‘You heard what Ross said, it might help, in the long run.’
‘I know …’
Lou’s heart was racing, the familiar buzz of fear in her ears. She didn’t want to hear any more. She went back into her room and closed the door. She wanted to scream, to kick the door and punch the walls and bang her head on the floor and gouge at her eyes. What the hell was going on? She’d had enough of everyone: her parents for all the lying and hypocrisy; Theo for not looking after her; her so-called friends, who hadn’t bothered to interrupt their holiday to make sure she was OK. Her parents had just confirmed exactly what she’d always thought: that she was a big disappointment to them, a mess. Lou felt the pressure building inside her, but knew she had to hold it together. If she fell to pieces, her parents would drag her back to hospital and have her locked up.
But she couldn’t go on like this. They were keeping something from her. She had always known that there was something wrong with her family; it was a feeling that she’d been pushing away for as long as she could remember. Now, she needed to find the answer.
* * *
Lou didn’t have to wait long for her opportunity. The following weekend, on Saturday, her parents were getting ready to take her grandparents out for lunch. Lou had been surprised that it had only taken a day or two for her parents to thaw and start talking to her again. She suspected they’d called Ross for advice, or were feeling guilty for hiding this secret from her. The secret that she needed to uncover.
‘You sure you don’t want to come, Lou?’ Her dad put a coffee capsule in the machine, then reached up into a cupboard to hunt for his travel mug. ‘We’ll go up to the Boat Harbour, have lunch on the water there.’
Lou finished her mouthful of cereal and dropped her spoon into the bowl. ‘No thanks.’
He put his travel mug under the spout and switched on the machine. ‘It’ll be fun ….’ He smiled, raising his eyebrows.
Lou laughed. ‘You wish you could stay here too?’
He sighed. ‘Oh yes. But then your mother would kill me.’
‘I’m going to sort out all my school things, see what I can throw out now I’ve finished.’
‘Ah, so you’d rather tidy than come for a lovely lunch with your family. That says a lot.’ He winked.
Her mum came into the kitchen. ‘All right, time to go.’ She walked over to Lou and kissed the top of her head. ‘You’re sure you’ll be OK?’
‘Yes, Mum!’
Lou saw the hesitation in her mother’s eyes, the battle between trusting her and the fear that she shouldn’t, before she smiled and nodded. ‘OK. We won’t be more than a couple of hours.’
Her dad took the car keys from the table. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Have fun!’ Lou waggled her fingers. Her dad rolled his eyes, and then they left.
Lou listened to the car drive off. She waited another five minutes to make sure they weren’t going to come back for something they’d forgotten, then she went to the front door and put on the chain. If they came back to find it locked, she’d say that she’d heard a noise outside and been frightened. She took a deep breath. Did she really want to go looking? Part of her didn’t: what if she found something terrible? Then she could never go back. But it was already too late; there had always been a secret floating in the whispers around her. It was already between them all, and inside her, and she needed to know the truth. It was something to do with that photograph of her as a baby with her aunt.
Lou hesitated at the door to her parents’ room, then gently pushed it open. The bed was unmade, and her mother’s clothes were strewn across the rumpled blankets. Two pairs of her mum’s shoes were discarded on the floor; Lou stepped around them, careful not to move anything. She picked up the novel on her mum’s bedside table and flicked through it, but there was no photo tucked inside, just dog-eared pages. She kneeled down and looked under the bed; there was a single thong of her father’s, and a couple of socks, but nothing else. She stood up again, then walked to the built-in wardrobe and slid open the mirrored doors. The rails were stuffed with her dad’s business shirts and her mum’s dresses. There was a set of shelves at one end of the wardrobe. The lower shelves were filled with shoes and bags; the upper shelves were where her parents used to hide the birthday and Christmas presents. Lou peered up at the top shelf. She could see the brim of a straw hat, and the shimmering grey of a silk scarf. She stretched up and felt around the edge of the shelf with her hand. There, under the soft fabric, she felt something angular.
