Page 9 of The Mistake

‘I cancelled my clients this afternoon,’ Eve says. ‘I wanted to make sure I didn’t have to rush back, just in case you needed the company.’ She wears a look of satisfaction that Natalie doesn’t quite understand. ‘You haven’t checked your WhatsApp today, have you?’

Natalie shakes her head. ‘The hospital WiFi is terrible,’ she says as she lifts her phone, scrolling to the app. Eve watches as Natalie opens the message she sent her first thing this morning.

‘Eve? What is this?’ Natalie raises her eyes from the photo of the travel system to Eve’s face. ‘Did you …? You didn’t?’

‘I did. I wanted to. I’m surprised Pete didn’t call and tell you,’ Eve says.

‘Pete knows?’ Natalie’s heart stutters in her chest. She knows how Pete feels about Eve: knows that he finds her interferingand intense; that he thinks Eve uses her emotions to manipulateNatalie.

‘Of course. I took it over there this morning. He was surprised, but pleased, I think. I thought he would have been in to see you by now, seeing as he didn’t have to go to town after all.’

‘It’s too much, Eve.’ Natalie’s mind races as she alternates between wondering what Pete’s reaction really was, to imagining Erin lying peacefully in the pram, before briefly wondering where Pete is, if he didn’t have to go into town. ‘We can’t accept it.’

‘Oh God, not you, too,’ Eve teases. ‘I’ve already had this conversation with Pete.’

Natalie dreads to think what Pete’s response was to Eve – what biting comment he made, dressed up as something milder. ‘It’s just … It’s a big purchase, Eve. It’s the kind of thing the baby’s parents should be buying.’

There is the briefest flash of something that could be hurt across Eve’s face as she gets to her feet, gently laying Erin in her cot. Erin purses her mouth for a moment, but thankfully stays silent. ‘Why don’t you two have a chat about it when you get home? You need something to bring Erin home in, so it’ll do for now. If you change your minds, then I’ll return it, no problem.’ Eve keeps her eyes on the cot as she speaks, tucking the little blanket around Erin’s body.

‘You’re sure?’ Natalie feels weepy again, her throat constricting. ‘It’s not that I’m not grateful, I just—’

‘Don’t be daft. I know you’re grateful. Listen, darling, I’ve just remembered I have a stack of paperwork to get done before the morning, but you’ll be OK, I promise. Text me if they say you can come home tomorrow, and absolutely let me know if you need anythingat all.’ Eve swoops down and hugs her, leaving the heavy scent of her perfume on Natalie’s skin, as she holds on a little too tightly, for a little too long, reluctant to let Eve go and find herself alone in this claustrophobic ward again. ‘I mean it. Text me any time. You know I’d do absolutely anything for you.’

Pete

Usually, Pete loves Easter weekend. Usually, Pete and Natalie would be away for the week with the kids, and Pete’s best mate Stu and his family. They’ve tried to make a tradition of it since the kids were tiny – Stu is the closest thing Pete has had to a brother since his younger brother left for Australia with their parents, and they’ve made some brilliant memories together (not all of them PG rated). This year, though, when Pete met Stu for a beer to talk about where they were going to go – please God, not Butlins this time – Stu had sipped his pint and said he hoped Pete didn’t mind, but he was taking Mari and the kids to Tenerife. ‘I’m sure you guys will want to be at home this year, what with Erin being so little.’

Pete had nodded and said of course, it made more sense for the Maxwells to stay home. Natalie probably wouldn’t feel up to it, even though her scar has healed well. But deep down Pete harbours suspicion that Stu and Mari didn’t want to spend their Easter break listening to Erin cry. Because that’s all Erin seems to have spent the first three months of her life doing – days and nights broken by a piercing cry that seems to burrow under your skin. If Pete is brutally honest, if he was Stu, he wouldn’t want to listen to it either.

Pete has floated the idea to Natalie that maybe they could go away on their own, just the five of them. Somewhere further up north, like the Lake District. They could rent a lodge, hike the trails; he could take the girls out on a rowing boat on Windermere. Natalie had looked at him as though he was mad.

‘Pete, do you even know when Easter is this year?March. You want to go hiking and boating with an eight-year-old and athree-month-old inMarch? Of course I don’t want to go away for Easter.’

