Perhaps she was being punished by some kind of cruel God? She didn’t even really believe in God, but she was definitely prepared to believe in Satan if this was what could happen to a good person like her. She dared to believe that she was a good person. Wasn’t she? She knew Julius wasn’t. Not really. Not ‘good’. Not kind or thoughtful or selfless or anything like that. She had come to realize that when his time came, one day, to be weighed in the balance, he would be found severely wanting.
But Julius was probably going to be the key to finding Florence. He was the one with the contacts and the power, of sorts, and he would be the effective one in front of the camera in a minute …
Oh God. She was going to have to endure that. To think that only a few hours before she had been considering what kind of make-up to put on for their big announcement … now she was wondering if she could face it at all.
What would she say?
What, actually, did she feel? Was it nothing? She closed her eyes. She could see Florence’s flawless little new face looking up at her, just as she had last seen her. Anna was astonished by how utterly beautiful she was. Unsurpassably lovely. Anna couldn’t believe they had made such a sublime little human.
Anna wasn’t a sentimental person. She didn’t care for all that guff about babies being little miracles and the suchlike, but it had all become utterly authentic when she held Florence in her arms. She had longed for that baby skin on her skin, and the reality of it had surpassed anything she’d imagined. The giant need she’d felt was finally met, and Anna’s unspoken promises, heart to tiny heart, were the greatest oaths she’d ever made.
Now she was gone, and Anna’s world had stopped. People seemed to be moving about in it, but it was all senseless until she was reunited with her tot. Where was she?
Where was she?
She had to be somewhere.
In a crazy desperate moment, Anna stood up and walked to the window near Julius, who moved away to keep his space free of her. Anna pressed her face against the window as hard as she could. It was warm. It was a winter day but the persistent daytime sunshine was peeping into their sad room, hell bent on cheering her up, but incapable of doing so.
She pressed even harder against the glass in the hope that she might break through it and be able to more easily look straight down into the streets directly below, where, of course, she would see someone moving along carrying Florence. She would see it and she would swoop down and she would pluck up that baby like a giant mother eagle and she would bring her back to her rightful place with Anna and Julius. Tears started to well up in Anna’s eyes. She wanted her baby very badly. She pulled back from the window, and she realized that her breasts had joined in with the crying. She was lactating.
Isaac’s Big Decision
As Quiet Isaac clomped into Hope’s flat, he couldn’t wait to drop all the cumbersome bags off his shoulders and out of his hands on to her kitchen floor with a thump. She had clearly done the same, as her bag was wide open on the table. He could see her nightie inside, on top of a crumpled pile of clothes, and her soft washbag stuffed down the side. Once he had offloaded, he walked straight to the sink and took a glass from the cupboard above and turned on the cold tap. He was parched. Then he heard it again. Unmistakeably this time. A baby’s gurgle …
Isaac put down his glass and followed the sound up the hallway to the small living room at the front of the house. When he entered the room, he simply couldn’t understand what he was looking at. Hope was sitting in the big chair in the corner with Minnie in her arms. She had somehow smuggled the poor dead baby home from the hospital and was holding her so tenderly, looking straight at Isaac with pleading, tearful eyes.
Then Isaac gradually realized that the baby was wriggling, moving her arms and kicking her legs out. And she was making contented happy sucky noises, because she was latched on to Hope’s right breast, and she was feeding.
Isaac was convinced he was hallucinating. In his total confusion, he decided he must be seeing something he WISHED was true rather than anything that was real. Like a mirage, just as nomads in the desert see an oasis of palm trees and cool fountains on the hazy horizon because they are so very thirsty. So Isaac was surely conjuring up the sight he would most wish to see in all the world, his girl and his daughter together, happy and healthy, just as it was supposed to be, just as he thought it WOULD be when they left this flat together yesterday to go to the hospital.
He stood rooted to the floor, waiting for the chimera to dissolve and for real life to kick back in. His eyes locked on to the lovely baby. If it was going to
