The One Winter Collection. Rebecca Winters

      And suddenly Julie was done with terror. Enough.

      ‘Danny, your mama is having a baby,’ she told him. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. There’s nothing wrong, but I suspect this is a big baby and your mama will hurt a bit as she pushes it out.’

      ‘How will she push it out?’

      ‘Rob will tell you,’ she said grandly, ‘while he finds a movie for you to watch. Won’t you, Rob?’

      ‘Um...yeah?’ He looked wild-eyed and suddenly Julie was fighting an insane desire to grin. A woman in labour or teaching a kid the facts of life—what a choice.

      ‘And your papa and I will help your mama,’ she added. But...

      ‘No.’ It was Amina, staring up at them, practically yelling. ‘No,’ she managed again, and this time it was milder. ‘It’s okay, Danny,’ she managed, making a supreme effort to sound normal in the face of her son’s fear. ‘This is what happened when I had you. It’s normal. Having babies hurts, but only like pulling a big splinter out.’ As if, Julie thought. Right.

      ‘But Papa’s not going to stay here.’ Amina’s voice firmed, becoming almost threatening, and she looked up at Julie and her eyes pleaded. ‘Last time...Henry fainted. I was having Danny and suddenly the midwives were fussing over Henry because he cut his head on the floor when he fell. Henry, I love you but I don’t want you here. I want you to go away.’

      Which left...Julie and Rob. They met each other’s gaze and Julie’s chaotic thoughts were exactly mirrored in Rob’s eyes.

      Big breath. No, make that deep breathing. A bit of Zen calm. Where was a nice safe monastery when she needed one?

      ‘Give us a moment,’ she said to Amina. ‘Henry, no fainting yet. Help Amina into bed, then you and Danny can leave the baby delivering to us. We can do this, can’t we, Rob?’

      ‘I...’

      ‘You won’t faint on me,’ she said in a voice of steel.

      ‘I guess I won’t,’ Rob managed. ‘If you say so—I guess I wouldn’t dare.’

      * * *

      She propelled him out into the passage and closed the door. They stared at each other in a moment of mutual panic, while each of them fought for composure.

      ‘We can’t do this,’ Rob said.

      ‘We don’t have a choice.’

      ‘I don’t have the first clue...’

      ‘I’ve read a bit.’ And she had. When she was having the twins, the dot-point part of her—she was a lawyer and an accountant after all, and research was her thing—had read everything she could get her hands on about childbirth. The fact that she’d forgotten every word the moment she went into labour was immaterial. She knew it all. In theory.

      ‘You’re a lawyer, Jules,’ Rob managed. ‘Not an obstetrician. All you know is law.’

      And she thought suddenly, fleetingly: that’s not all I have to be.

      Why was it a revelation?

      Weirdly, she was remembering the day she’d got the marks to get into law school. Her hippy parents had been baffled, but Julie had been elated. From that moment she’d been a lawyer.

      Even when the twins were born...she’d loved Rob to bits and she’d adored her boys but she was always a lawyer. She’d had Rob bring files into hospital after she’d delivered, so she wouldn’t fall behind.

       All you know is law...

      For the last four years law had been her cave, her hiding place. Her all. The night the boys were killed they’d been running late because of her work and Rob’s work.

      Rob had started skiing, she thought inconsequentially and then she thought that maybe it was time she did something different too. Like delivering babies?

      The whole concept took a nanosecond to wash through her mind but, strangely, it settled her.

      ‘We don’t even have the Internet,’ Rob groaned.

      ‘I have books.’

      ‘Books?’

      ‘You know: things with pages. I bought every birth book I could get my hands on when the twins were due. They’ll still be in the bookcase.’

      ‘You intend to deliver a breech baby with one hand while you hold the book in the other?’

      ‘That’s where you come in, Rob McDowell,’ she snapped. ‘From this moment we’re a united team. I want hot water, warm towels and a professional attitude.’

      ‘I’m an architect!’

      ‘Not tonight you’re not,’ she told him. ‘It’s still Christmas. You played Santa this morning. Now you need to put your midwife hat on and deliver again.’

      * * *

      She’d sounded calm enough when she’d talked to Rob but, as she stood in front of her small library of childbirth books, she felt the calm slip away.

       What...? How...?

      Steady, she told herself. Think. She stared at the myriad titles and tried to decide.

      Not for the first time in her life, she blessed her memory. Read it once, forget it never. Obviously she couldn’t remember every detail in these books—some parts she’d skimmed over fast. But the thing with childbirth, she’d figured, was that almost anyone could do it. Women had been doing it since time immemorial and they’d done it without the help of books. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred there were no problems; all the midwife had to do was encourage, support, catch and clean up.

      But the one per cent...

      Julie had become just a trifle obsessive in the last weeks of her pregnancy. She therefore had books with pictures of unthinkable outcomes. She remembered Rob had found her staring in horror at a picture of conjoined twins, and a mother who’d laboured for days before dying. Extreme Complications of Pregnancy. He’d taken that book straight to the shredder, but she had others.

      Breech, she thought frantically, fingering one title after another. There were all sorts of complications with breech deliveries and she’d read them all.

      But...but...

      Ninety-nine per cent of babies are born normally, she told herself and she kept on thinking of past reading. Breech is more likely to be a problem in first time mothers because the perineum is unproven. Or words to that effect? She’d read that somewhere and she remembered thinking if her firstborn twin was breech it might be a problem, but if the book was right the second twin would be a piece of cake regardless.

      ‘You’re smiling!’

      Rob had come into the living room and was staring at her in astonishment.

      ‘No problem. We can do this.’ And she hauled out one of the slimmest tomes on the shelf, almost a booklet, written by a midwife and not a doctor. It was well thumbed. She’d read it over and over because in the end it had been the most comforting.

      She flicked until she found what she was looking for, and there were the words again. If the breech is a second baby it’s much less likely to require intervention. But it did sound a warning. Avoid home birth unless you’re near good medical backup.

      There wasn’t a lot of backup here. One architect, one lawyer, one fainting engineer and a four-year-old. Plus a first aid box containing sticking plasters, tweezers and antiseptic.

      Breech... She flipped to the page she was looking for and her eyes widened. Rob looked over her shoulder and she felt him stiffen. ‘My God...’

      ‘We can do this.’ Steady, she told herself. If I don’t