TW: miscarriage
Shelagh did not even know why she did it.
It was an impulse, like a survival instinct. Talk, to be able to continue with her life in peace.
She knew this was going to happen. Poplar was a huge place, full of children and with several schools, but she knew her fear was not unfounded. She sensed it, her nerves and her anxiety had been telling her that this meeting would take place and that she should be prepared.
She ignored it, refused to listen, and now Anna was in front of her, with a child who had almost thrown Angela to the ground. Her cousin, she thought. They are cousins and they don't know it.
The children were gone and with them the distraction to adult problems and discomforts. It was just the two of them, alone, trying to avoid looking at each other.
So she did it, although now, as she walked alongside this nervous woman who twisted her fingers and looked everywhere for a street to escape by, Shelagh was completely confused by her own mind. Why? What was she planning to tell her?
She thought of Patrick's recommendation, a month ago. That was good. She would tell Anna that everything was fine with her and there were no grudges, but that she never wanted to see her again.
Although that was going to be very difficult, given the circumstances.
Shelagh greeted a few people who crossed her path: future mothers, Mrs Buckle, the owner of the bookstore. She smiled at all of them, pretending that her morning was normal and she was happy.
"It's here," she announced when they arrived, and Anna meekly followed her inside. Fortunately or unfortunately, the coffee shop was almost empty.
They sat opposite each other, at the same table where the day before Shelagh shared a tea and cakes with her children. She thought about how different things were even though it was exactly the same place and only a few hours had passed.
She saw Anna dangle her bag on the chair and put her hands in her lap. The woman was pale, nibbling her lower lip from time to time and avoiding looking at her at all costs.
Shelagh smiled at the waiter, asked for just tea again, but Anna asked for coffee. In fact, she asked for the strongest one they have.
Then she glanced slightly at Shelagh and continued with her eyes on the window. Shelagh decided that since she was the one who had taken the first step, she must also be the one to say the first word. She rested her hands on the table, felt them damp with nerves.
"Thanks for coming, Anna."
She barely heard her own voice, and she doubted Anna had heard her.
But the woman stopped looking out the window, and looked at the table and the hands resting there.
"Thanks for inviting me," Anna replied, almost on the same level of voice as Shelagh.
Shelagh despaired at not knowing how to go on. She always took pride, even when she should not, on the way she handled strange, uncomfortable, or unusual situations, always cold-blooded and clear-minded, without nerves or at least not showing them.
But now she was lost, her head blank, and the person on the other side of the table seemed to be in the same situation. Or, what could be worse, maybe Anna was not even interested in this and she just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
Finding nothing more to say, she decided to go to a neutral and safe ground, which she knew always worked.
"I didn't know you have a son."
She mentally celebrated as she saw a small smile rise on Anna's face, though she continued to stare at the table.
"Yes," it was a whisper, but there was pride, "He is Johnny. I'm sorry about what happened to your daughter."
Anna had looked up and was now looking directly at her. Shelagh smiled at her.
"It doesn't matter, children are like that, if they're not on the ground, others come and throw them there."
Anna smiled, even she seemed to barely laugh.
The waiter returned and Shelagh secretly cursed him for interrupting the slight progress of whatever was happening between her and Anna.
But the coffee, apart from looking strong, also seemed to have good effects on Anna's character, because she continued to smile.
"Do you have those two girls?" Anna asked, taking the cup with both hands. Shelagh saw them shivering, as if Anna were very cold even though it was a hot and sunny morning.
"No, I also have Teddy, the baby you... saw the other day," Shelagh looked at her tea, trying not to remember their previous meeting, "And I also have Timothy, who is already a teenager."
Anna widened her eyes, put down the cup.
"Do you already have a teenage son?"
She tried to hide the laugh, because she heard that question many times. She took one more sip of tea.
"Yes. Although in reality he is not my son, he is my husband's son."
"But he is with you."
"Yes, we all live together."
Anna kept looking at her in surprise.
"I admire your patience with four children."
Shelagh could not help laughing this time.
"Sometimes I wonder where I get so much patience from," she admitted.
"I didn't see you yesterday," Anna said after a little silence. She had returned to seriousness and Shelagh wanted to avoid that, because seriousness meant starting to talk about serious things.
"The first day, the youngest children enter earlier, and leave a few minutes later. The teachers take the opportunity to talk a little with the parents. And do you have more children?"
Shelagh immediately regretted asking that, because Anna's face not only remained serious, it fell and turned gray and tense.
