“October seventeenth.”
I grabbed the kitchen counter.
No.
Helen closed her eyes.
“Oh, God.”
Natalie looked at me.
“Mom?”
I could barely breathe.
October seventeenth.
Forty-one years earlier.
That was the date I had given birth to a baby boy I was told had died.
PART 4 — THE BABY I LOST
I was twenty-seven.
My marriage to my first husband, Paul, was collapsing.
We already had Christopher, who was four.
I became pregnant unexpectedly.
The pregnancy was difficult.
At thirty-three weeks, I developed severe complications and was rushed
to St. Matthew’s Hospital.
I remembered bright lights.
Pain.
Doctors shouting.
Then nothing.
When I woke, my mother was sitting beside me.
Helen was there too.
Paul stood near the window.
I asked one question.
“Where’s my baby?”
My mother took my hand.
“He didn’t make it.”
I screamed.
I begged to see him.
They told me I was too sick.
