As she closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower, Zoe allowed herself to cry silently. Louise deserved better than this. She deserved the mum and dad who had wanted her so much, who had done everything in their power to have her, not parents torn apart by hostility. Louise had been conceived out of love, out of hope and good intentions, but was the very way in which she had entered the world the thing that would break up her family?
Zoe took off her nightclothes and old knickers then glanced at them discarded on the floor. She must look a fright. This breakdown in their marriage wasn’t all Lachlan’s fault; she’d stopped trying to make an effort for him too. She stepped into the shower and let the hot water scald her skin until her shoulders were pink. Then the water pressure fell and the trickle of water turned cold. Of all the times that Lachlan decided to help, it was when she was in the shower. He knew that turning on the kitchen tap shut off the hot water to the bathroom. Zoe banged her fist into the tiled wall.
‘Lachlan!’ she shouted, though she knew he wouldn’t hear her. ‘The water!’
She took some deep breaths. She had to get control of herself; she was falling to pieces. Was he really the problem, or was she? He wasn’t the only man who never did the washing, and he did stay home all day with Louise. She turned off the water, still a cold trickle, then stepped out to get ready for the zoo.
* * *
A few weeks later, Zoe leaned her elbows on the desk in the treatment room, a small area off the corridor at the back of the ward, and cradled her head in her arms. She closed her eyes but that just made her feel more dizzy. The sounds around her were muffled. She could hear a baby crying from somewhere down the corridor, and a phone ringing, and a high-pitched pager going off, and some laughter, but all the sounds merged into one noise that faded and amplified in time with the pounding blows in her head.
She opened her eyes, stood up slowly, then staggered towards the medication cupboard above the sink. She unlocked it and found some paracetamol, then ran the tap and cupped her shaking hand under the lukewarm water. One of the tablets stuck to the base of her tongue and the bitter powder began to dissolve. She gagged, then leaned over the sink and retched, bringing up the one tablet she had managed to get down. Sweat dripped down her face. She wanted to lie on the floor and cry, but she still had hours left of her shift. She turned the cold tap on full to wash the tablet down the sink, and splashed her face with the tepid water.
‘God, Zoe, are you OK?’
The voice behind her made her jump; she hadn’t heard anyone come in.
Zoe grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser above the sink and blotted her face, hoping that her make-up hadn’t run everywhere. She turned around and saw one of the other nurses, Mei, frowning at her.
‘Yeah. No … just a migraine.’
‘You look terrible.’ Mei steered Zoe over to the examining couch and sat her down.
‘I was just trying to take some painkillers.’
‘Sit there, I’ll get you some. Do you get a lot of migraines?’
Zoe shook her head. She used to get headaches, but nothing like this. Mei didn’t know about the lupus; Zoe hadn’t told many people at work. She had learned as a teenager that people treated you differently when they knew you had a chronic illness. Every headache or rash became a relapse. She knew that she needed to call her rheumatologist. This was probably just a migraine, but it could be something so much worse: her kidneys failing, the lupus attacking her brain. She couldn’t afford to be sick, not now. Not with Lachlan out of work. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She hadn’t felt well when she woke up this morning, but had thought it was just exhaustion. Lachlan had been so restless during the night, tossing and turning; he eventually got up and went to watch TV on the couch, but she still hadn’t been able to sleep. She was so tired. Tired of not sleeping, tired of worrying, tired of feeling torn between Louise and work and Lachlan, tired of having to work as well as organise everything at home.
She shook her head. ‘Sorry, I’ll be OK in a minute.’ But she couldn’t stop crying.
Mei pulled a few tissues from the box on the counter and handed the wad to her. ‘I think you need to go home.’
Zoe wiped her eyes. ‘No, I’ll be fine. It’s just this damn headache.’ But she had barely finished the sentence before the tears began to fall again. She hated for others to see her like this. She must look a mess. ‘Sorry, I’m not usually … I’ll be OK, seriously, just give me a few minutes.’
