I Came to Say Goodbye

by Caroline Overington

  One day I said to her, ‘Donna-Faye, do you want to talk about Savannah?’ Her cheeks were filled with cheesecake. She opened her mouth as if to say something but then kept chewing and smiling. Eventually, she wiped the back of her hand over the back of her mouth and said, ‘No, she’s gone now.’

  I said, ‘We’re going to take great care of her. You can see her whenever you want.’

  She stabbed her fork back in her cake and shook her head and said, ‘She won’t come back. They don’t, you know.’

  Chapter 17

  Kat Atley

  AS IT TURNED OUT, SAVANNAH WASN’T apart from us for a week. It was only four days in the end, before the paper work was signed and stamped, and our lawyers rushed it to the court house, where it was quickly received, and then, with what seemed like great reluctance, we were given the address of the couple who lived ‘north of the Bridge’ – in Manly, as it turned out – and who had been caring for our little girl.

  We drove around there, too quickly, hearts thumping, and when David pulled into the drive, he nearly ran through the front window, and had to stamp his foot down on the brake, and we could not untangle ourselves from our seatbelts fast enough.

  I will never forget that foster carer’s kindness. Her name, from memory, was Mrs Waite. She had blown up four or five pink balloons, and hung them over the front door, so we’d know we were at the right place. One of the balloons was heart-shaped, and it said, ‘It’s a girl!’

  I started to cry. Mrs Waite must have heard our car pull into the drive, because their door opened just as mine did, and as I fell toward her, she was falling toward me, down the pathway, with Savannah in her arms.

  The first thing I thought was, you’ve grown so much! In just four days, I’d missed so much of her development, and I felt so jealous. But Mrs Waite held me and we held Savannah together, like a three-person sandwich, and David put his arms around the bunch of us, and led us toward the front door, arms entwined, walking sideways, like crabs, and then we were inside, and Mrs Waite was presenting us with an album that documented every day of Savannah’s life, every day that she’d spent with them, and she told me what Savannah had been doing, and where she had been sleeping. She gave me a print of her foot that they’d made from a clay set, and a card with Savannah’s newborn handprint on it, with the words: ‘Savannah Atley, aged: two days’ in gold pen, along the frame, and she told me she’d made sure that the blanket I’d given Savannah – the one I’d held to my chest and rubbed with my hands – had been with her in her crib, and with her in her pram.

  ‘There’s not a day she hasn’t been able to smell you,’ she said. ‘Trust me, you’ve been with her in spirit, every day.’

  We thanked her profusely. We held Savannah close to our hearts. And then it was time to leave, and to start our new life with our little girl. More than anything, we wanted to do it without interference. We knew, and I think everybody knows, that we all would have managed so much better if we’d just been allowed to find our way, including a way for Savannah to know her natural parents.

  The Department was adamant that it not be that way. Shortly after Donna-Faye was discharged from Eastern Private, and a day or so after Savannah spent her first night in her wicker crib at the foot of the bed I shared with David, the Department turned up with what amounted to a roster.

  It set out the times that Savannah would spend with Donna-Faye, at an apartment in Darlinghurst they had found for her, and the time she was required to spend with Malok, who was still living in the unit in Tamworth, where he’d met Donna-Faye.

  The first time I saw the roster, it made me cry. It seemed to have been drawn up by people who did not have children. There was no allowance for Savannah, and her routine. On Wednesday afternoons, at precisely 1 pm, I was required to drop her at Anglicare’s Family Contact Centre, where Donna-Faye would be waiting, for a supervised contact visit.

  No allowance was made for the fact that Savannah might be napping, or that she might not have had her feed, or that she might have a temperature. Then, too, no allowance was made for me, and how I needed to know what she was doing in that hour. I had no idea how to fill that time. I remember once thinking, Well, Kat, what did you do before she came along?, and I honestly couldn’t remember. It was like she had always been with me.

  I could hear her when she wasn’t there, too.

