by Susi Fox
I check the dates on the gravestone again. Two babies deceased, less than a year apart. How did their parents possibly manage to go on?
I clutch the iron railings edging the grave, my palms numbing from the sudden cold. But then, that was Mark and me. We lost two babies not even a year apart.
The first child’s voice had been with me for the duration of my short pregnancy. It was muffled, low-pitched, reciting imperceptible words. It was like a one-sided conversation heard through a semi-closed door, almost like a child playing in their bedroom, beyond the line of sight. Harry, I would have called him.
The second voice was quieter. I had a hunch this one wasn’t destined to stay, but I played along anyway, booking upcoming ultrasounds, obstetrician appointments, blood tests. Matilda. On the day the pregnancy ended, I was lying on the couch after lunch when I sensed a white light rising from my pelvis towards the ceiling. I knew she was gone.
Mark didn’t want to discuss the miscarriages or the voices or the light. He didn’t want to hear anything about it. I didn’t press him. What would have been the point? He did a reasonable job of holding me as I wept at night. And he planted the trees. After that, we never discussed the babies again.
A thin sheet of darkness settles on the gravestones, shadows stretching long across the path. The thrum of traffic in the distance mingles with the swish of plastic flowers in vases perched beside headstones, colourful windmills spinning in the breeze, rustling weeds on unkempt graves. The wind catches my belly through my thin jacket, prickling my skin. I zip it closed all the way up to my chin.
My eyes flick from grave to grave. Edith. Frederica. Arthur. Muriel. Born in a time when medicine was too primitive to save them, these babies didn’t stand a chance. Their parents were blameless. Unlike my mother. Unlike me. I’ve let Mark down in so many ways. Not only did I lose Harry and Matilda, I’ve also come so close to losing our son.
I remove the Express Post package from my handbag and stuff it under my jacket, close to my heart. It’s a bundle of hope swathed in bubble wrap; hope that one day in the future I’ll be cradling Gabriel in my arms, all of this a distant nightmare.
A flash of orange from the roadside: our car’s locking device. Is Mark coming to find me?
I press on, scurrying past more headstones, my shadow a thin pillar spreading out on the ground in front of me. The main gates of the cemetery, wrought iron with gothic swirls, rise before me like sentries. A thick chain and padlock encircle them. I glimpse the yellow Express Post box outside, on the nature strip beside the road. I shake the bars of the gates. The chain holds fast. My heart palpitates.
Before I turn, a flicker of silver glints in the darkness. A small, unlocked gate, propped open with a brick, next to the main gates. My escape.
I slip through it and out onto the footpath. The tangle of country-town peak hour has eased, cars thinning out like the end of a factory line, headlights sliding past in the dusk. My pocket vibrates. Mark.
I pull out the package. It weighs heavy despite its contents: three mouth swabs plus Mark’s handkerchief encased in the sterile plastic bag. I slide the parcel through the mouth of the letterbox, the flap flinging closed with a thud.
A car horn blast erupts from the other side of the cemetery. Mark, again. I head back through the small gate and along the main path, old stone vaults and gaudy crypts and solemn headstones lining the way.
At the front gate, a fluorescent yellow poster has been tacked to the brick wall. I’ve seen the signs before, plastered on posts all over town, advertising an annual memorial service for people who’ve lost babies: stillbirths, miscarriages, SIDS, the whole conglomeration of grief. A time for remembering, the poster reads, where parents recite poetry, tell their stories and release yellow balloons of hope. I don’t think I ever fully processed my failed pregnancies. Perhaps Mark never had the chance, either. One day, not too far in the future, I could be a parent huddling in a cluster at that service, holding Gabriel against my chest, releasing the yellow balloons from my hand, free to float high into the dusky sky.
Day 4, Tuesday Night
The nursery is quietest at night. Minimum staff – two nurses, at most, and only one at the desk when the other takes their tea breaks. With the lights dimmed, the babies seem to sense they should be sleeping. Their cries are timid, an accompaniment to the soft hum of machines in the background. No visitors; the other mothers are sensible, at home in their beds, resting up for when their babies are finally discharged and come home for good. Me – I have no desire for rest. Evenings are the best times to watch my beautiful son. And I’m doing what they told me – spending time with him, in order to bond.
