Nadia looked at Eddie, panic in her eyes. The judge was wrong: Lachlan was mentally ill, violent. He couldn’t provide a loving home for Louise.
The judge went on: ‘I note that despite our family consultant’s best attempts to find a solution through mediation, Mrs McAllister refused to attend, saying that she did not want to find a middle ground but rather wanted full custody of Louise.’
Nadia let out a big breath: that had to count against Zoe.
‘This case is particularly complex given the surrogacy arrangement, the fact that a legal parentage order is in place, and the fact that Louise has a biological parent in each of the two families seeking custody. Overall, the family court must decide what is in the best interests of Louise’s welfare. That is two-fold: the opportunity for Louise to have a meaningful relationship with both biological parents, and the need to protect her from any physical or psychological harm.
‘Turning to the first issue. Louise’s biological mother, Mrs Boyd, and biological father, Mr McAllister, have been unable to come to an agreement about custody. The reports indicate that Louise’s primary attachment is to Mrs McAllister. I do also take into account that the Boyds have three older children, who are biological half-siblings of Louise. It is in her interests to have an ongoing relationship with as many biological relations as possible.’
Nadia let herself smile just a little, though she couldn’t take her eyes off the judge.
‘Now to the second issue: this need to protect her from harm has been the trigger for the Boyd family to seek the overturning of the parentage order and the return of Louise to their legal custody. The issue of abuse is pertinent, as exposing a child to domestic violence is something that the family court takes extremely seriously. I do also have concerns about Mrs McAllister’s refusal to allow Louise to see the Boyds, though I take the view that Louise is not at significant risk of abuse or neglect in her current living situation.
‘In taking all these factors into account, I have thought long and hard about how to proceed. Louise’s life has been complex to date, but it appears that the McAllisters are reaching stability now. Mr McAllister is no longer drinking, is on medication and is undergoing therapy, and otherwise has been of exemplary character, and I don’t believe that it would be in the best interests of Louise to upset her life further by discharging the parentage order and taking her away from either her father or the woman she sees as her mother.’
Nadia opened her mouth as if to protest, but said nothing. She didn’t look over to the other table, although she could sense the jubilation. She grasped Eddie’s hand.
‘However,’ the judge continued, ‘I do feel that Louise should be able to maintain a meaningful relationship with her biological mother and her biological half-siblings. Where reasonably practicable, Louise should spend every second weekend and half of her holiday periods with the Boyds. Also, the McAllisters and the Boyds have equal, shared parental responsibility for significant long-term decisions relating to Louise’s life. There must be a genuine effort on both sides to reach a consensus on areas of dispute.’
Nadia felt Eddie’s grip on her hand tighten, but wasn’t sure if it was a gesture of support or of warning. This must be what it feels like for divorced fathers, she thought, to be told they were an equal parent and yet only to be allowed to see their children every couple of weeks, until they slipped further and further out of their childen’s lives. Every second weekend, what kind of relationship was that? She wanted Louise to be part of her family. Her eyes began to sting. She’d made everything worse. Before all this, she could see Louise as much as she wanted – at least a few times a week. Louise knew her, smiled and held out her arms to her. Now, Zoe would probably only let her see Louise on the days written in the court orders, no more. Her relationship with Louise would be framed by strict boundaries, instead of spontaneous moments. She turned towards Eddie and leaned into him.
He held her and murmured in her ear, ‘Nadia, this is good. We still get to see her. We’re still a part of her life.’
Nadia shook her head in his embrace. It wasn’t good at all.
* * *
Zoe almost collapsed with relief when the judge said that Louise would remain with her and Lachlan, even if it meant that Nadia and Eddie had access visits. She grabbed Lachlan’s hand, then looked over her shoulder for her mum. Rosemary grinned and gave her the thumbs-up. Zoe turned towards Lachlan; he looked back at her, his eyes damp. She smiled, trying to tell him that everything was OK now.
