Mine

by Susi Fox

  ‘They didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t think Toby was mine.’

  She freezes mid-sway. Her eyes widen in alarm.

  ‘That’s why you’re in the mother–baby unit?’

  I nod slowly, goosebumps prickling my skin. Perhaps I’ve said too much, too fast. It seems she hadn’t worked out there’s been a mix-up at all. And I haven’t questioned her about what she knows. Mark is planning to come to the nursery a little later today. I still have time. I’ve been patient with Brigitte, but it’s my chance to ask some questions of my own.

  ‘Did you see anything the morning of Jeremy’s birth? Anyone acting suspiciously?’

  She steps away from me, shielding herself with the humidicrib.

  ‘Not a thing. Ursula was here with me and Jeremy the whole time.’ She beckons Ursula at the nurses’ station. Has she realised I think Jeremy is my son? As Ursula approaches, Brigitte speaks slowly, staring at me all the while.

  ‘It’s good you’re getting help. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen you hold Toby.’

  ‘He hasn’t been well enough.’

  Ursula reaches our side. She gives both of us darting glances.

  ‘You two look like you’re getting on. Maybe it’ll turn out to be a good thing Jeremy won’t be going home as soon as we’d thought.’ She is standing oddly still as she addresses Brigitte. ‘I’m sure Sasha appreciates the company, Brigitte.’

  Brigitte bites at her bottom lip.

  ‘I’d like to get Jeremy home as soon as possible. Tomorrow, please, like Dr Green first planned.’ She points to me. ‘Sasha is saying Toby is unwell, too. She seems to think he’s too sick to hold.’

  ‘We’ll get Jeremy home as soon as we can,’ Ursula says, turning to me with a frown. ‘But Toby is well enough to hold. You do know that, don’t you, Sasha? You only need to ask.’

  A trickle of morning sun seeps through the nursery’s window onto the back of my neck.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  Ursula’s face is set in a grim smile.

  I need to get out of this stifling, oppressive place. As if on cue, an alarm beeps on my phone.

  I try to smile. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can to give Toby a cuddle. But it’s time for group therapy. I must go. I’d hate to be running late.’

  Day 6, Thursday Morning

  Ondine and I wander out through the main hospital entrance, past a row of shops: laundromat, newsagent, café. A group of teenagers loiter on the footpath beside the bus stop. Miners’ cottages stretch in neat rows far into the distance.

  I had arrived at the rec room to find a sign sticky-taped to the door. Walk cancelled due to staffing issues. Free time this morning.

  ‘I don’t suppose you want to go for a stroll anyway?’ Ondine said from beside me.

  ‘Do you think it’s okay? Dr Niles insisted I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere except the nursery while I was admitted.’

  ‘You’re right. They don’t want us leaving the unit. But they were going to take us for a walk.’ Ondine shrugged. ‘It should be okay. The security here is pretty lax. They’re never even going to notice we’re gone.’

  I gave a broad smile. ‘Okay.’

  Now, falling into step beside her, my cheeks prickling in the morning sun, it feels like this walk is exactly what I need.

  ‘The cemetery is to the right,’ Ondine says. ‘Let’s head for the lake?’

  We head left. A mother pushing a pram appears further along the footpath.

  ‘Do you mind if we cross here?’ Ondine says.

  We make our way to the other side of the road. Neither of us glances in the direction of the woman and her pram.

  ‘Any luck getting your son back?’ Ondine asks.

  ‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘But my plans are in the pipeline. It won’t be too long now.’ I don’t want to jinx myself by saying too much. ‘How about you? Are you surviving the unit?’

  She considers this for a moment. ‘Only just.’

  ‘What’s the worst part?’

  ‘Everything. The other women. The staff. Even the crying babies. It’s easier to stay in my room with my headphones on.’

  ‘What do you listen to?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she says, giving me an unexpected grin. ‘Just my own thoughts, I suppose.’ She speeds up, pressing on towards the lake.

  As I catch up to her, the brown water sweeps into view. Since the return of rain these last few years the reeds lining the lake’s banks have been swallowed up by the rising water. Their tangled, dusky-green stalks now lie submerged, occasionally rising to skim the surface like sea snakes.

