MAEVE 1979

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EXCERPT FROM A GOOD ENOUGH MOTHER

Monaghan Joanie was barely fourteen. They had taken her baby from her while she slept. Sometime during the night, a couple of weeks earlier, they’d slipped into the nursery and taken him. One of the other girls, Grace, had awoken to the sound of their habits, shushing across the linoleum corridor. Terrified, she’d closed her eyes again, pretending it wasn’t happening. She’d shifted quietly, turned her face to the wall.

‘I didn’t want to see,’ she whispered to me afterwards. She hung her head as she spoke.

‘Did you hear anything? What did they say?’

Rage unfurled inside me again as I looked at Grace: at her shamefaced glance, the way her eyes darted over one shoulder. There was always someone hovering around us, listening or about to listen. I knew Grace had her own son to care about. I knew where her terror came from. But still.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Nobody said a word. It was all over so quickly. I was even askin’ meself if it had really happened.’

Of course it happened, I wanted to snap. I felt like slapping her. How many times does it need to happen before you believe it? We never knew when: maybe at two weeks, three weeks, six weeks. But it would happen, to one baby after the other. Furious, I turned away from her, from her gaping mouth, her fear-flickering eyes.

The following morning, there was no doubt. Joanie’s howls filled the long corridor and ever since, she’d wandered about like a lost ghost, trapped somewhere between two worlds. The dreamworld where other people’s babies lived, and the nightmare world without her own. I knew she didn’t mean any harm; we all did. Nonetheless, when Joanie was around, we kept our babies close. Just in case.

‘All right, so,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back again in the mornin’, so I will.’ She turned to leave, and the sag of her shoulders made me want to cry. But I couldn’t afford to weaken.

Joanie closed the door quietly behind her.

That was the fourteenth of February 1979, the day Belle was born. Valentine’s Day. I didn’t know it then, but that would be the last time Joanie and I would see one another for more than forty years.

A GOOD ENOUGH MOTHER by Catherine Dunne will be published on the 18th of June.

“Monaghan Joanie was barely fourteen. They had taken her baby from her while she slept.” #excerpt from #AGoodEnoughMother by @DunneCatherine #comingsoon @BetimesBooks