Come Back to Me

by Sara Foster

  She was expecting Alex to object to this, but he didn’t say anything for a while. The silence between them was heavy, but not uncomfortable. Finally, he said, ‘Amy?’

  ‘Hmm.’ She didn’t look at him.

  ‘Please tell me about the baby.’

  She knew that there was no going back after she told him. She knew he might well judge her. But she also knew it had to be said.

  ‘I didn’t know for ages,’ she began. ‘My head was so messed up, I didn’t notice I’d barely had a period for months – I presumed it was all part of the trauma. There was no reason for me to think that… they had done a test in the hospital, and given me the morning-after pill. Twice, if I remember rightly, because I kept being sick and they were worried I was throwing it back up. Obviously, they were right. When I finally twigged, it was just from seeing myself in a full-length mirror one day – big boobs, rounded tummy. It suddenly dawned on me – it’s crazy, I know.

  ‘At first I wanted to get rid of it. I was in Thailand at the time, and I went to a doctor…’

  Telling it also meant reliving it. The dirty waiting room. The wrinkled doctor touching her stomach, nodding, gesturing for her to take off her underwear. His impatience when she refused, grabbing her arm, causing her to run out of the place without even paying, the sounds of his unintelligible shouting chasing her down the street.

  ‘I was in denial till I was about six months gone. I was checking in with Mum and Dad most weeks, telling them I was okay, not mentioning it to them at all. I was bracing myself to come home, but also putting it off.’

  She closed her eyes, remembering how her dad would plead every time for her to come back, or at least tell him where she was. How she wished now that she hadn’t refused him.

  ‘After I began to accept what was happening, I wanted the baby to be yours,’ she said, not daring to look at him. ‘I dreamed of presenting you with your child, and your overjoyed face when you saw us, and the dream sustained me. In fact, I was convinced it was yours – although I still wouldn’t come home. Looking back, I’m sure that somewhere in my subconscious I knew that if I did, I couldn’t keep alive the spell I’d woven around myself – there would be too many questions.

  ‘Then, when I was eight months pregnant, I called home…’

  Another raw, crippling memory. Her mother, the calm, practical one, had been hysterical. Her dad had already been dead three days from the heart attack. Her mum was alone. She had begged Amy to come back.

  ‘In the emotion of it all I promised I would come home, but I knew I couldn’t. Even if I’d wanted to, no airline would have let me on a plane – I was enormous. I was in a state of terrible grief, I was inconsolable. And alone. I don’t remember much about the week after that phone call.’

  Bangkok, a dirty, bare-walled room with a faint smell of sewage. A bed with a grey sheet, on which she had lain all week. The concerned owners – an old, hunched Thai couple – whispering whenever they saw her…

  ‘My waters broke one morning about a week after I heard about Dad, and the hostel owners took me to hospital. The wife even stayed with me, and held my hand, and gave me instructions in faltering English when I didn’t understand what was going on, and calmed me down when I tried to push doctors away from me.’

  And cooed over the baby when it was born, and looked quite upset when Amy wouldn’t really look at the child.

  ‘The birth itself was horrific. But that night, after I had her, I couldn’t help myself. I looked at her, and, beyond my expectations, the whole mother-love thing happened. She was beautiful. Actually, I was enraptured for five whole days while I was in hospital…’ She paused; took a slow, deep breath.

  ‘Then, when we were leaving, they gave me her medical records.’

  She had taken them so readily, just a form listing a few details. Her eyes had scanned once… and then again, more slowly, everything inside her shattering in a blast of grief as the truth had torn through her.

  ‘Do you remember my dad making us find out our blood groups before we went on our trip, just in case?’

  Alex nodded. He knew what was coming, and closed his eyes as he listened.

  ‘She was A negative. We were both O. She wasn’t yours.’

  Alex’s eyelids flicked open after she’d said it and he stared at her. She held his gaze.

