Claiming Noah

by Amanda Ortlepp

  With each update from the police, Diana felt herself falling further down a rabbit hole of despair. She haunted her house like a ghost, drifting between rooms in search of an answer she never found. She slept during the day, with the curtains in her bedroom drawn shut and the covers over her head. At night she sat at the living-room window with the lights off and the blinds open, watching moths hover around the street lamp and cats prowl across front lawns. She stayed at the window until the moonlight shadows receded and night gave over to day, then she returned to bed. Sometimes she and Liam went days without talking, and when they did speak it was with the detached politeness of people who had only just met. Liam returned to work a week after Noah disappeared, telling Diana that he needed to do something to take his mind off it. He slept in the study on a fold-out sofa bed and spent the rest of his time out of the house. Whether he was at work, or with friends, or at a bar, Diana didn’t know. She never bothered to ask him.

  Diana refused to see anyone other than the police or her mother, and refused to believe that Noah wasn’t coming back to her. She was convinced that the person who had him would soon realise the enormity of the grief they had caused her and would turn themselves in to the police. She couldn’t believe that anyone could be so inherently evil as to steal a person’s baby from them. During her nights sitting by the window she fantasised about Sergeant Thomas turning up at her front door with Noah nestled in his arms. Noah would smile at her and she would take him from Sergeant Thomas and all would be right with the world again. Sergeant Thomas did call and visit Diana often, but it was never with good news, and never with Noah.

  ‘I promise you, we have the best officers on this case,’ Sergeant Thomas assured Diana during one of these visits, when Noah had been missing for three weeks.

  They were sitting in Diana’s living room, which had become musty through lack of fresh air. A pungent waft of garbage drifted into the room, courtesy of the bin in the kitchen that was overflowing with takeaway containers and half-eaten freezer meals – the only type of food Diana could be bothered with. She had made a cup of tea for Sergeant Thomas and as she sat watching him drink it she realised the cup had a lipstick stain on the rim in a shade that matched the colour her mother wore.

  ‘We’ve alerted all the other police precincts of Noah’s disappearance,’ Sergeant Thomas continued. ‘We have people all over the country looking for him.’

  Diana twisted a tendril of her hair. It felt oily between her fingers. ‘What if he’s not in the country any more?’

  ‘We’ve looked into that, too. We’ve examined passenger records from all of the airlines since the day he disappeared, but no child fitting Noah’s description has left the country.’

  He went to take a sip from the cup, noticed the lipstick smudge and placed it on the coffee table instead. ‘There is another possibility we have to consider.’

  ‘Don’t say it.’

  He faltered, and then spoke anyway. ‘We don’t think this is the case, but we do have to consider that Noah may have met with foul play.’

  Diana closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip, which had started to quiver.

  ‘We haven’t found anything that makes us think that’s what happened to him. We’ve scoured the local area, and we’ve had psychologists going over the case, and nothing suggests to us that the person who took Noah intended to harm him. So, the most likely possibility, we think, is that whoever has him is looking after him.’

  It was a small consolation, but it was all Diana had to cling to. She refused to picture her son emaciated, weak from forced weaning and neglect. Or, even worse, dead. She told herself that whoever had him was treating him with the same love and care they would give to their own child, even though that pained her almost as much as the alternative.

  • • •

  Each day and month passed with little to distinguish it from the ones before. Later, when Diana thought back on that time, few events came to mind. Except one: Noah’s first birthday. She spent the day at her mother’s house in a state of inconsolable misery before returning home in the hope that Liam was there. He arrived home hours later, dishevelled and with the smell of alcohol on his breath. He stumbled down the hallway, not looking at Diana as she stood in the doorway to their bedroom hoping for a word of recognition or affection from her husband. But he disappeared into the study, closing the door behind him. Soon after, on a whim, Diana bought a puppy from a rescue shelter, a black bulldog she named Ninja. She hoped that it might help with her loneliness, which escalated in intensity daily, but as much as she adored the little puppy it did nothing to take away from her pain.

  Diana saw Noah everywhere. It was as if the world refused to let her get through just one day without constant reminders of what she once had that was now lost to her. The sound of a child laughing drove a knife deep into her heart. The sight of a little boy holding on to his mother’s hand caused her such deep pain that she would often burst into tears in the middle of the street.

  Some sightings were worse than others. One day, as she was walking through a department store in the city, Diana saw a boy who looked so similar to the image she had conjured in her mind of how Noah would have looked at seventeen months it made her stop mid-stride, causing a woman walking a few paces behind her through the maze of cosmetic counters to collide into her. Diana mumbled an apology and moved a few steps to her left out of the main thoroughfare of the store so she could watch the boy without being in the way of other shoppers. He was balanced on the hip of a woman with blonde hair who was inspecting products at one of the cosmetic counters. The woman was facing away from her, so Diana couldn’t see her face, but the boy was turned on the woman’s hip so he could inspect the shoppers around him. His gaze met with Diana’s and she felt a pang of familiarity when she looked into his brown eyes, wide with innocence and curiosity. The boy’s resemblance to Noah was uncanny. He had the same defiant curls and the dimple in his right cheek that popped in and out as he moved his mouth, eating something that was clenched in his fist. His left hand, the one not holding his food, was also clenched into a fist. Diana sorted through the mental photographs in her mind of Noah sleeping with his fisted hands resting on either side of his face.

