The Book of Love. Fionnuala Kearney

might try to hold her, and she might scream.

      Dom would whisper something hopeful, something kind and she might scream.

      She forced herself away from him, crawled along the floor towards the huddle and pushed her way through. Maisie was lying on the floor on her blanket, the one Erin’s own mother had crocheted so many years ago. A stranger’s hand gripped her, tried to stop her getting to her baby. ‘You’re wrong!’ Erin growled, a feral sound. ‘Leave her alone!’

      Gathering her baby up in her arms, she whispered to her. ‘Everything will be alright. Mummy’s here. Everything will be alright, won’t it, Daddy?’ She looked to where she’d left Dom, who sat on his haunches. When her eyes found his, Erin saw something she didn’t recognise, as her memory pulled a line she’d written to him once, ‘I love your absolute certainty that nothing can touch us.’

      She cradled their child, pulled the blanket tight around her. Maisie loved to be swaddled, and she was so cold. Erin kissed her lips, looked at a woman who was sitting next to her, also crouched down on her knees. The woman wiped her eyes with the back of her gloved hand. ‘She gets cold,’ Erin told her. ‘And she loves to be warm. She gets cold,’ she repeated. And as Erin began to rock again, silent, slow tears traced a path down her face. She kissed her baby as she felt another one move inside her. ‘Don’t worry, darling, Mummy will make it better.’ Running a hand over her hair, her fine, beautiful hair, she felt the back of Maisie’s neck. Cold. She rubbed the folds of her skin underneath her hairline and moved her up onto her shoulder. ‘She likes this,’ Erin told the woman as she moved her hand in slow circles on Maisie’s back.

      ‘Erin.’

      Dom was suddenly in front of her. ‘Shall I take her?’ he whispered.

      Erin’s head shook. ‘No.’

      She needed time. These people had to understand that she and her baby needed time. She felt Dom’s hand on hers as she moved both over Maisie. ‘We just need to hold her. Everything’s going to be okay, sweetheart.’ Erin wasn’t sure if she was talking to Maisie or to Dom.

      They stayed there a few minutes, rubbing their baby’s back until she became aware that the strangers in her home had moved. They were no longer huddled. Things that had lain on the floor had been packed into tight bags and slung over their shoulders. Some of them had left. Only two remained; the woman who had been sitting next to her and a man, tall with a tightly cut red beard. ‘Look, Maisie,’ she whispered in her ear. ‘Pirate!’

      Erin sat back on the floor, still holding Maisie upright on her shoulder. She felt the front of the sofa support her and she sighed. Turning Maisie over, she cradled her in her arms once again. Erin touched her lips with her fingertip, opened them slightly, waited for that fluttery, quivery breath that Maisie would always do. And then she held her own.

      In that moment, Erin figured if she held it for long enough, she too might just stop breathing. It couldn’t be that hard, surely. She saw Dom’s lips move. He was breathing. Dom. Her Dom. He reached forward and took Maisie in his arms. Peas in a pod. And breath burst from her, against her will. Gasping, she quickly held it again. Maisie was in Dom’s arms now.

      As he stood and the woman took Maisie from him, Erin closed her eyes. She felt a kick in her stomach. Two kicks. Two babies. Needing their mummy. Again, she blurted the breath she’d held, this time, heard it exit her in a roar. And then, her eyes still closed as she felt Dom take her in his arms, she screamed again and beat his chest with her fists until she had no more fight.

      And in her mind, she saw again how life might happen.

      Someone, anyone, maybe her friend Lydia, would hand her a cup of tea and she would scream.

      Someone, anyone, maybe her friend Hannah, would try to hold her and she would scream and hit and thump.

      Someone, anyone, would just say something kind and the sound would come.

      Forever? She wondered as Dom placed both their hands on her stomach.

      ‘Breathe,’ he whispered. ‘You have to breathe. We need you.’

      And Erin did as she was told. In and out, she felt her lungs inflate and deflate.

      And when she opened her eyes, Maisie was still there in the stranger’s arms. Wrapped up against the cold in her blanket. Dom had stilled next to her. Without him looking at her, she felt his arm tighten around her and she turned her head towards him.

      And Erin, who already knew what fear could do, who already knew what loss could do, now feared that alongside Maisie, her husband’s blind faith in life being wonderful had also died that night.

      20th May 1998

      Darling Erin,

      Talk to me.

      Write to me.

      I know you’re afraid and I know now there’s reason to be afraid in life, but together, we can get through it, even if we’re on our knees.

      I love you because there’s a strength in you still. I see it when you take vitamins for our other babies, when you shush them gently with your hand through your stomach.

      I love you because you will make certain those babies know their sister. I’m sure of it.

      I love you because loving you is the only other thing I’m sure of right now.

      Dom xx

       9. Erin

      THEN – February 1999

      ‘You need to look after your wife, Dominic.’

      Erin listened behind the door to her kitchen. Her mother-in-law speaking up for her still felt a little odd and her hand rested on her chest.

      ‘We need to look after each other,’ was Dom’s reply.

      Erin placed her forehead on the pine architrave. He was, of course, right but where and how to begin? She moved to push the door in front of her but paused at Sophie’s next words.

      ‘She loves you. You love her. You’re the one who tells me that it doesn’t have to be any more complicated. Look, I’m sorry …’ Erin imagined her looking at her watch. ‘But I’ve got to meet your dad at the club for lunch. I’m assuming you don’t want to join us?’

      Dom laughed. ‘Er, no, ta, we’re going for a walk down by the river.’

       She loves you. You love her. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated.

      Erin’s eyes rested on a black and white image hanging on the wall of the hallway to her left – a picture Hannah had taken of her and Dom on their wedding day – one of those snapped when they weren’t looking. Both of them in profile, she was laughing at something Dom had just said. She could never remember what it was, but the slight tilt of her head backwards said so much more than that she’d just listened to something funny. It said she’d heard something funny from someone she loved. And his eyes, his eyes gazed at her as if he couldn’t believe he’d made this woman whom he loved, laugh like that. Wonder, awe in each other … She closed her own eyes for one brief moment.

      Opening them meant she would either push the kitchen door open or opt to look further left. Left a little, where just beyond the wedding frame hung a small collage of photos of the children. A few pictures Dom had taken of their beautiful twins, Rachel and Jude, now almost eight months old, already making each other laugh. In the centre, just one of Maisie on her first birthday, covered in chocolate cake, only a month before they lost her. Erin had no need to actually look. The grinning images of her three children were burned on her brain. She swallowed hard and entered the kitchen. Crossing