Page 44 of The Mistake

‘So Erin being born really put a spanner in the works for you.’ As the police officer fixes her dark gaze on him, Pete feels his stomach drop away to the floor.This isn’t an informal chat, he thinks, as hot spurts of panic race through his veins.They think I was the one who left Erin in the woods.

Natalie

Natalie pulls her cardigan tighter around her body, as she sits on the hard plastic chair in the waiting room. Despite the hot stuffiness of the hospital, she just can’t seem to get warm, and she wishes Pete was here before she remembers what he has done, and then she thinks she doesn’t want Pete to come near her ever again.

No one has been in yet to tell her how Erin is doing, and she glances at the clock on the wall for the hundredth time. The remains of the diazepam have worn off and now Natalie feels as if every nerve ending is exposed, the thought of Erin not making it home unbearable. Pete still isn’t back from wherever DI Travis took him to, and the police officer who was supposed to wait with her has gone off in search of a hot chocolate in the hopes it will warm Natalie up. Alone, Natalie runs through the evening over and over in her head, frustrated by the patchiness in her memory. She remembers hissing at Pete, the stabbing pain in her gut as Vanessa gleefully told her she was sleeping with him, the way Eve’s face had crumpled as she told her she was interfering and overbearing. Then everything falls away, fuzzy and indistinct, as if someone has drawn a veil over the evening until the moment Emily appeared to tell them that Erin wasn’t in her cot.

I can’t sit here. I can’t just sit and wait, I need to see Erin.A desperate urge claws at Natalie’s insides, the primal instinct to be with her baby overriding every instruction given to her by the nurse, the police and Pete to wait here. She gets to her feet and hurries out of the waiting room, following the ICU signs until she reaches the room Erin is in. Pressing down on the handle, Natalie exhales as the door slides open, and she tiptoes across the room to the tiny plastic cot where Erin lies.

Her baby is unrecognisable. That’s the first thought she has, her heart filling her chest to the point that she feels she can’t breathe. She wants to reach out a hand, to feel Erin’s tight grip around her finger, but she’s too afraid, scared she’ll shatter into a million pieces if Erin doesn’t respond. Tubes snake out of Erin’s throat, pushing her tiny chest up and down as she struggles to breathe, a rhythmic beeping telling Natalie that this machine is the one keeping her daughter alive. Her skin is waxy and white, not the pink flush she usually carries on her cheeks, or the furious red of her angry wailing. Natalie has a pain in her sternum that surely must be her heart breaking. How could she have thought for one minute that Erin was a mistake? How could she ever have thought that life would have been better without her in it? Now, the idea of Erin not coming home makes Natalie want to scream and cry, to bargain with the devil, doanythingfor her baby to be all right.

I need answers.As the door swings open, Natalie turns to see a nurse entering Erin’s room.

‘Please. I need to know what’s happening with Erin. Is she going to wake up? Why isn’t she awake?’ Her hands knot together as the nurse stops and shakes her head.

‘Mrs Maxwell, I’m sorry, you can’t be in here. Please, you need to go back to the waiting room. Someone will be along to see you just as soon as they can.’

‘I want to be with my daughter.’ The words are almost a shriek, tinged with pain and anguish as Natalie stands firm, her hand reaching out to grip the edge of the plastic cot.

‘I understand that, but Erin is about to be taken down for some tests. Doctors are going to give her a quick ultrasound, and then we’ll come and find you, I promise.’ The nurse tries to reassure her, but Natalie can hear the clipped, tense edge to her voice, and she notices the nurse already has her hands on Erin’s cot, ready to wheel the plastic bed down to the right department.

Natalie nods, feeling deflated, her hand dropping back to herside. Of course, she has to let them do whatever they need to do for Erin, to make sure she’s OK. Watching as the nurse wheels Erin into the lift, Natalie waits until the doors close before she heads back to the waiting room, feeling empty without Erin beside her. If you’d asked her a few days ago what was the best thing anyone could have given her, Natalie would have said an hour away from the baby. Now, all she wants is Erin in her arms.

Another half an hour passes and, just as she is about to get to her feet and go looking for a doctor, a nurse – for anyone who can tell her anything about what is happening with Erin – the waiting room door creaks open. Natalie stands so quickly that for a moment she is light-headed, and she has to blink to refocus, as the chair behind her hits the wall. ‘Oh. It’s you.’ She sags back down into the chair as Eve enters the room, her hands filled with an overstuffed carrier bag, Erin’s changing bag hanging from her shoulder.