  I’d be rinsing a cup to put in the dishwasher and she’d coo. I’d put down my cup and go to her cot, and of course, she wouldn’t be there, she’d be with Donna-Faye, 20 kilometres away.

  I still hear that sound, even now.

  Perhaps I always will.

  Before the contact regimen started, we endured two, or perhaps three, meetings with the Department.

  On the first occasion, David and I, and Savannah, were all required to be present so we could be ‘observed’ interacting with each other. It was entirely uncomfortable. The social worker sat in a chair with a clipboard, making notes. David and I had no idea what we were supposed to do, so we played peek-a-boo and when Savannah got bored with that, David let her rattle his keys.

  Later, when I was able to read the report – our lawyer made sure I got to read all the reports – I saw the social worker had made fairly obvious remarks, about Savannah being able to make eye-contact, and hold up her own head.

  On another accasion, a psychologist asked me to go through Savannah’s routine. I explained that I had taken a year off work. My days were devoted to Savannah and, to some extent, David’s were, too. We woke up each morning, wondering what she’d conquer next. All parents think their children are brilliant, but she really was brilliant. She’d learn so much in one day. David would go to work, and come home at night, and he’d say she was unrecognisable, that’s how much she’d picked up.

  I remember the first time she smiled at me.

  It means so much, that first smile.

  I’d been running around, doing all the things you have to do for a newborn, and it’s often thankless, and then you get this wonderful smile, and suddenly the effort is all worthwhile.

  I remember when she first held up her own head. I didn’t have to cup her under the head anymore. Her neck had grown strong. She could look around.

  She liked to grab at things.

  I had to make sure I always had something for her to grab, or else she’d grab my pendant, and pull on it.

  She’d grab my nose. My earrings. My earlobes.

  It wasn’t long before she was out of the Baby Bjorn. She was obviously going to be a tall girl, like her father. We turned her around, and had her facing out for a while – people said you could keep a baby in a sling like that, until they were six months old – but, to be honest, it was easier to get her out of the Baby Bjorn and into a stroller, because otherwise, it took forever to get anywhere. People would see David coming, his lovely English face and Savannah, cocoa-coloured, with her tight curls and her pink fists under his chin, and they’d have to stop and make remarks.

  Most people were wonderful.

  They’d assume we’d adopted her, and they’d say well-meaning things, like, ‘Oh, what a brave thing’ and, ‘Did it take very long? It’s so expensive, and it takes so long!’ And depending on how we felt, we’d either answer them, or not, or agree with them, or say, ‘No, she’s our daughter’ and let them deal with that.

  We didn’t mind the attention, but it did take a very long time to get anywhere.

  It was the same when David let her ride on his shoulders. Once she had some control over herself, David would put her up, and she’d take big fistfuls of his hair, and use it like handles, to hang on. It was agony for him. He’d try to take her hands in his, and move them off his hair, but then she’d stick her fingers in his ears, or else in his eyes, and he’d find himself blinded.

  We didn’t do an enormous number of big outings. There were things we planned to do, like take Savannah back to England to meet David’s family, and to New York, to meet our old friends. A girlfriend in Manhattan had
sent some lovely things over, and I’d gone mad with the camera, taking photographs and uploading them onto Savannah’s own website, charting her every move, and I was keen to show her off in person, too, but I wasn’t yet ready to experiment with plane travel. I know that some parents do it. We thought, she’s had such a journey already. Let’s give her time, to become attached and secure.

  One thing we did do, just before we lost Savannah, was catch the ferry to Taronga Zoo.

  It was an incredibly hot day. I probably didn’t know enough about what a baby needs, and what a baby can stand, during a day’s outing. It would have been enough to visit the zoo but we thought she’d enjoy the ferry and the train, too.

