The Swap

by Robyn Harding

Brian said, “Even if we prove she’s my daughter?”

  I winced inwardly at my husband’s words. He didn’t mean to exclude me, but this was his fight.

  “That would be a separate trial. The judge would want to determine the best interests of the child.”

  “Freya and Max aren’t meant to be parents,” I interjected. “They never wanted kids. They’re… superficial and self-absorbed.” As soon as I said it, I realized how benign it sounded. Superficial and self-absorbed people reproduced all the time.

  “Is the child in danger with them? Do they abuse substances? Is there violence in the home?”

  We couldn’t mention the magic mushrooms without implicating ourselves. But Brian took another tack.

  “Max has a violent history. He broke a man’s neck during a hockey game. The guy later overdosed on opioids.”

  “I heard about the case,” Nancy said, sounding unimpressed. It was on the ice and in the past. It had little bearing on Max’s ability to be a dad.

  “Freya told me he picks fights in bars,” I added quickly. “He feels like he deserves to be punished, so he instigates things and then he doesn’t fight back. I saw his black eye.”

  Nancy nodded slowly. “It sounds like you might have a case.”

  My heart leaped. Brian reached over and squeezed my fingers.

  Nancy said, “I don’t go to court anymore since I moved here, but I can refer you to a colleague on the mainland.” She reached for a pen and paper, but then paused. “Pursuing this will be expensive. Trial lawyers charge upward of four hundred bucks an hour. You’ll need to travel to hearings, stay in a hotel. It will be a significant financial outlay.”

  My eyes flitted to my husband, and despair reflected back at me. We couldn’t afford a lengthy court battle in another city. Brian had handed in his manuscript and received another installment of his advance, but it was just enough to live on until business picked up at the store. We didn’t have the resources to fight for this child.

  Nancy clocked our concern. “Alternatively, you could do what they call a curiosity test.”

  “What’s that?” Brian asked.

  “If you can get access to the baby, you can do a cheek swab. You send it off to a lab with your DNA. The results won’t be admissible in court, but they might give you leverage with the mother.”

  “Freya’s not a reasonable person,” Brian said. “She already knows this baby is mine, but she refuses to acknowledge it.”

  “Maybe presenting her with scientific evidence will change her mind,” Nancy offered.

  “It’s worth a try,” I said hopefully.

  “It’s not.” Brian’s contradiction was curt. “And we don’t have access to the baby, anyway.”

  Nancy let a breath out of her nose. “Court is going to cost you—a lot of money and a lot of hours. By the time you get a result, the child could be a couple of years old. It could be difficult to form a bond with her.”

  Panic fluttered in my chest and tears pooled in my eyes. We were so close to having a child, a little girl who was biologically Brian’s baby. And the opportunity was being ripped away from us. Pressing my lips together to quell my emotions, I stood. “Thanks,” I managed to mumble, “We’ll discuss it.” And then I bolted for the door.

  * * *

  Brian joined me outside minutes later, where I stood blowing my nose and swiping at my tears.

  “You okay?” he asked, rubbing my back.

  “We can’t lose this baby because we don’t have enough money to fight for her,” I said. “Nothing is more important than Maggie.”

  My husband ran his hands through his cropped hair. “I could ask my brother for a loan.…” Brian’s brother was a tech multimillionaire in Silicon Valley. He was also an arrogant douche.

  “How would you explain it?” I asked. “I got my wife’s best friend pregnant while I was high on ’shrooms, and now we want access to the baby.”

  Brian did not laugh. “I’ll make something up.”

  “How will you write your next book? How will I run the store? Even if we prove the baby is”—I stopped myself from saying ours—“yours, we might need a second trial to get custody or even visitation.” I stuffed the snotty tissue into my pocket. “We need to work this out with Freya and Max. We can do the curiosity test. Once we prove, beyond a doubt, that you’re the father—”

  My husband cut me off. “They know I’m the father, Jamie. Max is sterile. He can’t have children. We’re not dealing with reasonable people here.”

