Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [42]
“Congratulations, Doctor, we hear you’ve had a beautiful baby boy!”
He looked like something trapped in the headlights of an approaching car. He could not deny his son, nor could he pretend to be surprised when it would be known that he was there for the birth.
He had to face it.
“Sorry, Stella. I didn’t want to be gloating.”
“No, you wouldn’t ever do that,” she said. “A boy! Imagine!”
“Yes, we didn’t know. Not until he was born.”
“And is he perfect?”
“Thank God.”
And then she was wheeled out of the ward, leaving Noel, Emily and Declan behind.
Frances Stella Dixon Lynch was delivered by cesarean section on October 9 at seven p.m. She was tiny, but perfect. Ten tiny, perfect fingers, ten tiny, perfect toes and a shock of hair on her tiny, perfect head. She frowned at the world around her and wrinkled her tiny nose before opening her mouth and wailing as if it were already all too much.
Her mother died twenty minutes later.
The first person Noel telephoned was Malachy. “I can’t live through this night without a drink,” he told him. Malachy said he would come straight to the hospital. Noel was not to move until he arrived.
The women in the ward were full of sympathy. They arranged that he get tea and biscuits, which tasted like sawdust.
There was a small bundle of papers in an elastic band on her locker. The word NOEL was on the outside. He read them through with blurred eyes. One was an envelope with FRANKIE written on it. The others were factual: her instructions about the funeral, her wishes that Frankie be raised in the Roman Catholic faith for as long as it seemed sensible to her. And a note dated last night.
Noel, tell Frankie that I wasn’t all bad and that once I knew she was on the way I did the very best for her. Tell her that I had courage at the end and I didn’t cry my eyes out or anything. And tell her that if things had been different you and I would both have been there to look after her. Oh—and that I’ll be looking out for her from up there. Who knows? Maybe I will.
Thanks again,
Stella
Noel looked down at the tiny baby with tears in his eyes. “Your mam didn’t want to leave you, little one,” he whispered. “She wanted to stay with you, but she had to go away. It’s just you and me now. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but we’ll manage. We’ve got to look after each other.” The baby looked at him solemnly as though concentrating on his words in order to commit them to memory.
· · ·
Baby Frances was pronounced healthy. A collection of people came to visit her as she lay there in her little crib. Noel, who took time off from work, came every day. Moira Tierney, the social worker, showed up at odd times, asking too many questions. Emily brought Charles and Josie to see their grandchild, and they visibly melted at the sight of the baby. They seemed to have completely forgotten their earlier condemnation of sex without marriage, and Josie was even seen to lift the child in her arms and pat the baby’s back.
Lisa Kelly visited a couple of times, as did Malachy. Mr. Hall came from Noel’s workplace; even Old Man Casey came and said that Noel was a sad loss to his bar. Young Dr. Declan Carroll came in carrying his own son and introduced the babies formally to each other.
Father Brian Flynn came in and brought Father Kevin Kenny with him. Father Kenny, still on one crutch, was eager to take up his role as hospital chaplain again. He seemed slightly put out that Father Flynn had been so warmly accepted as his replacement. Many people seemed to know him and called him Brian in what Father Kenny thought of as a slightly overfamiliar way. He had obviously been involved in every stage of the unfortunate woman’s pregnancy and the birth of the motherless baby who lay there looking up at them. Father Kenny assumed that they were there to arrange a baptism and started to clear his throat and talk about the technicalities.
But no, Father Flynn had brushed that away swiftly. The baby’s grandparents were extraordinarily devout people and they would discuss