CLOSE MY EYES
What? I stare at her, my mind in overdrive. What she is describing would have taken such elaborate planning. ‘Why?’ ‘I don’t know. I just know that Dr Rodriguez took your baby to give to someone else,’ Lucy goes on. Her voice is low, but filled with emotion. ‘Mary saw, because she helped Dr Rodriguez with the delivery. The doctor paid her ten years’ wages for that one birth. The only condition was that she keep quiet.’ My head feels like a million tiny bombs are exploding inside it. Could Dr Rodriguez really have pretended Beth had died, then paid his staff to keep quiet about it? My mind shrieks that these are lies and yet, as I look into Lucy O’Donnell’s eyes, my instinct tells me she is sincere. I try to focus, to force myself to form a coherent question, a challenge . . . What about Beth’s chromosomal abnormality? What about the fact that I saw a picture of our poor dead baby, and Art saw her in the flesh? What about the fact that reputable doctors don’t risk being struck off to steal babies from healthy, wealthy women? The question I ask, however, is not any of these. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ My voice is shaking. My whole body is trembling, whether with shock or anger I don’t know. I fix my gaze on Lucy’s anxious, worn face. ‘Why now?’ ‘I only just found out,’ Lucy says. Her eyes fill with tears as she speaks. ‘My sister . . . Mary . . . she passed away just last month. Cancer. Cancer of the colon. Caught late, it took her fast, but just before she . . . before the end, she told me what happened . . . what really happened.’ She pauses. I stare at her intently. ‘And?’ I say. ‘Mary and I were brought up Catholic,’ Lucy goes on, her voice falling to a whisper. ‘Mary said she knew what she’d done was wrong and she couldn’t go to her grave with such a wicked 27
9781471111730 Close My Eyes (335h) updates.indd 27
15/01/2013 10:35:39