  I swallowed hard. A plan was formulating in my mind, a sneaky plan that could blow up in my face. I could share it with Brian and risk him talking me out of it. Or I could add it to the secrets and subterfuge that had nearly destroyed us. Brian made the decision for me.

  “How would we get the baby’s DNA? If we try to get near her, they’ll use it against us.” He sighed then, his eyes staring out at the quaint main street, deserted, as usual. “She’s a horrible human being.” He was talking about Freya; I didn’t need clarification. “I wish we’d never met her.” Then he stalked off toward his truck.

  Part of me agreed with him. Part of me wished Freya hadn’t walked into my shop that day, that I hadn’t suggested coffee, that I hadn’t fallen under her spell. I wished we’d never gone to their waterfront home that night, that we hadn’t drank the mushroom tea, that we had never swapped partners. But part of me was grateful that we had. Because now we had a chance—no matter how tenuous, no matter how slim—to become parents.

  And I still believed in Freya then. I still thought that we could make her see sense, that we would be able to work this out with mutual respect and understanding. Freya may have been selfish and shallow, but deep down, she had a good heart. And she would do what was best for her child. That’s what I thought then.

  I was so naive.

  57 low

  Freya and the baby came home from the hospital after six days. The baby was healthy—happy and thriving—but the same could not be said for her mother. Freya had been kept in for a few extra days due to a minor infection. When she returned home, she was exhausted and glum. She was struggling to breastfeed and resented the enthusiastic lecture about its benefits that the nurses had given her prior to release.

  “Fucking nosy do-gooders,” she snarled, as I bounced the hungry baby and Max prepared a bottle of formula.

  “My mom breastfed all her kids for way too long,” I quipped. “She used to meet Leonard at recess for a quick top-up.”

  “I bet her tits are down to her knees,” Freya muttered.

  Max or I did most of the feedings. Even though she wouldn’t breastfeed, the nurses had wanted Freya to bottle-feed her child, said it was important for bonding. But she wasn’t interested. Besides, she was usually asleep. She had been through physical turmoil, was recovering from surgery. But when her napping continued into the second week, it seemed a sign of avoidance and apathy. Freya had once mentioned her own mother’s postpartum depression, and I wondered if she was following in her maternal footsteps.

  “Can you move in?” Max asked me, the weariness of caregiving showing on his face, “As soon as possible.”

  He needed me. Desperately. I won’t pretend I didn’t like it. “I’m already here all day,” I said, enjoying my power.

  “I need you here at night. I’m exhausted.”

  “My parents won’t like it.”

  “I’ll pay you,” he said quickly. “How does thirty bucks an hour sound?”

  It sounded like more than double the money I made at Jamie’s shop. And while being Maggie’s nanny was far more onerous than selling knickknacks to tourists, I could handle it short-term. And it would let me live here, with Freya and Max. To entrench myself into their lives and their home. And when Maggie was gone…? Well, by then Freya and I would have reached a new level of intimacy. She would realize she couldn’t live without me, and she wouldn’t let me leave.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  Lucky for me, my parents w
ere embroiled in a new drama that had shifted their focus from my role in the Light-Beausoleil household. Vik had met a woman at a silent meditation retreat and invited her to move into his trailer.

  “He’s disrespecting the basic tenets of our relationship,” my mom said. She was sitting in the living room with my dad and a cross-legged Gwen. “Honesty and openness.”

  “How well can he even know her?” Gwen sniped. “They were silent for most of their relationship.”

  I heard my dad’s voice. “It’s new-relationship energy. He’s experiencing a desire for monogamy, but he’ll soon see that it’s not worth sacrificing what we have.”

  My mom sounded petulant. “He always said he liked living alone, said he wanted his own space. What’s so special about this Angela?”

  I had just come downstairs with a backpack full of my belongings. I walked into the living room. “It’s good to know you’re human after all.”

  My mom glared at me. “What are you talking about, Swallow?”

  “You’re all jealous,” I said. “You feel possessive of Vik and threatened by this Angela person. It’s normal. It’s human nature.”

