‘Goodbye, little Talei. Precious one, your first mother said it meant. I wish so much we could keep you, but we can’t. You’re going to your new parents now. They’ll look after you and I can tell by the way they look at you that they’ll love you.
‘I’ll miss your little box, too. All those pretty butterflies. I hope you keep it all your life. It’ll be a reminder of how much your other mother loved you. I know your new parents will love you, but I’m sure Kibibi, your first mother, loves you, too. I see it in her eyes every time she looks at you. And so does your first father, Julius.’
She gathered up the box with the baby. She had grown so much she wouldn’t be able to sleep in the box for much longer. Kate Stoner had tried to get her to sleep elsewhere but she didn’t seem to want to. She cried in the Moses basket, in the cot, on the big bed. Nowhere settled her like the butterfly box. The foster mother composed herself, she was almost blind with tears.
The baby didn’t look like the new parents, but she could tell they would care for her. She had been fostering for many, many years and you got a sense about people. The sense she had about the Smittsons was that they wanted nothing more than someone to love and bring up as their own. And the sense she got about Julius and Kibibi, the first parents, was that they wanted nothing but the best for their baby – even if it meant doing this.
With the box in her arms, Kate Stoner descended the stairs, ready to send baby Talei on to the next stage of her life.