Page 120 of The Life We Almost Had

My hand is on the front door handle when I hear it.

A cry.

A cry that tears at my heart.

A cry I recognize.

Choking back a sob, I spin around. Push past Nancy, heading for the stairs.

‘Anna! You can’t go…’

But I am halfway up the flight, my feet barely touching the ground.

The cries grow louder. Nancy’s footsteps thundering behind me.

‘Anna! Wait!’

But I don’t. I can’t. I run full pelt towards the door at the end of the landing and throw it wide open.

There are so many things I feel as I approach the cot. Fear. Excitement. Disbelief. Relief. Confusion. Pain. But everything I feel is overridden by a crushing anxiety that I might be wrong, but my heart tells me I am right.

It’s Harry.

His face flushed red. Curls damp against his scalp.

It’s Harry.

Small hands scrunched into fists.

It’s Harry.

On his arm, the birthmark shaped like a map that matches Adam’s.

‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ Nancy says, but her voice is soft.

‘It’s… it’s you. It reallyisyou,’ I whisper.

At the sound of my voice the baby stops crying and studies me with deep blue eyes. Adam’s eyes. Gently, I scoop him up and hold him against my chest. The familiar weight of him. The smell of him.

‘Poor little mite has barely stopped crying since he was left on the steps outside ten days ago.’

But she doesn’t have to tell me he was left the day Adam died. She doesn’t have to tell me because I know.

However impossible, this is my child.

This is Harry.

Part Six

‘Love will find a way.’

EDITH CURTIS – ADAM’S NAN

Chapter Eighty-One

Anna

Twelve months later

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