Be My Baby. A. Michael L.

was best for you, for your pain, not my pain. That I’d let you go, that I’d let you live the best life you could. She said I made you weak. That you’d care more about how I felt than yourself.’ Jamie looked up, ‘And she’s right. You were that person. You loved me more than you loved yourself. You would have given up everything for me. It was the right thing to do.’

      Mollie felt her stomach collapse, wrenching around her torso, looking at him with pure rage, ‘This is my fault? I loved you too much? I was too selfless?’ Mollie put her hand to her forehead, ‘You were MY WORLD! And you thought that if I’d lost our child, I’D WANT TO BE ALONE? ARE YOU A MORON? DID YOU KNOW ME AT ALL?’

      Jamie looked up at her as she towered over him, hands clenched, face red and puffy.

      ‘I guess not.’

      ***

      ‘You got another parcel,’ her mother threw it on the bed and trundled back down the hallway, a trail of smoke following her.

      ‘I’ve told you not to smoke in here!’

      ‘And I’ve told you to get your own place if you don’t like it!’ Linda replied, slamming the door.

      The baby started crying, a high pitched wail that made Mollie want to cry with her. She was so little, the littlest, most perfect thing Mollie had ever seen. She held her daughter close to her, staring into those light blue eyes and desperately hoping they’d change as she got older, that they wouldn’t look so much like his. It hurt to look at those eyes sometimes.

      ‘Esme! We’ve got post! Shall we see who it’s from?’ She jiggled the baby between arms so she could settle on the bed and tear open the package. At times like this, she held her breath, allowing a brief moment of hope, that maybe it was Jay, that he’d sent her a letter explaining, apologising. That there was some sort of explanation that left him blameless, that he would come back for her and they could be a family. It was a lot of dreaming to fit into the three seconds before she opened the parcel.

      It was Ruby. Ruby was the only one who sent her things, because she was the only one who knew she was still at home. Chelsea was sucked into Oxford life the minute she left, and Evie had tried hard, but eventually, she’d given up too, and Mollie couldn’t blame her. She didn’t give anything back, didn’t ask questions about club nights and societies, because she was more focused on her daughter’s sleep pattern. Not that she said any of that.