Page 121 of The Art of Loving You

That young man.

But in the end I’d decided I didn’t want to know. Perhaps I’d imagined she’d said that, the tumour, the anaesthetic, the stress of surgery playing tricks on me. I’d rather not know. Anyway, there was something else that made me think … perhaps?

‘I’m going to make you another promise now. Youwillbe fine,’ Jack had said minutes before my surgery. And I was. Charlotte, my surgeon, had removed all of the mass and thankfully, as it stands today, no further treatment is needed although I’ll be having regular check-ups.As for the future, I don’t know what that might hold, but none of us can predict it, can we?

Chloe wriggles in my aching arms. Since she was discharged from the hospital she has gained weight at a healthy rate. I shift her onto my shoulder.

‘Shall I take her from you?’ Alice offers but as tired as I am, I shake my head reluctant to relinquish my hold on this little girl that I adore. I’m weaker than I’d like but Mr Baxter assures me that will pass. I’ll get back to normal. My new normal anyway.

The downstairs rooms of the house are still as they were except they appear brighter now; there’s a warmth the snug didn’t have before. Chloe’s yellow and orange chequered baby quilt stretched out on the carpet under the patch of sunlight that beams through the window. Socks somehow knows to stay off of it. He’s sleeping on the windowsill, above the radiator. A wooden crate stands in the corner full of brightly coloured plastic toys waiting for Chloe to grow into them – they all seem to take batteries – and next to it, now there is a hand-carved wooden farmyard. Sid had lugged it inside this morning.

There is a creak to his knees, a pain on his face as he kneels to set it up, but he waves away offers of help. You can tell that it means a lot to him to do this. That the farmyard means a lot to him.

‘I’ve had the paint checked in case Chloe chews the animals,’ he says as he slots the roof onto one of the barns. ‘You know, in case it was toxic because of its age. There’s no lead in it.’

Mum raises her eyebrows to me in a ‘where did it come from?’ gesture and I give the tiniest of ‘how would I know?’ shrugs.

Sid picks up on our curiosity as he struggles back to standing,this time accepting Mum’s hands to steady himself. ‘There was a time,’ he says as he sinks down on the sofa – his old sofa where he’d once sat with Norma – ‘just once. When I could have been a dad. Me and Norma, we didn’t dare get too excited. The farm was the first, the only thing we bought. I couldn’t resist it. But … it wasn’t meant to be.’

My heart swells. ‘You would have been a great dad.’

‘You are a great dad.’ Mum crosses the room and gives him a hug. ‘Perhaps not in the way you’d thought but … to me … you know. Thanks for everything, Sid.’

She’s crying. I’m crying. ‘You’re a wonderful grandfather,’ I add.

‘And a fabulous great-grandfather.’ Alice is tearing up too. ‘We all love you.’

‘You know …’ Sid takes his handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs his eyes before blowing his nose. ‘Sometimes lifeisall beer and skittles.’

Chloe begins to whimper, the whimper that I’ve come to recognise precedes a cry so deafening I can’t fathom how it bellows from her tiny lungs. Quickly the focus switches back to her and I think Sid is glad.

‘I’d better get her home,’ Alice says. ‘She’s overtired and with a bit of luck she’ll nod off in the car.’

Before I hand my niece over to her doting mum I lower my lips to her forehead and kiss her goodbye, breathing in her newness. Johnson’s baby lotion and innocence. Her tiny fingers swipe at air before landing on Jack’s beanie. Before she can inadvertently tug it from my head, I gently unknot her fist.

The first time I looked in the mirror after the surgery I had been distressed. I told myself a shaved head and a scar were unimportant in the great scheme of things but still I couldn’t bear to look at myself.

Sid had sensed how uncomfortable I was when he first visited me when I’d been transferred to the ward. As his stick tapped towards me I wished I’d thought to ask Mum or Alice to bring me a headscarf in. It hadn’t seemed important after I’d come round; being alive seemed the most, the only, important thing.

Self-consciously, I’d touched my scalp as Sid lowered himself onto the hard blue chair by my bed.

‘Hair don’t make a person, duck,’ Sid said. ‘It’s the heart that counts and you’ve got the biggest one. Still, you might want to wear this until it grows back.’ He handed me a cream scarf patterned with pink roses. I was too overcome to say thank you but from the way I gripped his hand, he must have felt my gratitude.

At home now, I generally wear Jack’s hat, still splattered with paint. My hair is beginning to grow, my head now itchy, but sometimes I run my fingers over the bump of my scar and I’m glad of it. It represents life.

Alice gathers Chloe’s things together. It never fails to surprise me the paraphernalia she now carries with her: wipes, changes of clothes, muslin cloths, toys. Mum helps Sid to his feet.

As they leave I hug them all in turn and tell them that I love them as I do every time we say goodbye, aware that sometimes people leave and don’t come back.

Can’t come back.

I’m still sad but the violent mood swings I suffered seem to have dissipated, my anger with everyone, everything abated. Even though I am reassured it was not my fault, that I know it was not my fault, I am still ashamed of the way I acted out of character and the worry I put Mum and Alice through. It’s something I talk through with Angela now that we’ve become friends.She insists that my erratic behaviour wasn’t the cause of Alice going into labour, but how could she know? Sometimes I still feel the sting of that slap, hear Alice’s cries of pain when her contractions started and I think what if …

What if Chloe hadn’t survived?

What if it was all my fault?

Again.

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