  ‘I took her away anyway, but I was in terrible, terrible shock. I couldn’t live in denial any more – I couldn’t ignore such concrete evidence, I couldn’t un-tell myself the truth.

  ‘That night I tried to persuade myself I could keep loving her, but something had changed and I couldn’t turn it back. God, it was awful; in a way I loved her beyond anything I’d imagined, but I was in turmoil and I knew – I just knew – I couldn’t keep her. What if she looked like one of them? What if she asked about her father when she got older? It’s hard even to describe what was going on – it was like my head was full of demons whispering relentlessly, and I was just fighting to breathe. I was insane at the time, crazy with choices that all appeared to lead to terrible consequences.

  ‘I had a bath in my room. I hadn’t had a proper wash in the hospital. I filled it with water…’

  Her voice was cold and almost alien to him.

  ‘Amy -’ Alex began, eyes widening in alarm. ‘Don’t. Please stop. I don’t want to hear any more.’

  ‘I thought about it,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘She was sleeping, and I thought about gently putting her in the water and letting her sink to the bottom. Only for a fraction of a second, but I was horrified at myself nevertheless. After that, I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t be trusted around her. And this beautiful little thing deserved a chance. But she couldn’t stay with me. I couldn’t even take her home to my mum and ask for help, not with every millimetre of that space screaming out the absence of my father.

  ‘So I did the only thing I thought of at the time.’

  Trembling, the scissors on her penknife moving towards her soft, vulnerable head, taking a small lock of downy hair, a tiny keepsake.

  Alex braced himself, tensed, waiting.

  ‘I wrapped her in a shawl, then put her in a cardboard box. And I left her on the doorstep of a nearby Buddhist monastery.’

  The spot behind the wall where she had stood for what felt like hours – though it was probably only minutes – watching that box until the door opened. Stray dogs sniffing at it, chickens running next to it, her heart thundering.

  ‘So many times I nearly ran back. In fact, I was about to, when the door opened and a monk stood there…’

  He had been blinking in the early light, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Wrapped in orange robes with his alms bowl under his arm. Middle-aged, bald, bespectacled. Kind-looking.

  ‘He just peered into that box, picked it up and carried it inside and closed the door, like he was collecting the post, no emotion showing on his face at all.

  ‘And then she was gone. And I left.’ Amy released all the breath in her lungs with a huge sigh, then covered her eyes with her palms and mumbled towards the ground.

  ‘And that was that.’

  81

  Alex had no idea what to say. Amy looked at his face and could see that he was stunned.

  ‘Amy,’ he breathed eventually, still incredulous about what he had heard.

  She had been so calm as she told him all this, but now her voice cracked. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s awful. There have been so many times I’ve wanted to go back and ask about her, but I don’t dare. I abandoned my baby girl – the only way I can get through it is that in my daydreams she’s living a happy and secure life with people who love her. Otherwise…’

  ‘What did you do after that?’ he asked quickly to distract her.

  ‘I left Thailand. I went to Europe. I pretended it had never happened. It wasn’t too hard, in a way – my whole life became surreal very quickly. The baby began to feel like a strange dream. My nomadic existence became normal. And the years sli
pped by. I did lots of different things, went to lots of different places – hell, once or twice I was surprised to find I was beginning to enjoy something. Many times I thought about ending it, often just after an unexpected high, when the low that inevitably came next was all the more crushing. But I had made a promise to Mum and it stuck – something in me felt I owed it to her, I guess.’

  ‘Or maybe you just didn’t really want to die,’ he added.

  Amy looked taken aback. ‘I wanted to die,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe you just wanted the pain to go away,’ he continued. ‘And it was the only way out of it you could think of. But it’s not the same thing.’

  He could see she had never thought of it like that before. ‘Well,’ she said, after a pause, ‘now you know just how evil I am.’

  Alex moved closer to her, and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Nothing you’ve told me has been evil,’ he told her. ‘Tragic, yes. But that’s all.’

