Hiding Anna

Chapter Thirty-Four: Baby

"Josephine's been very kind to me the past several months." I commented.

"And I must thank her for that." My mother replied softly and something behind me caught her attention. "George is here, I expect Anna's at ten centimetres now."

Turning around, I spotted him walking towards us and nodding his head to my mum. She jumped out of her chair and ran off in the direction of the suite Anna was in. The only reminder I had of our revealing conversation was her coffee cup and my lingering disclosures.

"Cassie?" George's warm and husky voice pulled me out of my thoughts and his arms tugged at my waist so I could fall onto his lap. I complied easily and snugged into his warmth, nestling my head against his shoulder and inhaling that familiar cologne.

We stayed like that for a while and, although I'm not quite sure why, we absorbed each other's comfort like it was paracetamol fixing a headache.

"She's doing well. The midwife told us that until she was at about eight or nine centimetres we had to be left on our own and walk around as much as possible to speed up the process. Gravity is key when giving birth, so I helped her walk around the room and to ease the pain of the contractions she held the wall and sort of made circles with her hips. The midwife thought it was going to be a quick birth when she came in to check on her." He said, into my hair. "Two and a half hours of labour max."

Threading his fingers through my hair and doing that soothing motion of combing the locks with his hands, we swayed from side to side a little rhythmically. I hummed to myself because all this talk of giving birth and centimetres and contractions and labour were making me feel rather dizzy.

"You okay?" He cradled my face in his hands.

I wasn't too sure why he asked because it was clear that I wasn't. My stomach was on the verge of resurfacing and I had gone four days without throwing up which was a record for me. My head was pounding against the barricade of my skull like an insistent drum beat. My mind was clouded with clarity.

"You're doing well." He murmured and resumed to rocking me gently sideways and talking into my hair so only I could hear what he was saying.

Worry. It washed over me and I hated that I worried over Anna Brooks.

"Can we leave?" I asked shakily.

I'd never seen George look so torn. "I said I'd wait until after... but-"

"It's okay." I cut in and gave him a smile. "You're a good friend, George."

He shrugged. "I try to be."

For the time it took until Anna gave birth, I slumped on George's lap and we talked very quietly about different light hearted things. He told me that Josephine had been waiting for the day that my mum finally asked to introduce herself and that he was sure a dinner could be arranged soon.

I didn't go in to see Anna. The midwife said she now needed rest and would most likely sleep for a couple of hours and by then she could be released from the hospital.

George went inside the clinical, stark white ward she'd been moved into to see Anna and helped my mum with the end of the adoption process. By that point, I couldn't supress the intrigue to see the baby.

We went down to the adoption wards. It was filled with babies in cots or incubators, wriggling about like beetles on their backs. A few new adoptive parents sat beside a baby and cradled it, or watched it sleep. Others slept or lay waiting to be collected. The one thing they all had in common was wrinkly pink skin and most hadn't even opened their eyes yet. They were cute, but they kind of looked like aliens.