After the One by Cass Lester (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

in a domed incubator beside her. Charley went over, leant over the bed and hugged Angie.

‘Thanks for coming,’ said Angie tonelessly. She looked awful. Her eyes were red rimmed from crying, and her whole face was pinched and pale.

‘Are you kidding me? I’ve been desperate to see you!’ said Charley deliberately keeping her voice light. ‘And to meet the little one properly. Congratulations!’

‘Thank you.’

Then, willing herself to ignore the thick plastic sides of the incubator, Charley turned to look at Angie’s newborn. Act normally, she told herself, don’t overreact and upset Angie even more. But as soon as she set eyes on the scrawny, wrinkled little scrap all need for pretence tumbled away.

‘Oh Angie, she’s beautiful.’

The baby girl lay flat on her back, arms flung out either side of her. A tube, going up her cute button nose, was taped to her cheek. Her skinny legs stuck out of a nappy that seemed too large for her, and an outsize sticking plaster with a wire trailing from it was stuck onto the heel of one perfect, miniature foot. Charley gazed at her, awed by the miracle of new life.

To Charley she already looked a lot like Angie’s other kids, especially Eliot, and even more like her dad. ‘Oh my God, Ange, she looks like Will, poor thing!’

Angie managed a small smile.

‘How’s she doing?’

Angie shrugged. ‘Okay, I think.’

‘Have the others met her yet?’

‘No. They’re too young to come in here – it’s a bit scary.’

And how, thought Charley, but she confined herself to saying, ‘Have you sent them photos?’

‘No. Not yet. Just in case.’

Just in case. Charley turned to look at Angie, but she looked away, avoiding her gaze.

‘Angie…’ started Charley, but then a nurse came up and interrupted her.

‘I think the baby could do with another feed,’ she told Angie, and she’d brought a large hypodermic full of milk on a small tray.

‘Mum’s own brew!’ the nurse informed Charley cheerfully, then turning to Angie, she added, ‘Well done. You’re getting your baby off to the best start.’

Angie managed a tense smile.

Then the nurse handed the milk to Charley to hold and started taking the baby out of the incubator. Charley watched as she unplugged the monitor wire and wrapped the baby in a soft white blanket.

‘Come on, poppet,’ said the nurse, then turning to Angie she asked, ‘Are you going to hold her this time?’

Angie shook her head. ‘Maybe next time. When she’s a bit stronger.’

‘You know, I think she’s stronger already,’ said the nurse gently.

She might very well have been, but considering how vulnerable the baby still seemed, Charley could understand Angie’s reluctance. Charley had never forgotten the first time she’d ever held a newborn baby. How fragile and limp it had been and how all the experienced mums in the room had constantly stressed how absolutely vital it was to support the head! She’d been petrified she might somehow break it, and she’d been mightily relieved when she could hand it back to its nervous mother. But not, she had suspected, as relieved as the mother. Angie, on the other hand, had always maintained babies were far more robust than Charley feared. This one was clearly different.

‘Are you sure?’ The nurse held the baby out towards Angie. ‘I think she’d like a cuddle.’

Angie’s hands stayed in her lap and there was a difficult silence. Charley wasn’t sure whether the nurse particularly wanted Angie to take her, or whether she just wanted someone to hold the baby while she fed it.

‘Can I help?’ she volunteered.

The nurse looked towards Angie, obviously asking permission to hand the baby to Charley, and when Angie nodded, she carefully placed the bundle into Charley’s arms.

‘I won’t drop her! Promise!’ teased Charley.

‘You’ll be fine!’ said the nurse. ‘I wouldn’t let you hold her otherwise. You should see some of the dads we get in here.’ She shook her head affectionately. ‘Quivering wrecks they are to start with, great big, ham-fisted fellas, all fingers and thumbs!’

Expertly, and with confidence-inspiring ease, the nurse began to tube-fed the baby.

‘Have you decided on a name yet?’ she asked Angie.

‘No.’

Charley glanced over at Angie. ‘I thought you’d decided on Lily for a girl?’

Angie shook her head. ‘I’m not sure now.’

Alarm bells ringing deep inside her, Charley’s eyes slid to the nurse, but she didn’t meet Charley’s gaze, deliberately, it seemed to her.

‘Lily’s a lovely name,’ was all she said.

When she’d finished the feed, Charley expected her to take the baby back, but she didn’t.

‘Hang on to her for a while,’ the nurse told Charley. ‘She’s enjoying having a little bit of a love, aren’t you, sweetie?’

Out of the corner of her eye Charley saw Angie tense. Then, giving the baby a fond, parting pat, the nurse left, and Charley was literally left holding the baby.

Willing herself to relax, Charley could have sworn she felt the baby relax in turn. Her little body seemed to mould itself into Charley’s, her head, covered in its white cotton hat, nestled into the crook of her arm. She lay there contentedly, regarding the world with the wise eyes of a newborn. Somehow the baby managed to look achingly vulnerable, heartbreakingly courageous and endearingly trusting at the same time, and Charley’s heart did a double flip and a rush of love spilled over inside her.

And suddenly it became clear to her, in a way she’d never understood before, that anyone, even babies barely one day old, can bring the enormous gift of love with them, as if it’s a fundamental, immutable part of who they are. Pam was right. Of course we can all love more than one person, love is not a finite resource. We’re not limited to only loving one child, or only one friend, or only one man or woman.

She remembered Angie once telling her that she’d fallen in love with all her babies long before they were even born. With her firstborn, Beth, it was seeing her outline at the thirteen-week scan; while Eliot’s first faint fluttery kicks had made Angie fall for