  ‘And what do your thoughts say?’ I ask Ondine.

  ‘That I’m the most unwell person in there. That I don’t deserve my baby back. That I should be locked up for life. Which is what I want, anyway.’ She stares towards the lake, where joggers travel the perimeter of the water.

  ‘Your son needs you to be well, Ondine. You need to get better and get out of here for him. One day, when he’s old enough to understand, he will forgive you for everything. I promise.’

  ‘That’s hard to believe.’

  ‘Of course. But you don’t always need to believe your thoughts, you know.’

  She gives a slight shake of her head. ‘How about you? How are you going?’

  From nowhere, memories surface from the night of the birth. My baby’s heart thumping on the monitor. The trolley, me lying flat upon it, careering through cold, white corridors on the way to theatre. The fumes of alcohol-based antiseptic. The barb in my back. Then the repeated attempts to find my baby’s heartbeat. Dr Solomon, his panicked voice: ‘She needs a general anaesthetic. Right now.’ The dry rush of oxygen pushing through my lips. The propofol stinging my arm as it slid up the vein in an icy stream. The shimmering reflection of my semi-naked body in the operation spotlight. Mark, standing beside me as the room faded to blackness. They didn’t used to allow partners into the operating theatres. I suppose the rules must have changed. I’m certain it was his presence I felt at the last moment. There wasn’t time to say goodbye.

  All at once, an image of a baby’s dead body floats into my vision. I startle and trip, only just catching myself before I fall. The vision dissipates as dust rises from under my feet.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Ondine stops at the edge of the lake in the shade of a eucalypt. She reaches down to pick up a stone from the path. ‘I suppose you think I’m really crazy.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Not crazy at all.’

  ‘Not even in your professional opinion?’

  ‘I stopped seeing live patients a long time ago.’

  On the lake, ducks bob their heads in the water. I bend to pick up a flat rock lying on the path, the size of my palm, groaning with discomfort as I straighten.

  ‘Many of us are crazy in some ways,’ I add.

  ‘You’re not.’

  The rock is a good weight, a good shape, for skimming. I shift the rock between my fingers, feeling the curves and edges, trying to find the right hold.

  ‘Sure I am. Or, at least, I was.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I guess I thought about ending it.’

  ‘Your life?’

  ‘I thought about it. That’s all.’ I don’t tell her how close I came. How much I wanted to die. ‘I’m really glad I didn’t, though.’ The last bit is true.

  Ondine’s eyes are dark as she studies the shimmering surface of the lake.

  ‘I’m not at the point of being glad I’m alive,’ she says.

  I squeeze the rock tight in my palm. ‘You will be,’ I say.

  I skim the rock. It catches the surface of the water, skipping two, three, four times before sinking to the lake’s depths, sending out concentric circles that spread wider and wider until they fade into stillness once more.

  When I worked up the courage to leave the courtroom all those years ago, it was a spring day. Bees were buzzing in the gardens. Pollen was thick in the
air. Damien’s parents had been standing at the front entrance of the coroner’s court. His mother was round-shouldered, her face puckered in fury, while his father stood erect, a piercing glare on his face, his arm pressed into the small of his wife’s back, holding her upright. Their eyes trailed me as I passed.

  I thought about stopping and apologising. But what could I say, really? There was nothing I could do that would take their pain away. I would only make it worse. Better not to try at all.

  When I reached my car, I glanced over my shoulder to find them still staring. Damien’s mother pulled away from her husband and started screaming.

  ‘After what you did to my son, you don’t deserve to be a mother …’

  For the longest time, I believed her. The miscarriages were my punishment. It was all my fault.

  Ondine drops the stone in her hand to the ground with a dull thud.

  ‘So, Dr Niles is talking about giving me ECT.’

  ECT – electrodes on her temples, plastic mouthguard between her teeth, subtle jerking of her limbs, high-voltage electricity flowing through her brain. Don’t do it, I want to say.

  ‘Could you wait, give it more time?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘But you’re right about my son needing me to be well. I suppose I need to try everything, if only for his sake.’