"No, just Johnny," she barely said, "There were...There were a lot of problems before him, I…my body…You know. And then I couldn't have any more children."
Shelagh felt guilty and wanted to remedy as soon as possible having asked what she should not.
"Oh Anna I'm so sorry."
She smiled, taking the cup and wrapping her long fingers around it.
"Don't worry, you didn't know."
Shelagh decided to continue, to tell her something that she never wanted to share but that might help Anna with her grief. They were also women, and women talked about women's issues: pain, children, regrets, hatred of one's own body for not fulfilling dreams. And at that moment Shelagh did not see Anna as who she was, but rather she saw a woman who was a little sad.
Shelagh took a shaky breath.
"I had problems too, and both Angela, the girl your son crashed, and May, the other girl, are adopted. Only Teddy is mine."
Anna crossed her arms on the table, suddenly very interested.
"You could not? So maybe it's… how do you say?"
"Hereditary? No, no," Shelagh denied, perhaps with too much emphasis, to shake off the truth that they were family, "My problem was because I had tuberculosis and that produced... Sorry, I'm already speaking like a nurse."
Anna smiled slightly, but her interest seemed to deflate a little.
"The women in my family had not trouble conceiving, and I could never find an explanation for myself. When you said that you too, well, I thought ... It doesn't matter. Anyway, I'm happy with my Johnny anyway, I don't want more children. I think there is something special about being an only child."
It was not said with maliciousness or sarcasm, but those words hurt Shelagh. Perhaps there was nothing, but she seemed to see something implicit in that last sentence.
Suddenly she remembered who Anna was and why they were both sitting there.
Shelagh sipped more of her tea, thinking about how to go on, feeling like a chess strategist, guessing her opponent's move, looking for a way to win the contest fairly and brilliantly.
But Anna did not seem to be playing the same game. In fact, she seemed not to play any.
"Are you okay with tuberculosis now?" her voice sounded innocent, Shelagh even detected genuine concern in her question.
"Yes, cured years ago."
"I'm very happy," now a smile, also sincere.
She saw Anna finishing her coffee, looking everywhere again but no longer with her scared eyes, but simply admiring the decoration of the place. She seemed calm, and that also reassured her.
"So are you a nurse?" Anna leaned back in the chair, the fingers of one hand toying with the handle of her cup.
"Yes, and also a midwife."
It seemed that for Anna, Shelagh was being a box of surprises, because she once again opened her blue eyes wide.
"Oh, that must be..." she seemed to think what to say and Shelagh guessed it, but Anna took another tack, "... fascinating."
"Say what you meant: terrible."
Anna threw her head back in a crystal-clear laugh that loosened her body and Shelagh's as well. Then she covered her mouth with one hand. Her pallor was gone, her face was only red with laughter and embarrassment.
"Yes, I was going to say that," she admitted. "I'm sorry. It is a beautiful thing to help mothers to have their babies but it must also be terrible. Although I think it must be worse to be a men's nurse."
The one who laughed out loud was Shelagh. Again, in an extremely easy way, she forgot who Anna was, and what that blonde woman meant in her past and in her reality.
"I should have done it when I was studying nursing. Something that I don't prefer to remember."
Anna covered her mouth with her hand again, to keep from laughing.
"It's an admirable job, really," she said more calmly, "I'm not a person who is afraid of doctors or needles or procedures, but I try to stay away from all that. So I admire the people who dedicate their lives to that."
"Thank you," Shelagh smiled, taking the last sip of tea, "Sometimes it is complicated and exhausting, especially when you are also married to a doctor. But it's what I love to do."
"Is your husband a doctor?"
"Yes, actually I think he's the most famous person in all of Poplar," she laughed. "Everybody needs him constantly."
"That must be overwhelming."
"Yes, quite a lot. And where do you work?" She asked, now she was getting more and more interested in Anna.
But she regretted it again, because Anna shifted uncomfortably in the chair, and pressed her lips together.
"Oh, my job is not interesting at all."
"Why not?" Shelagh was surprised, because she was smiling at her without even realizing it and besides, she was leaning over the table, expectant and eager to listen.
Things were not going the way Shelagh hoped. All this had to end by telling Anna that the best thing was for them to pretend not to know each other, to ignore each other and to go on with their lives far from each other.
But without being able to impose herself, Shelagh was interested, she wanted to hear more, she wanted to know Anna and chat and laugh again with that ease that came as soon as she gave her five minutes of her time.
She knew that a part of her wanted that, and the other part was pulling her so that she would return to her channel, stand up and leave that coffee shop.