‘Have you heard anything?’ Eve’s voice is hushed as the heavy door swings closed, shutting out the beeps of machines and hurried footsteps as hospital staff move between wards.

‘No. Not yet.’ Natalie looks up at her friend, trying to read the look on her face. She knows the words she said to Eve at the party were vicious, but Eve doesn’t seem to have let them affect her at all. ‘Why are you here? I thought you were staying at the house with Zadie. That’s what the police told me. You haven’t left her alone, have you?’ Even as she says it, she knows Eve would never do that. She was horrified when Natalie told her she’d left Zadie in bed asleep once to pop to the shop.

‘There’s a family liaison officer there,’ Eve says. ‘She said I should go, and Emily agreed with her.’ Natalie’s not sure, but she thinks there might be a bit of bitterness to Eve’s tone. Maybe the things Natalie said to her didn’t just slide off like water from a duck’s back. ‘Emily wanted to try and get Zadie to bed for a little while. The poor thing is exhausted, and it’s long past her bedtime.’

Natalie glances again at the clock, actually taking it in this time. It’s almost one o’clock in the morning.

‘How are you, Nat?’ Eve’s face is full of concern, and Natalie can’t help it; the spark of irritation she’s felt towards Eve over the past few weeks has ignited into a full-blown flame that she can’t seem to extinguish.

‘How do you think I am, Eve?’ Natalie stands, not wanting Eve looming over her. ‘My baby was taken from her cot in the middle of the night, dumped in the woods and right now I don’t even know if she’s going to make it, so how the bloody hell do you think I feel?’

Eve’s mouth drops open, and for a moment nothing comes out, and then she says, ‘I’m sorry, Natalie. Of course you’re all over the place. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ She slides the changing bag off her shoulder and tucks it on the empty chair beside Natalie, and then holds out the carrier bag in her hands. ‘I brought a few things for Erin.’

Natalie takes the carrier bag and peers inside.

‘I brought her dummy, I know she struggles to get off to sleep without it,’ Eve says. ‘And a fresh change of clothes and a clean blanket. I took one out of the airing cupboard, because Erin’s usual blanket …’ She trails off. Erin’s usual blanket was tucked around her tiny body in the woods. ‘And the changing bag …’ She gestures vaguely towards the chair. ‘I filled it with wipes and nappies, and I made up a few bottles, just in case. I know they probably have milk here, but—’

‘Thanks.’ Natalie knows she’s being short with Eve, knows she should at least try and show some gratitude, even if it is fake, but she can’t. She should have been the one to put Erin’s things in a bag, to make up fresh bottles so she doesn’t get hungry, but she hadn’t even thought about it. She’d just blindly followed the police officer out to the car.

Eve moves awkwardly to the chair beside Natalie and lowers herself into it. ‘Do the police have any idea who could have donethis?’

Suddenly exhausted, Natalie pulls Erin’s spare blanket from the bag and sits in the chair next to Eve, pressing the soft fabric to her face. If she breathes in and closes her eyes she can still smell Erin on it, under the floral scent of fabric softener. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Well’, Eve persists, ‘do they know who the last person was to see Erin before she disappeared?’ She pauses, frowning. ‘I mean, it’s difficult, isn’t it? It was a party, after all. Did any of the guests see anyone else go upstairs after … you put Erin to bed?’ The memory of their brief argument seems to bring a hint of colour to Eve’s cheeks as she stumbles over the words.

‘Me. I was the last one to see her,’ Natalie says. ‘At least I’m assuming it was me, I was the one who fed her and put her down, after all.’ She shakes away the gap in the evening, the missing stretch of time where she’s not too sure where she was or what she was doing.

‘Gosh.’ Eve’s eyes widen. ‘The FLO said the baby monitor was out of charge.’

‘Yep.’ The word is like a chip of ice. ‘It seems no one –I– didn’t realise, given everything else going on at the time.’

Eve looks as if she wants to respond, but clamps her mouth closed, the two women sitting in silence until the police officer returns with a cup of lukewarm hot chocolate for Natalie.

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