The Marry-Me Wish by Alison Roberts Page B

the distance stretching between them.
    â€˜You’re welcome to come with me if you’d like to,’ she found herself saying. ‘I won’t be staying long and I…wouldn’t mind a walk somewhere myself.’ She rolled her gaze upwards as a particularly loud cracking noise came from directly overhead. ‘It is a bit hard to think in here today.’
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    If Julia and Mac were surprised to see Anne’s companion, they hid it well.
    â€˜Gidday, mate.’ The colloquialism delivered with a strong Scottish accent made them all smile and broke any possibility of ice. ‘Come on in.’
    Sunshine streamed into the little house on the hill. The living area was taken over by baby gear. Prams andchange tables and nappies. A clothes horse was draped with tiny articles drying in the sunshine. The kitchen bench was cluttered with bottles and measuring spoons and tins of formula.
    â€˜Good grief!’ Anne exclaimed. ‘I’d forgotten how completely babies take over your life.’
    â€˜We’re living and breathing babies,’ Julia said happily. ‘It’s heaven.’
    They were so obviously rapt. Anne had given them this gift and she’d never felt so welcome. She hadn’t expected that being bathed in this environment would be so overwhelming, however. The whole house actually smelled of baby. Of formula and nappies and damp clothes. It took her back. Way, way back to when the centre of her own life had been her small and helpless baby sister. To when there’d been no time for anything for herself but it hadn’t occurred to her to feel put upon in any way because that tiny being had been so important. So precious.
    She completely understood the intensity of this time in Julia and Mac’s life. She didn’t expect the conversation to include anything other than the twins and it didn’t. They talked of feeding patterns and details of mixing formula and sterilising bottles. Of sleeping—or lack of it on the part of the parents—and of how bathtime got organised each evening. Anne was also quite prepared to admire the infants with the kind of reverence their parents demonstrated.
    What was even more unexpected, given the overwhelming environment, was the way she was able to take a step back. The way her body and mind were accepting—possibly with a tinge of relief—that these weren’t her babies. Her heart was squeezed by the force of love she could feel but her breasts gave no more than a tingle of protest that was easily dismissed, and that heaviness in her belly was gone. So different from how she’d felt in the first days after the birth. That counsellor had been right. It had been hard but it had been the right thing to do to create that initial distance.
    The bonding of this new family was so powerful. She wasn’t excluded by any means but neither was she in that inner, almost obsessed, circle. She could feel David watching her as she held wee Angus but her smile was genuine.
    â€˜He’s gorgeous,’ she pronounced, handing him back to his dad as he began to grizzle loudly. ‘He looks just like you, Mac.’
    â€˜He does, doesn’t he?’ Mac was bursting with pride. ‘Chip off the old block.’
    â€˜And don’t you think Amy looks a bit like me?’ Julia asked hopefully. She rocked the baby she was holding as Amy joined her brother in a hungry wail.
    â€˜Absolutely.’ Anne was still smiling as she noted a hint of a puzzled frown on David’s face. He was shifting his gaze from each baby to its parent, clearly making an attempt to find the likeness. Her smile faded as the babies increased the intensity of their demanding cries. She could feel the sound closing in around her. She needed to do something. Now.
    â€˜There, there, darling,’ Julia soothed. ‘Lunch is on its way. Mac?’
    â€˜Onto it. Come on soldier.’ He shifted Angus sothat the baby was