Cleo

Soon after, Steve visited a specialist to investigate the prospect of a vasectomy reversal. Complicated microsurgery would be involved, and he was warned the chances of success were minimal, as low as ten percent. Nevertheless, taking our circumstances into account, the surgeon was willing to give it his best shot. Even though we knew our marriage was on a fault line and on the verge of crumbling, we both desperately wanted another child. A date for the surgery was set.

We weren’t looking for a replacement for Sam. We both knew that would be impossible. But our house and hearts felt empty. I still set the table for four every night, until a cold gong in my heart reminded me I was living in the past. One set of knives and forks had to be put back in the drawer.

I longed for sorrow to shrivel and sail effortlessly into oblivion. If an autumn leaf could release the memory of summer and float into nothingness, fearless and with such grace, why was it impossible for me?

An inner lioness of motherhood refused to relinquish anything connected to Sam. Alone in the house, I’d carry his blue Boy Scouts jumper around with me like a comfort rug, over my shoulder. His name tag had been hand-sewn clumsily inside the collar. After he’d earned the red patches for Reading, Art, Chess and (laughably) Housework, I’d shared his pride by sewing them on the sleeves with small careful stitches. The garment had shrunk to the shape of his torso. It was redolent of him and now also of my tears.

Mothers are the ultimate power junkies. When we lift a newborn human from our bodies we experience an adrenaline high far headier than anything Bill Gates or Pablo Picasso ever knew. Multi-zillion-dollar businesses and the world’s greatest art fade to trinkets alongside the miraculous creation of a human being. The reason so few women become great concert masters, politicians and inventors isn’t so much because of prejudice (not that there’s a shortage) or lack of opportunity (hardly a drought of that, either). Why would anyone bother writing a symphony when she can create a collection of cells that will one day ask to borrow her car?

Our passion for our children springs straight from the jungle. Would Bill Gates lay down his life for Microsoft? Picasso commit murder for one of his paintings?

Mothers have power beyond politics, art and money. We’re the people who give life, nurture babies and make them grow. Without us humanity would wither like seaweed on a rock. Knowledge of our power is so deep we don’t talk about it often, but we use it all the time.

Ancient mother’s power is employed to make our kids eat green vegetables, aim straight at the toilet bowl and grow a few centimeters every year. When we yell “Come back here!” across a supermarket or a playing field, they freeze, turn around and obey—most of the time, anyway. It’s magic. It works. Because we say so.

I’d brought Sam to life when he slid out of my body all those years ago. Surely I was strong enough to muster enough mother’s power to will him to life again? “Come back here!” I yelled across the universe. The silence was darker than midnight. I longed to see even his ghostly form standing at the end of the bed. But Sam had flown farther away than the distance between stars, to the empty nothingness of space.

I dreaded bumping into Sam’s old school friends. Their innocent faces still fired me with irrational resentment, then profound shame at my reaction. Rage flared whenever I saw a blue Ford Escort. It had yet to occur to me that the events of 21 January could have ruined the woman’s life almost as drastically as ours. I often wondered how events had unfolded that day. After Sam had fallen, Rob had run up the zigzag to find Steve. Had she climbed out of her car to comfort the dying child?

But the sight of our young cat scampering down the hallway invariably lifted my mood. Not so long ago Lena’s instruction to simply love our kitten had seemed an impossible ask. Yet Cleo overwhelmed us all with affection so freely, we couldn’t help loving her back. The youngest, most joyous member of our family, she had woven herself into our life after Sam. I couldn’t believe I’d ever contemplated giving her back to Lena.

Leaves of a birch in our garden transformed themselves into a curtain of gold medallions that shimmered against pewter branches. Oblivious to its chances, a late summer rose unfurled on a bush.

A squall direct from Antarctica pummelled the harbor to stainless steel, scattering birds across the sky. No wonder birds greet a translucent dawn with consummate joy. They don’t dwell on the previous night’s storm. Their chorus betrays no concern for the winter ahead, either. They simply embrace the miracle of being alive in this instant on one perfect autumn morning. I had so much to learn from them.