‘Choose, Mrs Kelly,’ says the doctor. ‘The adoptive couple are here to collect the child.’ He leans in close and lowers his voice. ‘They’re concerned there’s a problem.’
Well, isn’t there? If this didn’t count as a problem, then nothing ever would. Mary smiles at her sleeping twins. How to decide? There is no way, it’s Sophie’s choice. She could play eeny, meeny, miny, mo with the doctor? Or rock-paper-scissors? He wins and Charlene might go. She wins, perhaps Samantha? The doctor puts on a sympathetic expression. ‘Of course, if you’ve changed your mind …’
‘No,’ says Mary, with hoarse haste. ‘I haven’t.’ It was going to be difficult enough raising a single baby. She plucks one, then the other, of her dark-haired daughters from their shared crib, and cradles them in her arms. She inspects their faces. All the clichés make sense to her now. They do have button noses, and rosebud mouths that purse now and then in sleep. They are utterly perfect and she can’t choose. She can’t even tell them apart.
‘Mrs Kelly.’ Mrs Kelly. Why is he calling her that? There is no Mr Kelly. A sop to his own sense of propriety, perhaps? ‘If you need more time, perhaps the couple can come back.’
No, that would prolong the agony. She just requires some sort of a sign, some indication of what to do next. The left-hand twin parts her lips in a delicate yawn. The room grows airless. With infinite care, Mary raises the baby that lies in the crook of her other arm, her right arm, and offers her to the doctor.
‘Are you sure?’ he asks.
Of course she isn’t sure. There is no certainty any more, and there never will be again. The world is a senseless place, filled with random acts of cruelty and prejudice, but she nods anyway. As he receives the right-hand baby from her, she yawns too. A misgiving, cold as death, stalls Mary’s heart. The doctor checks the infant’s wristband. She wills time to stretch. She counts the seconds it takes for him to cross the floor, to reach the door, to vanish with her baby. She consciously commits each detail of the scene to memory. Mary looks down at the single sleeping baby in her arms. Is it Charlene or Samantha? What if she’s given away the wrong child?