The Baby Left Behind by Jen Craven
Genre: Domestic suspense, Domestic drama, Contemporary fiction, Women's fiction
Read: 15th September 2023
Published: 20th September 2023
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Take him. Please forgive me. Cate grips the note with trembling hands, looking down at the delicate bundle on her doorstep. As she reaches down to the baby, she knows she has finally got everything she’s ever wished for. But is he hers to take?
Cate tries not to cry as she closes the door on the nursery room once again. All she has ever wanted is to be a mother. Cursed with a medical condition that means she is unable to have children, her only option is to wait for a call from the adoption centre. But that call feels like a lifetime away.
Then she hears a faint cry from outside her house. She’s convinced she’s imagining it, that the grief is starting to overwhelm her. But when she opens her door and looks down, her heart swells. By her feet is the most perfect baby curled up in a soft blanket.
As the newborn’s eyes light up, Cate feels instant love for him. She knows she can’t just accept a stranger’s baby – she has to call the police. But as she picks him up, it all finally feels right. This is where the baby belongs.
But when her darling baby is rushed into hospital, Cate knows that in order to save his life, she needs to expose the lie she has been so desperate to hide. Can Cate discover who the child’s real mother is? And if so, will she be able to make the hardest decision of her life to protect the child?
An emotional story about family, secrets and what makes a good parent. Perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Jojo Moyes and Kate Hewitt.
MY THOUGHTS:
He's all you ever wanted...but can you keep him...?
"I was six when I first stuffed a balloon under my shirt pretending to be pregnant. I was sixteen when I found out that would never be possible. The burn has followed me ever since."
The opening lines after the heartbreaking prologue was enough to make one grab the tissues and keep them close by for the duration of this one. I was all set for a domestic suspense, and it is partly that, but it is also wrapped up in women's fiction tied up with a suspenseful bow. I felt Cate's pain because I've been there. It too was all I ever wanted - marriage, children and a white picket fence. But unlike Cate, I've long moved past it. Yes, so many unwanted babies born in the world to women seemingly less deserving of a child when so many want-to-be mothers who can't be are left without. It doesn't seem fair when 15 year olds can get knocked up just by looking at the opposite sex. But it is what it is.
Being a mother was all Cate Connally ever wanted. But her dream was shattered in her teens when her monthly visitor failed to show and her world came crashing down. Desperate to experience motherhood, adoption was her only answer. The book opens with a prologue so heartwrenching it was difficult not to feel the emotion running thick. One year earlier, Cate was in the delivery room as teenager Hadley gave birth to the baby girl Cate was to adopt. But as Cate looked into her newborn daughter's eyes she heard a guttural sob and saw the pain and look of apology in the young girl's eyes. Cate's dream ends just like that.
A year on and still Cate lives with the hope that she will get the call that will surely change her life. Being a mother is all she ever wanted. And then that day comes again. A baby boy has just been born and he's hers. She's going to be a mum! She could barely sleep the night before going to pick him up. Her family wanted to accompany her but this is something Cate wants to do alone. Then just as she's about to leave, the phone rings. No...not again. This cannot happen twice. But it does.
Childless once again, Cate is inconsolable. Throughout the day she receives a bombardment of beeps with excited text messages from her mum, her sister and her best friend Ryan. Are you home yet? Have you got him? Can we come see him? She silences her phone and cries herself into oblivion.
And then she hears a sound. She's so rattled with grief, her brain is conjuring up babies and she's hearing them everywhere. But no, there's the sound again. It's coming from outside. She opens her front door and there on her doorstep, in the freezing January cold, is a car seat with a screaming baby inside...and a note that reads: "Take him. Please forgive me." She looks up and down the silent street. There's no one. What choice does she have?
Cate does what anyone would have done. She takes in the crying infant and does her level best to console him. All at once she tries drawing on her past memories and experience with her nephews. What does he want? Nappy change. Nope. Still screaming. Of course... that crimson rage on his face means he's hangry. So she feeds him and bathes him, clothes him and loves him. It's not all smooth sailing but to Cate, in this moment, it was if it was meant to be. So when her family turn up unexpectedly the next morning without warning, after a sleepless night of tears, Cate forgot that she never told them about the adoption falling through. Her parents swoop in and take charge of the angelic babe in her arms and shower her with a thousand questions. Now would be a good time to tell them...wouldn't it? But the words don't come. And before she knows it, the truth becomes a lie and she chooses to carry on the charade passing the baby off as her new adoptive son.
Then we meet Jada, who has not had the privileged life Cate has. Her story is a sorry one in which she was born to a single mother under the most horrific circumstances and for which she blames herself. On her seventeenth birthday she was introduced to "Aunt Hazel" (heroin) and as a result is now a recovering addict. She's been clean for two years, has a good job at the clinic. Life is looking up. But the surprise appearance of a baby after what she thought was food poisoning from a spicy chipotle threw her world into a tailspin. A baby? What the hell was she supposed to do with a baby? After almost a week locked in her apartment with incessant screaming demands from the infant and Jada unable to decipher what he wants, her old friend comes calling and she makes a snap decision. Jada knows Cate from the clinic and is familiar with her history. She'll make a good mum for her baby.
But then a chance meeting in a hospital corridor changes everything. After abandoning him, now Jada wants her son back. But Cate will not give up without a fight. Who will come out fighting? The recovering addict who left her baby on a doorstep in the cold? Or the woman who took him in, cared for him and loved him as her own?
One cannot help but think of the parable of the two mothers as told by King Solomon from the Bible. Two women who both claimed to be the child's mother but clearly only one was. King Solomon decreed to have the child cut in two knowing that the child's real mother would not let that happen. And when the woman said that "no, let her have him", Solomon knew she was his true mother. OK so it was a different case here but the reasoning was the same. Both claimed to love the child and that they were the one best placed to care for him. But which of them would do so?
This is a heartbreaking gut wrenching story that will indeed require tissues. While Cate adjusts to motherhood and the lie with which she is now living, Jada is just trying to adjust to life, period. There are those who will boo the outcome but was it ever going to go any other way? I wasn't a fan of Jada and I was rooting for Cate but do the ends justify the means? Or in Cate's case, the means justify the ends?
Unfolding through the eyes of both women, Cate and Jada, this tale is heartwrenching and emotive, just like a Lifetime movie. You will laugh, you will cry and you will be shaking your head in parts. But it does give one food for thought...what would you do if a baby was left on your doorstep?
I would like to thank #JenCraven, #Netgalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheBabyLeftBehind in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
side from fiction, Jen has personal essay bylines in national outlets, including The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Today’s Parent, Scary Mommy and many more.
She writes from northwestern Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband and three children. When not working on her books, she can be found thrift shopping, taking long walks, and beating her kids in backgammon.
Social media links:
Wesbite | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads
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