I’m seated by Toby’s cot, observing Gabriel across the way. He is peaceful, nestled on his stomach in a bundle. Wait for me, Gabriel, I whisper. I promise I’m doing everything I can to get you back.
I’m about to sneak across the walkway to have a closer look at him when my phone vibrates. Bec. I’ve been waiting for her to return my call.
‘How are you, Sash? How was your leave from the mother–baby unit?’
She knew about that? Has Mark spoken to her again?
She speaks before I can answer. ‘Mark told me you were granted leave. I’ve been calling him, trying to tell him there’s nothing wrong with you.’
‘I bet that’s going well.’ It sounds like she’s only trying to help.
She lets out a short, hesitant laugh. ‘So was it good to get out of the unit for a while?’
‘We made it brief.’
After the cemetery, I was shivering by the time I returned to the car. Mark was happy enough to take me back to the unit. I told him I felt much better, communing with my mother. He didn’t seem in the mood to talk about Mum, so I didn’t push it. Maybe the drive hadn’t been such a good idea, was all he said as we made our way back to the hospital.
‘There’s good news, Bec,’ I say, sitting up straighter in the vinyl chair. No one is nearby, but I still lower my voice. ‘I found our son.’
‘Oh my God! Sash! That’s incredible. What’s he like?’
‘Blissful. Divine. A miracle.’
‘Oh, Sash. That’s amazing. Well done. I’m so glad for you.’
She does sound glad. I’m relieved. Perhaps she is more able than I would have been to let any residual infertility jealousy go.
‘Is there something bothering you?’ Bec adds. ‘You don’t sound that happy.’
‘It’s just that the hospital has been talking about sending him home later this week. If he goes home, it’ll be that much harder to get him back.’
‘Crap.’ Bec pauses. ‘So, we need to think like detectives.’
I pinch the bridge of my nose. This isn’t a game.
‘We’re doctors, not detectives,’ I say.
‘I know, I know. You’re right.’ She inhales. ‘Okay. Let’s use our medical training, then. You’ve done an examination – and you’ve found your baby. What’s the most important part of making a diagnosis? What have we neglected to do?’
‘Um … history-taking?’ I’m not sure where she’s going with all of this.
‘Exactly. You need to speak to the suspects. Question them about their motives. Their alibis. Speculate about who did this. Then we can work out further investigations and management.’
‘It sounds a little … tricky.’ It’s the kindest way I can say that I think her plan is ridiculous.
‘I can try and help over the phone. You give me a list of suspects. We can work through it together, see if we can rule them out, one by one.’
‘But couldn’t it just have been a simple mix-up? A genuine mistake?’
‘I suppose,’ Bec says slowly, ‘but there’s no harm in trying to figure out if anyone has a motive. And maybe one of them has a clue about how it could have happened?’
Dr Niles springs to mind. I remember the phone call she had to take about a embryo transfer. I had assumed it was about a patient, but now it sounds like it might have been a personal
call.
‘I think my psychiatrist could be trying to get pregnant.’ I glance across the walkway to where Gabriel lies still. ‘She said you’ve been calling her.’
Bec is silent for a moment. ‘Sorry, Sash. I’m not going to stop calling her. Someone needs to protest your sanity. It’s so unfair, how everyone’s treating you. I can’t even imagine if it were me going through this. I would have lost it by now.’
For a moment, I had questioned Bec’s loyalty. But I trust Bec more than anyone; more, even, than Mark.
‘Thanks, Bec. But I think you might be annoying her.’
‘Bad luck for her. She’s annoying me. I’m not sure she’s involved in your baby mix-up, though. Wouldn’t she just take a baby if she were that desperate? Switching babies doesn’t make sense. And surely a psychiatrist in a special-care nursery would raise some eyebrows. But you should check her out anyway, just to be sure.’
Her plan is starting to make sense.
