My Husband's Wives Read Online Free PDF

it.’ She’d been trying to console her about being bigger than Meatloaf. She resolved on the journey back from the hospital that this was her first and last pregnancy; never again. Marriage and children had never been part of the plan anyway, but then, she hadn’t met Paul Starr when she promised herself that. Sometimes she wondered if she’d change her mind so totally when the baby arrived too.
    At about four the following morning, she ran out of time. Her labour pains came hard and fast. Luckily Paul was home; he soothed and steadied her until they got to the hospital. There, it hit her, as immediately and forcibly as the smell of disinfectant and the squeak of rubber shoes on shined floors – panic. She was not ready for this, not for labour, motherhood, or any of it, and it didn’t matter if her body thought different. The fear consumed her, seemed to swallow her whole. She felt her breath constrict in her chest and then those awful pains would blow it out of her. A marionette, scared and vulnerable, she kept her expression neutral while she could. ‘You won’t leave me, will you?’ she asked, her eyes pinned on him.
    â€˜Of course not, darling.’ He gathered her hair back from her face and whispered, ‘never. I’ll never leave you or the baby.’ He drew her close and held her until she couldn’t breathe and needed to pull away. She had a feeling he didn’t understand her; this time she was on her own.
    â€˜First one?’ the midwife said soothingly; she was nice, motherly, born to make babies. ‘You could be here a while. It takes time for everything to get up and running first time round. Second time’s a charm though.’ She left them in a private room with a TV and an uninspiring view of the car park.
    â€˜So this is where it all happens.’ Paul smiled at Grace.
    â€˜I guess so,’ she said weakly.
    â€˜It’ll be all right, you’ll see.’
    â€˜I suppose.’ Grace was terrified. It was all well and dandy for him to sit there and tell her she’d be fine. He just had to hold her hand while she did all the work.
    â€˜When this is over, we’ll do something nice.’ He took her face in his hands. ‘Maybe go somewhere, just get away, the three of us together.’
    â€˜The three of us?’ She felt a pulverizing contraction and cursed silently as he nodded at her, assuming she was confirming his plans. But of course, she hadn’t been counting the baby as one of them. Even with her body wracked with pain that felt as if it might tear her in two, she wasn’t thinking of the baby as real. He’d furnished the spare room – the nursery, as he insisted on calling it. It was the only room he’d taken any time over. She shivered every time he said it, as though there would be an endless stream of babies coming from her.
    The baby, a little girl they agreed to call Delilah, arrived late the following afternoon. ‘A good length of time, for the first,’ according to the midwife. Grace took her in her arms and admired her, remotely, as though she was someone else’s. Paul slipped into the role of father with ease and suddenly seemed almost unfamiliar to Grace, so animated, alive, and content. They stole two days from her in that room. Two days, where they slept, washed and ate. She lay in a state of begrudging exhaustion as Paul expertly handled her daughter, and smiled and sang to the child as though they had already formed some kind of secret bond.
    *
    â€˜You’ll have to take her, I’m afraid.’ She dreaded those words for months. It didn’t take long to get a routine of sorts going. Most days, she tried to get Delilah out for long bracing walks, fed her, changed her and hoped she slept. Sometimes, when she cried, Grace would just sit there, watching her, not really hearing her at all. It was as though she was watching television, or someone else’s