  She moved closer to the boy.

  Diana felt her fingers tighten around the shaft of her umbrella as she scanned the short distance between the woman and the exit door that opened on to the street. The store was busy, as were the city streets. It would be easy to lose herself in the crowd on the footpath before anyone had a chance to catch her. She could hail a taxi and be home within twenty minutes, with the boy. Her heart beat faster in her chest but then as quickly as the thought had entered her mind, Diana realised how ridiculous it was. Was she really going to hit the woman over the head with an umbrella, grab the boy, run out the door and expect no-one to follow her? She wasn’t even sure that it was her son. But it did look so much like him.

  With a sudden jolt of bravery Diana left her vantage point, walked right up to the cosmetic counter and stood on the left-hand side of the woman. The boy was positioned between the two women and he looked at Diana with unabashed curiosity before offering her an innocent smile. She tried to cover the involuntary sob that escaped from her lips in response to the boy’s smile, but the woman heard and looked at her in alarm.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked Diana.

  ‘I’m fine, just a tickle in my throat.’ Before she could stop herself, Diana reached out and touched the boy’s hair. It was as soft as Noah’s had been. ‘Your son is adorable.’

  The woman smiled in a way that suggested she was used to receiving such compliments. ‘Thank you, we think so.’ She repositioned the boy higher on her hip and tweaked his nose in a way that made him laugh. ‘He’s just starting to talk, aren’t you, darling? Can you say hello to the lady?’

  The boy ducked his head into the nape of the woman’s neck and both women laughed.

  ‘Sorry,’ the woman said. ‘He gets a bit shy around stranger
s.’

  ‘How old is he?’ Diana asked.

  ‘Eighteen months now. It’s going so quickly.’

  Eighteen months. So, he was a month older than Noah would be now. But that wasn’t much of a difference, and the resemblance in those eyes was unmistakable. Diana couldn’t shake the feeling that this was her son.

  ‘Ma’am?’ The sales assistant was holding a small bag out to the woman. ‘Here’s your make-up.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The woman put the shopping bag into her handbag and smiled at Diana. ‘Have a nice day.’

  As the woman turned to leave, Diana felt panic take hold of her. What if this was Noah and she let the woman walk away? How would she ever find him again?

  ‘Wait!’ Diana called out to the woman.

  She turned around, her eyebrows raised in question.

  ‘Can I just ask . . . Sorry, this is probably a very personal question, but is your son by any chance adopted?’

  Diana could see her question had taken the woman aback, so she quickly tried to justify it. ‘It’s just that . . . sorry, again . . . but my husband and I are looking to adopt and we’re not sure which agency to go with. And I just thought that your son doesn’t look like you, so maybe . . .’

  The woman adjusted the boy on her hip again and Diana wondered why she was carrying him instead of pushing him in a pram.

  ‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘Don’t apologise. He looks more like my husband than me.’ She looked at the boy and smiled. ‘No, he’s ours all right. I have the stretch marks to prove it.’

  The woman lifted her hand in a gesture of farewell to Diana before she turned and walked off in the opposite direction. As she watched them go Diana reached into her handbag, took out her mobile phone, aimed it at the pair and took a photo of them. The woman’s back was to her but she got a clear picture of the boy’s face, still staring back at her. The sales assistant who had served the woman looked at her in surprise, but Diana left the counter without speaking and headed towards the exit.

  When she got home Diana went straight to the study without even stopping to take off her shoes or to greet Ninja. She hooked her phone up to the computer and uploaded the most recent photos. She printed out several and wrote messages and dates on the back of each. Diana then pulled a blue shoebox from one of the shelves in the study and opened the lid. The box was half-filled with photos. Though none was of the same child, they had a lot in common. Each showed a brown-haired, brown-eyed boy. Some were babies, some were toddlers. All had noticeable dimples. Diana added the photos she had just printed to the pile in the shoebox, replaced the lid and put it back on the shelf. She then wrote an email, attached the photos she had just uploaded, and sent it. The email was to Sergeant Thomas and the subject line of the email said: ‘More photos. Please investigate.’

  • • •

  Father Keating took Diana’s hand in his two larger ones and held on to it. ‘Your mother’s told me what you’ve been going through and I’m deeply sorry for the anguish you must be feeling. Please, come in.’

  In an attempt to help her daughter find peace, Eleanor had arranged for Diana to attend a counselling session with Father Keating, whom Diana hadn’t seen for more than two years. After the dinner at Eleanor’s house during which Father Keating had tried to persuade Diana and Liam to find another way to have a baby, Liam was adamant that they would have Noah baptised at a different church, with a different priest. So, they had planned to have the ceremony at their local Catholic church instead. But that day never came, because Noah was kidnapped before his baptism day.

  Diana had invited Liam to come along to the counselling session with Father Keating, but he said he could think of a million other things he would prefer to do. She had left it at that, not having the energy to fight with him. Her mother had offered to come with her instead.

