Blood Loss by Kerena Swan (good beach reads .txt) 📕

non-committal answers as Mum ambles along Memory Lane, smiling and sighing as her past unfurls around her. I shuffle pictures of animals, school plays and grandparents holding onto giant prams until I see another picture of a tiny baby and snatch it up to stare at it. This time the baby is lying on a bed kicking its legs up and waving tiny fists in the air. I’m about to ask Mum if the baby is me when I notice the embroidered row of ducks across the little nightdress. It must be me, but as I stare at the picture I gasp in shock.

‘What?’ Mum leans over and snatches the photo from my fingers.

‘Why haven’t I got my ID bracelet on? Didn’t you notice it was missing?’ My voice rises with disbelief and I feel hollow and nauseous as a horrible realisation settles on me.

‘’Course I did.’ Mum stands up and hobbles to the sofa. ‘Ooh, my feet have gone dead. I told the matron your band was missing and she made you another one straight away. Later I heard her telling the student midwife off for cutting the first one off when she put you in the incubator. It was quite funny really.’ Mum chuckles to herself. ‘The student was so jumpy around Matron she never listened properly to instructions. She took the ID band and your nappy off because she thought all your skin had to be exposed. You peed on the sheet and the baby next to you.’

‘Why were there two babies in one incubator?’

‘They were short of equipment, I suppose. Or maybe the other incubator wasn’t working. Even in those days the NHS was short of money.’

‘Mum, who else was on the ward with you? Did you make friends with anyone?’ She has no idea where I’m going with this line of questioning but my agitation has got her full attention.

‘There was a young girl who kept crying. I remember her clearly because she got on my nerves in the end. I think she had post-natal depression or something and they were keeping an eye on her.’

‘Was her baby jaundiced?’

‘No. He was always very red-faced. Screamed constantly.’

‘What about mothers of female babies?’

Mum frowns. ‘There was a posh lady. Even after giving birth she didn’t have a hair out of place. She had a fancy name and I remember thinking, I bet she doesn’t have to work in a factory for a living like I do. I wondered why she hadn’t gone private. Her baby was jaundiced like you, which is why we got talking.’

‘What was her name?’

‘I can’t remember! It was years ago.’ Mum sounds indignant.

I want to shake her but I try to curb my frustration. There has to be a link here somewhere. ‘What was her baby called? Surely you can remember what names people chose.’

‘I do remember that. Such a lovely name. I was almost tempted to use it for you too, but then I’d promised to call you after your dad’s mum. The posh mum got quite cross when the scatty student midwife called the baby Jemma. Said she’d told her several times her baby was called Jenna.’

Chapter 33

The Following August | Jenna

‘I’m making you some asparagus soup, Mum,’ I tell her. ‘Nisha gave me the recipe.’

‘That’s very sweet of you, love, but I’m really not hungry.’ Mum touches me lightly on the shoulder and sniffs the soup as I stir in a little seasoning. ‘It smells good, though. Maybe I’ll have some later.’

‘The doctor said you need a high calorie diet and I’ve added some butter and cream to yours. It’s delicious.’ I’ve only tried it without the dairy stuff as I can’t let go of my vegan morals, but it looks and smells divine. I pour a ladleful into a small bowl. ‘Please just try a little bit. You haven’t eaten anything today.’

Mum takes it from me and sits at the table. I watch her spoon some into her mouth before I go upstairs to strip the beds. When I return a few minutes later with an overflowing wash basket she’s standing at the sink and rinsing her bowl.

‘That was lovely soup. Thanks, Jenna.’

I narrow my eyes. Has she just washed it down the plughole? She can’t have eaten it that quickly. It was too hot. Mum excuses herself and hurries from the kitchen. She’s probably going back up to her room where she seems to spend a lot of her time staring at the wall or watching television without really seeing it. I asked her the other day what was happening in a film and she didn’t have a clue. She doesn’t do any work these days either. A colleague from her office collected the last batch of marked assignments and Mum said she needed a break from them. Now she has nothing to fill her time. Maybe I should challenge her to a game of Scrabble. She’d like that. It’s not something I offer very often because she always beats me.

I push the bedding into the machine then pile the dishes into the sink. I’m getting more organised but I’m out of my depth with Mum’s illness. At times she’s in a lot of pain and I don’t know how to help her. I walk around the kitchen and notice the crumbs on the dining table so fetch the cloth and cleaning spray. As I wipe the table the emotion I felt sitting here with Mum and Lucy after the diagnosis is as raw as it was five weeks ago and I’m re-living the scene yet again.

‘What’s the treatment for pancreatic cancer, Mum?’ I‘’d asked. ‘Will they give you chemotherapy or radiotherapy? Or can they do surgery?’ Every time I looked at her my stomach twisted with fear at the thought of life without her.

‘Surgery isn’t possible in my case and I don’t want any other treatment. It won’t benefit me now.’

I glanced at Lucy who bit her lip and looked away.

‘Of course it will,’ I said.