Kitabı oku: «Cut: Free Sampler»

Chapter One
In the Beginning

John, my husband, and I were trying to start a family, but it was proving difficult. We were doing all the right things (and often) but the longed-for baby hadn’t arrived. One Saturday evening I was flicking through the local newspaper and saw an advertisement: Could you offer a child a home? Mary desperately needs one. There was an accompanying black-and-white photograph of a darling little girl, aged six months, reaching out with her arms and eyes to anyone who would look, together with the telephone number of the duty social worker.

I glanced up at John, who was sitting on the lounge floor trying to repair his electric drill. Lots of little metal bits were strewn across a sheet of old newspaper. Our first home together had been a DIY project, although now that we had been living in it since our marriage, two years previously, the worst was over. Most of the rooms were not only habitable but decorated, and although sparsely furnished, comfortable. I looked again at the social services advertisement, and to the small print under the main heading: Little Mary requires a foster home while her mother recovers in hospital.

‘John?’ I said tentatively.

‘Mmm?’ He glanced up, with the metal casing of the drill in one hand and a screwdriver in the other.

‘What do you think about this?’ I left the sofa and, careful not to tread on the assortment of drill parts, showed him the open page.

He read the advertisement and looked at me seriously. ‘You’d never be able to give her back, would you?’

I paused for a moment, deep in thought. ‘I guess you have to go into fostering aware that you are going to give the child back to the mother. What do you think? Is it worth a phone call to find out more?’

‘What about your job?’ he asked.

‘I suppose I’d have to hand in my notice. I was going to give up work anyway when we had a baby.’

‘It’s not the same as having our own family, is it?’ He was still looking at me, concerned. John could always be relied upon to view a situation objectively, seeing the pitfalls and problems when I had possibly rushed in.

‘No, it would be as well as having our own family,’ I said.

He looked down at the drill. ‘I’m not sure about fostering. Let me think about it.’ And if I was honest I wasn’t sure either.

Could I look after a child that wasn’t my own? Feed and change her, bond with her, knowing that at some point she would be returning to her mother? It was a huge emotional undertaking and a life-changing commitment, added to which, we needed the money from my job. Every penny counted, not only because of the cost of the house, but also as a nest egg for the day we did have a baby and I had to give up work. I closed the newspaper and dropped it into the magazine rack. ‘Coffee?’ I asked John.