  Father Keating directed Diana and Eleanor to a small couch in his office, which sat in front of a wooden bookcase stuffed with books. They were crammed on to the shelves, with piles lying horizontally on top of those stacked vertically so there was barely room to reach between them. Diana sank into the couch, grateful for a comfortable place to sit. Even standing up for longer than a few minutes at a time seemed to take it out of her these days.

  Without asking if they wanted one, Father Keating poured them all a cup of tea from the teapot sitting on a small side table. Diana thought it was an effeminate choice of teapot for a man, delicate white china with a floral pattern. It looked like something her grandmother would have used while she was still alive.

  ‘A gift from a member of my parish,’ Father Keating said to Diana when he caught her staring at the tea set. ‘I’m more of a mug man myself, but it was very sweet of her.’

  He handed Diana one of the teacups. ‘I’ve been praying every day for the safe return of your son. I pray that whoever did this to you and your family will see the error of their ways and turn themselves in to the police.’

  Eleanor nodded in agreement. ‘So do I. Hopefully our combined prayers will have more power.’

  Diana let out an accidental snort at her mother’s remark, which didn’t go unnoticed by Father Keating. He set his cup of tea on the glass coffee table and leaned towards Diana.

  ‘I know how difficult this is,’ he said. ‘And how angry you must be. But the more we’re tested with terrible things like this, the stronger we become.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Diana said, suddenly infuriated. ‘You don’t know. You don’t have a child. You don’t know what it feels like to have someone steal your heart. You don’t spend every waking moment wondering whether the person you care most about in the world is even alive.’

  ‘Diana!’ Eleanor looked from her daughter to Father Keating, clearly horrified. ‘Father Keating, I’m so sorry, she didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Eleanor, please, it’s fine.’ Father Keating smiled sadly at Diana. ‘You have every right to be angry. I encourage you to use that anger, let it help you get through the days. You need to keep your strength up. Direct your anger at me, direct it at God, direct it wherever you need to. We’re here for you and will help you deal with your anger and grief.’

  Though Diana didn’t believe a word the priest said her Catholic guilt, which had been instilled in her from a young age, made her feel bad for swearing at him. It wasn’t his fault that Noah had been kidnapped. But it frustrated her when Father Keating, her mother and the other members of the parish who had approached her since they heard of Noah’s kidnapping tried to console her by telling her to have faith in God. Whenever anyone said that to her she felt an almost overwhelming urge to punch that person in the face until they felt just a small amount of the pain she felt every day. She found it naive that they refused to accept the reality that sometimes life was wonderful, and sometimes it was the worst kind of hell, but none of it had a higher purpose or was part of some divine plan. Life was just a mean, undiscerning game of Russian roulette. Some people ended the game unscathed and others received the full brunt of it right in the face. If there really was a God he was a sadist for doing this to her, and she refused to believe in anyone that cruel.

  She couldn’t say any of this to Father Keating, or to her mother, so she just sat in silence as the priest rattled off a series of clichéd phrases designed to comfort her and reignite her faith. But it was too late for that; Diana’s faith wasn’t going to return. Not unless her son did first.

  13

  CATRIONA

  Monday, 12 August 2013

  When Catriona arrived home from work one winter evening, James told her he had something important to ask her.

  ‘All right, what is it?’ she said, pulling off her black coat and following him into the living room. The ducted heating was on and the warm room made Catriona forget the frigid day she had left outside. She leaned down to kiss Sebastian, who was stacking blocks on the rug. Every time she arrived home from work she marvelled at how quickly he was growing up. He had transitioned from crawling to walking at an alarming rate
. His rounded body had been replaced by a taller, leaner version. The angles of his face had sharpened. His curls now brushed the collars of his T-shirts, but Catriona didn’t want to cut them off.

  She and James had settled into the hectic, regimented routine of two working parents. They took turns dropping Sebastian at day care in the mornings, and James scheduled his meetings for the mornings and early afternoon so he could finish up by three o’clock and pick up Sebastian on his way home. It wasn’t a perfect routine, but it worked for them.

  When she was seated on the couch next to him, James took a deep breath but then remained silent. She could tell he was nervous because he kept swallowing as if his mouth was dry. Finally, he spoke. ‘Spencer’s getting out of prison next week. He doesn’t have any money, or anywhere to stay, so I’d love it if he could stay with us for a few weeks while he gets on his feet. A month, tops. I know you don’t like him, but you’ll find he’s changed a lot. He’s much more mature now.’

  When Catriona didn’t say anything in response James continued his plea in a rambling way that only served to highlight his nerves. ‘This would mean a lot to me, Cat. He’s helped me in the past and this would be my way of helping him. He’d be useful around the house, you’ll see. He can help with Sebastian. And he’ll find a job easily, he’s really good with his hands.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s proved that before.’

  ‘Don’t be like that. He’s changed.’

  She cocked an eyebrow at him.

  ‘No, he has. Really. Prison has been good for him. He’s a different man now.’

  Catriona scoffed. ‘Okay, so maybe he’s more mature than he used to be, but do you really want him around our son? Do you trust him enough to leave the two of them alone together?’