“Don’t trust her,” a third person replies.
Lisa-Jayne is calling for backup on her shoulder radio. We’re nearing the front gate. Jack has his arm around me. I can feel that he wants to lash out at someone, or scream abuse, calling them ghouls and pariahs, but he works on TV; he knows how the media operates.
We reach the front door and the sanctuary of the hallway. A final letter is thrust through the letterbox and the noise abates. Lisa-Jayne promises it won’t happen again. Jack grunts in disgust and disappears into the back garden.
I go upstairs and unpack my bag from the hospital. Among the nightdresses and pajamas I discover the baby clothes that Ben was supposed to wear home. I lay the tiny outfit on the bed, trying to imagine my Ben is here with me, watching me unpack. It has been four days, but feels like years. Lucy and Lachlan are staying with my parents. I miss them. . . their voices, their mess, their arguments, and their hugs. I walk from room to room, all of them familiar, yet somehow they’re not the same. They’re darker and colder and devoid of color.
In the newly painted baby’s room I run my fingers over the nursery-rhyme stencils and spin the mobile above the cot, watching the hand-painted African animals circle above the mattress.
The rocking chair in the corner was a gift from my parents when Lucy was born. Lachlan’s favorite blankie is washed and ironed on the polished wooden seat. He donated it to the new baby when I told him he was too old for such things. Picking it up, I hold the frayed blanket against my cheek, remembering how Lachlan carried it everywhere with him. Moments later, without realizing how, I am kneeling on the floor, pressing my face into the blanket and sobbing like a child.
Lisa-Jayne yells up the stairs. “I’ve made a cup of tea.”
“I’ll be down in a minute,” I say, wiping my cheeks.
I wash my face in the bathroom. In the mirror above the basin I see a stranger with red-rimmed eyes and lank hair. I try to find physical signs of my bereavement—an extra line on my forehead, or scarring on my skin, or a missing limb. Losing a baby is so fundamental and shocking, surely there must be tangible evidence. I can feel the hole inside me.
In the mirror I notice the edge of the bathtub, where a menagerie of animals is lined up as though waiting for Noah to arrive. Cows. Ducks. Sheep. Horses. One of Lachlan’s trucks is resting in the plughole. The shelf above is stacked with baby shampoo, bubble bath, bath bombs, and more toys.
There is a tap on the door. Lisa-Jayne. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
She’s listening at the door. I can hear her breathing. After a while she leaves and I’m alone again. Sitting on the edge of the bath, I try to count the minutes since Ben was taken. How long did I spend with him? How long has he been missing? Would I recognize his cry, or his smell? Would I recognize him at all? I can’t remember the color of his eyes, or the size of his feet, or the length of his eyelashes.
Jack is gone by the time I get downstairs.
“He said he had something to do,” says Lisa-Jayne, who has pinned back her blond hair like a gymnast. “Is everything OK between you two?”
“We’re fine.”
In truth, I feel less anxious when Jack isn’t around. We have barely spoken in the past few days and I cannot look at his face without seeing my own fear reflected in his eyes.
Lisa-Jayne is going to stay to make sure we’re not bothered by reporters or strangers knocking on the door. She’ll sleep in Lachlan’s room. DCS MacAteer suggested we book into a hotel, away from the media, but I want to be home, lying awake in my own bed. I know it’s ridiculous, but I imagine that Ben is going to call me, or find his way home by himself, which is why I have to be here just in case.
Opening my laptop, I begin reading the dozens of emails in my inbox. There are messages of support and sympathy, offering prayers and best wishes. Many of the names I recognize. There are teachers from Lucy’s school and Lachlan’s preschool; mothers from my mothers’ group and old friends from university and my magazine days.
I read a selection of them. Nobody seems to know what to write. Agatha’s name is on the list.
Hi Meg,
I heard the news. I’m shocked. Horrified. I can’t believe this has happened. I feel guilty about my own happiness because I know how difficult this must be for you. If there’s anything I can do. If you need a shoulder . . . or a friendly face . . .
Thinking of you,
Agatha xx
Almost immediately she sent a second message.
Meg, it’s me again. I just wanted to say that I’m sure Ben will be fine. Whoever took him will be looking after him. This will all work out.
xx
I want to be charitable about all these messages of support, the offered prayers and heartfelt sympathy, but instead I find them irritating and self-serving, as though the authors feel better about themselves for having been in touch. I know that’s unfair. What would I do in their situation? The same.
I look at my mummy blog. One of the newspapers revealed my blogging career, quoting some of my posts. Now my followers know that “Cleopatra” is Meghan Shaughnessy and Jack is “Hail Caesar.” The news has triggered hundreds of comments, most of them expressing sympathy and shock.
Who are these people? They don’t even know me. They’ve read a few blog pieces about my family foibles and daily tribulations and now they feel invested in me, but instead of being comforted or encouraged, I feel angry. They have no right to claim ownership of my feelings or my ordeal.
A woman from Norfolk claims she saw Ben in a dream and that he’s alive and living with a family of gypsies in Dorset. A different woman, a clairvoyant called Carla, says that if I send her a sample of Ben’s placental blood she’ll conduct a séance to find him. A man called Peter from Brighton writes about a vision. Ben is somewhere near water, he says, next to an old barn. His vision also contained pigs, a Citro?n, and a milk tanker.
I begin deleting their messages, but stop myself. I don’t believe in ESP or tarot cards or any sort of psychic phenomena, but I cannot bring myself to close off any possible lead.
The doorbell rings. Lisa-Jayne answers it. She’s talking to someone, telling them to leave. It’s most likely a reporter. Moments later she appears at the bedroom door.
“Someone called Simon insists on talking to you. He says he’s a friend.”
My stomach flips over. “I don’t want to see him.”
“OK.”
She is halfway down the stairs when I change my mind. I want to know why he’s here and what he’s planning. I call after her. “Let him in. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”