Her heart began to race. She dropped her arm and stood for a moment, clenching and unclenching her fists. It could be anything, she told herself, another shoebox. She walked over to the armchair in the corner of the room, noted its position exactly, then dragged it across to the wardrobe. She stepped up onto it, holding her hands out for balance as her feet sank into the soft seat cushion. Looking at the shelf, she could now see that the scarf was draped over the edge of something slightly larger than a shoebox. She slid the scarf aside. On the shelf was a box covered in turquoise fabric, its corners a little frayed and grubby. She’d never seen it before. On one end of the box was a small silver frame with a cardboard label. The black writing had faded, but it was still easily legible: Louise. She lifted the box out and sat down on the chair; then, before she could change her mind, she opened the lid.
The photograph was on top, of her aunt holding the baby. It was possible that it was Harry, Charlotte or Violet, and not herself at all; Lou had noted how similar the four of them looked in their baby photos. But she was certain that her first instinct was right and the baby was her. Anyway, the box had her name on it.
There were more pictures: one of Lou with her aunt and mum together, photos from a Christmas at her grandparents’ place when she was a tiny baby – probably her first Christmas. Nothing unusual. She picked up some dark strips of photographic paper with white pixelated images: ultrasound scans. She smiled. In some she had no idea what she was looking at, but in others she could see the outline of a face – it must be her own – in the womb. She’d never seen these before; they were amazing.
She put the scans down on the floor and kept looking through the box. Below the photos was a clear A4 plastic sleeve stuffed with papers. Lou slipped her hand inside and drew out the bundle. There was a birth certificate, folded into thirds. She’d seen her birth certificate plenty of times, she was sure of it. She had needed it when she applied for a passport for a school trip to New Zealand. She unfolded it anyway, then held her breath as she realised there were two, folded together. With trembling hands, she held the documents side by side. Both had her name on them. On one, in the spaces for the parents’ names, was written ‘Nadia Jane Boyd’ and ‘Edward George Boyd’. On the other, the names were ‘Zoe Mary McAllister’ and ‘Lachlan William McAllister’.
Lou stared in disbelief. How could she have two different birth certificates? And what were her aunt and uncle’s names doing on them? Lou rummaged frantically through the papers, no longer caring about keeping them in order as the whole messy truth was finally displayed before her. One letter from the plastic sleeve was headed ‘The Family Court of Western Australia’. Lou held it in both hands to try to keep it still as she read; then she let it fall.
She finally understood.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It seemed wrong to Zoe that Louise’s future was about to be decided and yet she wasn’t here; she was with a babysitter. Everyone else was here at the family court. When they’d been here for the parentage order, less than a year ago, the whole family had chatted and joked outside before they went in. But not today.
Zoe was sitting at the table on the right of the courtroom, in between Lachlan and their lawyer, Ravi. They had first been to see Ravi to draw up the surrogacy contracts; back then, everything had seemed so straightforward. When Nadia had instigated proceedings to take back Louise, Ravi had told Zoe and Lachlan that he had never heard of such a case in Perth before, and had certainly never dealt with one,
but that he – and the court – would treat it like any other custody case, that the issues were the same. This morning when he’d reassured them outside the court he’d seemed confident, but now he shuffled his papers and fidgeted. Zoe said nothing, unsure if the microphones on the table in front of them were turned on or recording.
Nadia and Eddie’s lawyer was an older man, stocky, with receding grey hair. He sat in the nearest seat at a table on the other side of the court, a mirror image of their own. Zoe’s view was partially blocked, but she could see that Nadia was next to him, and Eddie was at the end. Zoe felt strangely calm now that the day had arrived. There was nothing else she could do, and a sense of inevitability had taken over. It was surreal; she had never imagined that she and Nadia would be fighting over anything in a court, never mind a baby. She thought of her parents sitting behind them in the public gallery watching the two of them – children they had brought up together as sisters – tear the family apart. She didn’t want to turn around and see which side of the room they were sitting on. The middle, probably.
