LILY
There you go, I thought, slowly stroking Ev’s hair as he drifted off to sleep. Sleep and wind down from this shitty, shitty day.
My baby had fallen asleep right onto my chest, his little arms wrapped around my neck, like when he was a newborn: I could feel his cool forehead resting against my neck, the binky he was still sucking moving up and down against my skin, and right now, it was all that mattered.
That he was right there in my arms. That I could feel him being there.
It was only then – when all the chaos had dwindled, after we’d come home from the hospital where they’d told me he was absolutely fine, that a wall in me broke: all the emotions I’d packed and hidden away as soon as I’d started running after the bastard who’d taken my child burst back in, and suddenly, silen