  If she can do it, so can I. Dr Solomon is supposed to be visiting me before lunchtime. I grab Ondine’s elbow. ‘Let’s get back. I’m going to try and figure out how this happened to my son.’

  Day 6, Thursday Late Morning

  I’m checking on my breastmilk in the freezer, ensuring it hasn’t thawed, when Dr Solomon knocks on the door. I let the freezer flap fall shut, swing the fridge door closed and manage to compose my face.

  ‘Found you,’ he says. ‘This building is like a labyrinth. I tried to track you down yesterday without success. And the heat in here. Unbelievable.’

  Needing to rule him off my list of suspects, I requested a visit yesterday but he rescheduled for today. I haven’t seen him for five days, since I was transferred from the postnatal ward. Dr Solomon’s brusque manner hasn’t changed in that time. I’ve been looked after by so many doctors and nurses, yet no one has really cared about me at all. How terrible to be a patient in this system. How terrible to be a doctor too; to lose one’s humanity amid the burdens of overwork and stress.

  When Dr Solomon points at my belly, I lift my shirt to show him my dressing. He peels it off to reveal my scar; all that remains is a clean red line just above my pubic bone.

  ‘Good,’ he says, easing my maternity cotton underwear back into place. ‘You’re fine to go home from my perspective. I’ll put in a good word for you with Dr Niles. She mentioned she’s thinking of sending you home tomorrow.’

  Home tomorrow. A shock to me, but a brilliant one. I thought I would be forced to remain in here for days to come. Maybe my performances with Dr Niles have been more successful than I’ve given myself credit for.

  ‘Excuse me, Dr Solomon?’

  He pauses at the door.

  ‘Can you please tell me a little more about the birth?’

  His mouth stiffens.

  ‘I’m sure you are aware it was a standard emergency caesarean. Under a general anaesthetic, yes. Emergency, yes, but there were no complications. Your baby came out perfectly. A little oxygen once he got up to the nursery, I believe, but that’s not unusual.’ He goes to turn the door handle.

  ‘So, the midwife would have been with my baby the whole time?’

  He sniffs, his fingers still gripping the handle.

  ‘Of course. One of our midwives was at the birth. Ursula. She escorted him upstairs.’

  ‘He couldn’t have been left alone at any time?’

  ‘I find that very unlikely,’ Dr Solomon says. ‘Frankly, I’m concerned you’re still fixated on this. I’m afraid I’ll have to mention it to Dr Niles.’

  My knuckles whiten in my lap.

  ‘Please, you don’t need to say anything to Dr Niles. I was only curious. I know Toby is my baby. I know Mark was with him from his first breath. I’d just like to ask –’

  ‘Your husband couldn’t have been there for your baby’s first breath.’

  Dr Solomon releases the door handle and tips his head back against the wall, almost touching Monet’s lilies.

  My heart squeezes tight. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Relatives and partners aren’t allowed in the operating theatre if a caesarean requires a general anaesthetic. Surely you know that? Your husband was asked to wait upstairs in the nursery. I went up there myself after the surgery to tell him everything had turned out successfully.’

  My fragmented memory of Mark holding my hand as they injected the milky white liquid into my veins, as they held an oxygen mask against my face, as the ceiling petered from white to grey to black – had that all been constructed by my mind? My heart judders in my chest.

  ‘He might have observed the resuscitation in the nursery, but not the birth. Standard hospital protocol,’ Dr Solomon adds.

  I press my knees together hard until they hurt. Perhaps I placed too much faith in Mark and in my own mind. But the hospital’s culpability – their understaffing, numerous unanticipated emergencies and dismissal of my concerns – are not in my imagination. I’ve heard rumours of hospitals concealing things before. I might be just one more woman they want to stay silent.

  Dr Solomon digs his hands deep into his pockets. Could he have been involved in conspiring to keep the baby swap under wraps? I don’t want to ask him directly where he was all Friday night and Saturday morning. He’s smart enough to see through me right away.

  ‘Did you see anyone acting suspiciously in the operating theatre?’

