I left the pram by the rundown outbuilding on the edge of the estate and walked away without once looking back at my son. My breath came in ragged bursts as I turned, my heart hammering as though it might burst from my chest. I quickened my pace, a fleeting thought stabbing mehad I just committed the gravest mistake of my life? Was it ever right to abandon a living child like that? A flash of lightning split the sky and thunder cracked; the downpour grew heavier. Id deliberately chosen this miserable weatherfew people stroll in the rain, and the chance of being seen would be slim. Yet who, in this forgotten corner of the town, surrounded by abandoned garages and stray dogs, would notice me?
I forced myself to look over my shoulder. Could I call what Id done inhumane? I shook my head. In my mind I was justified, simply shedding a burden; my conscience felt oddly clean. When I finally got home, I collapsed onto the bed in my nightgown, the exhaustion pulling me into a deep, uneasy sleep.
—
Charlottes shrieks tore through the tiny flat until her voice hoarse, while James sat stonefaced, absorbing every accusation. Hed just sold the twobedroom council flat hed inherited from his parents, intending to discuss it later, but she wouldnt let him finish a single sentence.
People work all their lives to own a home for a decent old age, and you you Charlotte rasped. Get out! Leave!
Where am I supposed to go? James asked, bewildered.
Shed never seen a fight end with such hysteria; it was as if demons possessed her. It didnt matter where James might go. The flat they lived in was spacious, and the rent from the flat theyd let out should have secured a comfortable retirement. Now everything had collapsed.
What fanned Charlottes fury wasnt just the sale; it was Jamess decision to act without consulting her. She sat for two hours, replaying the outburst, puzzled at her own loss of controla rarity for someone usually measured.
Im leaving, dont you dare cry! James snapped, his pride flaring. He surged out, slamming the door with as much force as he could muster, a silent challenge that he still had a backbone.
Rain hammered the streets as he walked, his parents long gone and his friends oblivious to the domestic storm. He didnt want to tell anyone about the argument; it would only add to the weight of his life. He could not be a bitter, markettrading woman. He slipped into his car, deciding to spend the night in his old garage on the outskirts. Spotting Charlotte watching from the window, he drove away, letting her imagine where hed goneperhaps her own thoughts would torment her enough.
After a while, James regretted selling the flat without her input. The hormonal treatments Charlotte had been on made her erratic; she longed for a child, tried every remedy, but nothing worked, and the costs of endless tests were staggering. Sometimes it seemed the clinic was the only place they served. He asked himself what mattered more: a healthy partner or a happy one, and he realised he had already resigned himself to a childless future. If he couldnt have his own, perhaps they could adopt. He tried to share these thoughts with Charlotte, but she greeted him with hostility.
Is there someone else? she demanded. Is that why you want me to give up?
Her disbelief at his willingness to abandon the idea of his own children was palpable. It became clear shed never be truly happy without a baby.
James recalled the old garage he owned on the towns fringea place they barely used, storing tires and junk that never got cleared out. He could spend the night there. The roads were empty; it was a weekend, people stayed indoors. The rain was so fierce the drains were overwhelmed. He floored the accelerator, unafraid of the waters rush, eager to reach the shelter where an old electric kettle lay.
Charlotte, unaware of his car, grew nervous, soon regretting her harsh words. She wanted to call him and apologise, yet something held her back.
James arrived at the garages in record time. He spotted a pram immediately, but the thought of a child in it didnt cross his mind until he stepped out and heard a loud, desperate wail. All the quarrels with Charlotte evaporated. The infant was naked, shivering, soaked, and hungry. In a sensible world hed have called an ambulance, but the pram also contained a crumpled birth certificate and, inexplicably, a slab of raw meat. There was no time for puzzling over that. He scooped the baby up and drove home.
Charlotte, clutching the trembling infant and listening to Jamess garbled explanations, couldnt fathom how anyone could leave a child out in such weather. Then a darker thought crept in: Fate, cruel fate. Could it truly be coincidence that her husband stumbled upon an abandoned baby?
The police later required James to explain where, when, and how hed found the child. The raw meat in the pram shocked the officers, leading them to suspect something had happened to the mother. Charlotte spun theories: perhaps the mother was caught in the downpour on her way to the shop and sought a shortcut through the garages, only to meet misfortune; or perhaps she wanted to discard the child, an unthinkable notion for a loving mother. She imagined a pack of stray dogs being used to make it look like an accident, recalling news footage of mothers cradling their children after disasters.
James shivered at his own words, remembering those horrific images. It doesnt happen, Charlotte whispered, picturing a snarling horde of dogs, her face paling. No mother would ever do that.
He replied, You know what doesnt happen? Gifts from fate that turn into curses. I sold the flat hoping to fund the best treatment for you, to make you happy.
Charlotte said nothing, shame flooding her. The turmoil that had taken over her mind was inexplicable; part of her felt a twisted relief that shed finally spoken out, that the scandal had forced her to expel the man she loved from the house. If she hadnt, James would never have gone to the garage and never found the baby. Who knows what fate would have dealt the little boy?
He decided it was time to stop the medication; if children were not meant for them, then perhaps that was just how it was.
Soon after, James and Charlotte began the long, bureaucratic process of adopting the found boy. Their resolve never wavered, despite earlier fears of never being able to love a child not their own. The mother of the abandoned infant was soon tracked down; she initially claimed stray dogs had forced her to flee, but the lies unraveled quickly. No mother could sleep peacefully knowing harm had befallen her child.
Emily, a woman who had left her own baby in a pram years before, later reflected on her mistake. She had thought at the time that freedom and lack of responsibility were all she needed. Five years on, shed met a man, had a daughter, and after a failed marriage, she left the child with her exhusband.
Charlotte, after a year, let the anger subside. She believed in karma and felt the universe would eventually punish the cruelty of abandoning a child, though not with deathperhaps with loneliness and remorse. Their own lives had been a mix of injustice and chance: they managed to give the abandoned boy, now named Liam, a stable home. Watching him sleep in the cot, Charlotte felt a rare, unblemished peace, even as doctors had once told them they would never conceive.
In the end, the storm that night set off a chain of events that reshaped our lives. The rain, the garage, the abandoned pramall led us to a son we never expected, and a reckoning we could never have foreseen.
