The hinges creak slightly as the figure eases the door to the bedroom open. The baby kicks his legs in the cot, oblivious to the person in the doorway inching ever closer. Outside the window, the cold air swirls with the promise of snow, the stars glittering peacefully overhead. He’s been awake for half an hour, is almost due a feed. But for now, Liam remains settled, in his tiny white cot with the spindles, next to the unmade double bed. His blanket lays across him, half on, half off.
Shrouded in the shadows, the person reaches the base of the baby’s cot.
Shhhhhhh, the sound comes, slightly startling the infant. His fingers curl towards the small pads of his palms.
Shhhhhh…
And then a hand reaches forward and grips his small arm tightly.
Vee’s hands are shaking as she slides his little body out of the cot and into the baby carrier she’s wearing under her coat. He’s so warm and new. She prays he won’t make a sound. He stretches his clenched fists, curls his legs as she arranges him snugly inside the material carrier strapped to her chest. Batty old May hadn’t heard her slip back into the house after she’d dropped off the gifts. Nancy’s out somewhere at work, hopefully not with Gerald.
Vee breathes in Liam’s perfect baby smell. She’s been dreaming of this moment for months – ever since Nancy confided in her that she just couldn’t do it any more – that she couldn’t give him what he needed. She needed to escape it all. And then Vee’s idea – she’d take the baby – adopt him, love him for her. Hugh would see how it made sense once he realised Nancy was gone. It sounded like the perfect solution. Nancy would be free. The baby would be loved. Joey would have Hugh. Plus, Nancy cried, their bond was already fraught. It was better she wasn’t in his life. She wasn’t able for motherhood. ‘I’m doing it all wrong,’ Nancy told Vee over and over again during that time.
Their whole life Nancy had taken her pick of whatever she wanted from the world. Things had been so easy for her. Didn’t she know it hurt Vee that she was carrying on with Gerald, Vee’s first love? Or that she was so cold-hearted she could walk away from her family? Her children? How could Nancy have possibly considered giving all of this up when it’s everything Vee wanted?
Vee glances out the bedroom window and sees Joey on the trampoline in the garden.
Safe.
She wraps her coat around the baby and sets to work. This way everyone got what they truly wanted.
When Nancy changed her mind and decided to stay with Hugh and to try to focus on Joey and the new baby, Vee’s world shattered. She thought of the little Moses basket in her own house – the boxes of nappies she’d bought, the knitted blanket that lay empty on Vee’s bed, soaked in tearstains. And it did something to her. Something irreversible. The baby was meant to be hers. And if Nancy didn’t give him to her – she would have to simply take him. She would love baby Liam the right way.
Vee pats the tiny mound under her jacket. It isn’t like she has any relationship with her sister any more. Nancy had cried when she’d told Vee that she’d changed her mind. But Vee refused to accept that. She refused to ever set eyes on her sister again. It would make it easier to keep this baby a secret too.
Vee knew that turning up on Gerald’s doorstep and telling him the baby was hers wasn’t going to be easy. But she had a plan. And he had a bleeding heart. She’d convince him the baby was theirs somehow. She’d make him love her again. They’d move to Dublin perhaps.
He’d help her make sure she wasn’t caught, and then she’d win him back.
She unscrews the foul-smelling container and watches the wet amber liquid seep into the material of the curtains. She steps back to the door of the bedroom, strikes the match and, arms outstretched, away from the child, watches as the crumpled ball of paper takes off. Vee throws it gingerly towards the accelerant and quickly turns. She pushes over the oil heater as she goes. Hugh had been going on about that faulty switch for weeks.
The dreamcatcher falls soundlessly to the floor as the curtains go up. The feathers singeing, then blackening before falling apart.
Vee slips out of the house, into the night, knowing she was doing the worst, best thing. She looks back at the house a moment. She lingers, watching its grotesque magnificence.
Forgive me, she whispers, stroking the baby’s velvety head, the orange light from the blaze in the window dancing in her eyes.
Forgive me, Dexter.