‘There are some other potential suspects. One of the midwives seems to have taken a dislike to me. The other two doctors refuse to believe me. And there’s the woman who believes my baby is hers. Toby must be her real son. I haven’t dared tell her about the mix-up yet.’
Bec’s tone is decisive.
‘You should check them all out, then get back to me. But I can’t imagine that baby’s mother could be responsible for this.’
‘Mothers can be responsible for lots of things.’
I wonder suddenly if Bec knew about my mother. Has she been lying to me, too?
‘Bec? Something else has come up. Dad told me about my mother … Did you know she was … dead?’
Bec is silent. When she finally speaks, her voice cracks.
‘I’m so sorry, Sash. Mum told me years ago, right before she passed away. She begged me not to tell you. Before then I had no idea. I promised Mum I wouldn’t say anything.’
I know it’s not Bec’s fault; I don’t blame her.
‘Did Mark know too?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
I’m not so sure. It’s something about the way he stares at me from time to time, his eyes filled with pity rather than love.
‘Do you know the details? How she died?’
‘I know nothing, Sash. Only that she passed away when you were young. I truly wish I knew more.’ She sounds sincere.
‘But you’d tell me if you knew anything else, wouldn’t you, Bec?’
‘Of course,’ she says at once.
How could I doubt Bec? She knows everything about me, from my embarrassing schoolgirl crushes to me wetting my pants on the first day of high school when I couldn’t find the bathroom. She’s remembered the stories for all these years. She would never lie to me. And I know she would never betray me.
‘Look, I should get back to work in a minute,’ Bec says with a sniff. ‘But did I tell you Adam and I are coming home for Christmas this year? It’ll be great to see you.’ There’s an undertone to her voice, the grief of infertility with which I’m all too familiar. ‘It’s horrific what you’re going through, Sash. Thank God you’ll have him back any day now.’ She clears her throat. ‘But Sash? You’re okay, right? Your mental health?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And things with Mark are okay?’
I’ve spent so long hoping Mark would change. Hoping he’d open up to me, wishing he’d show he cared about the pregnancies we lost. But he wasn’t there for me, and now, when I need him more than ever, he’s still not here.
‘It’s not going so well,’ I say.
‘Mark does love you, you know,’ Bec says.
‘Not enough.’
One morning years ago, when I was a teenager, Lucia ushered me to her bedroom. She indicated an enormous artwork strung above her bed, the canvas slathered in black, gold and vermilion welts. She pulled me onto the doona beside her and squeezed me against her bosom. She told me she had never been able to decipher how her ex-husband, Mario, had manipulated the colours so that in one light it appeared to represent an autumnal sunset and in another an image of blood seeping from an open wound.
‘When you choose a husband, be careful,’ she said. ‘Make sure there is nothing he loves more than you.’
Bec’s voice pipes up above a shrilling nursery alarm: ‘Listen to me, Sash. Mark’s a really good man. Better than most. Marriage is what gets you through the hard stuff. The easy parts take care of themselves. Remember, no marriage is perfect.’
Lucia would pull out her wedding album once a year on the anniversary. As she pored over the photographs of her wedding day, she would tell stories of the women Mario had seduced over the years. Miriam. Bernadette. Carolina. Scores of them. She knew what he was like before she married him. What she had learned after ten years of marriage she intoned to Bec and me on a regular basis: ‘People don’t change, my darlings. They just reveal who they really are.’
Bec is waiting for me to speak. I manage to croak, ‘It’s easy for you to say. Adam’s a way better husband than Mark.’
‘No, you’re wrong, Sash. Adam works ninety-hour weeks. He sleeps at the office most nights. We’ve hardly seen each other in months. I’d do anything for a husband like Mark.’
I’ve always viewed Bec and Adam as the perfect couple, Adam the perfect husband. When he posted thoughtful anniversary messages on Facebook, I nudged Mark in the ribs. When he bought her a car for her birthday, my insides hardened. When Bec disclosed that Adam was doing all the housework after her miscarriage, I lost it at Mark: ‘You haven’t even cried.’
Mark glared at me until my blood ran cold. ‘How would you know?’ His eyes were so dark I never mentioned it again.
