‘You sound like my counsellor.’
He laughs. I smile. Matthew was the one to recommend therapy after it worked so well for his daughter.
I take in his expression. I glance to Amelie who is on tiptoe, lighting her candle, and then back to this good man. This good father. This man who could so easily have been lost too.
‘Thank you, Matthew.’ The words sound so inadequate but he is smiling and so I finally let go of his arm, start my breathing exercises again. And make my excuses.
I hurry away to the ladies to find Gemma babbling to Sophie as she hurls the soiled nappy into the lidded, stainless-steel bin. ‘Now isn’t that better, young lady? You comfy now? Ready for your big entrance?’
Sophie tries to grab her mother’s necklace as Gemma lifts her into her arms from the changing station.
‘Give her to me while you wash your hands.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
I take Sophie and move over to a chair in the corner so that I can pop her dress back on, juggling her arms through the layers of silk and leaning back as she tries to grab my glasses. ‘There. Don’t you look pretty?’
I stand and look at Gemma through the mirror. My brave and beautiful girl. She dries her hands and as she turns to me, I lean forward to plant a kiss on her forehead.
For a moment she freezes. Frowning. She looks back at me through the mirror and then turns to me directly, puzzled, as if trying to figure something out.
‘Do that again.’
‘What?’
‘Kiss me on the forehead.’
I’m thrown but happily plant a second.
‘That’s it.’
‘What?’
She looks aside and then directly at me once more. ‘That’s why I came back.’
‘What do you mean?’
And now she’s smiling, more animated, as if she’s just worked out the punchline to a joke. ‘You know I don’t remember much from the coma. Hardly anything actually, but I do remember something now. I remember feeling you do that.’ Speaking more quickly now.
‘What?’
‘Kissing me on the forehead.’
‘You really felt that? In the coma?’
‘I did. I just remembered that I really did. And one day—’ She lets out a huff, still smiling. ‘I decided to swim back to you.’
‘Swim?’ She’s completely lost me now.
‘Oh, never mind. It’s complicated, but – that kiss. It’s definitely why I came back. Why I woke up.’
I’m utterly confused but also incredibly happy to see her like this.
To imagine that she did hear me, or at least sense me near her some of the time. All those long days in that cubicle. This mother who messed up; who got it so very wrong but who has always loved her with every ounce of my being. And then I watch Gemma pass the kiss to her own daughter’s forehead.
‘Can I really do this, Mum?’ She’s now holding Sophie in her arms, gazing at her child, her expression and her tone changing. More intense.
She doesn’t mean today. She means all of it. Gemma’s signed up for teacher training – school-based so I can help with Sophie. It will be tough. We all know that. But when I think of what she’s achieved already . . .
‘Of course you can.’ We’ve had the talk. About motherhood. All the mistakes I made. ‘Just love her,’ I add. ‘No secrets. And you’ll be just fine.’
Gemma smiles again. She takes a deep breath and turns finally to check her own reflection.
‘And you’re sure it’s not too pink?’ She is tilting her head and pulling at the neckline of her dress as Sophie tries again for the pendant. It’s the dress we chose together for her graduation – in that other life. That parallel universe.
I take in the whole picture properly through the mirror. Gemma, my Gemma – so brave and beautiful with her blade and her baby and who to me, I swear, has never looked so lovely. This feeling more powerful than breathing – in this moment pounding all the dark scenes into dust.
‘No.’ I clear my throat. ‘It’s definitely not too pink.’
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It feels strange to admit it here, but this was a book I initially didn’t want to write.
The opening scene in the cathedral came to me a few months after my elder son’s glorious and very happy graduation. I was quite shaken – also cross with my brain for coming up with the dark images so soon after the contrast of our happy, happy family day.
I remember telling my husband – well, I’m definitely not going to write that up.