The part that she wanted to continue sitting in front of Anna had, with each passing minute, more strength.
And that scared her a lot.
She could not decipher her.
She did not understand who Shelagh Mannion was besides being a mother, a nurse, and her sister.
Was Shelagh the woman who froze at the school gate, or the one who walked behind her to invite her coffee? Was Shelagh the respectable and beloved woman everyone in Poplar knew and greeted, or the one who said in a barely audible whisper that she "knew a new coffee shop"? Was Shelagh the one who was laughing, or the one who screamed and cried a month ago?
Who are you? And why do you want to know about me now?
"Anna?"
She blinked, surprised amid her confused thoughts. Shelagh had spread one of her hands across the table, as if she had wanted to touch her but regretted it halfway.
"I'm sorry, I suddenly remembered that I have to buy some things for Johnny," she lied, "What did you ask me?"
"About your work," Shelagh did not believe her, she saw it all over her face.
"Oh, now I'm not working, and my previous job wasn't as interesting as yours. I couldn't study, but I was always good with housework and with clothes, hairstyles, makeup. I worked my whole life in the same place, in the residence of a very important family, the Crawleys. I started as a maid and then became the housekeeper. Mainly I always took care of the daughters of the family."
"Crawley? I heard that last name several times, I think they are more than an important family. Could they be related to the Queen?"
"Yes, in fact the royal family once visited us at the house."
"Did you meet the Queen?!"
Her chest swelled with pride when she saw that the shocked one now was Shelagh.
"Let's say yes."
"Did you know her or didn't you know her?" Shelagh arched an eyebrow, although she had a smile.
"Yes," she smiled. "I even combed her hair."
"Oh my God that's wonderful! And you said that your work was not interesting!"
She had to laugh, because Shelagh's expression was sincere and exultant. Out of the corner of her eye she saw two waiters staring in amazement, as if they could not believe they saw Mrs Turner screaming in a coffee shop like she was an excited teenager.
"Tell me more!"
"Well, she's a very simple person, really. She is just as we see her. Anyway she only stayed a couple of days, and I saw her for one night. But I have a photograph with her," Anna smiled proudly and Shelagh opened her mouth.
"Is awesome! And why did you leave all that?"
"My husband got a job here in London. He's a hotel manager. A friend of Lord Grantham's, my former boss, needed someone who was older and good, and he offered my husband the job. And our boss told us that we should be stupid if we didn't accept because it was our opportunity to progress and to be in the best place for Johnny's education and development. So that's why I'm here."
Actually, she was not there just for that, and Shelagh knew it very well because her face changed, she became serious and lowered her eyes. The atmosphere also changed, became thick and tense, as if a dense fog had suddenly overshadowed the sunny morning.
"Look Anna, I..." she saw Shelagh breathe in, then she took her bag and started to stand up.
"Shelagh," she extended a hand on the table, but she did not touch her, "Shelagh I told you the other day, I'm very sorry for what happened. But don't worry, my husband is the one who will bring my son to school every day, then I can wait for Johnny elsewhere. So you will not see me."
Anna did not know why she was giving in. Perhaps because she was the intruder, the foreigner in this territory that Shelagh clearly dominated.
Shelagh hung her bag back on the chair, sighing, and leaned one elbow on the table so she could support her forehead with one hand. She seemed to have a headache.
"I don't know what to say you."
Shelagh's voice came out brittle, her eyes that were now looking directly at Anna were red.
"I don't know what to do with you, Anna," she continued, and it seemed she was mad at herself because of that, "I don't know, I don't know. My idea of bringing you here was to tell you to forget this, that..."
"Shelagh, I'm moving soon. I will, I'm pressuring my husband to do it."
"And meanwhile? Look, I ... I didn't want this. I didn't think we would end up talking about everything we talked about. And now I don't know how to continue. I like you, I know you are a good person, I can see it," she swallowed, a sob appeared and covered her face with both hands, "But you are the daughter of that man, and I hate him for what he did to me, and I always hated you without knowing you. I can't forget that, no matter how hard I try, I can't do it."
Shelagh removed her hands from her face, reached into her purse for a handkerchief, and removed her glasses to wipe her eyes from her.
"I'm sorry Anna, I'm sorry I can't be who you want me to be."
