He nodded. ‘Okay.’
Before he could say anything else, their nurse arrived. ‘Time to put this little munchkin back in her bed,’ she said and then gently lifted Anaya from his arms.
As the nurse settled his baby back in the incubator, he quickly did his buttons up again and stood.
‘Do you want to sit down?’ he asked Harper, gesturing to the chair he’d just vacated. There was only room for one seat next to each incubator, and his mum hadn’t raised him to leave a woman standing.
‘No thanks. I’m fine. Been sitting for two hours in the car.’
‘Okay.’ He waited until the nurse retreated before sanitising his hands again—it was almost becoming second nature. Then he lowered himself back into the seat, slipped his hand through the hole and took hold of Anaya’s again.
He didn’t realise until Harper spoke that she’d done the same thing. ‘Isn’t her skin so soft?’ she said, a smile twisting her lips upwards.
He agreed. ‘I’ve never felt anything softer.’
‘She looks good,’ Harper commented. ‘Maybe I’m just being optimistic but she looks bigger even than yesterday.’
‘The nurse said she’s really thriving,’ he said.
It felt weird talking about the care and wellbeing of his baby with Harper. It should be Claire here holding Anaya’s hand and discussing the future with him. However stupid he knew it to be, he couldn’t help resenting Harper a little that she wasn’t Claire. The injustice of it all had his breathing growing unsteady again.
The nurse came over and cleared her throat slightly, causing both of them to look up at her. ‘The meeting room is free for you now. And once you’re done, the paediatrician and I want to talk to you about Anaya’s progress.’
‘Is everything okay?’ Jasper and Harper asked at the same time. He heard the terror in her voice that he felt in his heart.
‘Yes.’ The nurse nodded quickly. ‘She’s doing better than expected, but we just want to keep you informed.’
‘Okay.’ He nodded and both he and Harper slowly let go of Anaya’s hands.
‘Back soon little angel,’ Harper said and then straightened.
He led her to the meeting room and then switched the little sign on the door to occupied. The room held a small couch, a couple of plastic chairs, a small table and tea and coffee making facilities. ‘You want a drink?’
Harper shook her head. ‘I’m okay. I had a takeaway in the car, but you have one if you want.’
‘Nah. I’m fine.’ He sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic seats.
‘Okay.’ Harper lowered herself into the other chair and took a visible deep breath. She seemed nervous, which was odd considering the fact that she dealt with the media on a day-to-day basis. She was the media for crying out loud.
‘So I read one of the stories online after I got your message. Isn’t there a way you can make the journalists go away?’ he asked. ‘It’s no one’s business how Anaya was conceived and I really don’t want to waste time talking to strangers about it when I should be with her.’
‘I understand. Totally,’ she rushed, leaning forward slightly. ‘I only want the best for Anaya as well, but I also know that once a story like this leaks, there are journalists out there who will stop at nothing to be the one to break all the juicy details.’
‘Vultures,’ he spat. ‘What happened to leaving grieving families in peace?’
She didn’t answer that exact question, but instead said, ‘The station where I work has been fielding calls this morning from journalists wanting to know if it’s true that I am Anaya’s egg donor. I’m guessing you’ve had similar phone calls?’
He nodded. ‘My phone was on silent but I’ve had a ton of missed calls from unknown numbers.’
‘They’ll probably get onto your family as well, so we need to decide how much we want to tell them.’
Jasper ran a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘What do you mean how much? Why do we have to talk to them at all? I’d rather tell them to bugger the hell off and leave us all alone!’
She nodded. ‘I understand that, I truly do, but I also know that these journalists won’t just retreat quietly. They’ve seen the opportunity for a hot story and they all want their hands on it. So we need to think of Anaya. We could both refuse to comment, but the risk there is that we might have friends—or people we thought were friends—willing to talk for cash. It’s better if the information comes directly from us.’