‘No,’ Mei said. ‘I’ll tell Liz, we’ll manage for the rest of the shift. You need to go home and lie down.’
Zoe thought of home, thought of closing the door of her bedroom and crawling under the blankets, and knew it was all she wanted to do. Relief soaked through her. ‘I just feel bad leaving you all to cover for me.’
‘Don’t be stupid. I’ll close this door behind me so you can make yourself look pretty, then just go, I’ll sort it out.’
Zoe looked up through her tears. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes! Stop arguing!’
Zoe nodded and sniffed. ‘OK, thanks.’
Mei left and closed the door behind her. Zoe reached into the pocket of her work pants and took out her mobile. Lachlan answered straight away; Zoe was so relieved to hear his voice.
‘I don’t feel well,’ she sobbed.
‘Oh no, what’s wrong?’ He sounded tense.
‘A migraine or something, I don’t know. I hope it’s nothing else. I … can you come and get me? I don’t want to get the bus home.’ The thought of standing out in public waiting for a bus, then sitting next to a stranger made Zoe want to weep anew.
‘Yes, of course.’
Zoe let out a sigh. ‘Thank you. When can you come?’
‘Are you ready to go now?’
‘Yes.’ Zoe knew her voice was as high as a child’s, but that was what she felt like. She wanted someone to look after her for a change. ‘I’m sorry, I know it’s almost time for Louise’s lunch, but —’
‘It’s fine. I’ll leave now, I’ll be about fifteen minutes. I’ll pick you up out the front?’
‘Yes, thanks, I’ll be there.’
Zoe put the phone back in her pocket. To get out of the building, she would have to walk past everyone: the patients and their parents, the other nurses, the doctors. She couldn’t go out there like this. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples, as if she could squeeze the pain out of her head, and counted her breaths slowly until she began to feel calmer. Standing up, she washed her face again, then patted it dry and opened the door. She kept her head down as she grabbed her bag from the nurses’ station, and didn’t look up as she hurried out of the ward.
Outside, she sat on a bench at the front of the hospital, feeling the damp seeping into her pants. There were small puddles at the side of the road from the autumn showers. She breathed in, and leaned her head back to let the breeze cool her face. Her head still thumped, but the tightness around her temples was starting to slacken. She took her phone out of her pocket again and looked at the time: it had been ten minutes since she’d called Lachlan. He’d be here soon.
A horn beeped; Zoe looked up and saw their car in the ambulance bay. She smiled, then knew she was going to cry again. Was it relief? Or did she want to make sure that Lachlan knew she wasn’t faking it and that she needed him to look after her?
Zoe dropped her phone in her bag, stood up and ran the few steps to the car. She opened the door, flung her bag in, then sat down and closed the door.
Lachlan glanced in the rear-view mirror, then drove out of the ambulance bay. ‘You OK?’ he asked, his forehead furrowed in concern.
Zoe nodded and burst into tears. ‘I just feel horrible … Sorry, I shouldn’t.’ She wiped her eyes then turned around and looked into the empty baby seat. ‘Where’s Louise?’
Lachlan glanced at her. ‘Nadia’s got her.’ He indicated right and leaned forward to peer over the steering wheel, beginning to edge the car out into the traffic.
‘She was already with her,’ he said casually.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nadia dropped in this morning, offered to take her to the park.’
Zoe couldn’t breathe. ‘I didn’t know that. You never told me …’
Lachlan frowned. ‘You were at work. I didn’t think there was anything to tell.’
Zoe had stopped crying now and was looking at him with dawning dread. ‘Has this happened before?’
‘What? Yes, a couple of times. It’s no big deal.’ He accelerated hard and turned right, then settled back in his seat as the traffic eased. ‘Do you want to go somewhere for lunch?’
‘Lunch? I … Lachlan, I’m really sick, I just want to go home.’
‘I thought maybe it’d make you feel better, it’d be nice to have lunch out, without the baby.’
