40 Things I Want to Tell You (20 page)

“HOW IS HE?” I SOBBED.

“He’s fine. He’s great,” the doctor called back. “He’s doing great.”

Mum was crying as they laid you on me. You were wrapped up in a blanket, your tiny face so close to mine that I couldn’t see you properly. Your features scrunched against the bright light.

THEY WERE CLEANING UP. I COULD HEAR THEM FAINTLY IN THE BACKGROUND
. But I could only look at you.

You.

There was nothing but you.

TIME SLIPPED PAST. I WAS IN ANOTHER ROOM, YOU ON THE BED
with me.

I could not sleep for looking at you.

Your tiny, hungry mouth. Toothless as a baby bird.

Your tiny fingers.

I put my hand to yours and you squeezed.

DAD CAME IN. “HOW’S IT GOING? EVERYTHING OKAY? THEY COULD DO
with better signs here at the hospital. Maybe I’ll talk to them about that. I could work something out for them.” He stopped himself. His lips turned up in a rueful smile. “Ignore me. Are you okay, Bird?” Then he asked Mum the same thing.

But he didn’t listen to our answers. He’d stopped speaking. He’d seen you.

He came over and put his hand on your head.

His hazel eyes were glazed.

He said, “He’s beautiful—” His voice cracked.

LATER I SAID, “COULD SOMEONE GET PETE? AND CLEO?”

I LAY WITH YOU ON MY CHEST. YOU WERE SLEEPING. I STUDIED THE
sticky swirls of hair on your head. Your ear, so perfectly formed. Your lashes, long, blond-tipped. Perfect. It was the right time for such a word.

PETE TIPTOED INTO THE ROOM AND CAME OVER TO ME, RESTING HIS
hand on my shoulder. We stared at you. And stared. After a while he held you. I watched the two of you together. I cried a little.

“He’s a baby,” Pete said.

I giggled.

“I can’t believe how tiny he is, Amy.”

Later, Pete kissed me lightly on the cheek and left.

Time passed.

DAD WAS TALKING ON A PHONE IN THE CORRIDOR JUST OUTSIDE THE
room. He said, “Yes, bring him. That would be fine.”

Cleo came into the room. She put her hand on my forehead, and then moved her hand to your face. “He’s gorgeous. How are you? Are you okay? It took forever. Pete and I were here. How was it? Did it really hurt? God, no, don’t tell me. Is it as bad as they say?”

“Really bad. But the epidural,
God.
Amazing.”

“What happens now? You know, with the adoption worker?” She turned her gaze to me. “You don’t have to, you know, give him up if you don’t want.”

“How do you always know what I’m thinking?”

“I’m your best friend.”

“God, am I crazy?”

“So crazy. Now stop talking and let me look at this baby.” She bent over me and kissed you on your forehead. You reached a tiny hand out to hold her finger. “He likes me. You like me,” she said to you. “So cute. Anyway, I brought someone with me. He’s waiting outside. I should let him have a turn.”

Cleo left and
Griffin
came through the open door, pulling it closed behind him.

I swallowed hard. “I wish I hadn’t treated you so badly.”

He shrugged.

“I should have been braver,” I said. “I miss you as my friend.”

“We’ll be friends again one day. I just need time to move on.” He gave a funny half-smile, and then looked at the baby. “He’s sweet.”

“Thanks.”

“My mom had to go into hospital a few days ago. She’s not doing very well.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Not now.”

“Are you okay?”

He pushed his hair from his forehead. “I will be,” he said.

I WAS ALONE WITH YOU. TIME PASSED. YOU WERE AWAKE. YOU WERE
hungry. You cried. A nurse showed me how to change you. She taught me how to hold you so you could latch properly—it was weird and wonderful. She stroked under your chin so you would suck. I didn’t tell the nurse that you weren’t going to be staying with me, that I didn’t need to know how to feed you. I didn’t say a word.

I RESTED WITH YOU IN MY ARMS, SENSATION CREEPING PAINFULLY
back into my body. I looked at your tiny face. I couldn’t imagine giving you to someone else. I couldn’t imagine letting you go.

