Chapter 48

My rational head didn't mind at all when I opened the front door and Jonah hurried straight past me to the living room, where his sister was squatting on one of our birth balls watching a Netflix dating show.

My heart swooned when, a few seconds later, he darted back to where I hovered in the doorway and grabbed hold of my hand, looking me straight in the eye. ‘Thank you.'

I could only nod in response.

‘Ah, hello, birth partner.' Nicky poked her head out of the kitchen door. ‘Glad you could make it.'

He followed her into the kitchen, only to find Isla, Finn and Toby set up with a Boggle game.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk?'

I led him into the dining room.

‘How is she?'

Nicky met his anxious gaze with honesty. ‘She's coping well so far. I'm not sure what might be floating around in her system, but at the moment all the vital signs are good and baby's doing fine.'

We quickly filled him in on what we knew.

‘Is it safe, her being here?'

Nicky grimaced. ‘It's not my first choice, but it's as safe a second choice as we're going to get right now.'

Jonah gripped the back of a chair with both hands.

‘It's a lot safer than being with Damon,' I said, wishing I dared put a reassuring arm around him. ‘We won't take any chances.'

Nicky had no such reservations, placing both hands on his shoulders as she looked Jonah right in the eye. ‘Time to pretend everything is calm and under control and go and be a birth partner.'

For the next few hours things were as fine as we could have hoped. Ellis did a few laps of the garden, watched television while we rubbed her back or feet, and dozed on her brother for a while.

I busied myself creating the kind of birth environment I dreamed all my clients could have. Soft lighting, gentle music, a cool breeze from the open window and everything a mum could possibly need on hand, ranging from heat pads to ice chips.

Before the kids went to bed, Ellis had a bath under Nicky's professional eye. After spending longer than I'd intended chatting to Toby in the cabin while fetching some aromatherapy oils, I found Isla and Finn under the kitchen table in a pile of cushions and both their duvets, reading in the light of a new camping lamp.

To my utter astonishment, Jonah was hunched under there with them.

I stood, transfixed, listening to him reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They were facing away from me, completely engrossed in his brilliant voices, and I watched as Isla, exhausted after a busy day and dramatic evening, nestled her head against his arm.

Whenever I thought I couldn't possibly love this man any more…

‘Hey, this looks cosy,' I whispered, when Jonah reached the end of the first chapter.

‘Oh, hi.' He ducked his head around to face me. ‘They wanted to get comfy, and we thought it best to avoid the living room,' he explained.

‘Keep reading!' Isla said, jabbing the page.

‘Ahem,' I said, pointedly.

‘Keep reading, please.'

‘Just until Ellis has finished her bath,' I said. ‘Then it's straight to bed.'

A short while later, when I was tucking her in, Isla said to me, ‘I don't know why you didn't make Jonah your boyfriend, Mummy. He's really lovely and not a bad prince at all.'

‘Well, I have been a bit too busy to think about a boyfriend.'

‘Yes, but it's the summer holidays now so you aren't that busy any more. And anyway.' She rolled over, snuggling under the covers. ‘Jonah could help you with all the busy, like Toby does. I think he'd be good at it.'

I pictured him again, back curled over the book, head scraping the underside of the table, his voice deep and tender, and I couldn't disagree.

‘Time to get something to eat.' Nicky woke a half-asleep Jonah with a nudge just after one in the morning. ‘Things are about to get interesting.'

‘How can you tell?' he asked, struggling upright on the sofa before glancing at Ellis.

She was kneeling on the floor, leaning over the birthing ball, eyes closed and clearly somewhere deep inside herself as she rocked forwards and back.

I stayed with Ellis while Jonah and Nicky refuelled. It was so very bittersweet, him being here. The way he cared for Ellis, holding her hand and gently murmuring to her, reminded me of how they'd been when he'd lived with us. The way she responded with utter trust reminded me of how much they'd lost when he'd had to go.

I settled on the floor next to Ellis, reaching over to rub her back when she let out a long moan, face tightening with another contraction.

‘Can I have a drink?' she asked when she could speak again. ‘It's so hot.'

I was on the other side of the room searching for her water bottle when Nicky wandered back in, picking her stethoscope off the table. When I turned back to bring Ellis a drink, the second I spotted my sister's face my heart plummeted.

She pulled me to one side.

‘What's wrong?'

‘Baby's heart rate is not happy. It could be nothing.'

‘But it could be something.'

She gave a tight nod.

‘Car or ambulance?'

Nicky held her stethoscope to Ellis's bump for another endless minute before nodding to my phone, ready and waiting in my clasped hand.

Waiting for the ambulance was like one of those nightmares where you're desperate to get somewhere but can't seem to make any progress. A frightened mum wouldn't be helpful for baby, so we had to straddle the line between ‘this is potentially nothing' and making it enough of a something to persuade Ellis that she needed checking out at the hospital. There were tears, protests, clinging to her brother as she teetered on the brink of hyperventilating. In the end, he looked her right in the eye and told her straight.

‘I will not let that man near you or your baby. I haven't forgotten how to handle monsters who fight dirty.'

Ellis closed her eyes, shaking her head.

‘Didn't I always keep you safe?' Jonah's voice had dropped to a low rumble. ‘You know when I say I'm ready to die to protect you, I mean it.'

She gripped his hand through another contraction, leaning her head against his shoulder when it had finished, her weak nod enough for us to grab her flip-flops and slip a loose shawl around her shoulders as, with a wave of relief, we saw the beam of headlights swoop across the living-room window.

Once the paramedics were on the scene, I retreated out of the way. This was a place for family and Nicky's medical expertise only. But as they carried her out to the ambulance, Jonah dashed back inside the house.

‘Will you come with me?'

‘To the hospital? Nicky would be better…'

‘Nicky isn't who I need right now.'

‘Are you sure?'

He didn't bother answering; the desperation in his eyes spoke for him.

Once, this was all I'd wanted. To somehow, in some petty way, be able to offer him some help, some comfort.

Never did I imagine he'd straight out ask for it.

And it was standing in my sweaty old T-shirt and joggers, the candlelight from the living room flickering across his face, that I realised this was still something I wanted, despite all the potential complications and unanswered questions. Not more than anything else in the world – I was a mother now, after all – but enough to say yes. Yes to tonight, and yes to being there tomorrow, to see what it would bring.

I took hold of his hand – rougher than it was before but still fitting perfectly around mine – and followed him out into the night.