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The clock ticked softly on his night table. She glanced at it again. It was nearly ten hours now. She brought her gaze back to his sleeping face, and willed her ears to listen rather to the soft sound of his shallow breathing, than the ticking of the clock.
She placed her hand on his forehead. His skin was still cool, but her hand was warm and dry, and she was sure his features relaxed slightly when she touched him. She left her hand where it was, and wondered absently and briefly whether touching him was meant more to comfort him, or herself. To reassure herself that he was still here.
The door to his room opened then, and she heard someone step inside.
“Miss Baxter?” said a low, tentative voice.
Mr. Molesley. Joseph.
On any other day, she would have smiled at his presence, at the sound of the voice she had grown to love. But not today. She did manage to pull her gaze from Thomas’ sleeping form and turn to the man in the doorway. He held a tray with tea, and a bowl of something.
“I… brought you some dinner,” he said, his voice remaining low and gentle.
She knew she should thank him. Acknowledge his kindness, even if she wouldn’t be eating anything any time soon. She managed to turn the corners of her mouth upward, before turning away from him and back to watching over Thomas. It had occurred to her a few hours ago that she had missed dinner, and tea for that matter, but she wouldn’t leave the room. Frankly she didn’t care if it meant peeing in a chamber pot and starving all night long, she was determined that Thomas would not wake to find himself alone. The doctor had said it would be many hours, possibly a day. So that was how long she would wait.
Mr. Molesley seemed to understand her silent declination of anything to eat, and softly set his tray on Thomas’ bureau. After a pause, he picked up a chair from the corner of the room, and brought it nearer the bed. He placed it next to her, where she sat on her own hard little chair. He lowered himself into his seat quietly, as she continued to lovingly stroke Thomas’ forehead.
He regarded her silently for a few moments before saying, “You are so good to him.”
Finally she spoke, though her throat was dry. “I’m very fond of him,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
“Yes,” he answered. “But… why?”
She looked at him then, expecting to find angry accusation, or at least disgusted bewilderment in his face. But she didn’t. And she realized then that his tone matched the look on his face. There was no accusation in his words or his temperament, only a kind curiosity. The sort of curiosity a man might have for the woman he loved, rooted only in a desire to know everything about her.
This was so different than the handful of times he and others had questioned her affection for Thomas. Generally, when confronted with the confusion and discomfort other people felt about her loyalty to him, she dismissed them immediately. Perhaps it was because she couldn’t bear to acknowledge the fact that most people saw loving Thomas Barrow as some sort of character flaw.
And perhaps it was because of this new and different way that Mr. Molesley had asked about her feelings for Thomas, that she tilted her head slightly and actually considered his question. Why was she so fond of this man? Was it simply pity, as Thomas himself had accused her of more than once? Pity was certainly a part of what she felt for him today, after learning that he had thought he needed to end his life in order to end his pain. But no, that wasn’t right, because she had loved him long before today, and even long before these last few years that she had witnessed him struggle to accept himself.
So maybe when was the question she should answer first. When had she first come to love Thomas? She closed her eyes and followed her memory back as far as it would go, to find the first moment that she had loved him. Of course. The night he was born.
***
When Mrs. Barrow’s labor had started on a late afternoon in January, she had heard other women in the neighborhood tell her that the delivery of a second child was always faster than the first, and this would be much easier.
But giving birth to Thomas was not easy, and twenty-four hours later, Mrs. Barrow was exhausted with pain, and still no baby. That night Margaret was sent to Phyllis’ house, so she wouldn’t hear her mother’s screaming. The girls were six years old at the time, and Phyllis, who had no siblings, was full of nervous excitement at the prospect of finally seeing the new baby. Margaret had several months ago lost interest in the novelty of having a new brother or sister; it seemed this baby was determined to live inside her mother forever, nothing but a constant backache and upset stomach.
So when the baby boy finally slipped from his mother’s body and into the midwife’s hands at nearly two o’clock in the morning, and Mrs. Baxter, who had assisted in attending the birth, walked up the stairs in her own house to tell Margaret that she had a beautiful new brother, it was Phyllis who sat up in bed and smiled in relief. Margaret had long since fallen asleep, and showed absolutely no interest in walking down the lane in her night dress to greet any new person, beautiful or not.
Phyllis was interested, though. “Can I see him now, Mama?” she had asked.
Mrs. Baxter had looked down at her little girl, whose family would never know a night like this, never welcome another baby, and answered “Why not?”
Phyllis had all but jumped out of her bed and into an overcoat, and skipped down the lane in the frigid moonlight, her hand in her mother’s. She had bounded up the two steps to the front door of the Barrows' home, and let her mother guide her up the stairs to Mrs. Barrow’s room. There the woman sat up in her bed, propped up on several pillows, her black hair fallen about her still sweating face and her shoulders. In her arms, she held a small bundle, that she gazed at with such unbound happiness, Phyllis was sure she had never seen Mrs. Barrow—or anyone—look so lovely.