NICOLE, THE ADOPTION WORKER, CAME IN. BRIGHT AND BREEZY. SHE
smiled and said, “How are you feeling?”

I flushed with anxiety. You squirmed against me.

“Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to sign anything right now.”

She gave me a long, gentle look. “No, no. You don’t have to sign anything, remember. That’s not why I’m here. There’s no rush. I’m just seeing how you’re doing. I’m here to support you, remember? And I wanted to meet your beautiful baby.” She turned to look at you in the bassinet and tickle you under your chin.

“Nicole, I don’t know what I want to do.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “Take your time. As I said, I’m supporting you with whatever choice you make.” Soon after, she slipped out.

THE DOOR OPENED AND I LOOKED UP TO SEE PETE STANDING THERE.
“You’re back,” I said. “He’s sleeping.”

“It’s you I wanted to see.” He chewed his lower lip. “So, uh, I was thinking about the baby and about you and I was reading your website and I put this together.” He scrabbled in his back
pocket and handed me a folded sheet of white computer paper. “I, uh, printed all these out. I thought maybe we could give this to the baby. You know, before he goes to some other family—”

His voice caught and I looked up at him. It seemed like he might cry.

“What is it?”

“Just read it.”

I opened up the sheet of paper and began to read.

• You never know what’s coming next—embrace the unexpected.

• Do what you love.

• It’s called a comfort zone for a reason.

• Sometimes you’re lying when you say nothing at all.

• Snow sucks.

• You
can
regret what you haven’t done.

• Secrets breed lies.

• Temptation is just too tempting.

• Even the best parties aren’t always fun.

• Swim or sink.

• Life is not fair.

“Pete,” I said. “These are my Top Tips.”

A small smile played on his lips. “Yeah, I know. I thought they were pretty good advice for the little guy.”

I read on.

• Sometimes when nothing seems to have changed, everything has.

• You don’t always know yourself as well as you think you do.

• The truth comes out in the middle of the night.

• Some secrets are too hard to keep.

• Trust your instincts, even if they make no sense.

• You have to make your own decisions.

• When you make a decision, say it out loud.

• Be honest with your best friend.

• Mums can always tell when you’re lying.

• Be happy.

• What you don’t know
can
hurt you.

• All families have secrets.

• Right and wrong aren’t always easy to tell apart.

• Being freaked out and terrified is not the end of the world—it’ll pass.

• Life can be as lonely as a mountain, and as daunting.

• Chocolate always helps.

• A silly song can stop you from going crazy.

• Getting angry when someone’s yelling at you will just make everything worse.

• Sticks and stones may break your bones, but the things people say hurt more.

• This recipe makes the best flan in the world.

• It really isn’t too late to say sorry.

• Don’t jump to conclusions about someone.

• Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened. And if you can’t do that, force a smile on your face and sob into your pillow later.

• Admitting you can’t know it all is scary for a control freak (like me).

I burst into tears.

Pete joked gently, “You cry a lot.”

“Yeah, giving birth does something funny to your hormones.” I smiled at him. “I have two more tips that I thought up but didn’t put on the site.”

I found a pen in my overnight bag and wrote them carefully below the list Pete had printed out.

• Be gentle with yourself.

• You will find a way.

Pete looked at what I’d written. “Those are good.”

I swallowed hard. I read over the list.

I tried to imagine you reading it, far away from me.

I said what was on my mind. “I … I don’t know if I want to give him away. I don’t know what to do, Pete.”

“Yeah, I was sort of— I was … feeling the same thing. He’s so—”

“We can’t look after a baby.”

He looked out the window. “You seem like you’d make a pretty good mum.”

“It’s crazy.”

“Yeah, but crazy isn’t always a bad thing.” He turned his grey eyes to me.

I said, “Perhaps you should have been the one writing the Top Tips. You’ve got a lot of sensible things to say.”

“You’re the list maker.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ll do my best to help, you know.”

I watched him. I
did
know.

For the first time in ages, I knew what I wanted. I turned to look at you sleeping. I thought of all the advice I’d been giving everyone else but not following myself, all those Top Tips.

