BREAKING POINT

“She may want you, Audrey. She will be coming round now”

Audrey ran up the stairs, hesitating for a brief moment outside the bedroom door. With a sudden pang of desolation, she thought :

‘If things had worked out between Alex and I, my children would have been born here in this house,… In that room’

She brushed aside such reflections and knocked on the door.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Penny felt as if she were returning from a long, long way… From eternity itself. She opened her eyes to see Audrey bending over her. For an instant she did not speak but she listened and heard the cry of a baby… Her baby, an amazing exciting sound. It was an incredible relief to be able to lie quite still without suffering, no more of that awful, racking pain, just to lie drowsily, contentedly, listening to the cries of the new born baby.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” she whispered, and was surprised at the effort it cost her to ask that question. Her face was drained of colour, her eyes huge, violet shadowed.

“It’s a boy, Penny… Just what you wanted darling” cried Audrey.

Then Penny remembered Jeremy. This baby was his son.

“Can I see him?” she asked

She heard nurse Caroline’s cheerful voice saying “Of course you can. He’s a bony boy, aren’t you, my lamb? A little rascal giving his mother all that trouble”

She came forward to the side of the bed and leaned down to show Penny a bundle of flannel from which there peeped a small and perfect head.

“He isn’t washed yet but here, have a look at him. Never saw anything like that think hair and those long lashes on a new born child”

Penny looked at her son. Her whole being was suffused with an emotion of pure joy and pride. This was her son… And Jeremy’s… And he was beautiful. Of course he was, for just as she had hoped, he was Jeremy in miniature

She could not bring herself to speak of this likeness to Audrey just at the moment but she saw it… The shape of the baby’s brow, the long lashes and the crop of fair, glistening hair. Her baby was glorious with one reddish mark on the fair pinkish skin… One mark made by forceps… Unavoidably. The nurse said it would soon fade.

Ravished, she looked at the tiny, perfect hands and then suddenly her son opened his eyes… Blue, a gay gentian blue… Like Jeremy’s. Penny’s heart almost stopped beating

The tears began to roll down her cheeks. Nurse Caroline moved away from the bed. Still half drugged, Penny whispered “Jeremy. Jeremy”

Audrey sat down beside Penny and took her hand. She too was going to cry again.

‘Poor Penny’ she thought. ‘Poor Penny… And my poor sweet Joey’

———–

“What are you going to call him, Penny?” asked Audrey looking at the sleeping child in the cot.

The young mother leaned back against the cushions in the arm chair. Her eyes were soft and dreamy”

“Jeremy. I want him to be named after his father”

A slight frown creased Audrey’s forehead.

“Do you think that is wise?” she asked quietly. “I mean, supposing things don’t go just the way you are hoping, then it might be better for the child to have some other name”

Penny stared at her friend with large, anxious eyes.

“But Audrey, I don’t see… I mean… Well he looks so like Jeremy” she ended weakly

“That’s the point” Audrey said quickly. “If you and Jeremy don’t get married and Jeremy doesn’t want the baby, then it will be better for the child never to know about his father. If he should meet him one day in the future and see their likeness and realize he has the the same name with him, he might begin to wonder. With a different name, the likeness would just seem like a coincidence… To other people as well ”

Penny saw the point but she could not bring herself to consider a future without Jeremy. His last call and text had been affectionate as ever and he told her he would be back next month. She hadn’t told him about the baby still. She felt weak and helpless but now, a month later Joey had given her permission to get up for a little while everyday.

“You had a pretty bad time of it Penny” he had told her.” Take things gently for a while. Don’t try to do too much at first”

But as soon as Penny learned that Jeremy was on his way home, Penny grew impatient with her own inactivity and fought against the laziness that had attacked her recently. Whatever happened, she must grow strong enough to go back home and see Jeremy. Her tremendous love for and pride in her child grew steadily as the days passed and his complete dependence on her began to give her an extra portion of courage. She would need every ounce of that courage to face Jeremy with the truth, but the determination to do so became an obsession. Her son must have its rightful heritage. He needed his father as much as she, Penny, needed her husband. She would be fighting now for her child as well as for herself.

She looked across at the sleeping baby and dragged her mind back to the immediate problem of a name for him.

“Why not call him Howard?” Audrey suggested. “After your late husband. You were so fond of him Penny”

“I don’t know” Penny murmured unable to dispense completely with the idea of calling her son after his own father. “Would it be fair to Jeremy if I give his son my first husband’s name?”

“He is your child, Penny” Audrey said drily. “Howard loved you and I think he would be glad you wanted to name your son after him”

“I don’t suppose Jeremy would mind” Penny remarked more to herself than to Audrey. “He was never jealous of Howard and I doubt if he even remembers my first husband’s name. Yes… I suppose I could call him Howard… Howard Jeremy Hampson” she ended somewhat promptly.

At that moment the baby opened his eyes. Penny rose and went across to the cot

“Do you approve of that name my darling” she said softly. “Would you like to be Howard the second?”

The baby blinked and for a moment Penny thought she detected a smile. She turned to Audrey and said softly,

“All right, Audrey. Howard he shall be”