Keep It in the Family

by John Marrs

‘Finn Hunter was my biological child. He died a month before I found you.’ If I close my eyes tightly, I can still feel my baby son’s slowly cooling body in my arms before Dave took him away from me. ‘I’d suffered many miscarriages before he was born, each of which almost broke me. With each came an enormous emotional impact as powerful as grief. And then a miracle happened. We managed to go full-term with a wonderful, beautiful little boy,’ I continue. ‘We immediately fell in love with each and every tiny bone in his body until he was snatched away from us three days later. Cot death, we assumed, as there could be no other explanation for it. But we never reported it or told another living soul. Neither of us trusted the authorities. I was convinced they were going to blame me for doing something wrong, and then somehow find out about the suitcases in the warehouse. Your dad had only just registered Finn’s birth, but neither of us could bring ourselves to register his death.’