You pushed a small baby hand up into the air.

I wanted
you.

Exhilaration and fear shivered over my body like a cold sweat. My life was over. My life was beginning.

I thought of something else I wanted to tell you one day. Face to face.

NUMBER 38: HOLD ON WHEN THE RIDE GETS BUMPY

Pete leaned over and held your tiny outstretched hand.

NUMBER 39: IT’S YOUR LIFE. LIVE IT

You opened your eyes.

IT’S BEEN REALLY HARD SOMETIMES. LONELY. SCARY. YOU HAD COLIC
and didn’t stop crying for months. I quit school completely. I watched my dad sign for the divorce. I’ve been isolated, tired, overwhelmed.

I have a part-time job in a supermarket—dull, dull, dull. Mum looks after you when I work—her job with the wedding photographer is flexible. She and I have spent a lot of time together this year getting to know each other all over again. But you and I live with Dad (I never asked Mum how she ended up without her own house—some things are too hard to talk about). You got the spare room. Dad’s not so full of crazy dreams. It makes me sad sometimes when I remember how excited he used to get about stuff, but we’ve all had to be more grounded since you came along.

You’re in a Jolly Jumper right now. You look over at me with your slate-grey eyes. You laugh. You jump. Your feet leave the ground. You’re flying. I remember how much I used to want to fly. Huh. It seems so long ago.

Cleo and I don’t get to hang out as much anymore. A few months after you were born, she started seeing Griffin. They’re crazy in love. Griffin is so happy and I’ve never seen Cleo like this. Turns out everyone could see they were perfect
together, except for me—but then, I was pretty self-absorbed at the time.

Cleo’s going to university at Manchester Metropolitan. She’s studying English and journalism. Griffin has a place there to take neuropsychology, and so they’ll move up there together at the end of the school year—just after your first birthday. They both promised they’d come to your party.

I’ll miss them.

Recently I set up a website for other teenagers who want to talk about sex, and for those who get pregnant. I give advice—whatever they decide to do with the pregnancy—and give them a space to communicate with one another. This means anyone logging in can give advice to anyone else, and then I throw in my thoughts too. It’s not always easy to know what to say—sometimes the questions people ask cut very close. But I decided to use my own name for it, AmyAdvice. Miss Take-Control-of-Your-Life wasn’t exactly the right way to describe me anymore. Dad has a job with an online company. Something very boring, but it means he can help look after you while I’m at school. I’m studying photography at a local college part time. My exam results were easily good enough to be able to apply to Oxford, but, turns out, Oxford isn’t really where I want to go. Even if you were older and I could figure out the logistics, there are other universities that specialize in fine art with photography, which is what I’d like to study one day. For now, the photography class is pretty great. I’m going to base my photography project for class on a quotation I have up on my corkboard.

The best-laid plans of mice and men / Often go awry.
Robert Burns (paraphrased from the Scottish)

Mum and I have a great photography subject now. You. She comes over and we take photos together; she shows me what she learned at the studio. Sometimes I fantasize about setting up my own photography business, taking photos of weddings and babies. We’ll see how it goes. I’m still pretty good at making lists and plans, but babies, turns out, don’t always respect those plans.

And then there is your dad. He takes you out on weekends. When he comes over you light up, your smile filling your whole face. He and I have stayed friends. It’s not always easy, especially as he’s still with Kitty and I can’t stand her. But he’s a good dad to you. Like he promised he would be.

You might think I’m harbouring a crazy dream where Pete and I end up together and we become one happy family. I’m not saying I wouldn’t like that, but some things you just can’t plan. All we can do today is to be a good mum and dad to you. I’m starting by writing all of this out. Not for you to read, but to help me understand how we got here. Writing all of this out helps me remember where I got my list of things I want to tell you—the list that Pete and I plan to give you one day when you’re older. The list has thirty-nine things on it. Pete thinks there should be forty. He doesn’t know that there already are.

You’ve just started to fuss, little man. I’ll whisper to you the most important thing I want to tell you as I scoop you up in my arms.

NUMBER 40: LOVE IS WORTH THE RISK