Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Chapter Sixteen: Teaching Faye

       Chapter Seventeen: An ‘Off Day’

       Chapter Eighteen: Excited and Concerned

       Chapter Nineteen: Baby Edward

       Chapter Twenty: Second Thoughts

       Chapter Twenty-One: An Impossible Decision

       Chapter Twenty-Two: Saying Goodbye

       Chapter Twenty-Three: A Revelation

       Chapter Twenty-Four: A Loving Legacy

       Epilogue

       Suggested topics for reading-group discussion

       Cathy Glass

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       About the Publisher

Chapter Sixteen

       Teaching Faye

      The following morning, Saturday, once Faye was up and dressed and had finished her breakfast, she was eager to learn how to make up a bottle of milk. It was ten o’clock, Adrian had gone to work and Paula and Lucy were wandering around in their dressing gowns, taking their time getting up, as it was the weekend. Faye came with me to the kitchen where I set the two instruction sheets in their plastic sleeves side by side on the work surface. I carefully explained what each was for.

      ‘You can do that one,’ Faye said, pointing to the sheet for sterilizing the bottles. ‘I want to put the milk in the bottles.’

      ‘You have to learn to do both,’ I said. ‘All the bottles must be washed well in warm water and sterilized before you make up the milk.’ I’d explained this when we’d gone shopping for the sterilizer, but as with many new things Faye had to hear it a number of times before it was committed to memory. ‘If you don’t sterilize the bottle, germs could make your baby sick,’ I emphasized. ‘So what is the first thing you do?’ I pointed to number one on the step-by-step instructions for sterilizing the bottles.

      ‘One. Wash all the bottles in warm water,’ she read slowly, as a young child might.

      ‘Good. Go on then. There are the bottles and the bottle brush in the sink ready. Just run the hot water and add a squirt of washing-up liquid. I know the bottles aren’t dirty, but they will be once you start using them. Always take off the tops of the bottles – the teats – to wash them.’

      ‘I’m good at washing up,’ Faye said. ‘I do it at home for Gran.’

      ‘Excellent.’ I stood to one side and watched as she slowly and rather laboriously began cleaning the first bottle. ‘That’s right, push the brush right down to the end of the bottle and turn it round and round,’ I said. ‘Great. Now the next one.’ She carefully set the first bottle on the draining board and picked up the next. ‘When you’ve had your baby and you are doing this for real, you’ll need to have bottles cleaned and sterilized in plenty of time so you always have a feed ready, but we’ll cover that another time.’

      It took Faye a good ten minutes to wash and rinse the four bottles and teats and place them on the drainer. She set the bottle brush beside them and then carefully tipped the water from the bowl. She turned to me with a big smile of satisfaction from a job well done. ‘Can I put the milk in the bottles now?’

      ‘Not yet,’ I said, passing her the towel to wipe her hands. ‘We have to do something else first. Something very important. Can you remember what it is? If not, read number two on the list.’

      She returned to the work surface and studied the instruction sheet for the sterilizer as I stood beside her. ‘What does number two say?’ I asked gently. ‘Do you know?’

      ‘I can read some of it,’ she said. ‘Two.