"I don't want anything, Shelagh. If I looked for you in records, in archives of a couple of churches and hospitals, I only did it on impulse. I heard about you and I did it, and it was easy, I didn't try too hard. You are a well-known person in the nursing environment, and that renewed my interest in you. Then when I saw you, I no longer knew how to proceed, because it's clear that you are hurt and I didn't want to disturb you either. I'm not here to talk about Joseph, I just... I don't know what I wanted. I guess deep down, I always wanted ...Nothing, forget it."
"A sister? Say it, I won't go crazy like last time. But I'm sorry I'm not who you expected."
Shelagh again was defeated and Anna felt guilty. There were two times that Shelagh broke down for Anna, first leaving the hard, cold facade of hers, then leaving the warmer and good side of her.
Anna glanced around, the coffee shop now had a few more people who were not paying attention to them and that sure was reassuring for Shelagh.
"I'm so sorry for causing you so much harm, Shelagh."
She smiled, or at least she tried.
"I know you're sorry, and it's not your fault."
Shelagh put her handkerchief in the purse and stood up.
"I really must go or I'll be late."
Anna nodded, also standing up. They looked at each other, it was visible that neither of them knew how to put an end point.
Anna clung to her determined side and spoke.
"Shelagh, let's just get on with our lives. We see each other at school if we cannot avoid it, we see each other on the street, or in a park, or in the market. We greet each other, and that's it. I will be one of the many neighbors you have here. No grudges, no fights involved."
Shelagh nodded, staring at the ground, clinging to the strap of her purse.
"Fine."
"When I move in, you just won't see me anymore."
Shelagh nodded again.
"And my son won't run over any of your daughters."
It felt good to see her smile a little. Shelagh looked into her eyes.
"That seems like a fair deal to me."
Anna reached out her hand, Shelagh held it tight. When she released her, Shelagh seemed to remember something and opened her bag.
"I'll give you the address of my husband's surgery, and the phone number, in case you need anything, or your husband, or Johnny."
Anna saw her pulling out a small notepad and a pen. Shelagh wrote quickly and tore off the page. Anna did not understand any of this until Shelagh handed her the paper.
"Just because we ignore each other doesn't mean you can't seek help when you need it."
Anna took the paper and thanked her. Then Shelagh disappeared so fast that Anna believed she had vanished into thin air.
She sat down at the table again, staring at the paper Shelagh had just handed her. Her handwriting was quick and messy, but clear.
She did not quite know how to interpret that last gesture, because she did not know if Shelagh did it because she was a dedicated nurse, or because in reality, she did not want to completely ignore her.
She was going to ask for a tea to think better, but the cramp in her abdomen returned, as strong as that same morning.
She thought they were the nerves of the whole day, the response of her body to the extreme situations she was in since she lived in Poplar.
She paid and walked slowly toward her building. With each step, her pain increased and decreased, confusing her.
When she entered the flat, the pain only increased, leaving her almost gasping for air.
Suddenly, she understood what was happening.
"No, no, no, not again!" she screamed desperately, even though she knew screaming was not going to dissuade her body from doing what it was doing.
She ran to the bathroom, though the action made the pain increase even more. She felt like she was breaking in two, like her heart.
All the previous times, she knew it. The miracle lived for a few days, until her body eliminated it.
Now, she could not even knew it.
She saw blood, too much. Much more than the other times. And she too was alone, completely alone, she did not know anyone, she could not scream for help, because even her neighbor, Mrs. Jones, was working.
"Calm down Anna, if you get upset it will be much worse. There, you can't do anything, just calm down."
She took a slow, deep breath, trying to avoid the incipient dizziness that was beginning to shake her. Maybe there was still hope, maybe she could still do something.
Just as slowly, she walked into the living room and opened her purse. The paper was there.
Just because we ignore each other doesn't mean you can't seek help when you need it.
She dialed the number and waited. An efficient voice greeted her.
"I need to speak to Nurse Turner, it's urgent."
"Who is looking for her?"
"Please," she begged, because the pain was there again, and she could feel it tearing inside her, "I need to talk to her, just tell her I'm Anna."
"Wait, she just arrived," the efficient voice turned annoyed.
Anna heard noises, baby cries, doors slamming. And then, Shelagh.
"Yes?" she was confused, Anna knew. And also, she supposed that Shelagh hoped with all her might that she was another Anna.
The pain bent her, making her knees sag. She saw more blood trickling down her legs, dripping onto the living room carpet. They had bought that carpet one Sunday when they went out for a walk with Johnny.
The pain subsided suddenly, but the drops were thicker on the gray carpet.
"Anna?" she heard on the other side of the line, "Are you Anna?"
"I need you, Shelagh," she sobbed, resigned to losing again, "Help me, please."