Dear James,
I am watching the door all day and night, waiting for you to burst inside and run to me. I have thought long and hard about how everyone else will watch us, wishing it was their boyfriend coming to take them home. Will you catch the bus from Armidale, and come straight here? Or will you go home first, and break the news to your parents?
Any day now. You’ll come, and take me home.
The truth is, I have been trying to stay positive, especially in my letters to you, because I really don’t want you to think badly of me. I want you to be proud of how well I cope with everything, but . . . it is beyond awful. I am getting worn down by the sadness, the endless hard work, the constant reminders of how much I’ve ruined my life. Don’t worry, James, of course I do not believe the things they say – of course I am fit to mother this child, and of course it would never be better off being raised by someone else. How could I ever believe those lies? Her heart beats within my body. I am growing her. I am nurturing her already. She is me and you, and she needs us. It makes me angry to hear them say that handing her over to strangers would be for the best.
But James . . . that is what they say. They say it at grace at breakfast, they say it when they mark the roll of names at the laundry, they say it when they think we aren’t listening, they say it even louder when they know we are. It is the nurses, it is Mrs Sullivan, it is the doctors –this is their mantra; that we must relinquish, that it would be selfish to entertain any other possibility. They want us to believe that we can and must redeem ourselves and that the only way to do that is to hand over our children to a family constructed with better moral fabric.
It is an endless, repetitive theme of life here. The pressure to plan for adoption is constant, even from Mrs Baxter, although of course it’s delivered in her gentler way. She asks me almost every time we see each other what I will do if you do not come, and as much as I like her, I am starting to think that this is her more subtle way of trying to convince me to prepare for an outcome I know with all of my heart that I need not worry about.
I have heard the chatter among the other girls, and I know that most of them believe the lies. I wish I was braver, so that I could beg them to reconsider. I understand why it’s called brainwashing now. We are bathed and basted in the negativity, every moment of every day.
I feel a love for this baby already, a bond with it that is stronger than anything else I’ve experienced, except perhaps for the love that I feel for you. I wonder . . . is this common to all women? If it is, then surely those who do sign away their children must miss them forever. Tonight, I heard Mrs Sullivan telling Tania that it will be as if the baby never happened and that after the birth she will be able to move on with her life as if she never made this mistake. That is insanity. It’s disgusting to even suggest such a thing. How could someone create a life and then forget it existed?
That’s what’s made me so upset tonight, actually. I was so confused by what Mrs Sullivan had said. To suggest that it would be as though we were never pregnant . . . well, that’s just idiotic. Don’t they know that our hearts and minds expand, just as our bodies do? I know that the babies will be born and the physical changes will mostly disappear with time, but no one could ever convince me that I could forget this child. She’s tattooed herself onto my spirit.
So when Tania came to bed, I actually tried to talk to her. Usually, I feel invisible to Tania – she doesn’t acknowledge me unless she absolutely has to, and so I’ve never tried to start a conversation. Tonight though, I desperately wanted to believe that someone else can see through the lies, and so I asked Tania what she thought about those things Mrs Sullivan had said.
Tania gave me that derisive eye roll that I know so well now, made some unkind comments about my naïveté, and then she told me the story of her baby’s conception. She didn’t love the man who got her pregnant. She has no interest in a future with him, and she really does believe that her baby will be better off without her. After that, Tania shut the conversation down with a few curse words and a tone that would terrify anyone. She is just so mean and so hardened.
I was too upset to sleep so here I am hiding in the toilet at midnight, breaking the rules in so many ways . . . writing a letter to you because again and as always, you’re my only comfort.
If I was in her situation . . . I mean, I would never be in her situation because I’d never be doing those things with someone I didn’t love.
Oh, James. As soon as I wrote that I felt sick with guilt, because I realised that I just did to Tania exactly what they are all doing to me. What right does anyone have to be so superior, heaping judgement here and there, as if any one of us is better than any other? That’s at the heart of all of the misery in this place, and maybe I am just as prone to it as anyone.
Is what she has done so different to what we have done? The only distinction is that you and I love each other, and apparently to the people who matter here in the home, that means absolutely nothing.
And I keep trying not to think about it, because I still am so sure that I don’t need to . . . but the truth is, James, I just don’t know what I’d do if you did not come for me. I would surely find some way to keep my baby, but if I were in Tania’s shoes, and there was no knight in shining armour on his way . . .
Well, I can almost understand it. Without you, I’d leave the home with the baby in tow, and I’d have nowhere to go. And even if I did find a house, I’d have no way to pay for it, let alone buy food. And if I found a job, who would look after our baby? Who would hire me, anyway – a woman with a baby but no husband? And how would I shield our baby from the whispers and the comments as she grew? Everyone would know that she was illegitimate, it would be her undoing before she learned to speak a single word.
I kind of get it … at least on a practical level . . . but the thing is, I love her, already, so much. Too much to just pass her over as if she was an unwanted thing. In spite of Tania’s anger, surely it’s the same for her, and for everyone else? This love I have for our baby is immense – so strong already that it makes me feel sick to even think about parting with her. I could just never do it. No one could ever convince me to. Never.
I’m getting upset again, so I’ll stop writing now because I know it’s all for nothing. I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about being left alone here. I know you’ll come – you’re probably already on your way, even while I’m writing this.
See you soon, my love.
Lilly