  He rocks back on his heels. ‘No, Sasha, I didn’t. And if I had I would have alerted a staff member.’

  Personally, I’m not so sure. But I can see his patience is wearing thin.

  ‘Was there anyone else responsible for my baby between the operating theatre and the nursery?’

  ‘Probably. Nurses.’ He sighs. ‘But your baby had identification tags put on him when he was first born. Ankle and wrist. They’re still on him, I presume?’ His mouth twists into an incredulous line as he leans towards the door.

  I throw my hands in the air.

  ‘What happens if the tags fall off? Surely whoever replaced them could have got it wrong. I can’t believe this hasn’t been investigated further. Have there been any other baby mix-ups at your hospital?’

  Dr Solomon’s eyes are like lily pads floating on a shimmering pond.

  ‘You know we’re not permitted to cover up adverse incidents these days, Sasha. There has never been a baby mix-up at this hospital, or any other hospital I’ve worked at. It’s an extremely rare occurrence. Which is why we’ve been so greatly concerned about you.’

  After Dr Solomon has left, I contemplate whether I’ve blown my cover – whether tomorrow is no longer likely for my discharge. But there’s always the possibility he’ll forget; or that he won’t be bothered with the paperwork – I’m one more ‘difficult’ mother among many. Hopefully wires will be crossed in the hospital’s bush telegraph, the message fading along the line.

  No time to dwell on these possibilities for now. I need to see my son.

  In the annexe outside the nursery, I scrub the rim of my cuticles and the webs between my fingers with nursery disinfectant, wincing at the sting, then wash it off with streaming water. Better to get everything out of the cracks; who knows what bacteria could be lurking in their depths?

  In the nursery, I find Mark with his hands pressed against Toby’s humidicrib. His hair is slicked back and he’s wearing his baggy chef pants. Surely he hasn’t been in to work?

  ‘He’s doing well,’ Mark says, a solemn smile on his face. He nods at a plastic bag resting on the bench. ‘I cooked you something.’

  I peer inside the bag. A container of homemade gnocchi. I’m grateful, but he should know better. �
��Food is forbidden in the nursery, Mark. The risk of infection is too high. You need to take more care.’ I tie a knot in the plastic bag. ‘Dr Solomon came to check on me earlier. He told me everything. Why did you lie to me after the birth?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, Sasha.’

  ‘You lied to me about staying with Toby the whole time.’

  ‘I’ve never lied to you.’ His voice thickens. But he won’t meet my eye. Yet another betrayal by Mark. He’s not going to tell me the truth. I’ll have to let it go for now.

  Through the perspex, Toby’s cheeks are rosy, becoming plumper. He could almost pass for a full-term baby. I feel Mark’s hand on my shoulder, pressing the flesh between my collarbone as though he’s reaching through my skin. I can’t read whatever message he’s trying to impart.

  ‘I went into work briefly this morning. And they’re going to need me back there next week.’

  ‘Weren’t you going to take two weeks off after the birth?’

  ‘They’re short-staffed, Sash. There’s nothing I can do.’ He shifts his hand to massage the sinewy tightness of my neck. ‘Nothing’s turned out quite like we planned.’

  Come Monday, I know he’ll be back in the restaurant kitchen, dicing beetroot, searing cutlets, slicing herbs. Straightforward, honest work. He’ll be more at home there than in here where beeping machines and numbers and the colour of skin each reveal only a fragment of the truth. I shrug his hand away.

  ‘How was work, then?’

  ‘Fine.’ His voice is bland.

  ‘What exactly have you told them?’

  ‘That our baby came early.’

  I stare at Toby, his fists opening and closing, clasping at air.

  ‘Nothing about me.’

  He doesn’t reply.

  ‘They might give you more leave if you told them.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He loosens his shirt at the neck. ‘Hopefully you can come home soon. They’re talking about tomorrow as a possibility.’

  I wish everyone would stop talking about me behind my back.

  ‘Maybe,’ I mutter. I should be delighted to be heading home. But going home to Mark, my old house, my old life, doesn’t feel like such a great thing after all. ‘And becoming a partner in the restaurant – have you given them a final answer?’