  “No, it isn’t!” my dad cried. “Pure love isn’t about ownership and control!”

  “Monogamy is a societal construct!” Gwen shouted. “It treats women like chattel!”

  But my eyes were on my mom, and she was surprisingly quiet. Then she pointed at the backpack looped around my forearm. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m moving in with Freya and Max. They need help with the baby.”

  “You can’t stand babies.”

  She was right. And while I pitied baby Maggie, that hadn’t changed my feelings toward infants in general. But Freya’s daughter would soon be gone, living with her father and Jamie. At least most of the time. And I would be entrenched in Freya’s life: her live-in photographer, her social media manager, and her best friend. Maybe even more.…

  “They’re paying me,” I explained. “A lot.”

  The adults shared a look. While they proclaimed to be socialists, they understood the value of a buck.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” my dad said. My mom hugged me and let me walk out the door.

  * * *

  If I was to be employed as a full-time nanny, I would have to quit my job at Hawking Mercantile. Resigning also gave me the opportunity to check in with Jamie, to ensure that her plans to gain custody of Maggie were progressing. I’d always kept an emotional distance from my boss, but now I needed to connect with her. I needed her to trust me, to see me as her ally. I had been feeding her information via text: informing her of the baby’s name (and its link to Max’s mother); apprising her that Freya refused to breastfeed; letting her know that Max was struggling, even with my help. But I hadn’t seen Jamie in person since that night at the hospital.

  I parked directly in front of the store and entered the deserted shop. Jamie was behind the counter, scrolling disinterestedly through her phone. My boss—soon to be former boss—did not look well. Her skin was dull and dry, and there were circles under her eyes. She wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t taking care of herself. She needed to pull it together. She had a battle ahead of her.

  “I’m sorry to see you go,” she said, when I told her Max had hired me to help Freya. “How’s the baby doing?”

  I sighed. “Okay, I guess. Except…”

  I saw the concern, even fear in her eyes. She hadn’t even met the child and she was already fiercely protective. “Except what?”

  “Freya wants nothing to do with her. She doesn’t feed her, doesn’t cuddle her. The only time she ever touches her is when we do a photo session.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Jamie muttered. “What is wrong with her?”

  “Not everyone’s cut out to be a mother,” I said.

  “She doesn’t have that luxury,” Jamie cried. “She has a child who’s depending on her.” Her face crumpled up and tears filled her eyes. “This could be damaging the baby’s development.”

  I hammered the nail in. “Yeah. She doesn’t seem as alert as my brothers were at the same age.”

  Jamie looked at me intently. I could see her internal deliberations, wondering if she could trust me. “I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Sure,” I said, keenly. “What is it?”

  “I ordered a DNA test,” she said. “If you’ll swab Maggie’s cheek, we can prove that she’s Brian’s child.”

  “And then what?” I asked, but I knew what. They would take the baby away.

  “We’ll try to work out some kind of custody arrangement with Freya and Max. We’re not trying to take Maggie away from them, but we’re her parents, too. We deserve to be a part of her life.”

  A big part, I hoped. “What if they won’t be reasonable?”

  “Then we’ll go to court,” Jamie said. “We’ll demand visitation rights. We might even sue them for custody.”

  Now she was talking. “I’ll do it,” I said, taking the plastic envelope she proffered. And then I smiled.

  “I just want the truth to come out. I just want what’s best for Maggie.”

  58

  I had ample opportunity to swab the baby’s cheek. In fact, once I was settled into the guest room, I spent hour upon hour alone with Maggie. My presence seemed to lift Freya out of her funk somewhat (a sign of her strong feelings toward me, surely), and she rejoined the world of the living. She still slept a lot, but she also went for mani-pedis and massages, and embarked on a series of laser treatments meant to firm sagging skin at the town’s only medi-spa. Her demeanor was decidedly improved. Though she still showed little interest in her daughter, she was no longer hostile toward her. She would tousle Maggie’s soft blond hair as she passed by, even hold her little hand and marvel at her beauty.

