Lou felt the sun beating down on her shoulders, burning her skin, but she didn’t move. Were there other children like her, children who had been relinquished? Children believing the myths that their parents had told them, stories trotted out so often that they became true? The whole lot of them – Zoe, Lachlan, Nadia, Eddie – had tricked themselves, tricked her, because it made it that bit easier. The truth, the truth that it was never about her, was brushed aside, like tucking back a hair that tickles your eye, until eventually you do it by sheer habit alone. Well, Lou had had enough of their lies.
She could no longer hear Nadia and her dad shouting, just her own sobs as she gripped the metal fence and thought about how it would feel to just fall down, down, down …
Chapter Thirty-One
Zoe watched her nieces and nephew run up the steps and across the lawn towards where she and Lachlan were waiting. Grinning, she stood up and opened her arms out wide to give them a hug. ‘Hi! It’s so good to see you all! Have you been having fun with Louise?’
As Charlotte told her about the tree house that Eddie had been building for them, Zoe kept glancing at the path, watching Nadia and Eddie slowly walking towards them, both focused on Louise in Nadia’s arms. Zoe’s stomach was in knots. She and Nadia had barely spoken since that day at the court, except to make arrangements for this visit. How could they ever renew their relationship after everything that had happened? But she knew that for this to work, for Louise to have a sense of a normal life, they had to try. She never wanted Louise to think that she was the cause of the breakdown of her family, or to hear them fighting over her like a toy. Louise was a child; they were adults. It was up to them to make this work.
As Nadia and Eddie came closer, Zoe saw that Nadia was crying. She bit her lip. Couldn’t Nadia hold it together? The time for crying was over; they had to move on, for everyone’s sake.
Zoe walked towards them, leaving Lachlan playing with the children. Seeing her, Eddie nodded and smiled, then walked past her, leaving the two sisters facing each other, about a metre apart. They were at the top of the hill, in the shade of the mature trees, surrounded by rose bushes. Nadia glanced up at Zoe, then looked back to Louise. Zoe felt as she had on the day Louise was born: she wanted to grab her and run away, but she also knew that Nadia needed time. But how much time? It had been decided, Zoe was Louise’s mother in every sense of the word, except for the one link that could never be broken. And that was the link that kept Zoe tiptoeing around her sister, because she knew Nadia wasn’t just a surrogate. She was Louise’s mother too.
Zoe cleared her throat. ‘How has she been?’
Nadia smiled sadly. ‘Good as gold.’ She blinked away some tears then looked up. ‘She missed you.’
Zoe wanted to smile in relief but stopped herself. She took a step closer, and Louise began to squirm in Nadia’s arms. Just as she had done that day in the hospital when Louise was born, Nadia closed her eyes and held the baby out in front of her, and Zoe lifted Louise into her own arms. She held her child close to her and breathed in the scent of unfamiliar shampoo, and the body that seemed to have grown so much in only one night.
‘You OK?’ she said quietly to Nadia.
‘It was hard, harder than I thought. Hard for Louise, for the big kids …’ Nadia gazed at the three older children, who were chasing each other around the picnic benches and barbecues.
Zoe looked over at them too. ‘They seem happy.’
‘They are. They were. I didn’t sleep last night.’ Nadia looked at Zoe. ‘I thought I had what I wanted, Louise asleep in the house with all of us, waking up with us, and it is, it is what I want, but I think somewhere along the way I forgot that it isn’t about me. It’s about Louise. It’s not fair on her, this confusion.’
Zoe frowned, her heart hammering.
Nadia wiped her eyes, looking drawn and defeated. ‘Eddie was offered a job in the Singapore office. We weren’t going to go – of course. It’s too far from Louise. But we spoke this morning. He’s going to take it. We’re all going to go.’
Zoe’s eyes widened. Did she want to take Louise with her to Singapore? ‘What? What do you mean?’
‘I’ll talk to my lawyer again, explain it all, and get them to change the family court orders. She’s your child, yours and Lachlan’s. I’ll still be her aunt, but we’ll be gone for at least a couple of years. It’ll be good for us, for the kids, to get away.’
‘I don’t understand. Nadia, you don’t have to —’
Nadia held up her hand and looked Zoe in the eye. ‘I’ll be an aunt to her. No more.’
Zoe nodded, not sure whether to thank Nadia or pity her. She glanced at Lachlan, saw him watching them, and she wanted to grin, to run to him with Louise. But she also saw her sister, standing across from her, her world shattered. She took a step forward and hugged Nadia with her free arm, Louise between them, then turned and walked over to Lachlan and Eddie. She could tell from his sombre face that Eddie understood that Nadia had told her. His hand trembled when he reached out to give Louise a goodbye hug.
