An inordinately jealous woman, Anna’s mother had never quite recovered from the trauma of giving birth to someone more beautiful than her, so she constantly pecked at Anna’s confidence until there was very little remaining. But Florence wasn’t going to know that. Florence would think Anna was strong and beautiful. So that’s what she would be, for her beloved daughter.
But as Anna approached the cot, she could see that the blanket was just blanket. There was no baby.
Life stopped.
Anna’s heart suddenly had a noose around it and she felt a brutal tug.
‘Jules,’ she said. Or rather, she didn’t say, because although her lips made the shape, no word came out. She made breath, but no sound.
‘Julesss!’ she managed to sputter on the second attempt. Still, he didn’t wake. He was so sluggily asleep.
‘JULES!’ she squealed in a pitch she didn’t recognize, since she’d never made the sound before. She leant over and thumped his arm. Julius lurched forward in his chair and into wakefulness, shocked and angry.
‘For Christ’s sake … what’re you doing …?’
‘Shush!’ she scolded him, instantly realizing that she was pointlessly trying to prevent him from waking the baby that wasn’t even there. ‘Where’s the baby?’
‘What? What? In there.’ He pointed at the cot.
‘No. She’s not. She’s not there …’ Anna was barely able to control her rising panic. Tug. Tug.
‘Yes, look.’ Julius rose from the chair and lumbered the couple of steps towards the cot, reached in, and picked up the blanket.
He had to admit that she was right, there was no baby, but he wasn’t a gun-jumper, he was a considered, logic-wrangling man. There had to be a simple explanation.
‘They will have taken her for something …’ he offered as his first attempt at a guess.
‘Taken her for what? Who?’ Anna was having trouble remaining upright now, the heart-noose was constricting her and something odd was happening to her legs, both of which were suddenly boneless. She held on to the frame at the bottom of her bed.
‘I’ll call the nurse. They should’ve told us. Can’t take a baby without permission, however important …’ He was ranting on as he fumbled around the bed looking for the alarm button they were shown when they first arrived.
Anna wanted to stride over to the door and shout out into the corridor for help, but her legs simply wouldn’t let her. She knew instinctively that she would fall if she let go. When Julius finally found the alarm button, he pushed it and then immediately strode to the door anyway, yanked it open and yelled out, ‘Nurse! Hello? Nurse!’
‘Shush,’ repeated Anna, this time utterly conflicted between the embarrassment of his loud bellowing and the certain need of it.
‘No. Someone needs to explain …’ He shot a furious glare back at her as he stomped off to find answers.
‘Shush,’ Anna whispered to herself. It was a tiny hopeless soothing for her, for the baby, for her pounding, tightening heart, a barely-there lullaby, a trace of comfort, a desperate hope. Let him be right. Let the big annoying know-it-all be right. She would be overjoyed to concede to his smugness if he was right this time.
Let there be a simple reason.
Let her have cried out and let a midwife have scooped her up and out, to let them sleep.
Let her need a blood test.
Let her need to be weighed.
Let her need to be measured for a hospital trial.
Let an inexperienced trainee have come in and taken her to the wrong place and then realized her stupidity, and be heading right back this minute.
Let anyone have been helpless to resist a sneaky cuddle, and naughtily have thought it OK to walk up and down the corridor rocking her and smelling her wonderful sweaty baby head.
Let someone have entered the wrong room, picked her up thinking she’s the baby boy next door called Arran or something, and be mistakenly taking her for her first sickle cell assessment.
Let someone be dyslexic and not know how to read the wristband on her lovely chubby wrist.
Let someone be foreign and not know how to read the wristband on her lovely chubby wrist.
Let someone be stupid and not know how to read the wristband on her lovely chubby wrist.
Let someone be blind and not see …
As the creeping certitude of dread started to engulf her, Anna heard the pounding of footsteps thundering towards their room and the sound of raised voices. She didn’t want to hear any urgency whatsoever. She wanted to see and hear that lovely calm exterior that all aircrew have on planes. Utter utter confidence in the fact that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IS WRONG. The faces of the people who burst into the room in a tornado of alarm told her otherwise for sure.
One after another, the midwives, the receptionist and the doctor stampeded in and past her to stare at the empty cot, as if only seeing it with their own eyes made it the truth. What were they seeing? A full, horrifying nothing. They looked at no baby. The first midwife in shook the blanket, maybe hoping the infant had shrivelled up and hidden in the smallest fold. She passed the blanket to the doctor, who also examined it closely. Perhaps when the unthinkable happens, our brains tell our eyes to keep searching while the awful truth is sinking in. The receptionist was even checking the floor, the bathroom, opening the door of the bedside cupboard as if Florence might be a missing handbag.
‘Where’s our daughter?’ roared Julius. ‘What
