She held the limp body to her chest and cried loudly ‘My baby. My baby’. She wept incoherently for a long time till her sobs receded to silent hiccups. The shadows were creeping into the room through the window. ‘He will be home soon.’

She told herself to calm down. She needed to calm down. ‘I had never wanted this baby in the first place. It was he who wanted a child, not me. Never me. He should have been here. It’s his fault. He was never around.’

She put her child back into his crib. Her tears drying on her cheeks, she gently covered the body with a sheet and turned to leave the room. She shut the door gently behind her as she would if her baby had just fallen asleep.

She went to the kitchen and made herself a coffee. Her favourite mug steaming with bitter black coffee she went to the study room. She switched on the computer and logged on to the internet. Leaning back on her chair, she typed ‘SIDS cases’ on the Google search page. ‘He will be home soon. I should get my story straight.’