How would things be after today? Zoe had spent nights thinking about what would happen if Nadia won and took Louise home with her. She had sat on the floor of Louise’s room, watching her sleep, listening to her little breaths puff in and out of her open mouth, knowing that if Nadia won, she would have to forgive her, for Louise’s sake. It was no different to a custody dispute in a divorce. There was always acrimony between separating spouses, but eventually they worked things out and a new order was found. That was the story Zoe liked to tell herself anyway, that she would be mature and responsible; but recalling the terror that had periodically gripped her over the last few weeks, she wasn’t sure she would survive if she had to hand Louise over. She thought about how she had acted these past few weeks, refusing to let Nadia see Louise at all. Had she done the wrong thing? She did it for the right reasons, she knew – it would be too confusing for Louise to have two women trying to be her mother. But did it look wrong? Would it count against her?
A hush came over the room as the judge swept in, an older woman wearing black robes, red-framed glasses and a short wig. There was a scuffle of feet as everyone stood. Zoe took a deep breath, put her hands on the table in front of her and pushed herself up. The judge nodded slightly, then took her seat and looked out over the room as everyone else sat down too. Zoe’s heart pounded and she placed her hands flat on the table. Lachlan put his hand on her knee, and she could tell by the way he gripped it that he too was hanging on for dear life. Louise was waiting for them to come and take her home. What if they couldn’t? What if Zoe could never call herself Louise’s mum again? She felt sick. She wanted to stand up and run over to Nadia, get down on her knees and beg her, Please, please, don’t do this to me, to Louise. That was the one thing that she hadn’t tried, and now she wished she had. Though she doubted that it would change anything. She thought, not for the first time, that maybe she should have just accepted that she couldn’t have children, that there was a reason for it. Perhaps this was her punishment for trying to interfere with the natural order of things.
Her curse to bear.
* * *
Nadia turned her body slightly away from the centre of the courtroom and clasped Eddie’s hands. She needed to see the judge’s face as she spoke, but didn’t want to catch Zoe’s eyes. She couldn’t believe that they were all sitting here. This morning, as she had dressed in her grey skirt suit, then kissed the children goodbye when her friend came to take them to school, she had almost picked up the phone and called the whole thing off. As the court date had approached, the little doubts that she’d been pushing away had grown stronger. It wasn’t that she doubted that she wanted Louise, not at all. But Rosemary’s accusations had stuck with her. Was this really the right thing for Louise, or the right thing for her? Nadia missed Louise terribly, but she also knew that she and Zoe were as stubborn as each other. And as Zoe had continued to refuse to let her see Louise, so Nadia in turn had hardened in her resolve. If only Zoe had been more reasonable, maybe she would have changed her mind this morning. She might even have gone along with the myth that Lachlan was getting better now he was in treatment, but for that, she needed to see Louise for herself, and Zoe wouldn’t allow that, and wouldn’t even talk to her or attend mediation. Zoe had forced her to go through with this. What other choice did Nadia have? To have absolutely no contact with her biological child? To never be allowed to go to Louise’s birthday parties or spend Christmas with her? How was that fair?
Eddie was looking past her at the other table, where Zoe and Lachlan sat. She squeezed his hands slightly; he raised his eyebrows at her, then smiled. She knew he had doubts, many more than she had. She didn’t blame him: Louise wasn’t his baby, after all. He and Lachlan were – or had been – mates, and she knew Eddie felt bad about depriving him of the right to be a father. But what about Louise’s right to be happy and safe and secure? And what about Nadia’s rights, as Louise’s biological mother? She thought back to the last time they’d been here in court, of the papers she’d signed then, giving up her rights as a mother. But she knew now that this was far more complicated than words on a document, an order in a court; her primal need to protect her child was far more powerful.
