Why would someone leave a baby on her doorstep? It wasn’t a new baby, probably about three or four months old, a girl, and though she seemed somewhat fretful, the shawl wrapped about the child was clean enough. Tucked inside was a feeding bottle, sadly empty. Perhaps this was the reason she’d been abandoned. There was no note pinned to the cotton night-gown, no means of identification. Bella boiled some milk and water, added a pinch of sugar and fed the mixture to the baby, hoping for the best. She suckled hungrily, her small hands taking a firm grasp on the neck of the bottle. Afterwards she seemed to settle and was fast asleep in seconds, snuffling gently. Bella sat on in her kitchen chair with the child snuggled in her lap, a tumult of emotions playing havoc with professional common sense. So many questions jostled in her mind. Had some poor woman reached the end of her tether and abandoned the child because she could no longer feed it? Could it be someone who used the clinic? The baby was perhaps living evidence of a ‘failure’.
