by Cassie Harte
On reaching the house, I waited until I was sure no one was around. Asking Melissa to stay where she was, I approached the pram.
But it was empty. I couldn’t see him! It was as though my heart stopped. There was an awful, painful ache in the pit of my stomach. Before I had a chance to do anything, the door of the house burst open and I saw a lady standing there with a concerned look on her face.
‘Would you like to come in?’ she asked quietly. ‘I presume you’ve come to see Jack?’
I couldn’t speak. How did she know? Why wasn’t she cross? What should I do now? I just shook my head and started to walk away.
‘Don’t go,’ she called. ‘Please come in and I’ll make us some tea.’ She looked kind.
‘I have my little girl with me. I was only looking, I didn’t…’ I never finished the sentence, because I was fighting back the tears. I couldn’t cry. If I cried now I would never stop.
‘I’ll get your little girl,’ she replied and ushered me into the hall of her house.
When she returned with Melissa, two small children ran down the stairs and asked if she wanted to play in the garden. They skipped off happily together, oblivious to the drama that was unfolding. As we went into the kitchen, I saw a baby, my baby, just waking from his sleep, in a crib.
‘He’s due a feed,’ his foster mother told me. ‘I’ll get some tea and then feed him.’
She brought the tea and a plate of biscuits over to where I was sitting. I was trying not to look in the crib, trying not to see the child I was aching for. She told me that she had seen me the first time, when I had stood opposite her house. Then the following day when she found the booties, she realised who I must be. She asked me about my daughter and myself, about the baby’s father and about my life.
I could hardly speak. My voice was small and weak, but the pain in my heart was huge and powerful.
She took the tiny being out of the crib and started to give him his bottle. After a while she asked me if I wanted to give him the rest of his feed.
I nodded, totally overwhelmed.
She picked Jack up and came over to where I was sitting and placed him in my arms.
I wasn’t ready for the feelings that came rushing through me. I wasn’t ready for this huge gush of mixed-up emotion: fear, panic, pain and love. It took me by surprise. I thought my heart would burst.
And then the tears, oceans of them. Melissa saw this and came running in from the garden to try and brush them away.
‘It’s OK. Mummy isn’t crying because she’s sad but because she’s happy,’ the foster mum said. ‘She’ll be OK in a moment. Sometimes it’s good to cry.’ With that, my little girl returned to playing with her new friends.
‘Would you like to talk about it?’ enquired the woman who was caring for my son. ‘Just tell me what you want for your baby and I’ll see if I can help.’
I don’t know how I managed to talk. I felt totally exhausted. The past few months had taken their toll on my resources and I was completely shattered. But tell her I did. No holds barred. I told her how my life had been up to this point, about having no love from my mother and how she refused to help me. I told of my failed marriage, the affair, the rejection and the tablets. But not about him, the evil, nasty man. I never told her about that. I couldn’t talk about him. It was too huge and horrible. So I never told anyone about that.
When I was spent, physically and emotionally tired beyond description, I looked up to find this lovely lady crying with me.
‘You should have kept him,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you keep him if you like.’
Did she really say that? No one had ever said that.
‘But they said I couldn’t,’ I whispered. ‘They said it was best for him if I had him adopted and that they were concerned that I wouldn’t cope and then I’d lose both of my children.’
‘If you love your baby and have a home for him, there is nothing to stop you from keeping him. Nothing has been signed yet and so legally he is still yours.’ She sounded confident about this. Determined to make this right. ‘If you love him, he belongs with you.’
‘Of course I love him. I’ve always loved him, but sometimes throughout all of this I haven’t been able to think straight. I came off the tablets during my pregnancy so that he came to no harm but I suffered severe withdrawal. I’m fine again now.’ I was feeling slightly stronger now that I had someone on my side. Someone who actually believed in me, which was a new experience for me.
She stood up and took Jack from me. I was able to let him go now that I somehow believed it was all going to work out well. This time all my prayers and all my hopes would pay off. This time I would have a happy ending.
She suggested that I go home and prepare to have my baby back. It was like a dream. I left and we went back to the bungalow to get ready for the rest of my life with my children—both of them. My son and daughter.
I had kept Melissa’s pram and cot and all her baby things so I brought them down from the attic and I cleaned the pram until it shone. Then I sat down and tried to explain what was going to happen to my tiny little girl. I told her that when I had been away I had had a baby. I tried to tell her that because I wasn’t well he had been living with the lady whose house we had visited. I then told her that we were going to bring him home the following day. She giggled and danced around the room, delighted with the idea. It all seemed so unreal.
I didn’t sleep that night, and the following day I was in a daze. I gathered together a set of clothes that I had bought to put in the pram and then, full of excitement, apprehension, fear—I’m not sure, possibly all of those—we boarded a bus to where my precious son was living.