  I don’t know whether it was all the smells – the hay, the poo – or the monkeys screeching and carrying on – or too much moving around, into the train, onto the ferry, up the hill, but she really didn’t like it. We’d hoped to be able to say, ‘Look at the elephant! Look at the orang-utan!’ but she was in David’s arms, shaking her head, burying her face in his chest, hiding in his shirt and he was trying to peel her off, and say, ‘Look, Savannah!’ and she’d shake her head again and make it clear she didn’t want anything to do with it. And then, after an hour or so, when we’d completely given up, taken refuge at the picnic tables, and she was in her stroller and taking her bottle, I had opened the lid on a little Tupperware container and had given her a chunk of melon to suck on, and a seagull – a plain seagull, white and grey with pink legs – came by, picking at hot chips people had left on the ground, and that’s what she liked. She became all animated at that. She dropped her bottle and was pointing and making a noise that sounded like ‘Qwa, Qwa’.

  David and I were laughing and thinking, why did we pack up the stroller and organise all the nappies and bottles and cloths and changes of clothes, and come across town and stand in the heat and pay the entry fee, so she could get excited about a seagull? But that’s what happens, isn’t it? It’s the small things they enjoy. It was the same at home. We could give her a lovely toy from Seed, or Fisher Price, something with all the bells and whistles, and she’d want the plastic mixing bowl to put on her head. Friends would bring gifts, and she’d tear at the paper with both palms, rip it to pieces, and ignore the present. I’d get so embarrassed! She’d suck on an old wooden spoon for hours, and throw the teething ring down, and never look at it again.

  David was often the first to reach her cot in the morning. He was great like that; he knew I’d been up in the night, feeding and changing. He’d rug her up and wander down to the water’s edge to see the boats. He’d get a takeaway coffee and come home at around 7 am and I’d pop Savannah in her high chair, and try to spoon some mush into her, and I’d play with her until it came time for her morning nap. I’d put her down, and I’d think, well, Kat, try to catch up on some sleep, but of course I never did. There was so much to do! Beds to change, nappies to throw out, bottles to sterilise, maybe try to fit in a shower. Sometimes I’d scold myself, because I used to think, what is it that new mothers do all day? and now I was finding out.

  Before I knew it, it would be noon, and Savannah would be awake, and wanting a bottle. She’d cry in her cot and kick off her blankets – that’s another thing I’ll never forget, how much she hated having blankets on her, how she’d always kick herself free, no matter how tightly she was swaddled – and I’d have to put her on my hip, and get the teat of the bottle into her mouth before the tears came. I didn’t like to see her cry. The bubbles of milk, white against her lips, I liked to see.

  Depending on what day it was, we’d spend the afternoon going out and about. Rockin’ and rollin’, David called it. Rockin’ about town. Savannah would go in her stroller and we’d head out to a baby group or the toy library or to a local cafe to meet up with other mums.

  It doesn’t sound like much, but I was completely content. Savannah was a gorgeous, happy baby, and I was very much in love with her.

  I don’t say that parts of it weren’t hard. It was hard to adjust to a new routine centred around a tiny baby. I missed my sleep! I missed being able to have a shower and go to the toilet in peace. I worried that Savannah would get bored with just me to play with all day. I’m sure you’ve heard things like that before. All parents say the same things. I suppose that’s why, just before Savannah died, I had in mind enrolling her in a childcare centre, a few steps from our front door. There was a little boy there, adopted from China. His mother had seen me coming and going with Savannah and she’d stopped me one day and we’d had one of those conversations that new mothers have out on the street, just pouring our hearts out to each other, sharing our frustrations, declaring that we’d never been so much in love.

  We agreed that it would be good for her boy, Xhou, and for Savannah, to be together at creche, just one day a week, so they would grow up knowing that everybody is different.

  I’m so glad now that I never got around to arranging that day in creche.

  It might have meant that I missed a day with Savannah. I couldn’t bear to know I’d given up any time with her, voluntarily.

  I know I have to tell you now what happened. I know that is why my father has given me this section to write.

