Ralph’s Children Read Online Free PDF Page A

screening to establish risk factors for spina
bifida and Down’s syndrome and the less common Trisomy 18 – had established Laurie’s baby as being in the low risk group. Not that anyone had been concerned, the mother being
young and healthy and an earlier scan having shown no structural abnormality.
    ‘Thank God,’ Angela said to Shelly, who’d come to stay.
    ‘Yes,’ Shelly had said. ‘Of course.’
    Her sister had stared deep into her eyes, blue as her daughter’s and her own. ‘You do mean that, don’t you, Shelly?’
    ‘Of course I do.’ Shelly had shaken her head, tossed her blonde bob like a pony shaking off insects. ‘Don’t be stupid, Angie.’
    They had known as soon as he was born.
    Laurie had seen it in their eyes, first the obstetrician’s and nurses’ and then, a little later, after they had taken him away, in her parents’ and her aunt’s.
    ‘What’s wrong with my baby?’ she had asked.
    The question had been trapped in her mind till that moment, packed in ice, not emerging because she’d been too afraid of hearing the answer. Yet she had held her son, had scanned him from
head to toe, and he had looked to her eyes utterly
perfect
, and suddenly it occurred to her that maybe this reaction was some kind of ploy, a trick. Maybe now was when they had planned to
play their endgame, to try to keep her baby from her, maybe to . . .
    ‘They’re not sure yet.’ Her father’s clumsy answer broke into her thoughts.
    ‘What of? Where is he?’ Laurie had felt fretful, afraid. ‘I want him back.’
    They had said when they’d taken him away that there was nothing to be concerned about, that they were just doing routine checks.
    ‘Try not to worry,’ her mother had told her. ‘It’ll be OK.’
    ‘Not it,’ Laurie had said, quickly. ‘He. Sam. His name is Sam.’
    ‘That’s a lovely name,’ her Aunt Angela had said, warmly. ‘He’s gorgeous.’
    ‘I know he is,’ Laurie had said.
    They had reached their decision swiftly. No talk of adoption, nothing as savage and pointless as that, because they knew she would never agree, but only three days later, while
Laurie and Sam were still at the clinic, Pete and Shelly had arrived fully armed for their sales pitch on the Mann Home. Brochures, letters of praise, glowing results and tributes from families,
doctors and even Members of Parliament.
    ‘Nowhere else that comes close,’ Pete had told her.
    ‘Nowhere else
like
it, is what we’ve heard,’ Shelly had backed him up.
    ‘No way,’ Laurie had said, her whole body rigid. ‘He’s my son. I’m going to take care of him.’
    ‘I wish, my darling,’ Shelly said, ‘that was possible.’
    ‘The fact is,’ Pete said, ‘you just don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    They had taken their time, speaking patiently to her, kindly and, worst of all, sensibly, telling her she had very little choice. Even though it appeared, so far, that her son was one of the
lucky ones, in that he had no immediately apparent heart problems, Sam was still going to need special attention, they said, if he was going to have the best possible chance in life. Which was, of
course, what they all wanted.
    ‘You’ve wanted me to get rid of him from the beginning,’ Laurie said.
    ‘At the beginning, that was true,’ Pete admitted. ‘But not any more.’
    There were tears in his eyes, and Laurie couldn’t imagine he was that good an actor, had not wanted, even after such a long period of embattlement, to think him capable of that.
    She had waited for him to say that it might have been better if she had gone through with an abortion, had waited, wound up like a killer creature with claws and teeth ready to rip out his
throat, for him to say it might have been better for Sam. But he didn’t say anything of the kind. He and Shelly had just continued on their magnificent sales pitch, giving her time to hear
them out, mull it over.
    Not too much time, though. Just enough to get it