Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📗

a parking space, which annoyed Dad although he wouldn’t say it aloud. He huffed to himself impatiently, little sighs that rippled through the air gently. When he did see a parking space, he gave a shout, ‘There’s one!’ and swerved so violently into it that he came close to brushing the car that was parked next to us.

Evie, Seb and Jakob were cocooned in a circle when we arrived. Their arms wrapped around each other, their fingers interlocked, Jakob in the very centre. They looked up at us, their cheeks glowing, and together, there, in that moment, they were a perfect picture of happiness. I sometimes hold on to that image of them as we found them in their hospital room that day. I remember it, I examine its details.

The way that you could not tell where Evie’s arm ended and Seb’s began, they were so entwined. The flushing rosiness upon their faces, the brightness of their eyes, their ready smiles. In the wake of what followed, I would remember that simple, blissful scene. It was like a single, lighted candle in the darkness, a lone flower amongst the weeds.

‘There’s someone we’d like you to meet,’ Evie said, grinning broadly. We crowded a little closer to study Jakob’s tiny, sleeping face. ‘Would you like to hold him, Dad? Grandpa!’

‘Oh, give him to Kit,’ Dad said, stepping back bashfully, his eyes on Jakob. I saw on his face the same satisfaction that I’d seen when he looked at his beloved allotment, surrounded by a tumble of squash plants and tomato plants that were heavy with the fruit they bore.

‘He’s beautiful,’ I said, running a finger over the perfect, almost translucent skin of his nose. Evie and Seb did not reply but only smiled helplessly at each other, and then back towards their baby son.

‘We won’t stay long,’ Dad said. ‘Just wanted to say, you know, well done!’

‘Thanks, Luke,’ Seb said. ‘Stay a while though, take your coat off.’

Evie and I shared a quick grin as Dad pulled his coat around him a little closer. It was an old grey-green thing that he’d had for ever and never seemed to take off.

‘No, no. We must leave you to rest. We just wanted to pop in,’ Dad replied.

Despite what he said, we found it hard to draw ourselves away from their bedside. Time passed at an unreasonable speed, the visiting hours were coming to an end and bewilderingly Dad and I found ourselves back on hospital corridors, searching for signs back to the car park. Our time with Evie, Seb and Jakob felt like a dream.

Out of their room, the wail of a baby’s cry pierced through our trance. We caught glimpses through the round porthole windows on the doors we passed of a few other families, newly created, shrouding their pristine infants, but most of the rooms were empty.

‘Not many people getting through induction,’ I muttered, more to myself than to Dad.

I wasn’t even sure that he had heard me until he said, some moments later, ‘I really don’t know how they can stand it. What with OSIP lurking at every corner.’

‘Not here, Dad,’ I said. Just then a nurse passed us on the corridor and I found myself turning back to see if she had noticed what Dad had said. Her heels clicked rhythmically down the walkway and she disappeared round the corner. She hadn’t looked back.

‘She didn’t hear me,’ Dad said, a little wearily.

‘It’s not worth it, though, is it?’

Dad didn’t answer me properly until we’d slammed the car doors shut.

‘Do you really think anyone cares what an old codger like me is saying?’

‘I don’t know, Dad. But the point is that they might. This is how it is now. Now that they’ve had him, they have to avoid extraction.’

‘I can’t see anyone giving me the time of day.’

‘Dad! Promise you’ll be careful. For Evie’s sake, and for Jakob’s. It’s like I said, it’s just not worth the risk.’

‘Fine,’ he said, although he was quiet as we drove from the hospital. Only later when I remarked on the amount of hair on Jakob’s head, his resemblance to Evie, did he cheer up.

‘Same time tomorrow?’ I asked him when we said goodbye.

Dad agreed, although I think both of us felt that it was too long until we could reunite with Evie, and delight in our respective nephew and grandson.

Only the next time we went to see them, it was nothing like the first.

* * *

The uncomplicated happiness had evaporated. The worry had set in.

When we arrived the next day, Seb quickly came to the door and told us briefly that he and Evie needed to see a specialist with Jakob and could we wait until that was over.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ Seb said before he disappeared inside. The door swung closed behind him and so I glimpsed for a moment, Evie, sitting forwards, her arms closed around herself, her tear-stained face fixed upon the midwife talking to her. She was pale, her hair heavily black against her ashen cheeks.

‘There’s nothing to make you worry like someone saying there’s nothing to worry about,’ Dad said. We sat down, side by side, deflated.

‘As long as they’re getting the help that they need, I’m sure it will be all right,’ I said, unconvincingly. I had seen Evie’s face.

We waited out there for so long that I wondered if we would even be able to see them that day, but then the door opened and there was a flash of a white coat as the doctor exited the room. Dad made a move as though he were about to stand but then thought better of it and stayed put. I found myself reaching out a hand for his. We squeezed each other’s palms as we waited.

Then Seb was at the door, beckoning, apologising, apologising again.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked as soon as the door closed behind us. Jakob was sleeping peacefully in the cot next to Evie’s bed. There was no trace of tubes or