‘Hey, hey. Let me help. Come on.’ Maddie guided Gemma through the hallway. ‘Come and sit down in the kitchen and I’ll put the kettle on.’
Gemma’s slippers shuffled across the wooden floor as she allowed herself to be led to the breakfast bar. Maddie lowered her onto a bar stool. Jemima was flailing around on the rug in the corner of the room, her face pressed to the floor, toys scattered where she’d thrown them in her anger. She looked up at the sound of Maddie’s voice and the wails diminished into sobs and gulps.
Maddie walked over to her and Jemima immediately put her arms out to her, her lip trembling and snot pouring from her tiny nose.
‘There, there, angel, what’s all this noise about?’ Maddie crooned at her as she scooped her up. Jemima buried her face in Maddie’s shoulder and let out another tiny sob.
‘You see, she hates me!’ Gemma wailed. ‘She’s stopped crying for you!’
‘No, she doesn’t. She just needs a nap or something. I’ll see if I can settle her, then we’ll talk, ok?’
Maddie carried Jemima up to her bedroom, snuggling her close. She lowered into the rocking chair in the bay window and started to sing quietly as Jemima’s sniffs grew quieter and her thumb sought out her mouth. With her thumb tucked in, Jemima’s eyes grew heavy in a Pavlovian response. It wasn’t long before she was asleep in Maddie’s arms, having exhausted herself with her tantrum.
Maddie sat for a little longer, enjoying the closeness, then gently lowered her into her bed and tucked her in.
As she came back down the stairs, she noticed that the photo frames that had littered every surface had gone. Either Maddie was right in her long-held suspicions that Gemma only brought them out when Maddie was coming over or she had removed them altogether in her grief.
Gemma was still sitting where Maddie had left her, slumped on the bar stool, her head in her hands, but the crying appeared to have petered out.
‘She’s asleep. I’ll make some tea.’
‘Why is it so easy for you? You don’t even have kids and you know what to do.’
Maddie’s teeth clenched. ‘Sometimes they need someone who isn’t their parent to step in, I guess.’
Maddie turned on the boiling water tap and the scalding water gurgled and spat into the mugs.
She reached into the fridge for Gemma’s usual soya milk, but there was nothing in there but some wrinkly apples and a pizza box. It would seem that clean eating didn’t go well with grief.
‘Oh, no milk. Shall I go and get some quickly?’
Gemma’s head snapped up. ‘No, don’t leave!’
‘Ok, that’s fine. We can have herbal tea.’
She poured the black tea down the sink and found a box of camomile tea in the cupboard.
Maddie sat next to Gemma and said nothing for a moment, just watched her as she stared into her mug, her eyes glazed and unseeing. It was a look Maddie knew well.
Eventually Gemma repeated, ‘Jemima hates me.’
Maddie reached out and rested her hand on Gemma’s tiny, very cold hand that was clasped around her mug like a claw. ‘No, she doesn’t hate you at all.’
Gemma looked up with panicked eyes. ‘She does! She knows Greg is gone. She had such a close connection with him, but there’s nothing there between us. I’ve tried. I really have tried. I can’t do this without him.’
‘I’m sure you’re doing just fine. This is an impossible situation for both of you.’ Maddie tried not to think about Jade or her own role in all of this because if she started thinking about it now, she would probably break down and tell Gemma everything. The truth was sitting on the tip of her tongue like a grenade.
‘She isn’t sleeping, she isn’t eating,’ Gemma said. ‘Everything I try she pushes away. She doesn’t want me to hold her, but if I leave the room she cries even harder. Greg was so good with her. He knew exactly what she needed. I have never known what she wants.’ She was silent for a moment, still staring into the mug but not drinking any of it. Then, her voice very low, she said, ‘That’s why I fill our time with so many activities or I leave her in the creche at the gym. I don’t know how to spend time with her.’ It was a bold admission and Maddie could feel the shame and regret pouring from her. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Sometimes I don’t want to spend time with her.’
She looked wide-eyed at Maddie, daring her to admonish her for saying that. Maddie kept quiet.
‘Greg loved being with her,’ she continued. ‘They could just sit in a room and laugh together over silly things, doing absolutely nothing at all. I don’t know how he did that.’
‘All she needs is love, Gemma. She doesn’t need entertaining all the time.’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’ Her voice rose an octave. ‘And how would you know anyway? How would you understand how difficult it is when your own daughter rejects you? When her face lights up when her dad walks in, so that you’re left feeling like an intruder in their moment? Except he’s not going to walk in ever again.’ Her voice dropped again. ‘Sometimes I don’t feel anything for her at all. Other times all I feel is resentment. I left my job, ruined my body – and for what? A child who doesn’t even like me. And now he’s left me to fend for her all on my own.’
Maddie was horrified at the revelations dripping from Gemma’s tongue. How could anyone resent their child? At that moment, Maddie hated her. At that particular moment, she was glad Gemma was in pain – and glad Greg wasn’t here to hear these confessions.
Then she remembered that this was all her fault. If she hadn’t brought Jade into their lives, Jemima would have her dad and Gemma would be living in blissful, selfish ignorance of her feelings towards her daughter, spending her days at the gym and drinking kale smoothies, passing time until her daughter was in school and she could get her life back.
‘Sometimes the connection needs time and work. Sometimes there isn’t an immediate bond, I guess. But something like this could be just what you need to bring you closer to her.’
‘And sometimes people aren’t cut out to be parents. Maybe that’s me. And now she has no one else.’ She started to weep again.
Maddie wanted to tell her she was wrong, but her lips wouldn’t form the words.
‘You agree with me, don’t you? Oh God, you think I’m a terrible mother!’ Gemma wailed.
‘I think you’re right in that I can’t possibly understand what you’re going through, but I know you are grieving and heartbroken, angry at Greg and unable to see past that right now. But she’s just a baby. She doesn’t understand what’s going on and is probably picking up on your distress.’
Gemma started to sob again. Maddie got to her feet and wrapped her arms around the heaving shoulders of the broken woman next to her.
They sat that way until Gemma had cried herself out. When she pulled back, Gemma was pale and trembling.
The words were out of Maddie’s mouth before she had even fully formed the idea behind them. ‘Listen, why don’t I take Jemima for a few days? To give you a break? You can get some much-needed rest and recover a bit? It would probably do both you and Jemima good. Let you get some perspective.’