  I know I’ve been pushing away the moment when I’m going to have to write it down.

  It’s still so hard.

  In July 2009 Savannah was five months old. She was due for her fourth visit with Malok, in Tamworth. If the contact visits with Donna-Faye were difficult, then the contact with Malok was torture. He had returned to Tamworth after the birth. The Department had found him a job in the kill room at the meat-works. From what I gather, he worked hard at it. He turned up on time. He finished every shift. His boss was pleased with him. He was entitled to see his daughter one Saturday a month, including overnight.

  The Department offered to do what they called ‘the transfer’ meaning they wanted to pick Savannah up from her home with us, and drive her, in one of their dinky little three-door hatchbacks, to the airport, for the flight to Tamworth. A social worker would accompany her, and stay overnight, and then fly back with her the following day.

  David was agog. ‘What must it cost?’ he said.

  It didn’t matter what it cost. We would not do things that way. I could not have allowed Savannah to travel on a plane without me. What if something happened to her? We said, no, thank you very much. We will manage it, and we did. Once a month, we flew with Savannah to Tamworth. I remember the first time, when she was just four weeks old, she was so small the air hostess had to fold back her blankets to properly see her face, and when she did, she said, ‘Oh, divine. Did you adopt her?’

  I answered honestly. I said no, she’s mine.

  I don’t recall that Malok ever met us at the airport. Maybe he still wasn’t old enough to drive? I know only that he didn’t drive. He walked everywhere. He walked to work. He walked home. He walked around Tamworth. We’d sometimes see him striding along the freeway as we were heading into town. And he was almost never alone.

  Before our first visit, I’d asked the Department if I could stay with Savannah, while she had her contact visit with Malok. I thought she was too young to be separated from me, and that Malok was too immature to handle a baby. They denied the request, of course. They said it was ‘important for Savannah to come to know her identity as a part-Sudanese girl by being immersed in their culture’. They said there was a ‘power imbalance’ between David and I, on one hand, and Malok and his family, on the other.

  ‘There is something wrong with people who think like that,’ said David, when he read their report. ‘Does it never occur to them that we all love Savannah, and that we all want to be part of her life? That instead of putting up barriers between us, they might encourage us to learn to love each other?’

  Given that we couldn’t stay with Malok and his family in Tamworth, David and I organised a room at the local Best Western. I called the staff ahead of our first visit and explained that we’d be coming monthly, and asked if we c
ould have the same room, because we’d have a little baby with us.

  The staff at the Best Western were fantastic about it. They made a fuss of Savannah but then, so did everyone. She was a special girl. It seemed to me that she generated love and happiness wherever she went.

  It isn’t easy to travel with an infant. We had to buy a travel cot. It had to go on as oversized baggage and was always the last thing to come off the plane. Then I’d make David unwrap it and unpack it and make sure it hadn’t been damaged before Savannah could go in it.

  I’d have Savannah in my arms or David would have her in the Baby Bjorn, against his chest. We’d have her nappies and her bottles, her formula and her clothes – something for hot weather, and something for cold weather, something in case it rained, something in case she threw up, or got dirty, and on it went.

  The first time we had to hand Savannah over, it broke my heart. The exchange took place in the Department’s offices, in Tamworth. Malok was there with a Departmental worker and some members of his extended family. I’d been led to believe that his mother wasn’t in Australia, and nor was his father, and it was possible, actually, that they’d been killed in the war.

  He lived with aunts, uncles, cousins, and others, all of whom were referred to as his kin, and I understood from the reading we’d done that ‘family’ meant something different to him. It wasn’t brothers, sisters, parents. It was a range of people, all of whom were due the respect he’d pay his parents.

  They took Savannah away, and we had expected to pick her up from the Department’s office on Sunday but the social worker rang and said, ‘No, it’s okay, you can pick her up from Malok’s unit’, and so, from then on, we’d drop her at Malok’s, and we’d pick her up from there, too.