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

stay here. I have to stay here. We’re going to the post-natal ward, where they can keep an eye on both of us. It’s not special-baby-unit bad or anything, it’s a chest infection, they have to watch his breathing and give him antibiotics. They’re sending me the breastfeeding midwife because he’s dehydrated and if I was having trouble feeding I should have said so. That’s what the doctor said. My fault, I guess. Along with the panic and the baby getting stuck and the blood and the anesthesia overdose, all of it—sorry everybody, my bad.

“I can’t do this. The doctor said it’ll be five days for him to have the full course of medicine. I can’t stay here for five days.”

Harry puts his hand on mine. “It’s OK, I’ll be here, I’ll do the days with you.”

“What about Johnny? He has school.”

“OK, I’ll take him to school and spend the school day with you and pick him up and he can come and see you for a bit and then we’ll go home. It’s fine.” Then a pause, a hesitation. “Maybe it’s better for you to be here.”

“What?”

“There’s help here. The midwives, they can help you. Show you what to do. Help you be less scared.” It’s like he’s punched me.

“You think I need to be in the hospital?” My fury is rising with the pitch in my voice, trying to drown out the fact that I know he’s right.

“Please, that’s not what I said.” Harry reaches for my hand.

“You think I’m crazy and I need to be in the hospital. You can’t handle how real this shit is so you want to put me in here where you don’t have to be around me.”

“That’s not what I said.” He pulls his hand away. Exhausted. Exasperated. His voice getting quieter while mine gets louder. He sits down, head in his hands. Rocky’s in the little crib on wheels. A cannula taped to his hand for the antibiotics. Harry put a baby sock over it so he won’t hit it or pull it out or poke himself in the eye. It looks like a cast, like he broke his tiny arm. Like his mother can’t take care of him right.

She can’t.

Harry raises his head to look at me but I look away. He speaks in upset whispers so he doesn’t wake Johnny, sleeping curled in a ball in a chair in the corner.

“Something’s wrong and I don’t know how to help you. I haven’t slept for ten days. What am I supposed to do? I’m meant to be back at work on Monday. Did you know that? Who’s going to take care of them? Of you? You can’t do it. What do I do?”

“Tell them I need you at home. Say the baby’s sick. Take holiday.” I start rifling through the baby bag to see if I brought anything useful. Of course I didn’t. I dump everything out onto the bed.

“Johnny has to go to school. He needs his routine. He needs his parents.” Harry tries to get in my line of vision but I focus on folding muslins and shoving them back inside the bag.

“You weren’t too worried about being his fucking father an hour ago.”

He leans his forehead on the wall. His patience has run out. I know I don’t make it easy but I can’t stop myself. Facing the wall, he says, shouting in hushed tones, “I’m sorry. I said I was sorry. It was a stressful moment. Did you not see that? You barely listened, you didn’t hear a word the doctor said, you’re not here, I have to do everything and I don’t know where you’ve gone, but you have to come back.”

“Come back? Come back? Did you not see what happened to me? Do you not see that I can’t walk? Do you not see that I don’t sleep? That I can’t hold him? You know what? You know what, Harry? Go home. Take Johnny home. Take him to school tomorrow. Let all the mothers say what a great guy you are for raising someone else’s son and taking care of your crazy American wife and making the big money and feeding the baby. You’re a real hero. It’s all you, you’re the rock, you’re the MVP, so you just take Johnny and go get your fucking medal.” Shit, he didn’t deserve that.

A midwife comes into the room. “We have a bed for you, Mum, if you’d like to come with me.” Don’t call me “Mum.”

“I don’t deserve this, Gigi.” Harry’s eyes have gone from brown to black.

“Neither do I,” I say because it’s easier than saying sorry.

Harry leans down to kiss Rocky goodbye. He picks Johnny up off the chair, still asleep, still young enough to be carried. I reach up to say “Love you” in Johnny’s ear. So he’ll hear it in a dream.

—

Where’s the window? Is there a window here just so I can see out? Me and Rocky and his bed on wheels are on the ward now, in another paper-curtain room. I hear a mother and baby through the curtain on the right, muffled, tired whispers and whimpers. I pull back the curtain on my left and there’s the window, framing Big Ben across the Thames lit up against a black sky. 2:30 a.m. The Houses of Parliament dotted with yellow rectangles of light. Someone’s in there working late. The Moon is full and white.

“Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Harrison?” An authoritative whisper startles me awake.

“Yes. Sorry,” I glance out the window. Ben says 3:15.

“Mrs. Harrison, I’m Mrs. Appiah, I’m a paediatric consultant, I’m here to examine your baby.” Another face, another accent, another name. I have that moment of confusion I always get when the really important doctors say their names, because you don’t call them Dr. here. They’re always Mr. or Mrs. Like they’re undercover. Her face is stern. Her hair is pulled back, smooth, perfect, nothing out of place. She’s listening to his chest. She’s worried about the