Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
Now
I was trembling, I realised. I had curled myself into a tight ball on the armchair, and as I’d talked, I had unpicked half the blanket I’d been knitting without even noticing.
Jade’s pale face had turned sallow, her lips devoid of colour as she clutched Amala tight against her chest, a statue of pure horror.
I wondered how much of what I’d told her was her own experience.
Had Ryan changed at all in the past three years?
If he had, I couldn’t imagine it was for the better.
She had to have known what she was going to hear.
Even so, the undiluted disgust was written on her face clear as day.
She glanced down at Amala, and when she looked back up, her eyes were glistening. ‘What happened to your baby?’ she choked out, and I knew she was thinking of the blood on that vest.
I winced, shaking my head, my own throat thick with emotion.
‘I went into labour in the early hours of the next morning. I was here, in my bedroom. Alone, but that felt safer. I couldn’t stand the idea of being in a position of vulnerability whilst giving birth.
Couldn’t let myself be in that situation ever again. ’
‘That must have been terrifying.’
I nodded, remembering the pain, the fear, the sensation of ripping in two, knowing it would all be worth it if I could just get through the night.
I closed my eyes, picturing that final agonising push.
The silence that had followed. ‘He was stillborn,’ I said softly, the words barely a whisper.
‘He had… injuries. Broken bones.’ I swallowed back a sob.
‘I let it happen… let that monster beat me time and again, even knowing he was harming our son. I couldn’t get free.
I tried, but I couldn’t find a way, and my ineptitude…
my inability to escape cost my baby his life. ’
‘Oh, Annie…’
‘I should have found the courage to call the police, but I told myself they wouldn’t help me.
I didn’t trust that I’d be safe. And the things he would have done to me…
I was too scared. Too fucking weak…’ I swallowed.
‘Did he do it to you too? Did he hit you while you were pregnant?’ I didn’t want to know, to picture her going through the same, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
She bowed her head, a silent answer that spoke a thousand words, and I felt the urge to scream building inside my chest. I should have found a way to warn her.
To help her. The moment I’d got that letter from my aunt, seen Jade smiling and innocent in a white dress, oblivious to the trap she was walking into, I should have risked my anonymity, my safety to tell her the truth.
I could remember the fear that had erupted in me at the knowledge of what I was obligated to do.
The instant response, shoving the letter back into the envelope and putting my head in the sand, not wanting to know.
I’d allowed myself to turn my face away, and it was only by sheer luck that Amala had survived.
If she hadn’t, I would have been responsible.
Another baby I could have saved. Should have saved.
I pressed my hands to my face, trying not to throw up.
‘But the blood…’ Jade whispered. ‘There was so much of it. How?—’
‘The blood was mine.’
I looked down, picking at the blanket again.
‘I stayed up in the bedroom for a whole week after he was born. I couldn’t let him go…
couldn’t bring myself to call anyone and have him taken from me, have him be erased from my life for ever.
I couldn’t bear the loss… the guilt.’ I twisted my mouth, the darkness of that time swirling through my mind.
‘I wasn’t thinking straight, I know that, but some part of me thought…
’ I heard the quiver in my voice as I fought against the tears that were dangerously close to the surface.
I would not cry. I would not permit myself that release.
I swallowed back the emotion, balling my hands into tight fists.
‘I thought that if nobody found me, nobody knew I was here, I might keep him. That I could care for him, love him as he deserved, and that he might somehow take some of that love with him. I never had the chance to show him how much he meant… how deeply I wanted him. All he ever knew was fear,’ I said softly, picturing the screams I had tried to hold in as Ryan beat me, hurt me, knowing every emotion pulsing through my system was filling his little body too.
‘I wanted him to experience something different, something pure and good, though clearly it was too late for that. I missed my chance to be a good mother.’
Jade was silent, and I couldn’t help but cast my gaze to Amala sitting in her lap, remembering the visceral pain that had flooded through me at the feeling of her tiny warm body in my arms – the way my son should have felt.
That first time holding her had served as a stab in the heart, a reminder of what I had lost. It had broken my heart to know I never got to smell the milk on his breath, see his eyes open in wonder, feel his heartbeat reverberating against my palm as I rocked him to sleep.
It had been torture to hold Amala and know I had to give her back.
‘I hoped I might contract a postnatal infection – that I might suffer the way he had, go with him, but it wasn’t to be.
I suppose I didn’t deserve it to be so simple.
So, on the seventh night, I dressed his little body in a fresh vest, wrapped him in a blanket and took a blade to my wrists.
’ I kept my hands facing down as I spoke, not wanting to see the glistening silvery scars.
‘But I fucked it up, as I do with everything.’
‘What do you mean?’ she murmured, her eyes wide.
‘I didn’t cut deep enough. The blade was too dull.
And I was afraid… such a coward. But it did bleed, and I panicked.
I ran outside looking for help, my baby in my arms, and there was Aaron.
