Read Online When the Bough Breaks by Connie Monk - Free Book Online

with something like guilt he realized that as he’d tried to hold in his mind the image of being with Kathie, the operation over and she looking fresh faced, rosy cheeked, those tell-tale dark smudges gone from under her eyes, not once in those moments had he thought of the tiny person who had just been brought into the world six weeks before her time.
    Soon Sister reappeared carrying a tiny bundle, wrapped so securely that the newborn could move neither hands nor feet.
    â€˜There she is. Isn’t she a perfect treasure.’
    â€˜So tiny,’ he murmured as he gazed in awe at the wonder of what he and Kathie had produced.
    â€˜For a seven and a half month delivery she is a bonny babe. She weighs five pounds one ounce. Another six weeks and she would have given a real problem.’
    â€˜Not much more than two bags of sugar.’
    The sister saw the way his face was working as with his teeth clamped together he held his chin steady. Poor man. What was ahead of him if he had to rear this bundle of love on his own?
    â€˜And just as sweet, too,’ she answered briskly, her tone doing more to help him over his bad moment than any sympathy. ‘Now then, off you go. Your family will be in good hands. You may telephone any time after eight in the morning; just ask for Wyndham Ward.’
    To plead or argue would be useless. There was a strange comfort in the feeling of Dr Knight’s hand on his elbow as they walked down the empty corridor.
    That was on Monday night, a long night of anguish he would never forget.
    Gradually through the years he and Kathie had taken each other for granted, content in their shared lives. Not until that afternoon had he looked,
really looked,
and realized how changed she had become, how drained and exhausted. What sort of a night would she be enduring, frightened and alone in that cheerless hospital. When she woke from the operation – please God make it have been successful – she wouldn’t know where she was. Would she be able to understand that their baby had been born? The baby, a girl so tiny she might have been a child’s doll, small and vulnerable and depending on them to take care of her and love her. He felt a strange unfamiliar tenderness. What would happen to them all? If Kathie didn’t . . . no, don’t let the thought even take shape; of course Kathie will pull through and be well again. She’s always been fit and full of energy. But had that really been true? She’s a fighter, she would never admit to being beaten no matter how tired she was. Had he been fair in taking it for granted that working all day and every day was all she wanted? She’d seemed happy. Often enough they’d both been too tired at the end of the day for anything more than to roll into bed with a mumbled goodnight. Yet on those other nights when he’d wanted her, she had never said she was too tired; no, plenty of times he had thought it meant more to her than it did to him. Dear Kathie, he could almost hear her urgent whisper, ‘Don’t rush, Den. Make it last’, right up to the last few weeks and even knowing how early they had to be up in the morning. Dear Kathie. Remember the day of their wedding, their honeymoon with the old zinc bath. Oh God, don’t take her away. Everything was so good; all that was missing was a family. You can’t give us a child and then take Kathie.
    The day had taken its toll on him. When he heard a sob break in his throat he didn’t care, he didn’t even try to fight it. Soon after that, sleep overtook him. When he woke and reached for his torch to look at the time, it was half past five. Normally he and Kathie got up just after six o’clock but on that morning he was glad to start the day. By six o’clock he had washed and shaved and was finding a clean shirt. A clean shirt to wear to phone the hospital? To go in his work things from the previous day would have felt wrong so he took