And of course, she was right. The weather outside this Easter Saturday is atrocious – cold and drizzly; the trees at the end of the garden marking the beginning of the woods groan and sway in the blustery wind. When they had viewed the house, on a bright, sunny day in August, the woods being at the end of the garden had been one of the things that Pete fell in love with. He’d grown up in West Marsham, a Kent boy through and through, and a large part of his childhood had been spent sprinting across the village on his bike, to play in the woods until the sun went down. Even after dark, the woods had held a secret thrill for the kids of West Marsham, whispered ghost stories of jilted brides and hanged men a deterrent from staying out too late. The idea that his kids could grow up with the magical playground that was the woods on their doorstep was enough to make him look past the bathroom that needed replacing, and the missing tiles on the roof. Even Natalie, who had followed him to West Marsham after university, fell in love with the idea of living on the edge of their very own forest. But today, the woods look anything but inviting. Before Erin was born Natalie wouldn’t have minded the weather – she’s normally so keen on the girls getting out and away from their screens and into the fresh air that she’s more than happy to put on wellies and take Zadie jumping in the puddles, but since Erin arrived Natalie hasn’t seemed to want to do much more than lie in bed, or on the sofa.

He glances over at the sofa now, where Natalie sits staring mindlessly at the television. Erin is upstairs asleep – finally. She’d woken at five o’clock that morning, her screams slicing into a dream Pete was having about Chelsea winning the FA Cup. According to Natalie, Erin had woken every two hours through the night, but Pete was exhausted and hadn’t heard a thing after midnight, when Zadie had come in to tell him she’d wet the bed. It’s the third time this month, and Pete does wonder if theyshould start to be concerned by it, but when he raised it with Natalie she said it was probably Pete’s fault for letting Zadie have juice with her dinner. Zadie sits on the floor in front of the telly, colouring in, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth in that way she has when she’s concentrating. Pete’s heart squeezes when he takes in the scene. It’s been a busy few months since Erin arrived, and if he’s totally honest, he had forgotten how exhausting it is to have a new baby.

‘Daddy, I’m bored.’ Zadie throws her pencil down and comes to hang off his leg.

‘We could go to the woods?’ Pete leans down and ruffles her hair, casting a quick glance in Natalie’s direction. Even as he says it, he regrets it. There is nothing appealing about rain dripping down the back of your collar, while the trees are shrouded in a disorientating, damp fog that echoes your words back at you whenever you speak.

‘It’sraining,’ Zadie says with disgust. ‘Where is Uncle Stu? Why aren’t we on holiday with them? Lola says they’re going somewhere really hot.’

Natalie stares at the television, leaving Pete to come up with an answer. ‘We just didn’t this year,’ he says, ‘but next year we’ll definitely do something – and we’ll make sure it’s somewhere hot.’

‘But that’s aaaaaages way.’ Zadie is perilously close to that stage of combined boredom and tiredness that means a tantrum she’s too old for is on the horizon.

‘Zadie.’ Natalie’s voice is a warning, but still she doesn’t look away from the TV.

‘Where’s Emily?’ Pete asks Zadie. ‘Maybe she’ll play Xbox with you. Or she might do your nail varnish.’

‘She’sout,’ Zadie pouts, her voice rising. ‘With Jake. With stinky, old, horrible Jake.’ She shouts his name and then there comes a wail from the baby monitor.

‘Zadie,please.’ Natalie gets to her feet. ‘I’ve only just got her down. Pete, calm her down, would you?’ With a nod in Zadie’sdirection, Natalie hurries upstairs. Moments later, he hears her talking in hushed tones to Erin, then a blissful silence.

‘Zade, come on, don’t be a brat.’ Pete scoops her up, tipping her upside down until she shrieks with laughter. He pops her head first onto the sofa and turns on the Disney Channel, as the front door opens.

‘Em?’ As Pete hears Emily’s footsteps thud up the stairs, his phone pings with a text message. It’s from Vanessa. It still feels odd to see her name pop up on his phone. Obviously mobiles hadn’t really been a thing when they were together, and then Pete hadn’t really thought about her much after he met and married Natalie. Not until her name appeared in his inbox with that lucrative house-building contract attached. Now, Pete sees her most days – she seems to find quite a few jobs that require coming in and out of his office.

---