Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (ready to read books .txt) 📕

‘So his weight is where it should be now?’ I interrupted her. We’d spoken for so long that Jakob had already woken from his nap, been fed and was now asleep again in Evie’s arms.

‘Almost. Very nearly. But the important thing is that it’s going up. It won’t be long. It won’t be long,’ she repeated. She continued to sway back and forth even though Jakob was sleeping now. As though she could read my mind, she continued, ‘He’ll wake up if I stop. He loves the motion.’

‘Do you want me to take over?’ I asked. ‘You could take a shower, whatever you need to do. I’m sure I can do a good sway.’

‘No, don’t worry about that. It’s just good to talk, really. I have all these thoughts going round and round in my head. Especially in the nights. Seb listens, of course, but he’s almost as tired as I am. I get the feeling he’s not really following me all of the time.’

So that’s how we would spend most of our time together in those early days, with Evie talking and me listening, nodding. She gave me updates on Jakob’s weight and sleeping, only breaking off if he began to snuffle or when he was due a feed. He would lie nestled into Evie and we would gaze at him, delighted that he was in the world with us. We’d point out which parts of him were Dad and Mum, which parts Seb, which parts Evie. She organised the naming ceremony where I first met Thomas and where I learnt they’d received their first warning. That shook them both, but in the end Evie seemed more determined and sure of herself than fretful.

I tried not to notice that Evie never let me hold him after that first day in the hospital. I had offered and been declined too many times for me not to realise that she didn’t want anyone else to hold him but her.

It didn’t take me long to realise that she couldn’t leave him even for the shortest time.

‘You’re beautiful, you are,’ I told Jakob, bobbing him gently in his bouncer. He stared up at me, his eyes serious and contemplative. ‘He really is perfect,’ I said to Evie.

‘He’s all right, isn’t he,’ she said with a grin, reaching to stroke the down of his springy hair that he’d been born with and had not yet lost.

‘Breastfeeding is still difficult but we’re managing some feeds. It still hurts a lot though. We had to go to hospital earlier in the week.’

Evie didn’t notice my alarm and continued talking at a rapid pace.

‘Nothing to worry about. It was just that there was some blood in his nappy but it turned out just to be from my nipples cracking.’

‘Are you OK?’

Evie waved off my concern. ‘Nothing to worry about. And you have to keep feeding through it. Still working on the latch. But the formula gives me a break.’

She fell to silence abruptly, as though in a trance.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to take a nap or anything? I can watch him.’

‘No, no,’ Evie waved her hands in protest. ‘I’m fine, really.’

It wasn’t wholly convincing; her face was pale from tiredness and she focused on me vacantly, as though she couldn’t quite see me properly.

‘Not even just ten minutes?’ I asked. ‘I’ll come and get you if he cries?’

‘Honestly, I’m OK,’ Evie said and as though to prove it, she picked him up and started to sing nursery rhymes with the baby on her knee.

She couldn’t stop Seb from picking him up, and he would give Jakob to me or Dad to hold. She would watch very carefully; at first she’d steal glances from the side but soon enough she’d clearly tired of this charade, and openly, hungrily watched whoever was holding him.

It got worse, to the point that she didn’t stop at just watching. It happened one afternoon Dad and I had gone round together. Dad was holding Jakob after Seb had pressed him into his arms while he helped Evie set out some lunch for us. Dad reached over for a glass of water from the table and at the very moment that his hand closed around the glass, Evie dropped the plates on the table in a clatter and reached out for Jakob.

‘I can manage,’ Dad said.

‘It’ll just make it easier for you,’ Evie insisted. ‘You can use both hands.’

‘It’s fine, love. I’ve got him.’

‘No, Dad, please, give him to me now. I’ll take him.’

She plucked him from Dad’s arms and Jakob immediately began to cry at being disturbed. Little bleating cries that he emitted regularly, like an alarm. Evie swayed him desperately from side to side until he stopped. Both she and Dad very carefully and deliberately avoided each other for the rest of the visit.

‘She’s taking it a bit far,’ Dad said as we drove away. But then he sighed as though he’d remembered something.

I nodded vaguely. I didn’t want to share with him that something very similar had happened to me the last time I’d been over. That time, Seb and I had been feeding Jakob using the formula milk which Evie had just started him on and the teat had slipped from his mouth without me realising.

‘Umm, Kit, the bottle,’ Evie had said awkwardly. She appeared embarrassed. For her? For me? ‘You need to keep watching him as he feeds. You have to keep an eye on him the whole time.’

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry, it happens all the time,’ Seb said.

‘It’s fine,’ Evie chimed in but there was an edge to her voice.

When it slipped out a second time, without saying a word, Evie took Jakob and the bottle. She hooked him in her arm securely in a way I had not managed to replicate and finished the feed.

I left after that, saying I’d just remembered I needed to pick up a parcel, for work. It