Zoe took Lachlan’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Let’s go,’ she whispered. ‘We won’t stay for the picnic.’ They said goodbye to Charlotte, Violet and Harry, then Zoe looked back at Nadia one last time. She was staring up at the sky with wide, wild eyes, with her hand over her mouth; she looked broken. Just then, a kookaburra cackled, a sad, mocking laugh. Zoe resisted the urge to run to Nadia; she picked up Louise’s bag, then walked back along the dam wall, listening to the echoes of their footsteps.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘Lou. Please.’
It was her dad, speaking slowly, softly, but with a note of terror in his voice that Lou had never heard before. She didn’t turn; her fingers had frozen around the metal railing as she looked down. This hadn’t been her intention, this wasn’t how it was meant to turn out. She wanted them to leave her alone; with every step her dad and Nadia took towards her, she felt herself leaning closer to the rails. They were forcing her into this. She just wanted them to go. They were making it worse, not better.
‘Louise. Come here. Please.’ His voice broke into a sob.
Lou shook her head, left to right, left to right, again and again. ‘Just leave me, Dad, please.’
‘I can’t.’
Her hands shook, and she gripped tighter to steady them. Her knuckles ached. She saw the green moss on the concrete wall below her, the smooth curve of it, and her stomach lurched.
‘Louise.’ It was Nadia this time. Lou turned her head. Her dad had let Nadia step in front of him, though she could tell by the way he leaned forward that he was ready to sprint, to leap. Lou had started something that she couldn’t stop. It wasn’t meant to be like this.
‘Please, come here, come away from there,’ Nadia said.
Lou felt the light touch of Nadia’s hand on her shoulder. Nadia did no more, just left her hand there. Lou wanted to shove her away, to scream at her to leave her alone, but the touch felt so familiar, so right, and as she stood there sobbing, a warmth passed through her upper arm, her forearm, to her fingers; finally, as her tears subsided, Lou’s grip relaxed and her hand fell. Nadia moved a step closer and put her arm around Lou’s shoulders. Lou started to shake as Nadia led her back along the path, towards her dad. As they neared him, he held his arms open, and Lou felt Nadia’s arm fall away. She took a step forward, leaned into him and held on tight.
She thought of her mum – Zoe – at home, how she’d be sitting at the kitchen with her shoulders hunched, staring at a cold cup of tea, trying to face once again the fear that she would lose her. Their dog would be lying at her feet, his head resting on his front paws. Lou wished she was at home with her now, sitting at that table with them, sipping on a hot drink.
Lou breathed deeply and turned around in her dad’s arms. Nadia was watching her, ashen. They didn’t say anything; they didn’t need to. They gazed at each other, and Lou saw herself mirrored in Nadia’s eyes.
At that moment, there, at th
e weir, in the silence, she heard it: the echo of a memory.
I see you, and I know you know I see you.
* * *
Lou opened the front door and slowly walked inside, her legs scarcely able to take her weight. She heard a chair scrape across the floor, and when she reached the threshold of the kitchen, her mum was standing, one hand on the back of the chair, the other open, pressed against her chest. She wore faded jeans and a white t-shirt, and her feet were bare. Her dark hair was loose, wavy. Her cheeks were blotchy, and her eyes were puffy, with no make-up. She and Lou looked at each other, silent.
Lou’s dad came up behind her, and she saw her mum’s eyes flicker towards him for a moment, communicating without words.
‘We’re home,’ he said.
Zoe nodded, looking back at Lou. ‘Louise. Are you OK?’
Lou’s cheeks began to burn. She managed to nod, then her chin quivered and she ran into her mother’s arms, to the space just in front of her heart, where they fitted together perfectly.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Over the weeks and months after Nadia and Eddie moved to Singapore, Zoe tried to re-create stability for Louise. She made sure Lachlan was taking his medication and attending his therapy appointments. He wasn’t completely better, but he was getting there. She often had to bring him back when he stared off into the distance, his face haunted; she held him when he woke from nightmares, sobbing and sweating; she had to stop herself reacting when he flinched at her touch or his rage spilled out at her. But she could also see him, her husband and Louise’s father, slowly returning, and so she held tightly onto the frayed edges of him and their life together. He started looking for another job, and that was enough for Zoe, for now.