  ‘I abandoned my baby, Alex,’ she said.

  ‘I know.’ He kissed her hair. ‘God, Amy, what you’ve gone through – it’s unimaginable. And I let you down, right from the start. I should have kept you close, helped you to -’

  ‘I don’t feel like that,’ Amy interrupted. ‘I’ve been angry at you, sure – when you walked out of the hospital, I felt I hated you for a while. But I’ve had a lot of thinking time since, and I understand. It wasn’t your fault either, we were both caught up by circumstance. If it hadn’t been for the baby, I’m sure I would have come back a lot sooner.’

  Alex’s heart surged with affection for her as he took in her softly spoken words. ‘Well, everything is changing now,’ he told her. ‘It’s going to be okay. I already have a plan for what we should do.’

  Amy rested her head on his shoulder as he talked, and together they watched the boats bobbing on the river.

  82

  Mark hesitated as he checked the screen on his mobile. He hadn’t seen his father since Henry had stormed out of the apartment. Yes, it was pricking at his conscience, but he easily put it to the back of his mind because, first of all, he was getting heaps of work done, and secondly, he’d been spending a lot of time with Chloe.

  Finally, they were getting on top of the Abbott research. On Friday, Mark had been intrigued to see Chloe, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, walking hastily into her office and had followed her inside, closing the door behind him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he’d asked, gesturing to her unorthodox officewear.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Chloe had said, shaking her head, but then, as he sat in the chair usually reserved for her clients, she proceeded to tell him what her mother had done the day before.

  When she finished, by saying ‘Can you believe her?’, Mark had shaken his head.

  ‘What’s wrong with our parents?’ he’d asked.

  ‘God knows,’ Chloe said, her own head shaking again in echo of his. ‘I’m worried Mum is losing it, and I can’t expect June and George to be responsible for her. But I also can’t race up there every time her heart skips a beat and she panics and phones an ambulance.’

  ‘It could be worse,’ Mark said. ‘She could be coming into your office wearing your clothes and trying to take over your cases.’

  They’d looked at each other for a long moment, and Mark had laughed first. Chloe quickly followed, and for a moment they revelled in the release of it.

  ‘God,’ Chloe said, reaching for a tissue and blowing her nose. ‘I keep trying to think back over what I’ve done to have attracted such incredibly bad karma.’

  ‘Don’t waste your time,’ Mark said, sobering. ‘None of this is your fault. Sometimes life is just shite, I reckon.’

  Chloe looked at him and sighed. ‘Yes, I know you’re right. To be honest, I’m fed up with going over and over every thing. I just want to forget about it all for a while and get on with this.’ She gestured to her paper-strewn desk.

  ‘Fancy a working weekend?’ Mark suggested. ‘I’m thinking we surprise Neil by actually displaying a certain degree of competency about the Abbott case by Monday morning.’

  Chloe had smiled, then nodded. ‘Definitely.’

  So they had worked on Friday night, over a Thai takeaway; then all yesterday, stopping only for a deli lunch break, and a fish and chip supper. Mark had slept on Chloe’s couch, and they’d resumed again in the morning. They hadn’t talked about anything awkward – certainly not the pregnancy, which Mark was doing his best to pretend didn’t exist – it was either the case, or irrelevancies like politics, TV or which films they’d seen recently. By lunchtime there had been an efficient pile of notes, and nothing much left for them to do, so Mark had decided to head back to his apartment, but not before telling Chloe he was taking her out for a meal later.

  They were growing closer, he could feel it, and he was revelling in it. He’d never expected to have time alone with her like this again, but in the past week they had established a cajoling, easy banter that he didn’t even remember them having the first time around. His chest swelled with happiness whenever he made her smile. He was also boosted by the knowledge that each smile was a small victory over her undeserving husband, proving that Chloe might still be happy without him.

  But now the phone was ringing, distracting him from these welcome thoughts, and when he saw who the caller was, it was with the greatest reluctance that he decided he had to take the call.