The judge took off her glasses and held them in one hand as she looked out over the courtroom and introduced herself and the case. She slid some papers across her bench in a long row, then put her glasses back on and began to read from them.
* * *
The judge had finished her introduction. Zoe had listened to her summary of their lives, the turmoil of the past four years, the assessments, the surrogacy approval, the artificial insemination, the pregnancy, the birth, and how it had all started to go wrong. Zoe knew that it had gone wrong long before the night Lachlan pushed her. The psychological assessments during the surrogacy approval process had said they were all mature, resilient, aware of the risks. But she knew how easy it would have been for Nadia to lie – to Eddie, the psychologist, and herself. After all, Zoe was guilty of that too, lying to herself about her feelings towards Lachlan, and telling him that she didn’t blame him for them all sitting here today, when really she knew that a big part of her did.
The judge held up some papers. ‘I have received a report from Mr McAllister’s treating psychiatrist, Dr Simon Lorenzo, in which he details his diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder; major depressive disorder, in remission; and alcohol abuse, also in remission. He has helpfully outlined Mr McAllister’s ongoing symptoms of low mood, irritability, nightmares and anxiety. One of the applicants’ main concerns is Louise’s safety, particularly with regard to Mr McAllister’s history of domestic violence and ongoing mental health issues.’ Zoe sensed Lachlan tensing, retreating into himself.
‘Against this, I also have a number of character and employment references demonstrating his previously unblemished history. In addition, his psychiatrist reports that since seeking help, Mr McAllister has been compliant with all recommended treatment and Dr Lorenzo does not feel that he is a risk to either himself or others. He feels that this episode of domestic violence was likely to have been an isolated incident in response to extreme stress and intoxication.’
Zoe glanced at Lachlan; he was looking down at his hands, blinking hard. She thought back to their conversation on the beach, as they watched the water slowly rise over the statue of C.Y. O’Connor and his horse. Lachlan had kept so much hidden from her over the past year; she wondered what he had told his psychiatrist.
‘However, in considering the best interests of the child, Louise, mental illness and a violent history in a parent does have to be taken into account. Furthermore, the applicants claim that Mrs McAllister is unable to provide the appropriate environment for the child. They refer to Mrs McAllister absconding with Louise and refusing to tell anyone where she was, as well as her medical illness, systemic lupus erythematosus.’ The judge stumbled over the words, then looked at Zoe, an apologetic expression on her face.
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‘There does not seem to be any evidence that Louise was at risk when Mrs McAllister disappeared with her, and she did inform her parents that they were safe. In the context of the domestic violence, I can accept the respondent’s explanation that she was frightened and trying to keep her child safe. However, I share the applicants’ concern that this was a rash action that could be distressing for a child, to take her suddenly from her home environment and family. The situation became further confused when she allowed her husband – from whom she was apparently fleeing – to stay with them, and soon afterwards allowed him to return to the family home.
‘Regarding her illness, I have here reports from Mrs McAllister’s rheumatology specialist, Dr Ian Shelley, detailing her long medical history and treatment. He notes that her condition is currently stable, but that her illness is one that can flare up. However, he does note that her illness, while being the primary reason for her infertility and need to use a surrogate and egg donor, is not currently causing any disability that would affect her ability to parent Louise effectively.’
Zoe exhaled, then reached out and gently touched Lachlan’s shoulder. He was motionless, and she knew that he was bracing himself. She willed him, through her touch, to come back to her, to the present. They had to face this together.
* * *
As she listened to the judge’s words, Nadia couldn’t work out whose side she was on. On one hand, she agreed with all Nadia’s concerns, but then she seemed to override them with whatever nonsense Zoe had fed the court. And of course Zoe and Lachlan’s doctors would write favourable reports: they had to support their patients. They had only heard one side of the story. Was this bias allowed?
‘Turning to the reports from the family consultant …’ The judge slid another document over in front of her. ‘This is where the difficulty arises, because both families have a very warm and engaging manner with Louise, and either set of parents would provide a loving home for her.’
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