babies because they don’t understand what’s happening to them. They scream in pain from agonizing cramps for hours and can’t be comforted by their carer. They shiver, shake, vomit and even fit, just as an adult addict does. It’s frightening and pitiful to watch, and it often takes many months before the baby is free from withdrawal. ‘Thank goodness,’ I said again.
‘And, Cathy,’ Jill said, her voice growing serious, ‘you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that you might meet Harrison’s mother at the hospital tomorrow. A nurse will be with you, but I thought I should warn you.’
‘Oh, yes, thank you. I hadn’t thought of that. That will be upsetting – poor woman. Do you know anything more about her?’
‘No. I asked Cheryl but she seemed a bit evasive. Secretive almost. I’ll be speaking to her again tomorrow to clarify arrangements for collecting the baby, so I hope I’ll find out more then.’
And that was the first indication of just how unusual this case would be. Jill was right when she said the social worker was being secretive, but it was not for any reason she or I could have possibly guessed.
Chapter Two
Helping
When I arrived home I unloaded all the bags of baby equipment from the boot of the car and then took them upstairs, where I stacked them in the spare bedroom. This was the bedroom I used for fostering and it was rarely empty, for there was always a child to be looked after. However, I’d already decided that baby Harrison wouldn’t be using this bedroom for the first few months but would be sleeping in the cot in my room, as Adrian and Paula had done when they were babies. This was a precautionary measure so that I could check on him and answer his cries immediately. And again my thoughts went sadly to Harrison’s mother, who wouldn’t have the opportunity to hear her baby cry at night or see him chuckle with delight during the day.
Having unloaded the car, I left all my purchases in their bags and wrappers in the bedroom and had just enough time for a cold drink before I had to leave to collect Adrian and Paula from school. They attended a local primary school about a five-minute drive away. They didn’t know yet that we were going to foster a baby and as I drove I pictured the looks on their faces when I told them. They would be so excited. Some of their friends had baby brothers and sisters and Paula, in particular, loved playing babies with her dolls: feeding them with a toy bottle, changing their nappies and sitting them on the potty. Sometimes Adrian joined in and more than once I’d been very moved by overhearing them tenderly nursing their ‘little darling’ and discussing their baby’s progress. Now we were going to do it for real, and I should make sure Adrian and Paula fully appreciated that a baby could not be treated as a toy and mustn’t be picked up unless I was in the room, which I’m sure they knew.
‘A baby!’ Paula squealed in delight as I met her in the playground and told her. ‘What, a real one?’
I smiled. ‘Yes, a real baby. I’m bringing him home from the hospital tomorrow.’
‘I can’t wait to tell my teacher!’ Paula exclaimed.
A minute later Adrian bounded over from his classroom exit, which was further along the building.
‘A baby!’ he exclaimed in surprise when I told him.
‘Yes, he was born today in the City Hospital,’ I said. ‘I’m going to collect him tomorrow afternoon.’
‘How was he born?’ Paula asked innocently as we began across the school playground.
‘Same as those rabbits you saw last year,’ Adrian said quickly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure his friends hadn’t heard Paula’s question.
‘Yuck!’ Paula said, screwing up her face. ‘That’s horrid.’
The previous summer we’d gone with friends to a working farm which had open days, and by chance in a fenced-off area of a barn we’d seen a rabbit giving birth. All the children watching had been enthralled and a little repulsed at this sight of nature in the raw, but as the man standing behind me had remarked: ‘At least we won’t have to explain the birds and bees to the kids now!’
‘What’s the baby’s name?’ Adrian now asked, changing the subject.
‘Harrison,’ I said.
‘Harrison,’ Paula repeated. ‘That’s a long name. I think I’ll call him Harry.’
‘Yes, that’s fine,’ I agreed. ‘Baby Harry sounds good.’ And I briefly wondered why his mother had chosen the name Harrison, which was an unusual name in England and more popular in America.
When we arrived home Adrian and Paula ran upstairs to the spare bedroom to see all the baby things I’d told them I’d bought. ‘It’s like Christmas!’ Paula called, for rarely were there so many store bags and packages in the house.
After dinner the children didn’t want to play in the garden, as they had been doing recently in the nice weather, but wanted to help me prepare Harrison’s bedroom. I thought it was a good idea for them to be involved, so that they wouldn’t feel excluded when Harrison arrived and I was having to devote a lot of my time to him.
The three of us went upstairs and I gave Paula the job of starting to unwind the polythene from the new cot mattress, while Adrian helped me carry the sections of the cot into my bedroom. He also helped me assemble it and once the frame was bolted into place he and Paula carried in the new mattress. I lowered in the mattress and then fetched the new bedding from the spare room. Taking the blankets and sheets out of their wrappers, we made up the cot. I felt a pang of nostalgia as I remembered first Adrian and then Paula sleeping in the cot as tiny babies.
‘It’s not very big,’ Adrian remarked. ‘Did I fit in there?’
‘Yes. You were a lot, lot smaller then,’ I said, smiling. Adrian was going to be tall like his father, who unfortunately no longer lived with us.
‘Can I climb in?’ Adrian said, making a move to lift a leg over the lowered side.
‘No, you’ll break it,’ I said. ‘And don’t be tempted to try and get in when I’m not here, will you?’
Adrian shook his head.
‘What about me?’ Paula asked. ‘I’m smaller than Adrian. Can I get in?’
‘No. You’re too heavy too. It’s only made for a baby’s weight. And just a reminder: you both know you mustn’t ever pick up Harrison when I’m not in the room?’ Both children nodded. ‘I want you to help me, but we have to do it together, OK?’
‘OK,’ Adrian said quickly, clearly feeling this was obvious, while Paula said: ‘Ellen in my class has a baby sister and her mother told her babies don’t bounce. That seems a silly thing to say because of course babies don’t bounce. They’re not balls.’
‘It’s a saying,’ I said. ‘To try and explain that babies are fragile and need to be treated very gently.’
‘I’ll tell Ellen,’ Paula said. ‘She didn’t understand either.’
‘Well, she’s daft,’ Adrian said, unable to resist a dig at his sister.
‘No she’s not,’
