to speak, her voice quavering with barely suppressed emotion. “He was only six weeks old. He’d had a bit of a sniffle and been fussing, but he took my milk and settled quickly when I put him down to sleep.” She stared out of the window. He followed her gaze and saw Robbie coming up the path with the cart.
“Go on.”
“He slept through. I’d not had a full night’s sleep in weeks—I insisted that Nanny wake me for all of Samuel’s feeds—and I was exhausted. When I woke early, I knew immediately that something was wrong. The house was quiet, too quiet. He’d never slept through the night before. I got up and ran to his room—it was at the other end of the corridor from ours—and went to his bassinet.” She gave a sharp sob. “He was so cold. Like marble. Teddy was there—he’d been trying to wake his baby brother, and it was all I could do not to scream and frighten him. Nanny came as soon as she heard me talking to Teddy. Together we tried to revive him, to blow our breath into his lungs, but it was too late. Too bloody late.” She fixed her gaze on the rug between them. “After that nothing really mattered anymore; there didn’t seem to be any point in getting out of bed in the morning, carrying on. Any point in anything actually.”
Richard reached for her hand, to offer what comfort he could. “Thank you for trusting me with that, Esther, but I must confess that I don’t understand why you blame yourself.”
“Don’t you see? I should have known. I should have stayed awake; I had an inkling that something was not quite right, but I ignored it in favor of my own sleep. How could I have been so selfish? A terrible, selfish human being, not fit to be a mother.”
She raised her eyes to meet his, and he nearly lost himself in their depths. He could feel the pain that shimmered from her and it was all he could do not to take it on himself. Why did this woman affect him in a way that no other patient had? “It’s so desperately sad to lose a child. But you should not blame yourself. No one blames you, Esther.”
“Oh,” she said with a bitter laugh. “I think John does. He’s not been the same with me since then.”
“You’ve both suffered a great loss; it’s not surprising that things are different between you. But I know he does not blame you—he would not have gone to the trouble of sending you here if he did, surely you can see that?”
“He wants to be rid of me, can’t stand me the way I am now, I am sure of it. I’ve tried, believe me I’ve tried, for Teddy’s sake, but I’m in a hole so unfathomably deep I can’t seem to see a way out of it. I don’t think I’ll ever be the person I once was. Happy, carefree.” She gave him a wry smile. “I don’t deserve to be.”
“Yes you do, Esther, and that’s what I’m here for. Together we can do this. I am good at my job.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she said softly.
“Good, then we have a basis on which to start. Why don’t you tell me what happened after you discovered your baby had died? I know it is painful, but it will help to talk about it.”
Esther’s mouth worked, as if she were deciding where to begin. “John woke up and saw us trying to save Samuel. He ran down the stairs to the telephone to call an ambulance. I heard wailing, almost like an animal in pain; it was a while before I realized that it was me. I couldn’t seem to shut myself up. I held Samuel, wouldn’t, couldn’t let him go. John was downstairs waiting for the ambulance. It was an age before anyone came, but then I remember someone prying my arms from Samuel’s body. John had called our doctor too, and I remember a syringe, and then . . . nothing.” She took a sharp intake of breath. “They must have taken him away from me. I still don’t know where he went. I never saw him again, never even got to say good-bye.” She twisted her hands on the chair. “There wasn’t a burial and I was in too much of a fog to ask why not. It was only later that John told me they had