Under Her Bed Was a Box....

Inspired by real life. Written by Ebz Dixon.

They buried Miss D on a Wednesday, and the rain came down like the sky needed to grieve too. Everybody showed up. Church packed. People standing at the back, some only there for the curry goat and funeral punch, but most of them meant it. They all said the same thing. She was a real woman. A mother in every sense. A woman who raised two girls on her own, never asked anybody for nothing, and kept her business locked up tighter than her front door at night.

Yvonne stood still the whole time. Stiff in her black dress. Holding Michelle’s hand even though she hadn’t touched her in weeks. Michelle didn’t squeeze her back. Her face didn’t move. Not even when the casket lowered. Just her eyes, darting like she was trying to remember everything about the moment. Yvonne noticed but didn’t say a word. She didn’t want to start anything.

Back at the house, people said what people always say after death. "She gone to a better place." "She is watching over you now." "At least she didn’t suffer." None of it made sense, but Yvonne nodded anyway. Michelle was gone by then. Slipped out of the house quiet, left the living room full of chatter and funeral plates.

Three hours later, Michelle came back holding a cardboard box. Her face pale. Hands shaking. Yvonne was still on the sofa, half-asleep under a throw blanket and feeling the rum cream start to wear off.

Michelle dropped the box on the table like it had weight that wasn’t from the cardboard.

“I found this,” she said.

Yvonne sat up.

“From where?”

Michelle didn’t even blink.

“Under her bed.”

Yvonne tilted her head.

“You mean in the wardrobe or under the bed?”

Michelle pulled out the chair and sat down slow.

“No. Under. Way under. Behind the suitcases. Wrapped in black plastic.”

Yvonne got up and walked over. The box was taped but already cut open. The top flaps pushed back. She looked inside.

Letters. Dozens of them. Some folded neat. Some scrunched like they were read too many times and hated for what they said. All handwritten. None had stamps.

She pulled one out, but Michelle reached in and grabbed the next item.

A photo.

A black and white picture of a woman holding a baby. The woman looked young. Her eyes wide. Pretty, but tired. Nothing about her looked familiar.

Then Michelle pulled out a birth certificate.

Her name was on it. Michelle Ann-Marie Blake. Born 1994.

But the mother’s name wasn’t Doreen.

Yvonne’s mouth dried up.

“What is this?”

Michelle’s voice cracked when she spoke again.

“She adopted me, Yvonne. She found me. Took me in. I’m not her child.”

Yvonne looked confused.

“What you mean? Course you’re her child.”

Michelle reached in and pulled out the last thing.

A creased police report.

Yvonne read it out loud without realising her own hands were shaking.

“A newborn baby girl, approximately two days old, was found abandoned at Victoria Coach Station, wrapped in a purple shawl. Infant was discovered by a commuter at 6:18am.

A note was attached: 'I can’t keep her. She cries too much. Someone please love her.’”

The room got silent. Heavy.

Yvonne sat down hard.

Michelle stared ahead.

“She never told you?”

Yvonne didn’t answer. Her mind was running through every strange moment from their childhood. Michelle calling her “Miss D” until she was twelve. Her never getting punished like Yvonne did. The time she asked to go stay by Auntie Rita’s and Miss D said no, said, “People don’t need to see you too much.”

It made no sense back then. But now, it all started fitting like jagged puzzle pieces that only make sense once the picture start form.

Michelle pulled out one more thing. A small purple blanket. Baby-sized. Faded and soft. It still smelled like lavender and old air.

She held it to her chest.

“I used to feel it, yuh know. Like I didn’t belong. Like I was borrowing a life that wasn’t mine. She raised me, but she never hugged me for real. Never told me I was enough.”

Yvonne’s chest tightened.

“She fed us both. Paid for school. Paid for everything. She didn’t treat you different.”

Michelle turned and looked her dead in the face.

“She didn’t love me. She managed me.”

Yvonne looked down. She wanted to argue, but the words wouldn’t come. She remembered hearing Miss D tell a church sister, “Mi don’t believe in softness. That’s how people end up weak.” She’d laughed then. Thought it was funny.

But now? It felt cruel.

Michelle wiped her cheek and placed the blanket back in the box.

“You’re her daughter. I was her burden.”

Yvonne stood up. Walked around the table. She didn’t say anything deep. She didn’t have answers. But she wrapped her arms around Michelle, held her head to her chest, and let her cry.

Not for Miss D.

For the mother she never got to know.

For the woman who left her at a coach station in the dark.

For the love she never felt.

That night, Michelle slept on the sofa with the box beside her. She curled up small. The purple blanket pressed to her face.

Yvonne stayed up late. She couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about the letters. The photo. The name on that birth certificate. The scribbled signature at the bottom of one of the notes. A woman’s name she didn’t recognise. But something about it felt important.

The next morning, she started searching.

Quietly. On her laptop.

Because maybe the story wasn’t done yet.

Maybe there was one more mother left to find.

Want more? Part two coming soon. Only at EssenseOfEbonyBooks.com