Missing

had blue-and-white striped curtains. A small border had come off the bottom of one of them. Looking out meant that she didn’t have to see them, but she couldn’t keep out the sounds.
    Initially, no one asked her anything. They were all preoccupied with minding their own new-born babies.
    She had been longing to sleep on her front, but it was still impossible. Her belly was still really big, even though it was empty. She could sense its sudden emptiness. Her breasts were aching.
    They came to see her after about an hour. First, they got her to sit up, then stand and walk. Walking hurt. She could feel the tense pain from the stitches they’d used to sew her up with. Or at least, that’s what they said it was.
    Next, she was to speak with the doctor. She decided to stand instead of accepting his offer of a chair. He nodded at her and started leafing through her notes.
    ‘Now Sibylla, this seems to have gone very well.’
    She said nothing and he looked up at her quickly, before returning to the brown folder.
    ‘Tell me, how are feeling?’
    Empty, hollow. Used up and abandoned.
    ‘What was it?’
    He looked up again.
    ‘Was what?’
    ‘The baby, what kind was it?’
    This bothered him, maybe because he was the one meant to ask the questions.
    ‘A male.’
    He bent over the notes.
    A little boy. She had given birth to a little boy with dark hair.
    ‘Please, can’t I see him?’
    He cleared his throat, apparently displeased with her unexpected line of talk.
    ‘No, I’m afraid not. It’s routine here, nothing personal. In cases such as yours, it has proved to be the best policy. For the mother’s own sake, you see.’
    Ah yes, for her sake. Why didn’t it ever occur to anyone that she should be asked about what was best for her? How come they all knew already what was best?

    He quickly finished their talk. When she returned to her room, the women were smiling in welcome. A nurse helped her into bed and she turned her back on all of them.

    During the afternoon visiting-hour, fathers and relations and friends poured into the room to admire the babies. The visitors pretended not to see her back.
    In the evening, only the mother in the next bed had an unbroken night’s sleep. Maternal duties kept the rest of them awake. She heard them chatting quietly about their babies. He cries such a lot, I think it’s his slow bowels. She always prefers the left breast – knows what she wants already, little madam. Look, he almost smiled, isn’t he lovely!
    She slowly got out of bed. If she hauled herself up sideways, it only hurt just before her feet took her weight.

    The corridor outside was empty. She walked past the window to the nurses’ station without anybody noticing her. The babies slept next door. She looked into the babies’ room and it was empty apart from one plastic box on wheels in the middle of the floor. It was a baby-carrier of the kind that was wheeled along to the other mothers in the ward. Her heart was pounding as she cautiously closed the door behind her and tiptoed into the room.
    A little head.
    A tiny head, covered in dark hair. This was her child. Now she was trembling all over. Looking intently into the cot, she saw her baby’s ID number on the note behind his head.
    Her son.
    She slapped her hands over her mouth to stop herself from moaning aloud. He had been part of her and had grown inside her. Now he was lying there, all alone. She had abandoned her baby boy.
    He was so very tiny, lying there on his side sleeping. She could have made a pillow for his head with the palm of her hand. Gently, with one finger, she stroked the dark hair. He twitched and drew a deep breath, making a little noise like a sob. She bent over him, putting her nose to his ear.
    This was intolerable. The emotion was welling up suddenly inside her.
    They shouldn’t have been allowed to do this, not for any reason. He was her child. They would have to kill her before she let him go. She knew with her whole being that she could never betray him, never abandon him. Never leave him alone in a plastic box crying himself to sleep.
    Now she had become more courageous. She slid her hands carefully underneath his small body and lifted him. She held him close, very close, feeling that this was how it should be.
    He stayed asleep. She inhaled his baby smell with the tears running down her cheeks. She was cradling her little boy in her arms. Now she was no longer alone.
    The door opened.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    She