Charlotte was brimming with joy as she announced to her friends and mother at dinner that she was expecting a second child. The girls instantly cheered and hugged her, but her mothers face fell as if a shadow had swept across her. The cheerful atmosphere soured; her appetite seemed to dissolve like mist. Charlottes mother couldnt manage any pointed words in front of everyone, but as the evening faded to a blur of candlelight and chattering, she pulled her son-in-law, Robert, aside just as he came to take his wife home.
You always said just the one, didnt you? Her voice fluttered oddly, balancing on an edge between worry and something stormier. Now a second? You think theres enough in the bank for everything, but you remember those first nights, dont you? All those nappies and sleepless feeds, the doctors, the worry. Rosies only just three, and suddenly shell have a brother or sister tumbling in behind her! That little girl knows nothing but endless cuddles and love, and nowdo you mean to ration it? Are you thinking of anyone but yourself?
Robert tried to speak, but her concern whirled around them in the air, thick and endless.
Its all well and good for you, she pressed, a note of disbelief in her voice. But what about Charlotte? Shell have two so soon!
She wants this, Mum, its not just me
Oh really? Her lips tightened with suspicion. So youre saying its not you who wants another after all!
Why twist what Im saying? Robert was at a loss, his words drifting strangely, half-swallowed by the old houses walls. Were not asking you for anything. We wont honestly, weve saved and planned from the very start. No ones going to love Rosie any less. That wont happen. I promise.
Perhaps that was what ate at hera strange, bitter ache. When her granddaughter arrived, Charlotte had less time to be a daughter. Shed moved out after the wedding, visits dwindled into occasional trips for tea. Her mothers heart spun with dream-logic worries: what if Charlotte forgot her entirely, swallowed by this new family of her own? The routine bank transfers dropped after Rosie was born, a forgotten tributary, only recently restored to its former strength, and nowthis news tumbled it all again. Anyone in her place might have been rattled, adrift, unsure. But there was nothing left to say; the matter was out of her hands. Soon enough, she would meet her next grandchild, floating from one reality to the next, in dreams and in waking.