‘What? You mean someone might get paid to tell our story? I don’t know what kind of friends you have, but none of my friends or family would say a word.’
‘And I’m pretty sure mine wouldn’t either, but someone saw me here yesterday—the hospital knows who I am. It’s out there.’
‘So what? You want to deny it?’
‘No! Of course not.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘But we should consider the money we could get for talking exclusively to one source.’
His eyes widened. He couldn’t believe his ears. ‘You want to make money out of this?!’
She held up her hand. ‘Please, I’m not expressing myself well, because there’s something else I want to talk to you about, but … my boss has a friend who works for The Morning Edition and she wants to interview us both.’
He shuddered. ‘I’d rather swim with sharks than go on one of those trashy breakfast shows.’
‘Look, I know this is a lot to think about but there are journalists wanting to talk to us and they will find a way to get a story. The Morning Edition is offering a generous fee. It’s money you could put in a bank account to go towards Anaya’s schooling or something. And if we speak to them ourselves, we can at least somewhat control what they put out there.’
‘I admit I don’t have a huge amount of experience with the press, but the few times they’ve written articles about our business, they got half their facts wrong. I’d prefer to say nothing. If we don’t say anything, they can’t put words in our mouths.’
‘Not necessarily,’ she countered, ‘but it’s a lot harder to make stuff up on camera because we’ll be the ones doing the talking.’
He raised an eyebrow, still not at all convinced.
Her shoulders sagged and she let out a long breath. ‘In the end the decision is yours and I’ll respect it. Why don’t you have a think about it, discuss it with your parents and Claire’s parents and get back to me?’
‘I’ll think about it, but don’t hold your breath. I do not want to exploit Anaya.’
‘And neither do I. I promise you that.’ Harper offered him a tentative smile.
Jasper stood. ‘All right then, I’ll be in touch.’
‘There’s one more thing,’ Harper rushed. ‘It’s … it’s something I wanted to ask you before … before all this media stuff came up.’
His eyes had been on the door, but he looked to Harper’s face when he registered the weird tone in her voice. She looked as if she might be about to throw up.
‘Are you okay? Do you need some water or something?’
She held up a hand and then took a few breaths. ‘Just give me a moment.’
Harper had always appeared such a together person, but the stress of the situation had obviously taken its toll on her as well. She was hunched over, looking like she might crumple in on herself at any moment. But the seconds ticked by and Jasper’s concern warred with irritation that she wouldn’t just spit out whatever it was she wanted to say. He needed to get back to Anaya.
As if sensing his growing impatience, she finally took a deep breath and met his gaze straight on. ‘I don’t know how to say this right so I’m just going to say it. I never imagined I would feel anything more than a distant affection for Anaya.’ She paused to suck in another breath. ‘But Jasper I do. I love her more than I could have predicted and I want to be part of her life. I want to take some of the pressure off, so you don’t always have to be the one here with Anaya.’
He blinked as the muscles in his neck and shoulders tensed. Pe
rhaps he misunderstood what she was propositioning. ‘It’s not a chore to sit with Anaya. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.’
She nodded. ‘Trust me, I understand. I feel the same. But you’ve got to take care of yourself. You can’t help her if you’re not eating or sleeping properly. If you get sick, they won’t even let you in to visit.’
His chest tightened at that thought, but still, what exactly did Harper want? ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I want to take on some of that load. I want to be the other parent in her life.’
The way she made Anaya sound like a job irked him. ‘We’re not a charity, Harper! You don’t have to sign up to help us out of some sort of obligation. I will cope, you know.’
‘I’m sure you’ll do better than cope, and I’m not asking because I think it’s something that I should do. I’m here, willing and begging you to let me be a part of her life because I want to. I want to be there for her and for you, for the highs and the lows, for everything going forward. Please Jasper, I know none of this is what we’ve planned, but don’t push me away. Think of what’s best for Anaya.’
