Julie Preston
Challenge Prompt: Finding something unexpected
The house had that familiar smell as I opened the front door. I wanted to call out, “hi Mum, it’s only me,” but I knew there would be no reply. My dementia ridden Mum now resided in the local care home, spending her days in gentle oblivion. I had the unenviable task of clearing her home so the house could be sold to pay for the care homes extortionate fees.
I walked slowly round the familiar rooms. All of my parents carefully chosen furniture destined for the skip, walls full of photos of younger and happier versions of us all and cupboards and drawers crammed full of seventy years of things that once mattered.
I started in her bedroom, emptying the big wardrobe where as a child I played hide and seek amongst her coats. Even her clothes brought back memories. As I held her favourite dress I caught a faint aroma of her perfume she kept for best, before it joined the rest of her clothes in a bin bag destined for the charity shop.
At the bottom of the wardrobe were shoe boxes containing various footwear mostly thirty years out of fashion. The last box though contained something else, my childhood memories. There were school reports, faded photos, even programmes from the school play I stuttered my way through.
I then noticed the loose floor board. Underneath hidden in the cavity were two more shoe boxes. These were older, covered in a thick layer of dust. I opened the first one carefully. On top was my birth certificate, below an old newspaper cutting and finally a babies pink cardigan and old style booties.
I spread the newspaper out and read the headline. “Snatched Baby Still Missing.” A story about a baby, stolen from a pram left outside a shop, which was common practice back in the day. The baby was wearing a pink Cardigan and booties and wrapped in a green blanket. I checked the newspaper date, just three weeks after I was born.
With trepidation I brushed the dust from the second box. I recognised my Mums handwriting and read with growing horror. “ Baby Jane. Born Sept 3rd 1969 Died Sept 14th 1969. Sleep Tight our Angel.
With shaking hands I opened the box. Inside was a green blanket that I carefully unfolded to reveal old material, rotted and worn and inside were bones and a tiny skull. A babies skeleton was concealed in my Mums cupboard!
My head was spinning with emotions as I stared at the gruesome find. Shock and horror turned to confusion. Then it dawned on me. I had died at two weeks old and my Mum had snatched another baby and brought her up as her own. I was crying by now, tears of sadness that turned to anger and frustration. I needed to know so much. Did my family know? What happened to my real parents? Why did my Mum do this? And what to do with a dead baby in a box?
I thought about my Mum in her care home. She didn’t often recognize us but sometimes objects would bring her back to us momentarily. My Mum was due a visit. I wrapped up the remains carefully and put them back in the box, carrying both boxes carefully I left the house and headed for the care home. I needed answers and maybe a dead baby in a box would jog Mums memory. It would be a visit no-one in the care home would ever forget.