Then she looked over at the other table, where her sister was embracing Eddie. She tried to imagine how Nadia was feeling. Zoe had thought that she wouldn’t care how Nadia was, that she never wanted to see her again, but as she considered the judge’s words, she accepted that this was the best thing for Louise. In some ways, it was what Zoe had imagined it would be like from the beginning: being Louise’s mum but sharing the delight of watching Louise grow into a young woman with Nadia, who had done such an amazing and selfless thing. It was a pity that they’d had to go to court to enforce that.
Over the past few weeks, Zoe hadn’t been able to bear the thought of Nadia having any time alone with Louise. Now, though, she felt secure that Louise would always see Zoe as her mum, and would always come home to her and Lachlan. She thought about what Louise would be doing now, at home. She’d be getting hungry for her lunch, missing her mum and dad. Zoe looked back at the judge and smiled at her; the judge smiled back.
They all stood up as the judge left the court, and then the room filled with noise: laughter, crying, chatter. Lachlan’s and Eddie’s parents were there too, shaking hands and patting each other on the back.
As the judge left the court, Zoe put her arms around Lachlan’s neck and they held each other. ‘I can’t believe it, Lach. I can’t believe it!’ She could feel his body shaking, but hers was too. She pulled back and looked at him. ‘It’s all going to be OK, babe!’
He nodded, then wiped away his own tears and grinned. ‘Thank God.’
Rosemary and Martin appeared beside them and hugged them both. ‘I’m so glad it’s over,’ Rosemary said.
Martin nodded. ‘We all are.’ He smiled at Zoe, then at Lachlan, then glanced to his left. ‘Excuse me, I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Rosemary said, and Zoe watched as they walked over to Nadia and Eddie.
‘What should we do?’ Zoe said quietly. ‘Should we go over too?’
Lachlan sighed. ‘Yes, we should.’ He took her hand. ‘Come on.’
She didn’t move. ‘What will I say, though? Maybe it’s not the right time, it’ll be too hard for her.’
He shook his head and started to lead her gently towards her sister. ‘Come on. We’re going to have to do it sometime. Let’s get it over with, for Louise’s sake.’
Zoe took a deep breath and nodded. Her elation was gone now, replaced with the same feeling she’d had when she first took Louise from Nadia’s arms in the hospital: guilt.
* * *
Nadia hugged her dad tightly and sobbed as he stroked her hair. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he whispered. ‘But Louise is so lucky that you both love her so much.’
‘But it’s not enough, Dad!’ Nadia knew she was being selfish, pathetic, but she couldn’t help it, and right now she didn’t care.
Rosemary put her arm around Nadia’s shoulders. ‘We’ll make it work, Nadia, as a family. We’re all in this together, we all love Louise.’
‘You heard what the judge said,’ Martin added. ‘Louise can stay weekends with you and the kids, and the holidays, and you’ll still see her at all the usual family times!’
‘Zoe won’t let me, Dad.’ Nadia looked up at him through her tears.
‘Yes, I will.’
Nadia froze and then turned to look at Zoe, who was standing just behind her, holding Lachlan’s hand. Had she come to gloat?
‘Nadia, I know how you feel, I’m sorry you —’
Nadia narrowed her eyes. ‘You don’t
know how I feel at all.’
Zoe shook her head. ‘You’re wrong. I know you don’t believe this, but I feel the same way about Louise as you do.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like to carry a child, give birth to her, and then hand her over!’
Zoe bit her lip, then glanced at Lachlan before talking softly to Nadia. ‘You’re right, I don’t. I never will. But I can’t keep living my life with this terror that you’re going to snatch her away from me, this feeling that I’m indebted to you and that I’m on borrowed time with Louise. I’ve been with her since the day – the moment – she was born, I am her mother.’ She began to cry. ‘I’ve missed you, Nadia, and Louise has too. This is going to be hard for everyone, but we’ll work it all out.’
‘It’s easy for you to say that, because she’s with you!’
‘She’s always been with us,’ Lachlan said, stepping forward. ‘We’re all she knows.’
Nadia glared at Lachlan. ‘Just because you’re all she knows doesn’t mean it’s right.’