One morning, as she stood outside the front door putting Louise in her pram so the three of them could walk to the shops, the postman’s van pulled up. He flung open his door and jumped out, then hurried towards the gate. Zoe met him there, scribbled her signature on the electronic pad, and took the parcel he handed her. She frowned; she wasn’t expecting anything. It was addressed to The McAllister family. She recognised the handwriting, and looked at the postmark: it had been sent from Singapore.
Her hands began to shake and she ran back inside, pushing the pram just inside the door. ‘Lachlan!’
‘Coming!’
She ran into the bedroom, where he was sitting on the bed tying the shoelaces of his sneakers. ‘Lachlan, look!’
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know. It’s from Nadia.’
She watched his face whiten. ‘Well, open it.’
Zoe nodded, then sat down next to him, her mouth dry. The rectangular parcel was wrapped in a few layers of thick brown paper. She put a finger under one of the seams and ripped it. She peeled off the paper until she saw the colour turquoise. She stopped, realising what it was. ‘It’s the box,’ she whispered. ‘The box I told you about.’
Lachlan frowned. Zoe tore off the rest of the paper. The turquoise box was more battered than the last time she’d seen it, and the lid was secured by an elastic band. Tucked under the band was a folded piece of thick cream-coloured writing paper. Zoe lifted up the elastic band and removed the paper, then unfolded it.
These belong to you x
She glanced at Lachlan, who took the note from her and read it. Zoe pulled the elastic band off the box, and then removed the lid. On the very top was a photograph of Louise with Nadia. Louise was smiling; Nadia was gazing at her sadly. Zoe’s heart pounded. She knew exactly when it had been taken: she could see the lake in the background, the milky water reflecting the blue sky and the clouds. She held it, trembling, towards Lachlan. ‘She must have taken this before she told us, that day. When she was walking over to give Louise back to us.’
He nodded, and Zoe saw the tears in his eyes. She riffled through the box, through the photos and scans she’d seen that day in Nadia’s house. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, not wanting to damage any of these precious mementoes with her tears. She saw again Nadia’s face in that photo, and thought about what she’d done for Zoe and Lachlan, for Louise, and about how it must have felt to let her go. She leaned into Lachlan and he held her to him. ‘Do you think she kept copies of these, Lachlan? I hate to think of her left with nothing.’
‘I don’t know,’ he mumbled, his voice thick. ‘But she doesn’t need these to remember, Zoe. She hasn’t been left with nothing.’
‘I should have called her. I’ve just let her move away, and now I feel like I’ve lost my sister. It should be me sending her photos of Louise.’ Zoe sniffed. ‘I should call her. Should I call her?’
Lachlan sighed. ‘Not now. There’s plenty of time. Come on.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s look at this later. Louise is waiting for us.’
Zoe hesitated, then left the box on their bed and followed him to the front door. He was right. The photos and documents could wait. Louise was waiting for them.
Acknowledgements
Let Her Go would not have become the book it is today without the support of my publisher, Vanessa Radnidge, and my agent Benython Oldfield, who both encouraged me to develop a vague idea into the novel that it is now.
Thank you to the entire team at Hachette Australia, particularly Matt Richell, Marie Isaacson, Fiona Hazard, Anna Hayward, Karen Ward and Clara Finlay, and to the rest of the staff of Zeitgeist Media Group, especially Sharon Galant. I feel very fortunate to work alongside such talented, enthusiastic and lovely people.
For reading early drafts and providing honest (and sometimes blunt!) feedback, thanks to Vicky Dawes, David Thornby and Rebecca Freeborn.
I’m lucky enough to be part of a writing group of very talented West Australian women writers who looked over some chapters with critical and experienced eyes; thanks to Natasha Lester, Annabel Smith, Amanda Curtin, Sara Foster and Emma Chapman.
Thank you to those who helped me to research the world of infertility and surrogacy: Anne Wigham, who talked me through the complicated surrogacy procedures and processes; Julia Barker, who helped me with the legal research; and the women who were brave and kind enough to share their stories with me.
And finally, thank you to Will, Isobel, Isla and Olivia, and to my family, both near and far.
First published in Australia and New Zealand in 2014 by Hachette Australia
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Dawn Barker, 2014
The moral right of Dawn Barker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781911591702
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Quotes on pages 45 and 124 are from ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Quote on page 122 is from ‘Mirror-role of Mother and Family in Child Development’ in Playing and Reality by Donald Winnicott, Tavistock Publications (1971).
Look for more great books at www.canelo.co
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