The foster mum was waiting for me. She made us some tea and gave my daughter a little cake. Her husband was coming home early to help with the baby’s things and then they would give us a lift home.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. I don’t know how I got through the day. Yes, I was ecstatic that we were all going to be together, but it had been such an awful, emotionally charged ten months since I first found out that I was pregnant that I was physically and mentally drained.
We got back to my home and, after seeing that I had everything I needed, the foster parents left, promising to let the authorities know that my baby son was back with me. Back where he belonged.
That evening, feeling completely exhausted but happier than I had ever been, I bathed both children and put them to bed. Jack was in a cot in my bedroom, the same cot that Melissa had slept in when she was first born. I went to bed and lay there gazing at him, memorising him, until the early hours of the morning.
I don’t remember much about the next couple of days, except that I took the children to the local shop because I needed some groceries. A friend of Larry’s came out of the grocer’s, looked in the pram and laughed.
‘So this is his bastard, is it?’ he quipped. ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t turn out to look like his father.’ Then he went on his way.
Was this what it was going to be like? Would people always see him as that? He was just a baby, a tiny baby. How could anyone be so cruel?
I’m not sure when the pain happened or how it started. I was putting the children to bed one evening when I felt strange, light-headed and suddenly terrified. My hands were sweating, my heart was pounding in my chest, and I was struggling to breathe. I was terrified. What was happening to me?
I ran into a neighbour’s house, and she sat me down and called the doctor. This was to begin the chain of events that destroyed a huge part of my very being. After what seemed like hours my GP and a social worker arrived and I was taken back into my own home.
‘We don’t think you’re coping, Cassie,’ my doctor said slowly, as though if he spoke any faster I wouldn’t understand. ‘It has been a terrible time for you and we feel you have made the wrong decision in bringing the child back here.’
No, no mistake, I wanted to scream. It was not a mistake. But I didn’t. I didn’t speak, I couldn’
t speak. All my strength and energy had left me. I was totally mentally shattered. The social worker started to talk.
‘You won’t be able to afford to keep the children. You have no income, just a small amount of maintenance for your daughter. Nothing for the baby.’ She said it as if it was an accusation, as if I didn’t already know. She went on: ‘I want you to think about what you have done. Your neighbour has said she will stay here tonight to make sure you are OK. I will see you in the morning and we will decide what to do next.’
With that she left, with my doctor close on her heels. He had given me something to make me sleep and, like a zombie, I went to bed.
The next day dawned and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Back in 1971 there was no state help for unmarried mothers. The social worker was right. My only income was the small amount that Edward paid for Melissa. I had given up my job in the pub before my son was born and wasn’t well enough to work at this time. Family help was non-existent and I had few friends.
As promised, the social worker arrived, along with my health visitor, a lovely lady who I liked very much. But I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
‘You have two choices,’ the social worker said. ‘You can give up your son for adoption—not to the church society as they won’t take him now, but to the social services. He will go back into care and then to the next couple on the list.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Adoption was supposed to be the best option for the child. How was this the best?
But what came next shook the very core of me.
‘Your other option is this.’ She didn’t even sound embarrassed. ‘If you keep both children, if you deny your son a good start in life, the authorities will monitor you and find you wanting. You will not be able to look after all three of you on the little amount of income you have. This will mean that the children will not have adequate care. You’re not well, physically or emotionally, and you have no family support. And you are also taking antidepressants. This will go against you.’ I don’t think she stopped to take a breath. ‘So, if you insist on keeping the baby, you will possibly—no, certainly—lose both children.’ She stopped now. She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at my health visitor.
‘What do you mean? What will that mean for Cassie’s daughter?’ asked the health visitor, whom I had known for the whole of my little girl’s life. ‘What will happen to her? Will they both be adopted?’
I didn’t know what they were talking about. It was as though I wasn’t even there. The air was stuffy and I thought I was going to faint. I wasn’t sure they were talking about me, me and my children. Both my children adopted? I was trapped in some kind of nightmare.
‘Because the little girl is three years old and we like to keep the children together, I don’t believe either of them would go to adoption,’ said the now slightly red-faced social worker. ‘She is older than most couples want. They would both stay in care until they were seventeen years of age.’
My health visitor came over and sat beside me. She tried to put her arm around me but I moved out of her reach.
‘You have to make a choice: either give up your son for adoption, or we will eventually take both children. We have lots of parents eager to take baby boys. He will have a wonderful home, a wonderful mum.’ She actually smiled at this point.
I wanted to shout at her that no one was taking any of my children away. No one would separate me from them again. I wanted to shout that he had a wonderful home, he had a mum. Me.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Couldn’t function. After a long empty silence, a little voice from somewhere said, ‘I can’t lose my little girl. She’s my life.’ That’s all I said.
After what seemed like an eternity, both women in the room accepted that I would keep my daughter, which meant that I would have to let them take my son. They talked between themselves for a while, and my health visitor became quite upset.
‘Two weeks?’ she asked the social worker. ‘But that’s cruel.’