  ‘Hi, sis,’ he said.

  ‘Mark,’ came his sister’s no-nonsense voice down the line. ‘I’m calling a family summit.’

  Mark rolled his eyes at her words. ‘Okay, Diane. Still the drama queen, I see.’

  ‘Well, you could try and wait for at least sixty seconds before acting like an arse, Mark,’ his sister said in reply.

  They’d always been this way. Mark was fairly sure there was a mutual affection hidden under the surface somewhere, but he’d yet to locate it conclusively. He found his sister curt and condescending, and knew without a doubt that she had exactly the same opinion of him.

  ‘Go on then, let’s hear it,’ he said.

  ‘Well, obviously, it’s about Dad,’ she replied. ‘And since I know he’s been staying with you a lot recently, I’m surprised you haven’t been in touch.’

  Mark tried not to be riled, but it was a losing battle. ‘What for?’

  ‘What for?! Well, perhaps because it’s bloody obvious from where I’m standing that Dad is having some kind of breakdown, and needs our help.’

  ‘He’s not having a breakdown, he’s just – he’s just having a rough time.’

  ‘It’s more than that, Mark.’

  ‘I know, Di,’ he said, allowing his exasperation to become evident. ‘He’s been lying comatose on my couch for a fair amount of time over the past week.’

  ‘Exactly. And yet, you didn’t think this was a problem.’

  ‘Jeez, Di, don’t play the doting daughter with me. It’s not you who’s had to put up with him.’

  ‘Er, actually, he’s been in my spare room since Thursday. Not to mention the fact that Mum is on the phone all the time, either pouring her heart out or ranting about divorcing him.’

  Mark’s heart sank. So that’s where he’d gone. He felt pretty awful that he hadn’t checked – his father could have been lying dead in a gutter for all Mark knew – but he just didn’t want to deal with this. He wasn’t even sure why, but recently every time he thought of his dad’s troubled, decrepit face, it made him want to find something solid to hide behind.

  ‘Di, I don’t know. Mum and Dad have never exactly been open to us giving our opinion on things…’

  ‘Well, it’s about time they were, then. They’re both being daft. They are completely unsentimental, egotistical idiots, but I can’t believe they don’t care about each other. It’s up to us to bang their heads together.’

  Mark snorted. ‘Okay. That’s a sight I’m curious to see, if nothing else. What’s the plan?’

  ‘Dad’s not going anywhere, he’s hardly l
eft the spare room since he got here, and I’m doing far too good a job of waiting on him. Can you bring Mum down one night this week?’

  Mark sighed. ‘I guess.’ The thought of travelling to southern Kent after work didn’t enthral him, but at least now he had confidence that he was back on his game as far as Abbott was concerned. ‘I can’t do tomorrow or Tuesday, but maybe Wednesday.’

  ‘Okay. Your job is getting Mum here. Then we’ll stage an intervention.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A family crisis meeting – we’ll force them to confront what’s going on.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘Just call me back when you know for sure about Wednesday,’ Di said, hanging up.

  Mark sighed again as he snapped his phone shut.

  83

  Amy ran out of the sea, smiling, water cascading off her smooth skin, and pushed her sodden hair out of her eyes, blinking the salt away. As she walked towards Alex, a wave rose up behind her, only just above the height of her knee, but with enough strength to knock her off balance. She staggered forward, arms in front of her, but righted herself before she hit the sand, and as she did she was laughing. Alex was laughing too as she caught his eye. And there she was again.

  His Amy. The one he had fallen in love with all those years ago. The one he saw returning a little more each day.

  They were only three or so hours’ drive from Perth, but it was as if they had been transported to another world. It seemed to Alex this might be one decision he hadn’t got wrong. Although, his plan hadn’t started so well – the drive down in the hire car, in the fading afternoon light, had been through deserted bushland most of the way, and Amy had been so pale he had worried he’d have to turn off course at any moment and find her a doctor.