Josie Metcalfe - Miracles in the Village

‘It’ll be fine. Third time lucky, Fran,’ he murmured. ‘But I agree, we won’t tell her yet. We won’t tell anyone. Not till you’re past the three-month mark.’

‘I lost both the others at eight weeks,’ she reminded him sadly.

His arm tightened. ‘I know.’

‘Three weeks and five days to go.’

‘We’ll make it,’ he assured her, his voice quietly confident. ‘And even if we don’t, we’ve still got each other. As far as I’m concerned, that makes me the luckiest man alive. The rest is just the icing on the cake.’

She rested her head against his and sighed. ‘I’m so lucky to have you,’ she said softly. ‘Have I told you recently how much I love you?’

He chuckled. ‘Only about ten times today, but feel free to do it again.’

The phone rang, and she hung on to his neck and reached over, grabbing it from the charger without leaving Mike’s lap. ‘Hello? Oh, hi, Ben. Yes, he’s here. I’ll hand you over.’

She gave Mike the phone, and after a brief conversation he hung up and smiled at her. ‘The valuer’s been.’

‘And?’

‘If we’d ended up having to go the IVF route, we’d have had more than enough, but Joe and Sarah can do their kitchen, and Mum and Dad can change the car. And we can put the money on one side and spend it on something later. We’re going to make it this time, Fran,’ he said with conviction. ‘I know we will.’

‘We can spend it on the nursery,’ she said, allowing a little bloom of hope. ‘The house could do with a bit of decorating, and the heating’s not great.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t get too carried away,’ he said, and then kissed her. ‘Time for bed?’

‘Sounds good,’ she said.

He lay watching her sleep, a little knot of fear in his chest. They had to make it. If she lost this baby …

Then he’d cope, he told himself firmly. If Fran had the courage to do this, then he had to find the courage to support her if it all went wrong. And they’d have the money put on one side for the IVF, should they need it. Please, God, it wouldn’t be necessary …

Fran thought The Day would never come.

That was how she’d started thinking about it—with capital letters, because it seemed so huge, so important, so very far away that somehow nothing else would do.

Her pregnancy was a nightmare. Not because anything went wrong, because it didn’t. She got through it, day by day, hour by hour, focusing on the end, planning for the magical day when she could bring her baby home, but somehow not daring to believe that it would ever happen.

The eight-week deadline passed.

Safely.

She gave a shaky sigh of relief when she reached nine weeks and realised she was probably over that hurdle. The next danger point was twelve weeks, and she got through that, too.

Then she had a scan—an image of her baby, just a tiny curl of a thing, but with an unwavering heartbeat.

‘Oh, Mike,’ she said, clinging to him and staring mesmerised at the screen, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. So she did both, and so did Mike, and they were given a photo to keep.

Their first, in the album she started with a trembling hope.

Then at twenty weeks she had her second scan, and another photo for the album.

‘Do you want to know what sex it is?’

She looked at Mike for guidance, and he shrugged, passing the ball back to her.

‘I don’t care, so long as everything’s all right,’ he said, and she smiled.

‘No, then,’ she said. ‘We’ll wait and see.’

And then she kicked herself, because they started decorating the nursery, the little room off their bedroom that had always been the nursery, where Mike and Joe had slept for the first year of their lives, where their father, Russell, had slept, and so on back for generations. And because they didn’t know the sex of the baby, they didn’t know what colour to paint it.

‘Yellow?’ Mike offered. ‘That’s sunny and sort of neutral.’

‘It makes them look jaundiced,’ Fran said doubtfully, and he chuckled.

‘Not daffodil yellow. Something softer. A pale creamy primrose?’

So that was how it ended up, a lovely soft colour, and when she was thirty-six weeks, they bought a cot. They didn’t assemble it, though. It was as if, by tacit agreement, they didn’t want to push their luck. So it stayed in the room, propped up behind the door, and for the next three weeks they didn’t look at it.

It was as if they were holding their breath, but every night Mike would hold her in his arms, cuddled together like spoons in a drawer, with his big, strong hand splayed tenderly over the baby, soothing it with gentle strokes when it kicked and squirmed.

It had hiccups, too, which made them chuckle once they realised it was nothing to worry about.

And then Fran woke one morning tired and grumpy, and the house was a tip. So she cleaned it, furiously, from end to end, which frankly would have been stupidly ambitious when she hadn’t been pregnant, she thought in a rare pause when she’d changed their sheets and vacuumed the bedroom floor, but she just had to do it, because the baby was coming soon and it couldn’t be brought back to a place hanging with cobwebs.

Well, one cobweb, and it wasn’t exactly hanging, but it was soon banished with a flick of the feather duster, and after another half-hour the dining table was gleaming, the old mahogany nourished within an inch of its life.

And she ached. Lord, how she ached! She straightened up, the beeswax in her hand, and arched her back. She’d done too much, she thought. Much too much.

Time to sit down for a while.

Except she couldn’t sit down, because it was so horrendously uncomfortable suddenly, and then she had one of those lightbulb moments and couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. She’d watched Brodie do just the same thing only two weeks ago, dragging her bedding round and round to get it comfortable, before finally settling down and giving birth to three puppies.

And she hadn’t even realised she was doing the same thing!

She phoned Mike on his mobile. ‘Um, can you come?’

‘Sure—is supper ready?’

‘Not exactly.’

He must have picked up on the tone of her voice, because he swore softly and she could hear him running. ‘I’m on my way,’ he said, and five minutes later he burst into the kitchen and found her standing leaning over the sink, a pool at her feet, panting.

‘Fran?’

‘Mind the floor,’ she warned, worried he’d slip.

‘What have you spilt?’

‘I haven’t. My waters have broken.’

‘Oh, God.’ He went pale, then lifted her out of the way and scrubbed his hands. ‘I’d better take you to hospital now. Are you having contractions?’

‘Um, sort of—Ah-h-h!’

It poleaxed her. It was the first time she’d felt anything other than a horrendous ache, but this was different. This was strong, and powerful, much bigger than her, and it took her over completely.

‘Fran?’

‘Bed,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Now.’

And Mike peered down at her, stopped flapping and turned into the father, stockman and one-time-maybe vet that he was, scooped her up and carried her up the stairs.

He dumped her on the edge of the bed, grabbed the plastic sheet they’d had for Sophie out of the airing cupboard, spread it over the mattress, covered it in thick, soft towels and lifted her into the middle of it.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to help him, but she didn’t need to. He was doing fine, his smile reassuring, his hands slow and steady and confident as he stripped off her wet underwear.

‘In a bit of a hurry, I think,’ he said, rubbing her back gently and smiling at her.

She suddenly realised why the livestock trusted him so much, why his cows were so content and relaxed around him.