still hoped.
As I stripped the bed, I knocked into the bookcase at the foot of it, dislodging a shoebox on the top shelf. The contents scattered over the floor. Ginny’s memory box for him. A yellow card commemorating his first haircut, with a dark curl taped to it. A photo of Ginny and Victor when he was a baby. The identity bracelet from the hospital. I ran my finger around the plastic ring, reading: Victor Yaro. 3.62kg. 25 September 2001. I imagined Ginny, giving birth to a baby almost two months premature in a hospital in Vancouver. She must have been so lonely and frightened. But nowhere near as desperate as she must have felt putting all these little pieces of her life with Victor into a box, knowing that there would be a cut-off point, a finite end to the memories she could store for him.
I popped everything back in, his school reports, his baby shoes, the Mother’s Day card with the tatty tissue paper daffodil. I’d intruded on something sacred. I’d have to tell him and hope he’d forgive me. I lay the little hospital bracelet on top. 3.62kg. I frowned. Wasn’t a kilo 2.2lbs? That made him well over 7lbs. Probably nearer eight. Which was a good-sized baby.
Ginny had always joked that she’d squeezed out five packs of mince. ‘Two and a half kilos of Waitrose organic, mind you, none of that value stuff. Thank God he came early. God knows how huge he’d have been if I’d got to full term.’
She’d teased me when Phoebe was born, weighing 6lb 3oz. ‘Victor was only eleven ounces lighter than her and he was seven weeks early!’
Given that I’d needed stitches after my supposedly ‘tiny’ baby, we’d giggled about how lucky she’d been not to give birth to a 10lb bruiser, how she’d got off lightly with 5lb 8oz.
That little bracelet must have been from another hospital admission before she came back to the UK. Poor Ginny. It struck me how much she must have kept to herself, the reality of dealing with a premature baby and trips backwards and forwards to the hospital. Typical Ginny to just get on with it and not worry me. I felt a rush of shame that while she’d been adjusting to a new baby in fragile health, I’d been so caught up in my wedding preparations that I’d barely paid attention.
I put the box back on the shelf and took time smoothing the duvet. I hoped I wouldn’t let her boy down.
Chapter Four
The lead-up to Victor’s eighteenth birthday nearly overwhelmed me with the need to make it a joyful occasion. In reality, the thought of waking him up on the morning he became an adult made me feel as though I’d be shining a megawatt torch right into the hole Ginny had left behind. I couldn’t get away from the fact that even singing ‘Happy Birthday’ felt like a taunt.
I spent hours trawling through grief and loss websites trying to understand the best approach. I wished that Ginny and Victor had lived closer when Victor was growing up, so that we had more of a connection to work from, a better insight into what was normal for him. He was so quiet. I remembered him as a livewire when the kids were young and we got them together nearly every school holiday, before they started having their own plans and refusing to come.
Patrick was far more pragmatic. ‘Of course he’ll miss Ginny, but I still think he’ll want presents and a cake and a bit of a fuss making of him. I mean, he does have days when he seems to forget about her.’
‘Do you think so?’ I asked, immediately wondering if we were doing enough to keep her memory alive.
Patrick tutted with irritation. ‘Not forgets, but you know what I mean. He just gets on with normal life, doing what Phoebe does – films, stuff on YouTube. Why don’t we ask him what he’d like to do?’
‘Can you do that? I’m afraid I might burst into tears.’
Patrick ruffled my hair. ‘Yes of course, I’ll be big and brave,’ he said.
My shoulders relaxed at the thought of Patrick taking some of the burden, rather than relying on me to hold it all together. At least he hadn’t put the ball back into my court with his customary, ‘I don’t know, love. What do you think Ginny would want?’
On the actual day, I turned to Patrick in bed and asked, ‘When shall I