Bec sniffs. ‘Okay. I gotta get back to work. Tomorrow, make sure you start work on our plan. Until we speak again, Sash – please take care.’
Day 5, Wednesday Early Morning
I wrap my arms around my baby, cocooning him against my chest. Mark gazes at me with adoration, his arm slung over my shoulder. It’s a warm summer’s day. A mild breeze nuzzles my neck as we sit side-by-side on the park bench by the lake close to home. Things couldn’t be more perfect.
Then the rain begins. Fat, heavy drops of liquid land on my scalp, my arms, my face. My skin chills. I reach to cover my baby’s head, to protect him from the rainfall, but as I glance down I see his hair is coated in clots of scarlet. On my right, streams of red liquid drip down Mark’s face, his lips frozen in a silent scream. My body begins to give way, my skin and bones and muscles liquefying to maroon, and my son slips from my grasp. I tumble beside him into the puddle beneath the bench, both of us pooling into blood.
The nightmare jolts me awake. I lie rigid, sucking air into my lungs. I’m in my bed in the mother–baby unit. Not home. Not yet.
A shuffle from the cupboard, then the plop of something falling to the floor. Slivers of early-morning light cut through the open curtains, piercing the dusty window, falling onto Mark, who is kneeling above a pile of my belongings, his face a guilty mask.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I could ask you the same thing.’ He flings the last of my clothes from the bottom shelf of the cupboard onto the floor. ‘Tell me where they are, Sash, and I can go.’
He brought those clothes in for me from home, just like I asked. Jeans, tracksuit pants, T-shirts, windcheaters, my comfortable clothes. Now it all lies in crumpled piles on the floor.
‘What the hell are you doing with my stuff?’
He reaches into the pocket of his jacket, yanks out two pieces of crinkled paper and drops them on my bedside table. Dr Niles’ schedule, with my notes about the DNA tests scribbled on the back.
‘Where did you get that?’
He drops his arms to his sides. ‘The other night. I found it right here.’
‘And how did you get in just now?’
‘I told the nurses I needed to see you urgently. I’m here to help. To find the DNA tests. To protect you from yourself.’
‘I don’t need protect
ing.’ I sit up. ‘Mark, you know I’ve let go of the need to do the testing now.’ Thank God I already sent the DNA samples back. What he mustn’t find: the zip-lock bag, Gabriel’s umbilical cord secreted within it, concealed in the pocket of my jeans. Mark has already thrown that pair on the floor.
We’re interrupted by a click at the door. Dr Niles marches in, her shoulders hitched back, her head erect. She surveys my belongings scattered like body bags across the room.
‘Mark’s helping me with the washing,’ I explain.
Dr Niles glances between us, her head tipped to the side. Mark grabs handfuls of my clothes and begins to shove them back into the cupboard.
‘May I speak to Sasha alone?’ Dr Niles says. ‘It’s time for our morning chat.’
I want to pretend all this isn’t happening: my baby being mixed up, me being locked in a mother–baby unit, my husband not supporting me, my mother apparently dead. I want to be anywhere but here.
Mark’s eyes stray to Dr Niles’ schedule on the bedside table. He sighs and casts me a backwards glance. Mark isn’t my knight on horseback; he never will be.
‘I’m here for you, Sash,’ he says to me. ‘Whatever it takes.’
As he stalks from the room, it’s hard to imagine his words hold much weight.
Seated in the chair under the window, Dr Niles rubs the back of her neck.
‘It appears you’re getting better, Sasha. Your room is quite a mess, but’ – she checks the notes in her lap – ‘you are making connections here. Friends, I believe.’
Friends? Ondine is an acquaintance, a companion on this journey of horror. Friends are people I would trust with intimate details of my life, my marriage, my hopes and fears. It will be a while before I place Ondine in that category. Still, if that is what Dr Niles wishes to believe, I suppose it can only help me get discharged sooner.
Bec’s face flashes before me, a reminder of my mission. I need to check Dr Niles’ alibi.
‘Do you remember the day you admitted me?’
She nods, her face quizzical.