‘Nadia,’ Martin said. ‘Come on, now isn’t the time. It’s done, finished. This is about Louise. She needs all of us.’
Nadia let out a sob and covered her face with her hands. She felt someone touch her shoulder; when she managed to catch her breath again she opened her eyes. It was Zoe, crying too. Nadia knew her father was right, that this was about the child that they all so desperately loved and wanted, but that didn’t stop her from feeling as if a part of her body had been wrenched out from inside her. But she didn’t pull away from Zoe, just let her hand rest on her shoulder for a moment, until Zoe gently removed it and took a step back. She stood beside Lachlan as he held his hand out towards Eddie. The men shook hands, silent, and then Zoe and Lachlan walked away with their arms around each other.
* * *
Later that afternoon, Nadia was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, when the doorbell rang. She thought about pretending she wasn’t home, but Eddie’s footsteps were already clomping along the hallway. She sat up, trying to compose herself. She heard voices murmuring; a moment later her dad appeared in the doorway of the bedroom.
‘You OK?’ he said quietly.
She shrugged. ‘I just want to forget about this morning.’
Eddie put his head in the door. ‘I’m going to take the kids down to the river for a play, OK?’
Martin turned and clasped his shoulder. ‘Thanks, Eddie. Nadia, I’ll help get them ready, then I’ll wait out the back for you.’
Nadia nodded. She listened to the thumps and squeals as the kids got their shoes on, then the front door closed. After this morning, all she wanted to do was hide away, but she knew her dad meant well, so she forced herself to get up off the bed and walk outside.
The garden felt strangely quiet to Nadia, as though all the noises were coming from very far away. The birds chattered, whistled and cooed; a bus hissed by on the road; a lawnmower droned, sounding as natural as the pitter-patter of the gum leaves landing on the tin roof and the bees humming around the daisy bush. But none of these sounds was able to impinge on her sense of detachment.
Martin stood facing the back fence, twisting the grapevine tendrils through the gaps in the wood. As Nadia approached, he turned, then smiled at her sadly.
She looked at the ground. ‘Do you want something to drink?’
He gestured to the bench. ‘No. Let’s sit down.’
They sat on opposite ends of the garden bench, looking at the sagging net of the trampoline. ‘What is it, Dad?’ she asked.
‘How are you, really?’
She put out an entreating hand. ‘Not now. Please.’
‘Don’t keep it all inside, Nadia. I’ve seen what this has been doing to you, your marriage, to your kids.’
‘The kids are fine.’
‘You’re lucky. They’re good kids,’ he said.
Nadia rubbed her face. ‘I know, OK! I know I have three great children, I’m sick of everyone telling me that! You want to know how I am? Sometimes I wish I had never agreed to do this, any of it. I wish I had just left things the way they were.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I do. I was happy. I’m not now.’
He put his hand on her arm. ‘But think about Louise. She’s perfect. If you hadn’t been a surrogate, she wouldn’t exist.’
‘But then everyone would be happy.’
‘Not Zoe. You know, Nadia, sometimes we have to sacrifice ourselves, our own needs, for our children.’ Martin leaned back and looked up at the sky.
‘Like my mum?’ Nadia whispered, glancing at him. The few times over the years she had tried to talk to her dad about Hilary, he had looked away, his eyes haunted as they were now, and changed the subject. And so she had stopped asking.
When he spoke again, the grief caught in his throat and made his voice rasp. ‘I should have talked to you about this a long time ago.’
‘It’s all in the past, it doesn’t matter.’ She knew it did, though.
‘It does. All this, you know, with Louise, it’s made me realise how much it does matter.’
Nadia waited for him to go on, frightened that if she said anything, he’d stop.
Martin spoke quietly. ‘Your mum, you were all she thought about. Even before you were born, she put you above everyone: me, herself … By the time I found out, it was just too late, the cancer was too advanced. More treatment wasn’t going to make any difference to her.’
Nadia couldn’t help herself. ‘I just wish I hadn’t had to grow up without a mum.’