His first instinct was a flat-out ‘no’—how dare she tell him to think of Anaya, she’d signed her rights away the day she’d given them her eggs—but he forced himself to take a breath. When he finally spoke he couldn’t help but grimace. ‘I didn’t think you wanted children. That’s what you said in your first email to us. That’s what you’ve said all along. You and Samuel are a career couple and you told us you never wanted to be a mother.’
Harper twisted her wedding ring on her finger. ‘I know I said that. And I thought I meant it at the time.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘You’ve heard a little bit about my mother, but I’ve never explained how bad she made our childhood or how little we felt like we meant to her. My dad died when I was a baby and my mum fell apart. She couldn’t cope. Willow was only four years old at the time, but she was more of a parent to me than Laura ever was. She wasn’t even going to bother sending me to kindergarten, but Willow knew I was old enough to go and she wouldn’t let up. My mother hasn’t had a job for most of my life. Sometimes she spent her welfare money on make-up and cigarettes rather than on food for her children. I didn’t taste fresh vegetables until I slept over at a friend’s house when I was ten.
‘Of course our friends were never allowed to sleep over, but Mum had “gentleman friends” stay the night. Not that you could call most of them gentlemen. When Willow was sixteen one got drunk and climbed into her bed instead of Mum’s. She was angrier at Willow for trying to steal her boyfriend than she was at him for groping her daughter. Mum never bothered to come to assembly or help at school, choosing daytime TV over spending time with us every chance she got.’
Jasper sat speechless as Harper spilled more stories. The things she told him made his skin crawl and his fingernails dig into his hands. Was she suggesting that he’d be that kind of parent? That without someone by his side he’d collapse in a heap like Harper’s mother had?
Tears spilled down her cheeks as she recounted the horrors of her childhood. It was a miracle she and her sister had emerged as such successful people.
‘Why were child services never called?’
She sniffed and shrugged. ‘This was over twenty years ago and there were plenty of kids worse off than us I guess. Mum didn’t abuse us, she just didn’t bother with us much. Willow made sure the three of us didn’t starve and she took over mum’s budget when she was about thirteen, so I guess things never looked too bad from the outside.’
‘Oh God.’ Jasper shook his head sadly, emotion clogging the back of his throat. His childhood was like a Disney movie compared to hers.
‘Anyway.’ Harper sat up straighter and wiped her eyes. ‘I’m not telling you all this to make you feel sorry for me. What I’m trying to explain is why I came to the decision that it was better for me not to procreate. I did get pregnant once. I was only nineteen and I was so damn scared that I might be as bad a mother as my own that I got rid of the baby.’
Jasper swallowed, unsure what to say to that. Although Harper’s story touched his heart, he didn’t want his sympathy for her shitty childhood to cloud his judgement. His priority had to be Anaya. His job was to protect her and do the best for her. His head ached with the responsibility. ‘So is wanting to help me with Anaya some sort of atonement for guilt you feel over your abortion?’
‘No.’ She shook her head adamantly. ‘I’ve thought about that. I’ve analysed my feelings from every angle. I’ve talked it over with my sister. I don’t feel guilty for choosing to end that pregnancy—it was the right thing for me at that time—but until my eyes fell upon Anaya, I had let fear lead my life. The moment I saw her, I knew in my heart that I would do everything in my power to make her life as good as it could possibly be. When Anaya looked into my eyes, I knew I didn’t want to be scared anymore and that I could and would be a good mother.’
His blood went cold and he jolted back against the seat. ‘Anaya already has a mother. Claire,’ he said icily.
‘I know.’ Harper conceded this point with one slow nod of her head. ‘And she always will have. But I’m her other mother. I know what it’s like to grow up without a female guiding presence and it breaks my heart to think of Anaya not having that either. She might have loving grandmas and fabulous aunties, but … there’s no substitute for a mum.’
And something about the way she said those words, the heartfelt genuineness behind them, dulled his rage and reminded him to think not of himself, not even of Claire, but of Anaya.