The other woman looked annoyed. ‘That’s the soonest we can do it. We are having to make right the wrong that she did by taking back the child. He wasn’t on our lists so we have to start from scratch and find a foster parent for him as an emergency!’
They were discussing my son’s future as though I wasn’t there. I don’t think I have ever felt as bad as I did at that time. Throughout the abuse, which was unrelenting and horrific, throughout my life without any motherly love or guidance, I had felt the deepest despair and loneliness. But this was different; this time I was completely broken. Completely shattered. Devoid of all feeling and all emotion.
I was told that I would have to keep my son with me for two weeks until they found a suitable foster home. Then they left.
I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see the look in his beautiful blue eyes. He didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know that he was to be taken away from me again and placed somewhere else. And then my precious little girl—what would I tell her? How could I tell her that her baby brother was leaving us? She knew how much I loved him. What would I say? What would we do now?
True to their word, these so-called health professionals left him with me, while I knew that they were going to take him away again soon. It was the most awful time. I cared for him but showed no emotion. I bathed and fed him but I didn’t play with him. I tried not to look at him any more than I had to. He would sit in his little chair and I brought it into whatever room I was in but I wouldn’t look at him. I couldn’t hold him. The pain sometimes lessened and in its place was this horrid numb feeling. Heavy and yet empty. My GP increased my medication. He said it would make me feel better but really it just enabled me to get through the days.
And then I had a brainwave. From somewhere, hope returned. I decided to contact my baby’s father. I would ring Larry and ask him to come round.
What did I think would happen? That he would see our baby and fall into my arms and that we would live happily every after? Stupid, stupid fool.
I contacted a friend of his, as I had no idea where he was living at that time. I rushed around and tidied the place and made sure my baby boy looked wonderful. Surely he wouldn’t be able to resist him? Everything would be fine after all.
Then I got a phone call from the friend. Larry had heard already that I’d brought our baby home but he wasn’t coming over, he was never coming near us. Hope was shattered again.
I don’t really remember much about the following days and nights. I know I didn’t sleep. I had to answer Melissa’s questions about why we couldn’t keep our baby. Why he was going to another mother? It was breaking my heart. What was I doing to these two beautiful children? I knew then that I had no choice. I had to give him a chance of a good life, to enable me to give my little girl a good life. I shouldn’t have had to make that choice, but I did.
When the day came, I asked my neighbour to look after Melissa and to keep her at the back of the house so that she didn’t see him go. I wasn’t ready. How do you get ready for parting with your precious son? My health visitor was the first to arrive, and then the social worker drove up in a large estate car, a Volvo. I have hated those cars since that day.
My son was in his pram in the back garden. A tiny elephant and a tiny brown bear were hanging from the front of the hood.
‘Go and fetch him then,’ the social worker said abruptly. ‘We haven’t much time.’
I went into the garden, feeling as though I was about to break apart. I reached into the pram for this tiny scrap of life I was about to lose. As I lifted him out, he grabbed at the elephant and it broke off the hood. I was devastated. Did he know what was happening? Did he want to stay? Was he hurting too?
With my heart breaking, I carried my son out to the waiting car. But then I stopped. It wasn’t right. I couldn’t do it. Why didn’t someone come and help me?
But there was no one. My health visitor tried to coax me to place my baby in the carrycot in
the back of that awful car. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t let go of him. There was a struggle as the social worker tried to pull Jack out of my arms, while I resisted and started to scream.
‘No, you can’t take him. He’s mine. I won’t let you. Please. Oh, please.’
This was the point when my heart broke. I tried to hold on to my baby son, the child I had given birth to only weeks before, but I failed. He was placed in the carrycot and the car pulled away.
I fell to the ground sobbing.
It was over. All I had left was a lifetime of guilt and regret. A lifetime of missing him.
A few weeks later I asked to see him one more time. He was still in foster care. Because I had been so ill and depressed, my GP asked social services to arrange a final supervised meeting at his surgery. I was so excited. I still hoped that someone would force them to change their minds. I thought that when I saw him everything would be OK.
When they put him in my arms I felt such love and such pain. Then reality came to me like a bolt out of the blue. Of course things wouldn’t change. Of course ‘they’ wouldn’t change their minds. He was to be adopted. I stood up and carried him into the garden. Was there a back entrance? For one fleeting moment I thought I could run away with him. Where to? I didn’t know. Just run. I was hurrying to the bottom of the surgery garden, hoping to find a gate. Hardly breathing. But the social worker appeared and quickly took him from me.
It was over.
No more hope.
I knew then that things weren’t going to change. He wasn’t coming back to me, ever. I had lost him for good.
Chapter Nineteen
Grief is a terrible emotion. It eats away at you until the very soul of you is destroyed and permanently damaged. The next few months were like living in a horrible murky smog. I was taking a large dose of tablets, which numbed my emotions, but still I couldn’t stop thinking about Jack. I avoided prams, avoided places where mums take babies. I concentrated on looking after Melissa, and in the evenings after she went to bed I would just sit without moving. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t even think about crying.