Page 41 of Forever is Now

Summer Taylor-Braddon: I was five years old. I don’t really remember it. Well, I might but I’m not sure. You know when you’re little and you know something happened because you’ve been told it happened, and you sort of think you remember but the memory is mainly a construction, because you know?

Dante Fiore: Yeah, I think so.

Summer Taylor-Braddon: It’s like that. Mum told me about it when I was ten years old. It was because I’d been having these nightmares where a long hand reached out of a white van as I was walking past, and the hand would grab me. Pinch me really hard.

I’d wake up crying and everything. And after the third time it happened, Mum told me about it.

Dante Fiore: What happened?

Summer Taylor-Braddon: It wasn’t a white van or anything. It was at the shopping center. In London. We were there visiting Mum’s cousin’s nephew or something. I don’t know. Me and Mum and Matilda. And Mum said Matilda really wanted to go in this shopping center, but everything was so expensive and so Mum didn’t want her going in there because she’d feel guilt-tripped into buying something when Mattie found something that she absolutely adored and had to have. You know?

Dante Fiore: Yes.

Summer Taylor-Braddon: Well, it was when Mum and Mattie were arguing about it. Mum said we had to go back to the hotel, and Mattie was proper screaming about it. Fifteen-year-old girl having a sulk. That kind of thing. And Mum looked back down at where I’d been standing, and I wasn’t there. She’d only let go of my hand for a few seconds. But that had been enough.

Dante Fiore: Shit.

Summer Taylor-Braddon: Yeah, shit. I mean, I kind of remember a man with kind eyes. I mean, I think I do. Might just be filling it in. But Mum called the police and the security of the shopping center all came out, the whole place was in lockdown.

And I was found in Pizza Express, of all places. Just down the road. With a man and a woman. They were in their forties, that’s what Mum said.

And they told her they’d found me wandering on my own and so had decided to buy me a pizza. They told the staff at Pizza Express it was my birthday, and everyone in there was singing to me when the police came into the establishment.

Dante Fiore: Had you wandered off?

Summer: No. I hadn’t. They got CCTV later that showed the couple had been standing behind Mum when Mattie was getting all upset about not being able to go shopping. They’d, like, crouched down behind me, and I guess said something to me. I’d turned around, and they’d held their hand out.

It looked like I’d just gone with them willingly. Held their hands, and they walked me away. Bought me pizza.

Mum told me that they’d said afterward in interviews that they couldn’t have kids. That they just wanted to know what it feels like. And this—this was something that I began thinking about a lot, as mine and Ruari’s wedding grew closer. We’d decided to have kids, and I kept thinking, what if it doesn’t work? What if the IVF fails?

What if we don’t get a baby? Will my desire to have a child warp me and make me take some other person’s kid? I mean, it’s ironic now, isn’t it?

Dante Fiore: I think everyone wonders if they have capabilities to do bad things. It’s human nature to wonder. To think about what might push you.

Summer Taylor-Braddon: I had been desperate to have a baby with Ruari. So desperate. But I always told myself that I’d never just take someone else’s child. I knew that was wrong.

Is it okay to just take a quick break now?

Dante Fiore: Sure.

##

Summer Taylor-Braddon: So, you know that I’ve not got the best mental health, right? I’d say that’s probably been quite obvious. No, I’m not expecting you to answer, Dante. I’m just saying. Not that it’s an excuse for what happened—but I didn’t actually do anything. I didn’t act on those thoughts.

And everyone has these thoughts, right? The majority of us just ignore them. I mean, I’ve spoken to my therapist about them—they’re intrusive thoughts. People get them all the time. Everyone does.

And I did ignore them. Those thoughts.

So, uh, back to what happened, then, I guess.

Well, I’d already learned by this time that the two kids were called Alex and Summer, of course. Did I already say this? I can’t remember. But, anyway, I... I felt that the girl’s name had to be a sign. I’d had that dream again, where I was pregnant with Ruari’s baby, only this time, when I was giving birth, Mia was the midwife.

And she was so angry at me.

She shouted that I had stolen him from her, and then suddenly, she had hold of my baby. A little boy. And she was running away with him, screaming that it was her baby.

I knew I had to get my baby back. I was desperate to. Like, I had no choice. That was my baby she was taking, and my motherly instinct or whatever it was kicking in. I was still in my hospital gown, and like the placenta or umbilical cord—whatever it is—was hanging out of me, and I was running after her, down this corridor with these tiny fluorescent lights.

---