I Wont Leave My Daughter
“Are you really not taking the little girl?”
“No. And I wouldnt advise it either, Rob. You dont know what its likea baby that small. I do. Raised three of them myself, barely out of nappies…”
“I wont leave her!” Rob slammed his small, faceted glass onto the table.
Hed drunk too much. Now he sat hunched over the worn oilcloth covering his sisters kitchen table, gripping the glass tightly.
“Keep your voice down! The kids are asleep! We warned you, didnt we? But youAn orphan, means no mother-in-law, what a blessing!and now look where your jokes have got you,” whispered Jean.
“Whats that got to do with anything?”
“Everything. If thered been at least one grandmother around. But like this…”
Rob had a reason to drink. And he didnt do it oftenthis was only the second time since his wifes death. The first had been after the funeral.
His Linda had died in childbirth. Or rather, just after.
A nurse, rewarded with a bar of chocolate, had clattered up the stairs in worn slippers and returned shortly.
“Its a girl, Dad. A big oneeight pounds.”
“A girl?” Rob had somehow broken into a smile. Hed thought he wanted a son. All men do, dont they? And yethed smiled. “Hows Linda? When can I see her?”
The nurse had grown inexplicably irritated, throwing up her hands.
“Now that, I dont know. The baby was breech. Theyre saying theres still bleeding. Come back tomorrow.”
Rob hadnt paid much attention then to the mention of bleeding. Hed assumed it was normal after childbirth. Men dont understand these things.
He returned the next evening, after work.
Walking along the hospital fence beneath dry acacia trees with twisted brown pods, under damp rowans heavy with red berries, past poplars carrying the bitter scent of autumn, he had glanced up at the windows, smiling.
Maybe Linda was already up, maybe she could see him coming?
His bag wasnt heavy. The lads at work had advised him what to bringfresh bread, boiled eggs, a couple of apples, and some grapes. Back then, they didnt restrict nursing mothers too much.
He had loitered in the corridor for ages, nobody explaining a thing to him, his mechanics hands black with machine oil stuffed into his pockets.
Finally, a doctor came out.
“We did everything we could. But the bleeding was severe. It happens sometimesa complication after delivery. My condolences…”
Rob listened without understandingwhat was she saying?
Pale as a sheet, he sank onto the bench. They gave him a glass of water, some drops. He drank obediently, then raised his eyes.
“Shes… dead?”
“Yes, your wife has passed. Please accept our condolences.”
He nodded. Now he understood. It felt awkward suddenly, all these people gathered around him. He stood, headed for the door.
“Ill… go. Here, give her this,” he gestured to the bag, then snatched it back. “Ill go…”
“Wait. Well keep the little girl a while longer, dont worry. Your wifes body will be in the morgue. When will you come back?”
“The little girl? Oh, right…” He hadnt yet mentally separated his wife from the baby. Hed brought one person here. “Shes… alive?”
“Alive and well. Perfectly healthy. Only… well, focus on the funeral for now. The baby can stay with us.”
“The funeral?” He was completely lost. “Ah, right. Fine. What do I need to do?”
The reality of it hit him at home. Pain struck like a knife, stabbing his heart, gnawing at his head. Then it retreated, gathered strength, and struck again.
Linda… His Linda… His heart refused to accept it. He hadnt protected her.
Rob had been born and raised in Barrow. He worked on a farm, didnt marry for a long timeit never worked out.
Then his mother died, and he was left in the house with his sisters family. It was awkward. His sister was sharp-tongued, with a gloomy look, forever worn out by chores and family life.
So when he was offered a job at the factory in Riverton, Rob left. That was where he met Linda.
Young, shy, kind. Shed grown up in an orphanage but had a grandmother in town. Shed moved in with her after leaving care and finishing college.
Rob moved into the grandmothers house too. The old woman was bitter, worn down by lifeby a daughter who drank herself to death and the drunks she brought home. She hadnt welcomed Rob.
Their homemore of a cottage, reallywas an annex to another house, crumbling with age. Two tiny rooms, a windowless kitchen where an old, battered bathtub stood, a small porch.
Worst of all, the house was rotting, infested with some nightmare of a woodworm or fungus.
The bugs ate the floors, the lower parts of the walls. Chairs and tables sank into the floorboards. No matter how much he stoked the fire, the house stayed cold. Rob replaced the floorboards, fought the infestation as best he could, but the destruction always returned.
The house stood in the old part of town near the market, down a quiet dead-end alley where only locals wanderedor the occasional drunk stumbling from the nearby pub.
Maybe that was why Lindas mother had turned to drink. Maybe that was why Linda couldnt stand even the smell of alcohol.
From the moment he met her, Rob stopped drinking. He knewit could make her cry.
The grandmother had eventually accepted him. She saw he was a hard worker. The house began to change, and her once-unhappy, neglected granddaughter came to life.
By the end, Rob was carrying the frail old woman to the bath in his arms. She lay bedridden for six months before passing quietly.
Now Rob, the factory mechanic, was alone in the house. Well, not quitesoon hed bring home a baby girl. She was nearly two months old, but the hospital couldnt keep her any longer.
He went back to the village, asked his sister for help, but she refused. Understandableshed only just gone back to work, her three boys were finally easier to handle, and now this. Rob had offered money, but £100 a month was steep. She still said no.
Linda had only truly come alive with him. Turned out she wasnt as shy or guarded as she seemed. It took her two years to open up about the orphanage.
“They beat me on my third day there, Rob.”
“The boys?”
“No. A carer. I was cheeky, playful. She dragged me by the hair into a storeroom, locked me intaught me to be quiet.”
“Linda, God… They do that to kids?”
“Yes. Not all of them. Some come in already broken. The rest, they break. After that, I was terrified of her. Like a mouse. I hate that place. My kids will never end up there. Never!”
His sister Jean insistedsend the baby to an orphanage, theyll take better care of her. Maybe when shes older, you can take her back… But Rob remembered Lindas stories. No. Shed grow up with him.
Rob was given leave at the start of the year. A month to figure out what to do with the girl.
An older nurse watched him, torn between pity and irritation.
“Where do you think youre putting those hands? Theyre black! This isnt a bit of scrap metalits a baby!”
“Its not dirt. Wont come off… Im a mechanic.”
“Not getting the baby till you clean up. Heresoap.”
The soap didnt help. She brought him some medical solution, the grime bubbled away, and his hands were cleaner.
“Are these even nappies? Did you think at all?… Do you know how to swaddle?… Bathe her?… Sort out formula? Oh… disaster,” she fretted, wrapping the baby, explaining the basics of feeding and bathing. “Find a woman to help, or a grandmother. You wont manage alone. Whats