The moment I saw him, I knew I should have stayed in the house.
I could see myself through his eyes. A madwoman.
A murderer . That’s what I heard him say when he called in for backup.
I ran back indoors, but he followed, and I collapsed.
Not from the blood loss. They said it was dehydration.
I had severe mastitis too. My milk had come in, but of course I couldn’t feed my baby. I was mad,’ I said with a wry snort.
‘You must have been in so much pain,’ Jade said softly.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know… I honestly can’t remember.
I was only focused on my son. Aaron took him from my arms as the paramedics arrived.
I was struggling to stay conscious, begging him to give him back, but he wouldn’t.
’ I swallowed, the hazy kaleidoscope of memories flitting across my mind making me shiver.
‘I never saw my baby again. I was carried out by paramedics, treated in hospital and then arrested for infanticide.’
‘But you didn’t kill him!’
I wrapped a thread of yarn so tight around my fingertip that it began to tingle. ‘I may not have inflicted the injuries, but I didn’t save him, did I? I didn’t protect him as a mother should. ’
She frowned, shaking her head. ‘But they discovered the truth?’
I nodded slowly. ‘The post-mortem revealed the injuries had happened before birth and the baby never breathed. The blood on the vest was tested and found to be mine. It was returned to me, along with the little socks he’d been wearing.
And since I wouldn’t name the person who’d attacked me, wouldn’t press charges, they dismissed the investigation. ’
‘But Ryan killed your baby! Why wasn’t he arrested for murder?’
‘In the eyes of the law, until a baby is born, it doesn’t count as a person.
They used the word foetus. I think in some countries they see it differently, but not here.
It would complicate things too much with abortion laws, take away the right of the mother to choose.
Besides, Aaron said it would have been near impossible to prove without my testimony.
Who’s to say I didn’t fall down the stairs and cause the injuries myself?
It would have been an impossible battle.
’ I pressed my lips together, filled with shame that even then, even with the death of my own child, I hadn’t had the courage to speak up, fight for justice.
I’d slunk away with my tail between my legs, hoping to never hear Ryan’s name again.
I sighed. ‘The police sent me home, and I haven’t set foot beyond my front gate since. You’re the first person I’ve let into this house since Aaron and the paramedics came inside that day.’
‘In three years?’
I nodded.
‘But I thought you and Aaron were friends?’
‘We are, I suppose,’ I admitted, though friend seemed too weak a word to describe the relationship we’d built.
I wished I was brave enough to offer him more, but it was because I knew it would be so good that I held back.
I was afraid of losing myself in wanting, loving him.
Afraid of losing control. I’d created a world that was safe, regimented, predictable.
Letting him get closer risked all of that.
It could be something incredible if I’d let it, but I couldn’t risk it.
I sighed. ‘It took a while to get there. I didn’t tell him the real story for a long time, and I could tell he thought I was unhinged.
I imagine it would be hard to move past an image like that, the memory of how I’d looked the day we first met, covered in blood holding a dead baby.
He didn’t like me… didn’t trust me, but I think he felt responsible for taking care of me somehow.
Like I was incapable. He was right. I bloody proved that,’ I muttered.
I remembered how he had watched the house, noticing that I never left.
He’d realised I wasn’t eating, wasn’t buying food, and had taken it upon himself to start dropping meals round.
I’d been so rude to begin with, terrified of his presence, not even bothering to open the door, instead sneaking out to pick up the bag from the doorstep once I was sure he’d gone.
It had only been my hunger that had made me take his offerings, but over the months, I’d gradually grown to trust him.
Opened up to him. And the more he listened without judging, kept coming back, his expression growing warmer and more inviting with each conversation, the more I’d begun to realise he was on my side, and piece by piece had told him the full, horrible story of what had led me to that day.
He was a good man, but I’d never make that final jump, have a man in my space, though I knew he couldn’t be more different from Ryan. He was too kind to ever hurt me.
I looked down at the ruined blanket in my lap and silently picked up my knitting needles, wondering how to begin piecing it back together.
‘I let you in because the look on your face reminded me of the fear I’d felt every day of my relationship with Ryan.
I could see instantly that you were in a panic.
That you’d seen an opportunity and grabbed it, for yourself and for Amala.
There was a sense of urgency about you… it reminded me of myself,’ I admitted.
‘You’re right,’ Jade said softly. ‘That’s exactly what I did.’ Her face was pale, and as I looked at her hands, I realised she was trembling. My story had clearly brought up memories that were still too raw for her to address.
I rose to my feet, letting the scraps of tangled wool fall to the carpet. ‘I think I could do with a cup of tea and a big slice of that lemon cake,’ I said, though I knew I wouldn’t be able to swallow a thing right now. ‘Do you fancy it?’
She nodded silently, and I left the room, giving her time to compose herself, wondering if I should have held back… if I’d said too much. I knew she was picturing what could have happened to Amala. Realising just how lucky she had been to get away before it was too late.