‘I just want to go and get Louise,’ Zoe said, her teeth gritted. He clearly didn’t think there was an issue. Did he think that inviting her out to lunch would justify his actions?
‘Jesus, Zoe, she’s with Nadia, she’s fine.’
‘But she shouldn’t be with Nadia, she should be with you. The only thing that’s been keeping me going at work is knowing that she’s with her father. I don’t want Nadia looking after her!’
‘She is with me! It’s just a couple of hours – you’re overreacting, babe.’
‘God, Lachlan, you’re so … self-absorbed recently. Can’t you understand why I wouldn’t want Nadia looking after our baby? Do I have to spell it out?’
Lachlan glared at her. Zoe stared back, challenging him to respond, then looked out the windscreen. ‘Watch where you’re going.’
‘I’m —’
‘Just look where you’re bloody driving, Lachlan!’
He clenched his jaw and looked forward. ‘You’re being ridiculous, Zoe.’
Zoe sank down in her seat. She wanted to open the door and jump out of the car, get away from him. She was so tired and hated working, but when Lachlan had the opportunity to spend all his time with his daughter, he palmed her off to the last person in the world who should be looking after her. And why had he kept it a secret? What did he have to hide? What did they talk about while she was dealing with dying kids and their distraught parents? She could picture them, Lachlan and Nadia, having morning tea while their child, Louise, played at their feet. A picture of a happy family. Surely not? Was that what this was all about – Lachlan and Nadia? She dismissed it; she trusted Lachlan. And Nadia. Zoe hated this feeling; she knew it too well. Was she merely jealous, though? That implied some fault on her part; it was an ugly word for an ugly person. Zoe was just trying to protect her family. She wasn’t the one keeping secrets.
She looked out of the window. What did she have to do before Lachlan woke up and saw how she was feeling? What kind of a state would she have to be in before he’d show her that he loved her, cared about her? She sniffed hard and wiped her eyes again, not sure that he cared about her at all.
She remembered reading once that a relationship was most likely to break down in the first year after having a baby. At the time she hadn’t believed it, never imagining that having a new child could be anything but bliss. Yes, there would be hard situations, but surely having a child together would be the thing that brought you closer as a couple, that took your marriage to a deeper level? There was a baby who needed you both – wasn’t that enough to keep you together? It was for her; why not for Lachlan?
He was driving in the direction of home now. Zoe stared straight ahead. ‘I take it we’re not going for lunch then?’ She knew she was being unreasonable, but she wanted to provoke him, to force him to engage with her.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and didn’t look at her. ‘No. You made it quite clear you didn’t want to.’
Zoe’s lower lip trembled. ‘Well, if it’s all right with you, I’m going straight to bed. I’m sure you can manage to feed Louise and get her down when Nadia brings her back.’
‘Fine.’
Zoe pressed her lips together tightly and held her head in her left hand against the passenger window. She thought about Louise, and what she and Nadia were doing together right now. As they drove over the bridge to Fremantle, she saw the huge ships packed full of sheep bleating in distress. She looked beyond them, to the fishing boats motoring out the neck of the Swan River into the Indian Ocean, and the ferry sailing to Rottnest Island, where there was space, air, room to breathe.
Chapter Eighteen
It was the fourth meeting that Nadia had attended. The relinquishing mothers group met on the second Thursday of the month, always at the same time – ten am – always in the same church hall. Nadia no longer felt like the new girl. She looked forward to the hour that she spent with Tracey and the other women, because with them, she didn’t need to explain herself. They managed to put into words everything she was feeling.
Eddie didn’t know she came here; no one did. He’d gone back to normal life: the meetings and emails and dinners and squash games and Saturday morning kids’ sports, as if nothing had ever happened, as if the last four years since this whole surrogacy started were irrelevant. He rarely talked about Louise, and he never asked Nadia how she was doing. Eddie – and everyone else – just assumed that she had moved on. But that had been their deal, Nadia reminded herself. Just the pregnancy, then it was over. Then they’d get back to normal and no one else in the family would suffer. And she was trying her best to stick to that.
