Where to Find Me by Alba Arikha

Author:Alba Arikha [Arikha, Alba]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781846884481
Publisher: Alma Books
Published: 2018-08-24T07:00:00+00:00

11

Maurice’s adoption has been arranged privately, through the vicar with the signet ring. I am reminded that I cannot and will never see my child again. That I have to get on with my life. That’s what girls in my situation do. Get on with their lives. I am told that I can keep Maurice for six weeks, until the couple come to collect him.

“This is not a collection,” I cry out. “You’re taking him away from me!” The vicar says nothing. Maybe he hasn’t heard me. Or maybe he doesn’t want to listen. I don’t think he likes me. I take Maurice back with me from the hospital to the mother-and-baby home. I hold him against me and nurse him. He wears light-blue pyjamas, a cherished gift from one of the women in the home. There is also a simple white pair the hospital has given me. They smell of him, my son who never sleeps, as if he knows that he will have to leave. There are many other women there with their newborn babies. I don’t remember much of them. All I remember is Maurice and how I lay awake looking at him and holding him in his light-blue pyjamas. I want Fletcher to see him, but he never comes. I send a note through Vivian, asking him to get in touch, but nothing happens. Then when the six weeks are up, one of the nuns tells me that the couple has arrived to take him away. I have to say goodbye. I hold Maurice in my arms one last time, and he smiles. His first smile. He focuses his dark eyes on me and smiles. I break down. I cannot do it. I cannot part with him. But it’s too late. The nun says I have no choice. Now I can see the couple through the window. They are waiting, the nun says. I can see their shadows.

Maurice is taken from me and given to the shadows.

*

I pack a small bag and leave the home. I take the pyjamas with me. I say goodbye to no one. It is a sunny day. Crisp air, blue sky, warm sun. A beautiful day. Maurice is gone. I have lost a part of myself. That part which makes a woman whole. Without it, I will be diminished. An incomplete woman. But I have Fletcher. He is waiting for me at my flat. He will make me feel better. We can be together now. He has left his wife. We are free now. Free to start a new life.

*

I enter my flat. I drop the bag on the ground and call out Fletcher’s name, but he isn’t there. He hasn’t left a note, and the flat looks immaculate, as if no one has set foot here in weeks. And yet, Fletcher said he would be waiting for me. “I’ll be here for you when you return,” he had said.

Perhaps it’s because he’s at work. Yes, that must be it. He’ll be back later.

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