  “So pretty,” she’d mumble, like her child was an inanimate object, a ruby necklace or a Birkin bag. Then she’d say, “You two have a nice day!” and leave.

  Max was slightly more present, but he had returned to his previous habits: kayaking, running, riding his motorcycle… Sometimes he was gone for three or four hours, but he always returned and took the baby from me. He would talk to her and cuddle her, playing with this little stranger as if she were his own. But there was a wistful sadness on his face, even as he smiled and gurgled at the pretty child.

  I had collected Maggie’s DNA quickly and efficiently while Freya was being lasered and Max was on his motorbike. But the tube sat in my bag for over a week. I was eager to deliver it to Jamie, eager for her to prove that Maggie was Brian’s baby and take her away. She was a good baby—cheerful and unfussy—but she was still a baby. She still needed constant attention, still pooped, and puked, and screamed when she needed something. But I hadn’t had an opportunity to get away from the house.

  Since her parents could not be relied upon, I would have to bring Maggie with me. There was a newborn bucket car seat in the garage. I would strap the baby into my truck, load a bag with diapers and bottles and burp cloths and rattles, and then I would text Jamie and arrange a meeting. There was a small picnic area on the north side of the island’s only lake. The mosquitoes were bad out there this time of year, so it would be abandoned. It had better be. Because if anyone saw us, if anyone told Freya… The thought made my forehead sweat and my bowels loosen.

  Freya had warned me about Jamie. “There’s something you need to know.…”

  I knew everything, of course, but I looked at her with wide, innocent eyes, tilting my head like a curious puppy.

  “Jamie’s got this crazy idea that Maggie should live with her and Brian.”

  “Oh my god. Why?”

  “Because she’s delusional. And dangerous. You know she can’t get pregnant, so now she’s obsessed with my baby. You need to keep Maggie away from her. If she shows up here, call the police. And then call Max and me.”

  If Freya found out I’d taken the baby anywhere near Jamie, I’d be fired. And kicked out of her home. And banished from her life. And if she fo
und out I provided a sample of her daughter’s DNA… Well, I wasn’t sure what Freya was capable of. I just knew I had to be very careful.

  And then, one morning, Freya announced that she was going away.

  “Away where?” I demanded. Maggie wasn’t even a month old. Freya had only recently started leaving the house. Now she was taking a fucking vacation?

  “One of my old friends is having a bachelorette weekend in Sonoma.”

  “But all your old friends turned on you.”

  “She’s using me to bump up her Insta, but I don’t care. I really need a break from all of this.”

  All of what? I wanted to ask. I did everything around the house and everything for the baby. Freya spent her days getting massages and laser treatments. Now she needed wine tasting and fine dining? But I bit my tongue and fed Maggie a bottle while Freya packed.

  Max announced that he would take his wife to the airport on the mainland. “I’ll get the last ferry back tonight,” he said. “I’ll be home by seven.”

  “Fine,” I snapped, unable to keep the hurt out of my voice. I felt abandoned by them both. I felt like the hired help—which technically I was, but not for much longer.

  Max didn’t seem to notice. “Does Maggie have everything she needs? Diapers? Formula?”

  “She’ll be fine,” I grumbled.

  Freya hugged me goodbye at the door, long and tight. “Thanks for taking care of the baby.” She released me and held both my hands in hers. “Honestly, Low, if you weren’t here supporting me and helping me through all this, I’d probably kill myself.”

  Max picked up his wife’s suitcase. “Don’t say that.”

  She kept her eyes on me. “It’s true. I’d throw myself off a cliff into the ocean. I couldn’t take it. All the hormones and the baby’s crying and neediness. You’ve saved my life, hon. Literally.”

  If Max wasn’t hovering, watching us, she would have kissed me again. I could feel the energy between us, the pull of attraction. And my resentment melted away in the face of her tribute. How could I be angry when she was articulating every word I needed to hear? I was essential to her survival. She would die without me.