NEVER GET OVER.

[dadio]

You never get over the loss of a baby Lilly said doesn’t matter what people tell about time being the great healer the loss is still going to be there and when we got home from the hospital that dreadful day and went into the house and saw the room we had decorated and prepared for the baby all painted with the colours we liked and the baby wallpaper I chose and the cot and chest of drawers that those hanging thing from the ceiling and those over the cot I was stung to the core and shut myself away in the room and Lambert didn’t seem to get it he went downstairs and made coffee and waited for me to come down but it was hours before I came down and he was sitting there watching TV and said where have you been? but he knew where I’d been and yet he still said and a few weeks after in bed he said we can make a new baby we can have a baby to go in the nursery but I wasn’t ready for sex and besides I told him no baby will make up for the one I’ve lost no matter how many I have if I have any it won’t make up for the one I loss and he said but we can still have sex and besides he said you can’t mourn forever there’s got to be a time when you get over it surely? you think so? I said but he was lying there waiting for me to turn on my back so he could get on with the sex but I wasn’t in the mood I wasn’t ready I told him and he said how long is this going to go on for? I can’t wait forever and I turned over and put my back to him and he sighed and turned away and after a while I heard him snoring and another time we were in the town and I saw a woman with a pram like the one I had bought which was in the loft and she had this new baby in it and I couldn’t help but stare and wondered if maybe if I could just look in and see but Lambert said no come away it won’t do you any good to see another woman’s baby wait until we get a new one if we do he added but until you and I have it away it won’t happen and he pulled me away from the woman and the pram and dragged me along the street and I shook him off and said I’m not a child and he went off and I was there in the street with all these strange people and women with pushchairs and prams and and young children holding hands or running beside them and I had none as my baby had died and I was empty inside and I felt a huge hole in my breast and my heart seemed swollen with grief and my eyes full of tears and at night I would go into the nursery room and see the empty cot and would lean over and stare in there hoping to see the baby but baby wasn’t there just toys and blankets and those silly things hanging over the cot and I ran my hand over the cover pretending baby was there and speaking to the space where baby should have been and one night as the moonlight shone through the window and lit up the cot I imagined that I saw baby lying there her arms outstretched wanting me or another time while lying in bed one night I sensed baby’s lips sucking on my duds and felt her lips there and felt there but there was none and Lambert came in the room and I told him and he said have to get you to a councillor or doctor you need help no I said I want a baby not any councillor or doctor to sprout words I want my baby I want her near me and sucking and be able to hold her and feel her little fingers touching my chin or rub my cheeks but he just looked at me and shook his head and after a few months and him having persisted about having sex I let him that night just to keep the peace but it meant nothing to me it felt like I was being raped as if I was being molested even though I said he could and had agreed it was an ordeal but I pretended it was all right just to keep him happy and stop his constant moans and demands how was it for you? he said and I said it was good but it wasn’t it was nothing to me it was a non event it was a five minute trial of none satisfaction and time to close my eyes and think of what might come about because of it maybe the new baby that alone made it worthwhile that alone was worth the five minute bed bouncing and sounds of him saying yes and yes and me thinking no no no but no baby came no matter how long he did it or in what ever manner he tried it no baby came just the empty cot and cold room and those still and silent toys and untouched bedding and after a while I didn’t want sex anymore I couldn’t deal with it or him I just wanted the baby I had lost just needed her in my arms but Lambert didn’t understand never quite got the meaning of loss and then one day he went off and went and lived with some girl from his office some young bitch with small tits who let him have his way and have sex and didn’t want babies to spoil her figure as she told him just him and her and sex and holidays away and nights out and parties and I was left with the cot and nursery room and the hanging things from the ceiling and the moonlight and the ghostly baby in my arms and me humming lullabies rocking the baby back and forth in the bed or in my chair the baby I lost in my arms or in my head.