wanted to explain herself. Later she asked me not to read it. But by then I already had.”

“Did you keep it?”

“Yes. Do you want to see it?”

“No,” I decide. I look down at Toby’s sleeping face. “It’s the future we need to think about now.”