Sister

someone who would have rejected me in his single days without even being aware that he was doing it. Coming clean, I knew that this was why I was suspicious of him. I was just pegging my customary suspicion onto a different—and far more extreme—hook.

We reached the hospital mortuary, me still thinking about finding your killer rather than about Xavier. Dr. Saunders took me to the room they have for relatives to “view the deceased.” He asked me if I’d like him to come with me, but not really thinking first, I said I’d be fine on my own.

I went in. The room was done thoughtfully and tastefully, like someone’s sitting room, with printed curtains and a pile carpet and flowers (fake but the expensive silk kind). I’m trying to make it sound okay, nice even, but I don’t want to lie to you, and this living room for the dead was ghastly. Part of the carpet, the part nearest to the door, had almost worn through from all the other people who had stood where I was standing, feeling the weight of grief pressing down on them, not wanting to go to the person they loved, knowing that when they got there they would know for sure that the person they loved was no longer there.

I went toward him.

I picked him up and wrapped him in the blue cashmere blanket you had bought for him.

I held him.

There are no more words.

Mr. Wright listened with focused compassion when I told him about Xavier, not interrupting or prompting, allowing me my silences. At one point, he must have handed me a Kleenex because I now have it, sodden, in my hand.

“And you decided at this point against a cremation?” he asks.

“Yes.”

A journalist in one of yesterday’s papers suggested that we didn’t “allow a cremation” because I was “making sure evidence wasn’t destroyed.” But that wasn’t the reason.

I must have been with Xavier for about three hours. And as I held him, I knew that the cold air above a gray mountain was no place for a baby, and therefore, as his mother, it was no place for you either. When I finally left, I phoned Father Peter.

“Can he be buried in Tess’s arms?” I asked, expecting to be told that it was impossible.

“Of course. I think that’s the right place for him,” replied Father Peter.

Mr. Wright doesn’t press me on the reason I chose a burial, and I’m grateful for his tact. I try to carry on, not letting emotion slip out, my words stilted.

“Then I went back to see the senior midwife, thinking I’d meet the person who’d been with Tess when she gave birth. But she hadn’t been able to find Tess’s notes so didn’t know who it was. She suggested I come back the following Tuesday, when she’d have had time to hunt for them.”

“Beatrice?”

I am running out of the office.

I make it to the ladies’ room just in time. I am violently sick. The nausea is uncontrollable. My body is shaking. I see a young secretary look in, then dart out again. I lie on the cold tiled floor, willing my body back into my control again.

Mr. Wright comes in and puts his arms around me, and gently helps me up. As he holds me, I realize that I like being taken care of, not in a patriarchal kind of way, but simply being treated with kindness. I don’t understand why I never realized this before, brushing away kindness before it was even offered.

My limbs finally stop shaking.

“Time to go home, Beatrice.”

“But my statement …”

“How about we both come in tomorrow morning, if you’re up to it?”

“Okay.”

He wants to call a taxi for me or at least walk me to the tube, but I politely turn down his offer. I tell him that I just need fresh air and he seems to understand.

I want to be alone with my thoughts and my thoughts are about Xavier. From the moment I picked him up, I loved him for him and not only as your baby.

I get outside and tilt my head up toward the pale-blue sky, to stop the tears from spilling out. I remember the letter you wrote to me about Xavier, the one that in your story I haven’t yet read. I think of you walking home from the hospital through the driving rain. I think of you looking up at the black pitiless sky. I think of you yelling “Give him back to me.” And that no one answered you.

I think of you phoning me.

11

saturday

There’s hardly anyone up and about at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, the pavements virtually deserted. When I arrive at the CPS building, there’s only one receptionist at the front desk, informally dressed, and when I get into the lift, it’s empty. I go up to the third floor. There’s no Mrs. Crush Secretary here today, so I walk straight past reception and into Mr. Wright’s office.