Will You Love Me?: The story of my adopted daughter Lucy: Part 1 of 3. Cathy Glass
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of the Moses basket so she could carry everything in one go, she crossed to one of the long bench seats on the far side – away from the cashiers and the draughty door. Placing the Moses basket on the seat beside her, Bonnie quickly began drinking her hot chocolate. The warmth and sweetness was comforting and reminiscent of the hot milky drinks her gran used to make for her when she’d stayed with her as a child. Bonnie wondered what her gran was doing now. Her mother had fallen out with her and they hadn’t spoken for some years. Bonnie loved her gran, although she hadn’t seen her since she’d left home eight years previously.
She took the packet containing the last few biscuits from her bag and kept it on her lap, out of sight of the staff, as she quickly ate them. The sugar rush lifted her spirits and helped quell her appetite for the time being. Lucy was watching her, but didn’t appear to be hungry so Bonnie decided she’d keep the carton of milk she’d just bought for later and tucked it back in at the foot of the Moses basket, ready for when it was needed. She also had the yoghurts, one of which she’d give to Lucy later. She’d started giving her some soft food – yoghurt, a chip chewed by her first to soften it or a piece of bread soaked in her tea. When they were settled, she thought, and she had more money, she’d start buying the proper baby foods for weaning.
‘It won’t always be like this,’ Bonnie said out loud, turning to her daughter and gently stroking her cheek. ‘It will get better. I promise you.’ Although how and when it would get better Bonnie had no idea.
At 9.00 a.m. Bonnie hitched the bag over her shoulders, picked up the Moses basket and left the fast-food restaurant in search of a chemist. Lucy was asleep now and, although she hadn’t been sick or had a dirty nappy yet that morning, Bonnie wanted to buy the medicine so she had it ready in case it was needed. She tried to be a good mum, she told herself, but it was very difficult with no home, no regular income and having her own mother as a role model. When she’d been a child she’d assumed that the chaos and poverty she and her brothers were forced to live in was normal, that all families lived like that. But when she was old enough to play in other children’s houses she realized not only that it was not normal but that others on the estate pitied her and criticized her mother for neglecting her and her brothers. Bonnie wondered why no one had intervened; perhaps it was because of her mother’s ugly temper, which she’d been on the receiving end of many times and was always worse when she’d been drinking. This might also have been the reason why the social services hadn’t rescued her and her brothers as they had some of the other kids on the estate, she thought; that, or they weren’t worth saving – a view she still held today.
Bonnie spotted the blue-and-white cross on the chemist’s shop a little further up and went in. There were two customers already inside: a lady browsing the shelves and a man being served at the counter. Bonnie scanned the shelves looking for the medicine she needed but couldn’t find it. Once the man at the counter had finished, she went up to the pharmacist – a rather stern middle-aged Asian woman dressed in a colourful sari.
‘I think what I need is called Dioralyte,’ Bonnie said.
‘Is it for you?’ the pharmacist asked, giving Bonnie the once over.
‘No, for my baby.’
‘How old is it?’
‘Six months.’
She glanced at the Moses basket Bonnie held in front of her. ‘What are the symptoms?’
‘Sickness and diarrhoea.’
‘How long has she been ill?’
‘Two days,’ Bonnie said.
‘She needs to see a doctor if it continues,’ the pharmacist said. Reaching up to a shelf on her right, she took down a box marked Dioralyte. ‘This box contains six sachets,’ she said, leaning over the counter and tapping the box with her finger. ‘You follow the instructions. Mix one sachet with water or milk. You understand this doesn’t cure sickness and diarrhoea? It replaces the salts and glucose lost from the body. If your baby is no better in twenty-four hours, you must take her to your doctor.’
‘I will,’ Bonnie said, taking her purse from her pocket.
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