And you expect me to trot two miles with a newborn just to fetch a loaf? Honestly, Im not even sure whether you need me and Lucy at all.
When Emily and the baby were wheeled out of StMarys Hospital, James, his parents and his inlaws were waiting. We all gathered at the kitchen table for a quick tea, but an hour later the guests were gone, leaving just the new parents and our little one.
James flopped onto the sofa, switched the telly on, while Emily tackled the kitchen a place James had somehow turned upside down during the four days she was away.
After feeding Lucy, Emily tried to lie down in the nursery, thinking the day had been long enough. She hadnt dozed off when someone started pounding on the front door. When she opened it, James had already invited the visitors inside.
It was Helen, Jamess older sister, her husband, and two of Helens friends, acquaintances of Emily at best.
Little brother, weve come to celebrate you! Helen exclaimed. I remember you as a tiny lad, and now lookalready a dad! She and the others crowded James, hugging and kissing him.
Helen, please, keep it down Lucy just fell asleep, Emily whispered.
Come off it! Babies cant hear a thing yet. Youd better set the table weve brought some sparkling wine and a cake, Helen said, shrugging off the request.
Emily laid out the leftovers from the family dinner.
What a skimpy spread, Helen complained.
Sorry about that. We werent expecting guests I just got back from the hospital. All the blame falls on James, hes been holding the fort without me, Emily replied.
Ladies, no hard feelings! Ive ordered three pizzas, so nobody will go hungry, James announced.
The visitors lingered until about nine oclock, when Emily finally told them she needed to bathe Lucy and get her to bed.
As the door closed, James muttered to his wife, Emily, you could have been a bit more polite. They came to congratulate us and you barely sat with them, spending all your time with the baby, then practically drove everyone out.
What could I have done? Emily snapped. Its my first day home after the maternity ward Im not in the mood for socialising. If they wanted a present, at least a cheap rattle would have sufficed.
And remember, James warned, from now on the baby is the priority in this house. Lucy needs a routine, so please dont invite any more guests for the next three months. If you want a night out with the lads, do it somewhere else.
A month passed. James kept at his job, while Emily and Lucy stayed at home. Lucy was a calm child, and Emily managed the house, cooking only simple meals James didnt object. Life was ordinary.
Then a problem surfaced, originating from Jamess mother, Margaret. She decided the solution lay with her daughterinlaw.
Margarets mother, Eleanor, was an eightyyearold widow living in a hamlet about sixty miles from Birmingham. She lived in a modest cottage with well water from a handpump, a wood shed, and a garden that the family tended together. The plot was ten acres, which Eleanor cultivated herself, while her daughter and grandchildren helped plant and dig potatoes the very potatoes they ate throughout winter.
That winter Eleanor fell ill with a bad cough and could no longer work the garden. Margaret concluded that Emily should spend the summer in the village with Lucy to help her mother.
Emily laughed at first, thinking Margaret was joking, but the matriarch was serious.
I cant take Mother into town the garden is already planted. Who will tend it? I work myself. I can only come on weekends, but who will fetch water from the pump during the week?
The pump was only a few hundred yards away, but dragging a full bucket was a strain for Eleanor, who could only manage a halfbucket. Do you realise how much water is needed for the house and the garden? She spends half the day shuttling back and forth.
Im not being asked to become a water carrier, Emily retorted.
You could use the wheelbarrow, Margaret suggested. It holds two fortygallon barrels. Eleanor cant manage the load, but you can. The garden watering and weeding arent hard either.
No thanks, Margaret. We buy potatoes and other veg from the shop, so let the people who harvest handle the beds.
Send Helen instead; she doesnt work either, Emily added.
But Helen has two kids! Margaret replied.
And I have none, according to you? James interjected.
Dont compare, Margaret snapped. Helens children are five and three. They need care, and then Artem will have to be taken out of nursery all summer. As for Lucy, shell just be fed, put in the pram, and you can run errands, the motherinlaw said.
Are you aware that Lucy needs monthly checkups at the GP and vaccinations? Emily asked.
You could skip the doctors. Shes healthy; the clinics just expose you to more germs, Margaret argued.
Fine, go. No one else will go. My mother raised all three of my children. I never took a long maternity leave, she replied.
Helen had handed over the care of her kids to Vicky and James when they were four, and now, with Eleanor frail, it was time to repay the debt.
I respect Eleanor, she helped us a lot, but I owe her nothing personally. You, Helen, Vicky and James owe her. Im not paying anyone elses debts, Emily said.
On a Friday morning James reminded Emily, Did you pack? Were heading to the village tomorrow.
Emily answered, Ive already told your mother, and Ill say it again: Im not going to any village, let alone take Lucy there. What if she falls ill? Do you expect me to walk a hundred miles to town on foot?
The village youre speaking of is so remote even a bus wont turn up; theres barely a shop, just a neighbours store a mile away, James replied.
You want me to jog two miles with a baby just for a loaf of bread? I dont know if you even need me and Lucy, Emily shot back.
When your mother asked me to lug those fortygallon barrels, you stayed silent. So you agreed? How am I supposed to lift a barrel when I weigh only fiftyseven kilos?
You dont have to fill them completely, James said. Enough arguing. If Mother says youll go, youll go. No one else. Dad will arrive by ten tomorrow and take you back. Pack today.
James left for work, and Emily began gathering her things. Before that she phoned her own parents.
Emilys mother, a nurse in a childrens ward, was horrified at the thought of her newborn being sent to a remote hamlet.
Children under a year need constant monitoring. At three months you see a specialist, at a year another. How can you be so reckless? she exclaimed.
Emilys father quietly loaded the car.
Emily and Lucy drove to her parents flat.
When James came home from work and found the house empty, he instantly knew where theyd gone. He rang Emily several times that evening to no answer. Finally he knocked on the door himself. From the moment he spoke, Emily realised he hadnt grasped the situation.
Youre not being sent to work in a coal mine, are you? Out to the country for fresh air? Did you cause this whole mess over a foolish idea? James asked.
Yes, I created the problem myself, but not now two years ago, when I married you. I liked you right away: tall, broadshouldered, kind. I didnt see that behind the charm was your mothers little boy, obedient to every word she said. If shed sent you to work in a pit, youd have objected too.
So you wont come home? James asked.
No. Home is where you feel safe, loved, protected. You never became that protector. Live with your mother, Emily replied.
Six months later she managed to get a divorce.
