Hope broke the moment. ‘Isaac. Come close and see her, she’s amazing …’
The illusion didn’t shatter. Hope spoke, the baby cooed and still they remained, as tangible as any real thing could possibly be.
But how COULD it be …?
It just couldn’t. He’d held the lifeless child in his arms; he knew she’d gone. He’d brought Hope home in the car. There was no baby. The baby seat was in his boot because it was so singularly unused. What was going on?
Isaac felt as though he hadn’t blinked for years. His eyes were dry and scratchy and his knees had somehow locked, rooting him to the spot where he stood. He felt himself shaking.
Hope tried again: ‘Don’t be scared, come here …’
Isaac followed her direction and edged closer slowly. The baby was in a cosy pink Babygro and was wearing the yellow and pink stripey hat Hope had valiantly knitted. Her face was turned towards Hope’s body while she was happily suckling away, but he could see her bonny brown cheeks pulsing with each gulp, and her big eyes darting about, trying to see EVERYTHING. He could see a shock of straightish black hair peeping out from under the beloved hat, and he could see her miraculous, busy little hands reaching up and grasping at Hope’s breast. She was a contented little soul. Isaac was silenced. He couldn’t speak. He had no words appropriate for this moment. He lowered himself on to the sofa next to her. He realized his mouth was agape, and probably had been for a good five minutes. He was parched and had been deep-breathing since he saw her. That glass of water he abandoned in the kitchen was a distant memory.
At long long last, after a million confused years, he summoned some words, ‘What’s happening, Bubs? How is … Who …’ They weren’t the most eloquent words he’d ever uttered, but then again, he was in a nightmare, and his broken heart was thumping in his chest.
‘OK. Now, listen,’ Hope attempted to answer him, ‘I need to tell you something, and I need you to stay calm. Isaac, do you hear me …?’
‘Yes. Yes. I’m calm,’ he replied. He wasn’t. Far from it.
‘OK. Today was the day our baby died.’
‘Yes.’
‘And today was the day God gave me back my baby.’
‘Gave back? I don’t understand … is this …?’
‘She isn’t our Minnie. But she is Minnie. Now.’
‘Hope. Where did this baby come from?’ He held his breath; he felt clammy. His dread was heavy.
‘She wanted me, Isaac. She reached up to me. And no one was watching out for her. No one. She was awake, and … she was hungry … and no one was noticing …’
‘Did you take her, Hope?’
‘She needed me, Isaac.’
‘Did you take her? From the hospital?’
Hope paused. She didn’t like this question. It sounded aggressive and criminal, and she knew for sure that she was neither. Isaac’s gaze was penetrating. He was going nowhere until he had the answer, but the answer could mean the end. Hope absolutely HAD to be honest. She knew that.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, her voice so small.
‘Pardon?’
‘Yes!’ Louder this time. ‘Don’t say it, Isaac.’
‘This. Baby. Must. Go. Back.’ He made it clear.
‘No.’
‘Now, Hope.’
‘No. No. No. Please listen. I know she wants to be here with us. I know it.’
‘She needs to be with her mother, Hope.’
‘She is … with her mother.’
‘No.’
‘Yes, Isaac. Listen. Please listen. It went wrong at the hospital. I know it did. I don’t wish anything bad on those poor people, but the wrong baby … died. Minnie wasn’t supposed to. I know it sounds crazy …’
‘Yes, Hope, it does.’
‘I know, I know, but look at what happened. She reached out to me, she knew I would be her mum, and honestly, hear me out, from the second I picked her up, I gave her a choice, I told her, heart to heart, if you are my daughter, if you want to be mine, then …’ Hope started to cry very quietly; she was telling her raw painful truth, and it was so hard. ‘… if you want to be mine, then you must stay quiet, my own little darling, you must shush, not a peep.’
‘I see,’ he said, gently stroking Hope’s arm, pitying her in her desperate delusion.
‘And she … she … she didn’t, she didn’t make a sound, she stayed quiet. No babies do that – they can’t. It’s Minnie, Isaac, it’s her, and she wanted to come home with us. She beckoned me. It’s Minnie.’
‘It can’t be. She can’t be …’ Now Isaac was faltering. The longing for a baby and the terrible, unbearable memory of the tiny dead mite conspired to make this tangible wriggling opportunity staring him in the face so very tempting.
Hope saw the crack. It was make or break.
‘She didn’t make a sound, did she? You didn’t know she was there in the bag all the way home. Seriously, even by then, if she’d wanted to go back, if she’d cried out, or anything, I promise you, I would’ve asked you to turn around. But she didn’t. She trusts us, she needs us, she’s asking you to be her dad …’
Baby Minnie, for that’s who she now was, was full and finished with Hope’s milk, so she slurpily detached from Hope’s nipple and looked around. Hope decided to chance it. She handed the baby over to Isaac, gathering up a batik cloth throw she had on the back of the chair and hugging it around Minnie while she was in his strong arms, to keep her snuggly warm.
He looked down at Minnie looking back up at him, and all the euphoria he had hoped for but was so cruelly denied to him came gushing over him in a flood of dopamine. Minnie
