Hope to Die

You don’t know what you’re asking, Detective.

AF: [quietly]

We do know what you went through at that time, and I’m sorry we have to ask. I know what it’s like to lose a child.

RS: [pause]

We’d almost given up – I’d had three miscarriages, I was almost 40. We’d even started talking to people about adopting. David had heard of a program to bring children to the US from Peru – orphans with no hope of a decent life. But then I got pregnant. Just after we arrived in England. I thought to start with it was just the disruption of moving, but when the doctor confirmed it we were beside ourselves. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier – not even when David and I first met.

AF: But the baby was premature.

RS: Thirty-two weeks.

[becoming tearful]

He was so tiny – all those machines – I couldn’t even hold him –

AF: I’m sorry.

RS: [wiping her eyes]

But then he started getting better and we thought – perhaps – just perhaps – it will be all right. And then they took him off the ventilator and he was breathing on his own, and we started telling people we thought it was going to be OK – that we’d be able to take him home –

[crying]

But then he had a relapse. Out of the blue – in the middle of the night. It was just so quick – we were still on our way to the hospital. I never forgave myself for that. Not being there – not being with him when he died.

CG: You couldn’t have known. And you must have been exhausted. All those weeks –

RS: You’re right. We were. But it was still no excuse. One of us should have been there.

AF: [pause]

And that was 21st December 1997.

RS: [nods]

AF: But you didn’t tell anyone. Your family, friends –

RS: [shaking her head]

It wasn’t like it is now. No WhatsApp or putting a running commentary of your life online. We hadn’t even sent anyone any pictures – not with him in an incubator with all those horrible tubes. And then he was dead and we were going to have to call people and tell them and we just couldn’t face it. Not straight away. It was too raw.

AF: And two days later? The 23rd?

RS: [takes a deep breath]

It was raining. I remember. Just sheeting down like the whole world was drowning. But it was suffocating in the house – I couldn’t breathe – all that stuff everywhere you looked about Christmas and the miracle of birth and ‘Away in a Manger’ – I just couldn’t deal with it. I had to get out. So I walked. I can’t remember – hours – in the mud and the cold, feeling the water just running down my face. Miles and miles till I could barely stand up. By the time I got home it was dark. And the lights were on and there was this lovely smell – tea, and toast, and warm milk, and there was David and he was holding a baby in his arms – a tiny baby, making these little mewling noises, and I thought – I really thought – that I had gone mad. That I was hallucinating – I wanted this so much and it had been taken from me and my mind had broken –

[breaks down]

AF: [silence]

What did your husband say – about the baby?

RS: He wouldn’t tell me anything. He said it was best I didn’t know. That I couldn’t be blamed if I didn’t know.

AF: Nothing else – nothing at all?

RS: He said that the baby was ours now. That we were rescuing him. That was his word. Rescuing.

AF: Do you know where your husband had been that day? Had he been out?

RS: I don’t know.

AF: You didn’t ask?

RS: No, I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.

CG: And you had already registered the birth of Noah?

RS: Yes, David had, just after he was born.

CG: And applied for a passport for him? Because you knew you were going back to the US that January?

RS: [nods]

Every single day before we left I sat at home waiting for the knock at the door. For someone like you to come looking for him – to take him back. But no one ever came. And when we went to the airport to go home I was so terrified I thought I was going to pass out but still no one said anything, and when we arrived back at JFK no one said anything, and when we got home everyone simply accepted that he was our son and they were just happy for us, happy that he had pulled through. And then more weeks went by and went by and eventually we realised that no one was ever going to say anything, because no one was looking for him. And I started to believe what David had said. We had rescued him. No one was looking because nobody cared. Nobody except us. We loved him. And he loved us.

AF: [silence]

But then he found out.

* * *

21 August 2017, 7.45 a.m.

175 Toussaint Street, Brooklyn Heights, NY11201