When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

met me here instead of in New York, where no one cares what his accent means or where he went to school?

I get a free pass because I’m American and I’m white and I’m his wife and no one has to know where me and Johnny are really from. No one questions it. They think I’m like Harry, just the New York version, because he wouldn’t be with me otherwise, would he. Would he? No one knows where I’m from except Harry. No one here knows me except Harry. Not even Johnny.

Sara/Kate/Katie is feisty, though. So although Harry doesn’t say that since we left the hospital I haven’t touched the baby; that he’s done the feeding and changing round the clock; that when his paternity leave ends he’s scared shitless of what’s going to happen when he has to leave me here alone with two kids, she’s picked it up, she knows.

She looks at me and says, “Gigi,” so deliberately I want to scratch her eyes out, “you’ve done very well. C-section is very difficult. If you feel you need some extra support, then I’ll leave a brochure here for the breastfeeding cafe around the corner and for the local borough’s counselling services. They have excellent counsellors available if you’d like to talk to someone.”

I’m about to say something but Harry cuts me off and says, “Katie, thank you so much, for everything.”

Then she says, “Can I make you both a cup of tea before I go?” These people with their fucking tea, yes, you know what, yes, tea is what I’ve been missing all along, you’re so right, what I need right now is a goddam cup of motherfucking—

Harry catches my eye. “Thank you, Katie, that would be lovely, but my wife prefers coffee. You know how Americans love a coffee.” And he picks up the baby and ushers her out of the room.

She leaves and before he follows her out he stops at the door, holding Rocky close. “We all just want you to be OK. She just wanted to help,” he says, with trepidation because he knows he’s risked a flying rage or a wave of tears.

I swallow hard, push my greasy hair behind my ears and meet his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry,” I say. It comes out hoarse and monotone. He kisses my forehead and leaves the room to go smooth it over with Katie.

I put my head on the pillow and close my eyes but I feel like I’m rocking. Harry didn’t tell her that. That to get through the worst part of the labor when I was pinned to the bed all I could do was rock back and forth. He didn’t tell her that he’s had to shake me awake every night when he finds me sitting up in bed, rocking back and forth in my sleep, sometimes cradling his bent knee and singing to it like it’s a baby.

I’m lost, I’m scared, I’m hurt, I need you. I should have said all that too.

London, January 2016; Baby, 11 days old

The lights, the color of the walls. There’s no windows. I don’t know where the air comes from. When we got here Harry took Rocky and started running. He carried Johnny, took the baby and ran. Without me. What if the baby dies before I get there? Don’t look at the ceiling. Look at the floor. I don’t know where the air comes from in here. I need air. A flash of the oxygen mask they put on me when they took him out. A cage on my mouth.

I don’t hold the baby much; I try, once a day, but he’s so small. Like holding a feather with a boxing glove. But since we got home a few days ago I’ve started watching him. All night sometimes. I still can’t sleep because it’s chaos behind my eyes and it’s easier…I mean, I’m not so scared if I keep them open. So I watch him through the mesh on the mini crib. Even though I can’t pick him up when he wakes at night Harry still put it on my side of the bed. As if the baby is contagious and if I sleep next to him I’ll catch it, the love I’m supposed to have for him.

He slept for three hours at a stretch but this time he kept sleeping. Parents always complain about the baby waking up but I don’t. I’m in a state of constant alert while he’s sleeping, waiting for him to wake up again. Because if he wakes up then he’s alive. But this time, tonight, he slept for too long and his breathing was fast, then slow, then fast, then faster. Too fast. I woke Harry up. Turned on the lights. A drop in the pit of my stomach. Harry’s eyes. Shit, what do we do? Little blue hands. Still breathing, he was still breathing.

Harry had Rocky and Johnny strapped in the car before I made it down the stairs. I’m so useless, I can’t even get the kids in the car, but at least maybe I got this right, maybe I did this right, the baby was in trouble and I knew. Really, oh, congratulations, you’re an amazing mother.

There wasn’t time for me to say to Harry that I should stay and he should go with the baby. Maybe this is better. What would he have said? What the fuck is wrong with you? What mother doesn’t take her sick baby to the hospital? Harry wouldn’t say “fuck,” though.

Harry says, “Sit in the back, between them.”

“I can’t, how?”

“Sit between them, watch the baby.” He’s scared. And since he’s the only one here who’s not crazy or a child, that worries me.

I squeeze between the car seats but it hurts. Numb and painful at the same time in different places across my middle.

He doesn’t park the car, just leaves it in front of the hospital and throws the doors open. He holds Johnny’s hand on one