Desiree’s baby girl had suffered catastrophic injuries, and only one person could be responsible…
Opening the front door, I was surprised to discover one of my husband’s relatives on the front steps.
‘Tom says you’ve kicked him out,’ he said. ‘Do
you want to talk about it?’
I let him in, and he held my baby, Cady, while I prepared breakfast for my toddler.
‘Since we got married, he’s been a totally different person,’
I confessed.
Tom and I had met when I was just 17 and he was 19.
I already had a one-year-old daughter, Natalie, from a previous relationship, and he’d been a real help to me with running errands.
While my childhood had been traumatic, Tom came from a stable, middle-class family.
I desperately wanted that life for me and my daughter.
We married just a year after we met, and I gave birth to my second child – Cady.
But since our marriage, Tom had become moody and unreliable.
He couldn’t hold down a job, he’d racked up enormous bills, and he was violent.
‘Tom’s never hit me,’ I said. ‘But he grabs my wrists and throws things.’
Afterwards he’d always tell me it was an accident.
‘You’ve already had one baby outside marriage,’ said Tom’s relative. ‘Don’t you think it’s your duty to be a good wife?’
Desperate for it to work out, I agreed to let Tom move back in.
But despite my hopes, his behaviour didn’t change.
One morning I was due to head out to my job at a car dealership.
Before I left, I kissed my beautiful five-month-old Cady on the top of her head.
‘Bye, baby,’ I told her before heading out.
Throughout the day, I kept calling home to speak to Tom.
He was supposed to be looking for a job and running a few errands.
But every time I spoke to him, he was still sitting on the sofa playing games.
‘It’s 4pm – if you want to get anything done, you have to go now,’ I told him.
‘The kids are sleeping though,’
he said.
Rolling my eyes, I suggested that he wake them up.
Then he mentioned Cady was ‘acting strangely’.
'Get her to hospital at once'
‘She’s breathing funny,’ he told me.
‘What are you doing?’ I said in a panic. ‘Get her to hospital at once, I’ll meet you there!’
My heart thumping, I left work and drove there.
When I arrived, I could see Tom walking across from the paediatrics wing very slowly.
I rushed over and bent down to look at Cady in her carrier.
She looked like she was just sleeping, but I could hear her whimpering quietly.
‘The doctors told me to get her checked out in the A&E,’
he said.
Grabbing her carrier, I rushed Cady into hospital.
Doctors and nurses crowded around her, and I could see from their faces that something was seriously wrong.
Just half an hour later, a consultant took us aside.
He explained that she had a bleed on the brain, and would need to be blue-lighted to a larger hospital.
By that point, both mine and Tom’s parents had joined us.
We drove over together through a snowstorm.
My younger sister and a family friend were taking care of Natalie, two, while we were away.
Just as we pulled into the car park, my mum’s phone lit up with a call.
I watched as her eyes widened.
‘Social services are at your house,’ she panicked. ‘They’re taking Natalie!’
‘What?’ I asked. ‘Why?’
‘They say you’ll understand when you speak to the doctor,’ she replied.
My mother turned to Tom.
‘You did this, didn’t you?’
she said.
He shook his head, but at that point, all I cared about was reaching Cady.
When I got to the hospital room, she looked far too small for the bed she was in. She was surrounded by tubes and machines that were keeping her alive.
The doctor led Tom and I into a side room.
Tom put a hand on my knee and squeezed.
‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but Cady has no brain activity,’ the doctor said. ‘And it’s clear her injuries were caused by child abuse, possibly blunt-force trauma.’
At that moment, it finally clicked.
‘How could you?’
I screamed at Tom.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ he protested.
Someone led him out of the room as I broke down.
Doctors let me sit by Cady’s bedside.
I read her Brown Bear, Brown Bear book again and again.
At 9pm, they performed a second test for brain activity, before turning off her life-support machine.
My gorgeous daughter passed away.
Time passed in a blur as Tom went back to his parents’, and I returned to an empty house.
Somehow, I managed to arrange the funeral, and discussions continued with police and social services.
'Desiree, I can explain everything'
To my horror, police revealed that Natalie had been found with bruises on her legs consistent with beating.
Getting her back home was my main priority.
Over the next few months, I convinced social services that I’d never hurt my daughters, and this was the first instance of abuse towards the children.
Natalie’s foster parent told me a heart-wrenching story.
She had been acting out the abuse with her dolls, slamming them into the ground and telling them to ‘Shut up, just f*cking shut up!’
Four months after Cady passed, Natalie was finally allowed home.
Meanwhile, the police were still building a case against Tom.
Not long after Cady’s death, he’d sent me a message.
Desiree, I can explain everything, he’d written.
Police asked me to talk to him wearing a wire.
I picked him up from his parents’ house and we spoke in the car.
It made my skin crawl letting him kiss me and pretending that
I still loved him.
And he denied everything.
Still, he was eventually arrested four months after her death.
Two years after that, I attended his sentencing.
In court, I couldn’t bring myself to even look at him.
Seeing him or even hearing his name was incredibly triggering for me.
Tom was sentenced to 16 years for child abuse resulting in death.
As he served the start of his sentence, I did my best to get my daughter and I back on our feet.
We moved far away from our old town and started afresh. I decided not to tell Natalie about what had happened to her sister until she was 10.
When I did explain the truth, she suffered nightmares.
Fortunately, therapy helped
her come to terms with what had happened.
For my own recovery, I worked on a fictionalised account of my experiences, which I called Untitled For Now.
Writing each word was an essential step on my healing journey.
Almost a decade after Cady passed away, I heard that Tom had died.
In many ways, it was a relief.
One night, four years later, I had an incredibly vivid dream.
I was with a beautiful teenage girl with brown hair, not unlike mine.
‘I love your ring, Mum,’ she said smiling at me.
When I woke up, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
Cady was buried in the town where we used to live.
I’d always been too afraid to return, but now
I knew that I wanted to bring her home.
Thirteen years after her death, I had my daughter exhumed and cremated.
Her coffin was unbearably small.
I keep Cady’s remains in an urn in our living room, and someday soon I will transfer a portion into a ring I’ve picked out.
Finally, my perfect daughter is home where she belongs.
Desiree Moore, 32
● Untitled For Now is available on Amazon, £15.99.