At dawn I dreamed a strange thing: my neighbour, Mrs. Margaret Harper, was standing on her porch, knocking on my front door as if a child were behind her. She jolted awake, slipped on bare feet and bolted for the door.
She was windblown and weak, leaned against the frame and fell silent. No one was there. Such nighttime visions had plagued her for years, always sending her racing to the threshold and flinging it wide. This time she did the same, peering into the dark emptiness of the garden. The hush of the night wrapped around her, the gloom pressed in. Trying to calm her racing heart she sat on the step.
Then a faint rustle broke the silence a soft squeak, a rustling sound.
Probably the neighbours kitten again, she thought, and went to free the little creature from the bramble, as she had done many times before. But it wasnt a kitten. Margaret saw at once, when she tugged at a rag sticking out of the bushes, that the rag was an old, coloured swaddle. She pulled harder and froze: tucked in the corner of the swaddle lay a tiny infant. He was completely naked, apparently having rolled himself loose while he lay there a baby boy.
By the umbilical scar, which had not yet healed, it was clear the child was only a few weeks old. He could not even wail; he was wet, exhausted and, no doubt, starving. When Margaret lifted him, he let out a weak squeak. Not knowing what to do, she pressed him close to her chest and sprinted back into the house. She fetched a clean sheet, wrapped the child, covered him with a warm blanket and set about heating some milk. She found a bottle, a nipple that had survived from the spring when she had once fed a little goat kid.
The boy gulped greedily, choked a little, then, warmed and fed, fell asleep. Dawn was breaking, but Margaret was lost in thought about her find. She was in her forties, and the village youths already called her Auntie. She had lost both her husband and her son in the war a single year apart, and had been left completely alone. She could never truly accept that loneliness, though lifes harsh truth kept reminding her, and she had learned to rely on herself alone. Now she was bewildered, unsure what to do next. She glanced at the sleeping child, his soft breaths like any other infants, and thought of seeking advice from her neighbour, Mrs. Eleanor Clarke.
Eleanors life, unlike anyone elses in the village, was smooth and carefree. She never married, never lost anyone in the war, and never received any funeral wreaths. She lived for herself, her fleeting romances coming and going without her ever clinging. On this morning Eleanor, tall and graceful, stood on her own porch in a shawl, stretching under the warm sunrise. After hearing Margarets tale she said briefly:
Why do you need this? and went inside. As Margaret watched her leave, a curtain in Eleanors window fluttered a suitor must have been staying over. Why? Indeed, why? Margaret whispered to herself.
She returned home, fed the child, wrapped him in dry cloth, gathered some food for the road and set off to catch a lift to the city. She didnt wait long; after five minutes a lorry pulling into the lane stopped beside her.
Hospital? the driver asked, nodding toward the bundle in her arms.
To the hospital, Margaret replied, her voice steady.
At the orphanage, while the papers for the foundling were being processed, she could not shake the feeling that she was doing something wrong, that a hole in her heart would not let her rest. The emptiness echoed the grief she felt when she first learned of her husbands death and later her sons. The matron asked, What shall we call the boy? What name?
Name? Margaret asked, paused a heartbeat and answered, surprisingly to herself, Alfred.
A fine name, the matron said. We have many Alfreds and Kittys after the war. Of course, those whose families were lost are easy to place, but yours who abandoned a child like this? No father, no mother, just a cuckoo!
Though the words werent aimed at her, they lodged deep in Margarets soul. Returning home that evening she lit a lamp in her empty house and saw the old swaddle she had set aside. She picked it up, sat on the bed and ran her fingers over the damp cloth. In a corner of the swaddle she felt a small knot. Inside lay a gray scrap of paper and a simple tin cross on a string. Unfolding the note she read:
Dear, kind woman, Im sorry. I cannot keep this child, I am lost in life, tomorrow I will no longer be here. Do not abandon my son, do for him what I cannot. Beneath it was the childs birth date.
Tears flooded Margarets face; she wept as if at a funeral. She thought of her own wedding, of the happiness she once shared with her husband, of the birth of her son Alfred, of the joy that lit the whole village. Her husband had been a beloved man, her son a cherished one. Before the war he had completed a drivers course and promised to give her a ride in the new tractor the collective would provide. Then the war came.
In August 1942 she received the funeral wreath for her husband, and in October that same year for her son. Happiness vanished, the world grew dim, and she became like the other widows in the village, rushing to the door at night, flinging it open, staring into the blackness only to find silence, the occasional rustle, and the neighbours pitiful kitten. She could not sleep that night, prowling outside, listening to the night, waiting for something.
In the morning she headed back to the city. The orphanage matron recognised her at once and, when Margaret said she wanted to take the boy back, as her dead son had instructed, she replied, Very well, well help with the paperwork.
Wrapping Alfred in a blanket, Margaret left the orphanage with a heart lighter than the one that had been gnawing at her for years. The crushing emptiness gave way to feelings of joy and love. If a person is destined for happiness, fate will see it through and that was what happened to Margaret. In her empty house she was greeted only by photographs of her husband and son on the wall.
But this time their faces seemed different not stern or mournful, but softened, enlightened, approving and encouraging. Margaret held little Alfred close and felt strong; she knew she would need to protect and care for him for a long time.
Will you help me? she whispered to the pictures.
Twenty years later Alfred grew into a handsome young man, many girls fancied him, but he chose the one who held his heart, his beloved after his mother, of course. Her name was Lucy. One day Alfred brought Lucy to meet his mother, and Margaret finally understood: her son had become a true man. She blessed the couple, the wedding was a grand celebration, and they began to build their own home. Years later they had children, the youngest boy they named Alfred, and Margarets family tree swelled.
One night she awoke to a noise at the window and, out of habit, went to the door. She flung it open and stepped into the courtyard as a storm approached, lightning flashing in the distance.
Thank you, my son, she murmured into the darkness, now I have three Alfreds, and I love you all.
The great oak by the porch, planted by her husband when the first Alfred was born, swayed, and a bolt of lightning illuminated it, like the bright smile of her beloved child.
