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I’d done last night. I blushed.
    Matt gave me and Chloe a lift home. Three hours later Chloe walked out, a large bag in either hand, to take the tube down to her new place. As I watched her wandering down the road, I realised she hadn’t spoken to Ryan since we got back, not even to let him know about the baby. I wondered again what exactly was going on with them.
    What a weird day. Sex. A baby brother. And now I was going to spend the night in the house on my own. I’d never done that before. Whenever Mum had gone away before – and it hadn’t happened very often – Chloe had always been there.
    I heated up some leftover food in the fridge, then wandered from room to room. It was spookily quiet without Mum and Chloe shouting at each other.
    I finished eating and left the bowl, quite deliberately, in the middle of the living-room floor. Mum always told me off for doing that. But she wasn’t here to order me to pick it up. I was free to do whatever I wanted.
    Some carol singers came to the door. I gave them fifty pence from the jar of change Mum kept in the kitchen. It was going to be Christmas next week. I wondered if Eve would send me a card.
    Don’t hold your breath.
    I thought about calling Ry, seeing if he wanted to come round. But I decided against it. It felt weird being on my own – but good . . . grown up, if a little bit lonely. I wanted to make the most of it while it lasted.
    I ran myself a deep, hot bath. Trisha rang while I was still in the water to ask how Mum was. Matt had apparently called her, on Mum’s instructions, from the hospital.
    ‘I’ll pop round tomorrow at some point, Luke,’ she said. ‘Bring you some dinner.’
    ‘Thanks,’ I said, shivering in my towel.
    Afterwards I watched a bit of TV, spent a deeply satisfying half-hour reliving, again, everything that had happened with Hayley, then decided to go to bed.
    I was totally knackered. I’d had a total of about three hours sleep in the whole of the last day and a half.
    As I lay down, my eyes fell on the picture of Eve on my bedside table. She was so beautiful. I gazed at her face, at the total sexiness of her smile. I wished she was here right now. Not to do anything – I was too tired to even think about that for once – but just to wrap my arms around.
    I closed my eyes.
    Her face was still in my head, imprinted against my eyelids.
    I pulled the pillow down, imagining I was holding her.
    Eve.

 
6
Looking after Sam
    Mum came home after four days, but Sam stayed in hospital for another week. Mum went back every day, spending hour after hour in the Special Baby Unit. I went with her a few times but it was phenomenally boring – and depressing too. Sam was fine, just a bit small, but some of the babies in there were really ill. There were always anxious parents padding about, often in tears.
    On top of that, Mum spent most of her time in the hospital trying to breastfeed. The first time, she just whipped out her boobs while I was standing there.
    ‘Mum,’ I hissed. ‘Stop.’
    She looked up at me, a slightly dazed expression in her eyes. ‘What’re you talking about?’ she said.
    ‘You can’t do that in front of all these people,’ I said.
    ‘For God’s sake, Luke, it’s perfectly natural. That’s what they’re there for. How do you think I fed you?’ She carried on unbuttoning her top.
    ‘Mu-um.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘OK, then I’m going home.’
    And I left.
    It’s all very well her saying it’s natural. There’s nothing natural for me about seeing my mum’s boobs in action. Ugh.
    Sam came home on Christmas Eve morning and Mum got all excited about us having a family Christmas together. We didn’t have much food in, so she sent me down to the shops to buy some cartons of soup and nice bread.
    But Christmas Day was a disaster. Firstly, the baby didn’t sleep at all the night before. Worse, he cried the whole time. A horrible, mewing cry like a drowning kitten. I shut my door and shoved two pillows over