His shoulders loosening again, Jasper said, ‘If I was to agree with what you’re propositioning—and I mean if—how exactly would you expect it to work out? We live and work over two hours away from each other. I don’t want Anaya to be ferried between the two of us like some child stuck in the middle of a bitter divorce.’
‘I don’t want that either,’ she gushed. ‘And I’ve got to be honest, I haven’t had a long time to think this through, but I do know I want to make it work and I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. We could just take things slowly at first—I could take some time off work or I could come up at weekends and spend time with her then. Obviously you’ll be her primary carer—I promise I’m not trying to take her away from you—and I’m prepared to visit frequently once you and Anaya are back home. I don’t expect you to bring her to Sydney, I’ll …’
He held both his hands up, indicating for her to stop her desperate rush of words. ‘Please. I need time to think this through.’ He went to stand, then said, ‘What does Samuel think of all this?’
‘Samuel will support me in whatever I want, whatever’s best for Anaya,’ she said, a curt edge to her voice.
‘And what role would he play in Anaya’s life? She’s already got a dad. She doesn’t need another one.’
‘Of course not. And that wouldn’t be an issue because Samuel doesn’t want to be a dad. But he’s a great uncle to our nieces and nephews, so I guess that’s what he could be to Anaya as well.’
With no idea how he felt about any of this, Jasper finally stood. ‘Okay then. If you’ll give me some time, I’ll get back to you.’
She stood as well and looked a little shaky on her feet. ‘How much time?’
His jaw tightened, annoyance flaring within again. ‘I don’t know, okay. Don’t rush me on this. I’ll get back to you when I’m ready.’
Harper opened her mouth as if to say more, but then quickly shut it again.
He went over to the door and opened it, holding it for her to go through. She walked past him and turned as if to head back to Anaya’s room. He cleared his throat and she looked back at him.
‘Thanks for driving up today,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you when I have an answer. About the interview and about … this.’
‘I was hoping to see Anaya again before I go.’
Jasper folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. ‘No. Until we’ve come to an agreement, I think it�
�s best you leave.’
Her whole face fell, her eyes glistening and her lower lip wobbling, but even though he felt like a jerk, he needed to be alone again with his girl. Harper was asking him something huge—something that would change the arrangements he and Claire had already made with her—and the whole conversation had left him hugely off-kilter.
He wasn’t ready to share Anaya just yet. He didn’t know if he would ever be.
‘Okay, fine,’ she said after a long silence. ‘But I’m going to take a hotel room in Newcastle so I’ll be here all weekend. If you come to a decision or you change your mind and want someone to be with Anaya while you go and freshen up, call me.’
Then, without so much as a goodbye, she turned and hurried towards the door that led out of the NICU.
His fingers shot to his temples and he rubbed them hard, a tension headache exploding behind his eyes as he watched her go. How he wished Claire were here to consult on this. Of course if that were the case, they wouldn’t be in this predicament. The contract they’d signed regarding the egg donation clearly stated that he and Claire were Anaya’s parents—it would be their names going on the birth certificate. Jasper was pretty certain Harper still had no legal parental rights despite the tragic change in situation, but did that mean she didn’t deserve them?
That question on spin-cycle inside his head, he watched the door of the NICU thud shut behind Harper and then headed back to Anaya. She was asleep again, but he sanitised his hands and snuck one into the side of the incubator, some of his tension immediately easing when he touched her smooth skin. He’d do anything for her, but how the hell was he supposed to know what was best? Whatever Harper said, he couldn’t see any way for this to work except if they shared the duties—Anaya spending some time with him and some with Harper and Samuel. But he didn’t want that kind of life for his daughter. He’d imagined raising her in a loving two-parent family with the cats, maybe a dog and hopefully siblings down the track as well.
‘Jasper Lombard?’ The voice of the paediatrician snatched him from his thoughts and he stood to greet Anaya’s medical team.
The Greatest Gift Page 29