The Birth Mother: A gripping and completely unputdownable psychological thriller by Wendy Clarke

Author:Wendy Clarke [Clarke, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2026-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

BECKY

Then

Faith’s skin is flushed and clammy. She hasn’t slept for the last few nights and neither have I.

I look down at her. Run my forearm across my forehead. ‘What’s wrong? Why won’t you stop crying?’

The room is small. Cramped. Just enough space for the bed and a small chest of drawers. The bevel-edged mirror on the wall spotted with age. Going over to the window, I open the fanlight, hoping that the night air will cool her. Cool me.

I’ve tried everything. Pacing the room with my daughter on my shoulder. Singing to her a song I remember from way back in my childhood. Feeding her hadn’t helped. She’d not wanted it – fought me until I’d eventually given up – and changing her nappy had only made her worse. Her cries louder. In desperation, I’d put her in her pram and walked the streets. It had soothed her for a while, but the minute she was back in the flat, the crying had started again.

‘You hate this place as much as I do, don’t you?’

I sink down on the bed, overwhelmed. I’d thought that once I’d got a place of my own and my mum’s toxic presence wasn’t something to be constantly avoided, things would be different. But they aren’t. If anything, they’re worse. At least at my mother’s house, I had space. Comfort. Privacy. Heating. Here, in the flat the council have found me, it feels as though the walls are closing in. The kitchen window looking onto the flat grey wall of the residential block next to us. The bathroom not big enough even for a bath. The walls so thin, I can hear the couple next door arguing and having make-up sex when they get home from the pub.

The mattress on my single bed is thin, the duvet cover cheap and scratchy, but I want to wrap myself up in it. Cocoon myself and disappear from a world that couldn’t care less if I’m in it or not.

Faith’s cry is getting shriller. It’s different to the sound she made when I first brought her home from the hospital. Sharper. As though she’s in pain.

I stare at her in despair, clueless as to what to do to stop the sound that tears at my heart. Finally realising that my love alone isn’t enough. That to keep her happy, keep her from harm, she needs more than that. More than I can give her.

My mother had been right all along, and I hate it.

Panic takes hold, inching its way through my body until I can hardly breathe. It’s not that I don’t love my daughter – I do, with all my heart. It’s just that the responsibility of looking after something so small, so helpless, has crippled me.

For the first time since Faith was born, I wonder if I should have told her father about her. If I had, perhaps he would have left his wife. Told me he was happy and that we’d bring her up together. Perhaps he’d⁠—

I close my eyes in pain.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.