A Very Special Delivery An emotional stor y

It’s just one moment in time, but Emma’s emotional journey is only just beginning…

The summer that everything changes, it is so hot that steam rises off the pavements. A heatwave, the radio calls it; England’s never seen anything like it.

The night before we are due to meet Lola, Andrew and I sleep separately, spread out in our double bed with the window wide open, the duvet flung away. It is too hot to hold each other, even though this is the last time we will be a twosome. The fan I have placed in the hallway whirrs, stops me from sleeping. I’m too nervous to sleep anyway.

In the morning, the outfit I had planned is all wrong – a smart cream jacket, knee length skirt – I will boil. Andrew laughs a little as I paw through my too-full wardrobe, rejecting it all.

“None of this is right,” I say, “None of this is right to meet our daughter.”

Eventually, I pull on a floaty yellow dress that I got on holiday in Spain, and dark green sandals with little beads that rattle as I walk.

“She might think they’re toys,” Andrew says, smiling at me and kissing the top of my head. “You look lovely, Emma. Really, you do.”

On the way to the airport, we roll the car windows down and put on the radio. They’re playing old music, hits of the 80s. Andrew sings along but I can’t because I feel as though my throat is closing up, and my whole body is covered in sweat. I have been waiting for this moment for 36 years. I want so badly for it to go well.

“Not long now,” Andrew says, taking a swig of water from the big litre bottle I brought out of the freezer. The ice has melted already – the radio tells us it is 35 degrees.

My mother has texted me three times – the first to moan about the heat, the second to ask me what I am wearing, the third to wish us good luck.

Thinkingofyou, she writes, itwillall befine.

I wipe my upper lip and look out of the window as Andrew takes a left in the direction of Heathrow. London is busy and as traffic whizzes past us, elbows hang out of windows and the sky is an azure blue with not a cloud in sight.

Beside me, Andrew reaches out a hand to touch mine, his fingers hot and sticky. I feel the heat of his wedding ring, the gold glinting in the sunlight.

I wonder if he really isn’t as nervous as me, or whether he’s just hiding it well. Men sometimes do. On our wedding night, he told me his hands had been shaking all the way through the ceremony, that he’d eaten nothing all morning because he was so frightened of something going wrong.

“My best man laughed at me,” he’d said ruefully, his arms circled around me in my wedding dress, “But I was terrified, Emma, honestly. I kept expecting that you’d change your mind at any second.”

“Never,” I’d whispered, cupping my hand around the back of his neck and kissing the soft brown curls that framed his face. “I’ll never change my mind.”

I try not to think about the time that we came close…

It was three years ago, in a doctor’s waiting room. The last of the IVF treatments had failed, and my heart felt like it was breaking in two. Andrew

had turned to me, his face shadowy under the bright lights and the doctor’s sympathetic gaze.

“It’s me,” he’d said, “It’s my fault, my problem. You should be with someone else, Emma. It’s selfish of me to keep you.”

The doctor had cleared his throat awkwardly and I’d burst into tears, and just for a second, a millisecond, I’d wondered if Andrew was right – whether our failure to produce a much-wanted child really did mean we weren’t meant to be together. Whether I really should walk away. Whether he should set me free to find someone else.

The moment passed quickly, and that night we made love hopefully. I’d felt his heart beating against mine. It didn’t work, of course. “Emma?” Andrew is looking at me – he’s stopped driving, parking in the long-stay waiting area at the airport. I blink. “Sorry,” I say, “My mind drifted off.” He looks at me questioningly. “I’m just so nervous,” I say, “I feel like I’m dreaming.”

My yellow dress clings to my body as I step out of the car onto the hot tarmac.

In my bag is factor 50 suncream, in case she doesn’t have any, and a little pink hat we bought last week in a fit of excitement. I’d felt like I was floating as I walked around the department store; the children’s sections had been closed to me for so long. I was scared people would see me as an imposter, pretending to be a mother among a sea of pregnant women. But the cashier smiled at me as I went to pay.

“Such a sweet sunhat!” she’d said, “Who’s it for?”

“It’s for my daughter,” I said, forcing myself to be brave, “We’re adopting her next week.”

The shop assistant had stared at me, and I felt the colour flush to my cheeks. Then she smiled, a lovely smile that immediately put me at ease. “How wonderful,” she told me, “how lucky you are.”

Andrew takes my hand as we walk towards the airport doors, his phone in his other hand, ready and waiting for them to call us.

“Terminal 2,” Mrs Ashdown had said, “We’ll be waiting with Lola.”

As we walk through the doors, a wave of air conditioning hits us.

“Phew,” Andrew says, “thank God for that.” He grins at me, squeezes my hand three times, our sign since we very first met all those years ago. I squeeze back, thinking of all the times he has stood by my side – through the IVF, the tests, the endless paperwork we have filled out over and over again to get us here, standing in terminal 2 waiting for our daughter.

“What if she hates me?” I say, seized with a sudden onslaught of panic, and Andrew puts his arm around me, pulls me to his chest.

“She’s not going to hate you, Emma. She’s going to love you. I promise.” He pulls a face, trying to make me laugh.

I swallow, look away. I am frightened that if I move too quickly, say too much, I might cry – the pent-up emotion might come bursting out of me and terrify this tiny little girl who has travelled so far for us.

I keep picturing her on the plane, her dark hair resting against a British Airways pillow, her little legs poking out in front of her. Already, I want her to be safe. Already, her happiness is bound with my own.

“There,” Andrew says, and then I see them, a woman with blonde hair neatly tied back, another woman carrying an assortment of bags, and a little girl, the girl from the photographs, the girl in my dreams nearly every night for the last eight months. Lola.

When I have pictured this moment, and I have done so many times, I have always imagined myself standing still, smiling calmly, waving to her and letting her walk to us, in her own time, at her own pace. But before I know it, something inside me seems to flip, as though I have been unlocked, and I have dropped Andrew’s hand and am rushing towards her, my arms outstretched, my heartbeat thudding in my ears. My yellow dress swings out around me as I move, my hair slithers free of its ponytail. I stop just in front of them. Mrs Ashdown looks amused; she smiles at me, one hand on Lola’s little shoulder, and I catch myself, panting a little, my hands on my hips.

Andrew joins me, shakes Mrs Ashdown’s hand.

“Emma’s just excited,” he says, then crouches down on the floor, lowering his face to Lola’s.

“Hello, Lola. Welcome to England. We’re so happy that you’re here.”

I haven’t realised that I am holding my breath, but it comes out in a whoosh as I watch Lola’s face. She smiles, showing tiny white teeth, and her little face looks at us both, taking us in, drinking us up. She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen – she is perfect, she is gorgeous. She is ours.

“Hello,” I say, my voice a strange croak, and she looks up at me, her little cheeks chubby, her little eyes bright. “Hello,” she says. And the rest of our life begins.

I’m FRIGHTENED that the pent-up EMOTION might BURST out of me