Phyllis’ mother took the opportunity to gather up some sheets and towels from the floor and saw herself out of the room.
Without waiting for an invitation, Phyllis had clambered up onto the bed, and crawled over to the new mother, and for the first time in her young life, looked into the face of a brand new person. His round cheeks and tiny nose were pink against his otherwise smooth and pale face, and he had a shock of black downy hair. His eyes were scrunched shut, and he grunted and wriggled in his mother’s arms.
“What’s his name?” Phyllis had asked.
“Thomas,” his mother had breathed, and Phyllis had heard the smile in her voice, as though she were the first woman in the world to give her son such a perfect name.
“Thomas,” the little girl had repeated, very much liking the sound.
“Would you like to hold him?” Mrs. Barrow had asked, leaning back against her pillows and looking down at Phyllis. The little girl’s mouth had fallen open. Not only had she gotten to come out on this freezing and mysterious night to meet a brand new baby, but she got to hold him too? It had felt too wonderful to be true.
“Yes,” she had whispered, and instinctively cuddled up next to the woman, who had carefully handed over her newest treasure. Phyllis had held out her arms and received the baby as though she had done it a thousand times, though she had never held a newborn before. She had pulled him close to her chest, and nestled his tiny head in the curve of her arm.
“Hello, dear one,” she had said softly, as she looked down at the baby. He had yawned the tiniest of yawns, and fallen asleep.
“What a sweet thing to say,” Mrs. Barrow had said, yawning herself.
Phyllis hadn’t taken her eyes off of the baby. “It’s because he’s so dear,” she had said. Only when Mrs. Barrow had not answered her had Phyllis looked up, to see that the woman had fallen asleep. Phyllis hadn’t minded. She had looked down at the baby again, and smiled at him. Thomas had opened his eyes then, and seemed to try to focus on the girl who held him.
Perhaps it was because his mother had fallen asleep, and her own mother had gone downstairs, leaving her alone with the baby, and the quiet, and the night. Or perhaps the loneliness that came with being her parents’ only child had threatened to overtake her again in that moment. Her six-year-old self could not have explained what had made her want to say it, but she had suddenly felt compelled to assure him of her presence in his life, and thereby ease that loneliness.
“I’m here, my dear one,” she had whispered. “And I’ll look out for you. For always.”
***
The clock ticked softly on his night table. She glanced at it again. She tried to take in the meaning of what it said, to comprehend how much time had passed since Mr. Molesley had entered the room, and sat down beside her. But she was suddenly cold, and weak, and her mind was simply too tired to make sense of the numbers.
The time didn’t really matter anyway. What mattered was that he had come up to sit with her, and had gently asked, without shock or judgment, why she cared so much for the man lying in this bed.
She had loved him from the moment she had met him, and had promised to look out for him. In her own life, she had never harbored much hope for a husband and family that belonged to her. The prospect of having that now was glorious—and entirely unexpected. And it occurred to her in that moment that this was not because she had dedicated her life to service, or even because she had spent time in prison. No, it was because her Thomas—for all of his faults—had always been enough.
He was her family, had belonged to her since that moment in his mother’s bed, on the night he was born. And there had been several events in his life that had only served to strengthen her promise to him. The death of his mother, his being cast out by his father. His illness last year, when he had finally asked for and accepted her help. And now this.
“Because he is mine,” she finally answered him.
As she looked Mr. Molesley in the eye, a tear fell down her cheek, and she knew that they stared at each other across a deep divide. Though he bore no anger towards her, he could not have seemed further away for his asking the question. The separation from him tore at her heart, and she wanted desperately to be near him, to be understood by him. But she remained true to her promise, that she would not leave Thomas alone. She stayed rooted to the edge of her side of the precipice, and wondered if the divide would ever be mended.
Mr. Molesley did not answer at first, but sat in silence for another moment, until she looked away, unable to hold his gaze. Then he surprised her by answering, though not with words. He got up from his chair, and picked up a small lap blanket from Thomas’ arm chair. He wrapped it carefully around her shoulders, and then, in an utterly uncharacteristic moment of blatant affection, he leaned down and kissed the crown of her head. She closed her eyes at his touch, letting it fill her mind and her heart for a moment.
He then walked softly toward the door, and opened it. Standing in the threshold he stopped and turned around to look at her, and spoke at last. “Watch over him, then,” he said. “He’s so lucky to have you. I’m sure one day he’ll see that.”
She smiled at him then, really smiled, and a small part of her could not believe that she could be happy on a night like this. But she was happy, for Thomas was alive, and Joseph was making his way across the divide to be with her.