She rushes to his high chair or to the swing seat or to the corner of the sofa to check that he is still alive and finds him deep in thought whilst turning the pages of a fabric book. Kim looks after him when Tallulah goes to college and she occasionally gets a kick of panic in her gut at the realization that she has not heard him make a noise for a few minutes. He’s easy to smile and laugh and he’s happy to entertain himself, some- times for as long as half an hour at a time. Noah has eyes that oscillate between brown and amber depending on the light and he has solid legs and solid arms with circlets of fat at the wrists. His name is Noah and he has dark hair like Kim, like both of Kim’s children (Kim only ever really liked babies with dark hair blond-haired babies freak her out). And now Kim is a grandmother at the age of thirty- nine and there is a crying baby in her house again, soon, it feels, so soon, after her own babies stopped crying.įor the most part, despite it happening ten years before she was ready for it, having a grandson has been blessing after blessing. For years she has protected her sleep vigilantly with the help of eye masks and ear plugs and pillow sprays and huge tubs of melatonin that her friend brings back for her from the States.Īnd then, just over twelve months ago, her teenage daughter, Tallulah, had a baby. But she could not face the prospect of sleepless nights again. She had her kids young and easily had time enough and room in her heart for another one or two. From the first night that both her children slept through the night, Kim has placed a very-possibly disproportionately-high value on an unbroken night. She liked her own well enough, but did find the early years testing and ill-suited to her sensibilities. There it is, the very early outposts of crying, a kind of dry, ominous chirruping. She clicks the volume down on the TV using the remote and listens again. But tonight she’s in joggers and a t-shirt, her dark hair tied up in a bun, contacts out, glasses on, and a glass of lukewarm wine on the coffee table that she poured herself earlier and hasn’t had a chance to drink. Eleven o’clock she’d be at the bar getting in the last round for the road.
It’s Friday, a sultry midsummer’s night, and normally she’d be out with friends at this time.
It’s taken her all night to get him to sleep. Kim sits still in her chair and holds her breath.
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