‘Just leave it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because…’ she said. ‘I kicked my sister out, which meant I effectively kicked my nephew out, and look what it’s been like since then.’
‘Bridgette—’
‘No.’ She did not want his comfort, neither did she want his rationale, nor did she want to stand here and explain to him the hurt. ‘Are you going to stay here? Tell me we should fight for Harry?’ She just looked at him and gave a mocking laugh. ‘You don’t want kids of your own, let alone your girlfriend’s nephew.’ She shook her head. ‘Your holiday fling’s nephew.’
And he didn’t want it, Dominic realised, and did that make him shallow? He did not want the drama that was Courtney and he did not want a woman who simply refused to talk about what was clearly so important.
‘I’m going back,’ Bridgette said. ‘You can take your phone call now.’
And two minutes later he did.
She knew because she heard the buzz of his phone as she stood in the corridor outside, trying to compose herself enough to head out to the ward.
She heard his low voice through the wall and there was curious relief as she walked away.
She was as lousy at one-night stands as she was at holiday romances.
There was only one guy on her mind right now, and he stood in the cot, waiting patiently for her return.
‘Hey, Harry.’ She picked him up and gave him a cuddle, and as Dominic walked past she deliberately didn’t look up; instead she concentrated on her nephew, pulling back the sheets and laying him down.
It felt far safer hiding behind him.
COURTNEY rang in the morning to see how Harry’s night had been and said that she’d be in soon. Bridgette went with Harry for his hearing test and then surprisingly Raymond, the ENT consultant, came and saw him on the ward. ‘Glue ear,’ Raymond informed her. ‘His hearing is significantly down in both ears, which would explain the speech delay. It can make them very miserable. We’ll put him on the waiting list for grommets.’ It might explain the temper tantrums too, Bridgette thought, kicking herself for overreaction.
By late afternoon, when Courtney still hadn’t arrived and Harry was dozing, Bridgette slipped away and up to Maternity, even though she’d rung to explain things. Rita was nice and surprisingly understanding.
‘We’re having a family meeting tomorrow,’ Bridgette explained. ‘I really am sorry to let you down. I’ll do nights just as soon as I can.’
‘Don’t be sorry—of course you can’t work,’ Rita said. ‘You need to get this sorted.’
Though her family seemed convinced there was nothing to sort, and as Bridgette walked onto the ward, she could see Courtney sitting on the chair beside Harry, all smiles. She was playing the doting mother or ‘mother of the year’, as Jasmine would have said. Dominic was examining Harry’s new neighbor, young Roman, and Bridgette stood and spoke to Tony for a moment. Harry, annoyed that Bridgette wasn’t coming straight over, stood up, put up his leg and with two fat fists grabbed the cot, annoyed that with the barrier he couldn’t get over it—he was indeed a climber, it was duly noted, not just by the nurses but by Courtney. And Bridgette wondered if she was going mad. Maybe there was nothing wrong with her sister’s parenting and she, Bridgette, had been talking nonsense all along.
‘Thanks so much for staying last night,’ Courtney said. ‘I was just completely exhausted. I’d been up all night with him teething. Mum said that that can give them the most terrible rash…and then when he climbed out, when I heard him fall…’
‘No problem,’ Bridgette said. ‘ENT came down and saw him.’
‘Yes, the nurse told me,’ Courtney said, and rather pointedly unzipped her bag and took out her pyjamas. Brand-new ones, Bridgette noticed. Courtney was very good at cleaning up her act when required. ‘You should get some rest, Bridgette.’ Courtney looked up and her eyes held a challenge that Bridgette knew she simply couldn’t win. ‘You look exhausted. I’m sure I’ll see you at the family meeting and you will have plenty to say about his nappy rash and that I put him to bed without washing him to Aunty Bridgette’s satisfaction.’
Dominic saw Courtney’s smirk after Bridgette had kissed Harry and left.
He spoke for a moment with Tony, told him he would see him tomorrow. And Dominic, a man who always stayed late, left early for once and met Bridgette at her car. It wouldn’t start, because in her rush to get to see Harry last night, she’d left her lights on.
‘Just leave me.’ She was crying, furious, enraged, and did not want him to see.
‘I’ll give you a lift.’
‘So I can sort out a flat battery tomorrow! So I can take a bus to the meeting.’ She even laughed. ‘They’ll think I’m the one with the problem. She’s in there all kisses and smiles and new pyjamas. She’ll be taking him home this time tomorrow.’
‘She’ll blow herself out soon,’ Dominic said.
‘And it will start all over again.’ She turned the key one last hopeless time and of course nothing happened.
‘Come on,’ Dominic said. ‘I’ll take you home.’
They drove for a while in silence. Dominic never carried tissues, but very graciously he gave her the little bit of silk he used to clean his sunglasses. With little other option, she took it.
‘I do get it.’
‘Sure!’
‘No, I really do,’ Dominic said. ‘For three years after Chris was born it was row after row. My father wanted him gone—he never came out and said it, didn’t have the guts, and I can tell you the day it changed, I can tell you the minute it changed.’ He snapped his fingers as he drove. ‘My mother told him to get out because Chris wasn’t going anywhere. She told him if he stayed in her home then he followed her rules.’ They were at the roundabout and she wanted him to indicate, wanted to go back to his place, but instead he drove straight on. ‘She got her fire back.’ He even grinned as he remembered his trophy-wife mother suddenly swearing and cursing in Spanish. He remembered the drama as she’d filled his father’s suitcases and hurled them out, followed by his golf clubs, as she picked up Chris and walked back in. ‘I really want you to listen, Bridgette. You need to think about what you want before you go into that meeting. You will need to sort out what you’re prepared to offer or what you’re prepared to accept, not for the next week or for the next month but maybe the next seventeen years—you need to do the best for yourself.’
‘I’m trying my best.’
‘Bridgette, you’re not listening to me. My mum could have gone along with Dad—she could have had a far easier life if she hadn’t been a single mum bringing up a special-needs child. Chris could have been slotted into a home. Instead he went to one