Tracey closed the wooden doors and Nadia settled back in her chair with her paper cup of tea. She drew her thin cardigan around herself – the weather was cooling as autumn edged towards winter – and smiled at the three women already seated; they smiled back. She knew very little about them, other than their regrets at having lost their children, yet she felt close to them, knowing that they all kept the same secrets from their family and friends.
‘Good morning, ladies,’ Tracey said. ‘And how are we all today?’
Nadia smiled, mumbled ‘good’ along with the others, then Jill, one of the women in the group, began. She was trying to find her son; she’d only been sixteen when he was born. She’d been unmarried, unemployed, and poorly educated. Not good mother material at all, according to the nuns who persuaded her that her infant son would be better off with another family.
‘I’ve got all the paperwork to start the search,’ Jill said, ‘but I can’t bring myself to send it in.’ She reached into her handbag and took out an envelope, addressed and stamped. ‘It’s in here, but I just can’t seem to drop it in the postbox.’
‘What are you scared of, Jill?’ asked Tracey. Everyone in the room knew the answer.
‘I’m scared that he won’t want to see me. I’m scared he’ll reject me, that he’ll be angry at me. That he’ll think I was too weak to fight for him, or that I didn’t love him enough. And if I don’t send it, then I can keep the fantasy in my head that when we meet, he’ll run into my arms and we’ll have a relationship. But if I send it, I risk losing all hope and being worse off than I am now.’
‘But you cry for him every day, Jill, you told us last time,’ Tracey said softly, leaning forwards in her chair. ‘Can it get any worse than it is now?’
Jill blew her nose on a paper tissue while they continued the discussion. Nadia said nothing, but struggled to keep herself from breaking down too. It was impossible not to feel Jill’s anguish; it was the same pain that Nadia felt.
When it was her turn, Nadia put her tea down on the floor, then updated them on the past month. ‘I’ve been seeing more of Louise recently. So I’m glad we moved here, even though it’s been tough on the kids starting a new school. They’ve been acting up a bit, especially Violet, my middle child. She’s been so demanding of my time. I had hoped Eddie would be around more with us living clos
er to the city, but, well …’ She broke off. ‘Anyway. The good thing is that I’ve been able to spend more time with Louise. Lachlan – her dad – has been letting me take her out on my own while Zoe’s at work, just for an hour here and there. I take her to the park, or for a walk, or we go to my house for a snack. It’s been …’ She thought about the times with Louise. How could she explain the feeling she had when she was with her? ‘It’s been wonderful,’ she said. ‘I can’t describe it other than to say that it feels as if everything’s right and it’s exactly how it should be.’
‘As if you fit together perfectly?’ one of the women said.
Nadia nodded, thinking of the way Louise was once tucked up tight in her belly, a perfect fit. ‘Yes. Exactly. That’s why this is all so hard. I tell myself it’s wrong, that she’s not mine any more, but when I see her, it’s as if she is one of my children.’
‘That’s because she is,’ Jill said.
There were murmurs of agreement from the group and Nadia looked round at them all, nodding a little. She knew that they were encouraging her relationship with Louise, because in Nadia, they saw the chance that they never had. But she also knew that they were biased, that this was a group of women who hadn’t been able to forget and move forward – the women who had got on with their lives, maybe the majority, were out there living happily. That was one of the reasons why she hadn’t told Eddie that she’d been coming here; she knew what he’d say. He’d say that she was just prolonging her grief by talking about how hard it was and reliving the trauma through women who’d had no choice but to completely let go. Perhaps he was right. Was the relationship she had now with Louise enough? She saw her at least a couple of times a week. Lachlan seemed uninterested in Louise a lot of the time, only too happy for Nadia to spend time alone with her. But handing her back was like torture.
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