Megan Hipwell's unresolved guilt over Libby's death

Megan Hipwell’s unresolved guilt over the death of her infant daughter, Elizabeth (Libby), is a private trauma that governs how she remembers motherhood and her own past. Libby drowned while Megan, exhausted and drinking, fell asleep with her in a bath; Megan and her partner Mac buried the child near their home and never spoke openly about what had happened. For years Megan carried the memory alone, until she disclosed it to Kamal Abdic. The confession brings a measure of relief, but not release: the event remains an intimate wound and later becomes a public allegation after Megan disappears.

The life and loss she could not name

Megan tells Kamal that she became pregnant, but realized too late that she could not end the pregnancy. She says that Libby had not been wanted by either parent. The account does not present motherhood as a simple transformation into certainty or devotion. Megan recalls the child as lovely and good, and remembers her name with a tenderness that contrasts with the circumstances of her birth. Saying Libby’s name aloud after a long silence makes the lost child newly present in the room.

Megan’s account of the death is inseparable from isolation and exhaustion. She and Mac had argued, as they sometimes did, in a pattern of disputes that could become intense but were not described as physical. This was the first time since Libby’s birth that Mac had left after an argument. The house was cold, its roof leaking into buckets in the kitchen, and the fire Megan tried to light kept going out. She drank in an effort to warm herself, then got into a bath with Libby resting against her. Megan fell asleep. When she came to understand that Libby was no longer safe, the accident had already happened.

The remembered scene returns in fragments: Megan first recalls the child in the bath, then later describes waking on the bathroom floor with Libby in her arms. Mac had come home and called for Megan from downstairs. When he reached the bathroom and turned on the light, Megan could not bear to look at the child. She gave Libby to him and ran out into the rain, eventually reaching the beach and dunes. She remembers thinking about going into the water, but being too afraid. Mac later brought her home. Her account distinguishes the accidental death from the choices that followed, while showing how shock and terror disrupted her ability to respond.

Burial, silence, and the years afterward

The next morning, Megan wrapped Libby in a sheet and Mac dug a grave at the edge of the property, near a disused railway line. They placed stones over the grave as a marker. They did not discuss the death or look at one another. That night Mac said he had to meet someone and left; he never returned. The burial therefore becomes both a private act of mourning and the beginning of Megan’s prolonged abandonment. No one else is said to have witnessed it, and the couple’s silence leaves Megan without a shared account of the loss.

Megan says the memory continued to haunt her at night. She dreaded being alone in the house and feared going to sleep. She would walk through the dark rooms, convinced that she could hear Libby crying or sense someone else there. She thought she was going mad or might die, and imagined that remaining in the house would mean she had not left her daughter. After about ten days, with no food left, she packed her belongings and went away. Her departure ended her physical presence in the house, not the emotional attachment to the death: the loss remained active in her sleep, memory, and sense of responsibility.

Confession and the act of being witnessed

Years later, Megan tells Kamal what happened during a conversation in his living room. She has delayed speaking about the death; when Kamal asks what happened, the room seems to darken for her, and she identifies this as the subject she never discusses. As she struggles to continue, Kamal waits without pressing her. He gives her kitchen roll when she cries, and later takes her hand. His stillness recalls his manner during their earlier sessions, but now he is listening to Megan’s personal disclosure rather than conducting a therapy appointment.

After Megan recounts the burial and Mac’s departure, Kamal puts an arm around her. She registers that he does not recoil, condemn her, or treat her as a monster. His response allows her to feel safe and, she thinks, relieved that she has done the right thing by telling another person. The scene does not undo Libby’s death or settle every question of responsibility. Its change is smaller but decisive: Megan is no longer the sole keeper of the story. Being heard interrupts the isolation in which her guilt has persisted.

Caregiving and the public return of the past

Megan’s later contact with Anna Watson and her baby Evie offers a contrast to the secret history she has carried. She goes to the Watson home to help with the child, but describes feeling like a spare part while Anna remains close by and attentive to Evie. Megan says that the baby’s presence does not make her want motherhood more; after leaving, she wants to wash the baby smell from herself. This does not establish a single explanation for her feelings, but it shows that caring for another person’s infant does not erase the unresolved loss attached to her own experience of motherhood.

After Megan disappears, the past enters the investigation through an online news report. Anonymous sources claim that she may have been involved in the unlawful killing of her own child and speculate that this could have provided a motive for her murder. Detective Inspector Gaskill makes no comment. The report presents an allegation, not a verified finding, and turns a death Megan had concealed into a story for public judgment. Its appearance also shows how the burial and silence have left room for others to interpret the event without knowing the full account Megan gave Kamal.

Narrative significance

Libby’s death links maternal loss to secrecy, shame, and the limits of what can be known from appearances. Megan’s private account gives the reader a specific sequence of events: an unwanted pregnancy, a period of care and attachment, an accidental drowning, a burial, and a departure followed by years of fear. The later report compresses that history into a possible crime and motive. The contrast matters: Megan’s confession is an effort to speak carefully about a devastating event, while the public version reduces it to suspicion.

The memory also complicates the idea that a mother’s worth can be read from a single act or from her visible performance of care. Megan remembers Libby with affection, yet also confronts the circumstances in which she died and the concealment that followed. Her guilt is not resolved by Kamal’s compassion, but the telling changes its conditions: what had been carried in silence becomes something another person knows. The death remains central to Megan’s understanding of herself, even when the story around her moves on to her disappearance and murder.