Martin put his hands flat on his knees. Nadia saw the tremor in his splayed fingers. ‘No one can ever replace her, I know that, but I always tried, and Rosemary did her best …’
‘I know that, Dad.’
His voice had softened now. ‘I never wanted to tell you this, but I think it’s important for you to know. Your mother knew she had cancer. She didn’t tell anyone, not even me. She left it too late, too bloody late, until there was nothing they could do.’
‘What?’ Nadia felt sick.
‘I remember the day she told me. You were a few weeks old, three weeks maybe. You were screaming, she was trying to breastfeed you, but you wouldn’t feed from one side and the other side was empty. She just started sobbing, begging you to drink her milk. I took you from her, but she wouldn’t stop crying. She took my hand and put it on her chest, and told me to feel.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I didn’t know what she was talking about, and then she put her hand on top of mine and pressed my fingers onto it. A lump. It was big, craggy, hard, and then she lifted her shirt and I saw that the skin above it was puckered and dimpled. She said nothing, just looked at me, but we both knew what it meant. I tried to reassure us both, said that it was probably just the breastfeeding, an infection or something …’
Martin cleared his throat and paused. Nadia waited.
He went on, his voice almost a whisper. ‘When she had fallen pregnant, she had been sore, you know, in her breasts, and one day in the shower, she had felt the lump, like a piece of gravel under her skin. She ignored it, but it got bigger. Her mum – your grandma – had died from breast cancer. Your mum wasn’t stupid. She knew.’
Nadia could barely breathe for the dread building in her. Stop, Dad, she wanted to say. Don’t tell me.
‘She didn’t tell anyone. She thought that if she did, she’d have to choose between the pregnancy – you – and her own life. She thought she’d have you first, and then get treatment. From the moment she knew she was pregnant, you were real to her, and she would do anything to make sure that you … that you were born, no matter what it meant for her.’
Nadia visualised the photograph of her mother holding her as an infant. The smile on her face, the joy, the relief. How she wished she could remember her touch, her voice. She took a deep breath. ‘Dad …’
He held up his hand. ‘Let me finish. I drove her to the emergency department that day. By now, we were both frantic. She’d held onto this fear for the best pa
rt of a year all by herself, locked it away in a little compartment inside herself and wouldn’t let it out until you were safe. All I could think about as we waited for the surgeon to arrive, and when they told us that they needed to start the tests that day, was how scared she must have been the whole time. She should have told me. I was so angry that she hadn’t told me, hadn’t let me share her fear or do something about it.’
Nadia’s whole body shook as she thought about her father as a young man, himself a new dad, how he must have felt that day. What would he have done if he’d known about the cancer earlier? Would he have forced Hilary to seek help, to save herself over their unborn child? What was more important? A wife, a marriage, or the potential of another, different love, of a child in whom you will live on?
Martin pursed his lips and exhaled. ‘Anyway. We tried then. But it was too late. She had the lot: surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy. She was so bloody sick from the treatment that she couldn’t even hold you. So she decided enough was enough. The doctors were honest – they said the treatment might give her a bit more time, but no cure. She decided that spending every second she could with you, laughing and happy, was better than having a few more months but not being able to enjoy them.’
Nadia shook her head. ‘Oh, Dad. I don’t know what to say. I … I didn’t know. I’m sorry …’
Martin turned towards her and clutched her hands. ‘No, no, don’t ever say sorry. Don’t ever apologise. You were just a baby, tiny, you didn’t have any say in this. I was furious with her when she died, for leaving me alone, but I know now that she knew I wouldn’t be alone. She made her decision, and as much as I wish she was here, I know that in you, she is. Every day. All I want is for you to be happy, to enjoy every moment of being a mother. Don’t tear yourself apart. I can’t tell you what to do about Louise, but just think about what you want for her and all your kids. I know you love her; Zoe does too. We all do. Just don’t waste a moment with them, moments that your mother would have given anything for. It doesn’t matter how Louise got here. She’s been loved from the instant she was even thought about, as were you.’
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