by G. Benson
Play by the book, and maybe, just maybe, Anna would come out of this on top.
She could call Lorna and find out if the paperwork was completed for her, or at least Sandra, to see the kids. A knot twisted in her stomach, and Anna felt nauseated. God, what if they didn’t let her see them?
Walking down the final hallway towards the building’s exit, she pulled her phone out, dialling Lorna’s number. But the sight of Lane turning around the corner up ahead slowed her down.
Lane looked up from the chart in her hand, eyes widening when she saw Anna, and stopped dead in the middle of the hallway.
With her eyes glued on Lane’s, her heart racing and the phone ringing repetitively in her ear, Anna opened her mouth to say something, anything, when Lorna finally answered on the other end.
“This is Lorna, how can I help?”
She and Lane kept staring at each other as Anna’s legs continued to carry her inexorably forward.
“Hello?”
“Uh—Lorna. Hi, it’s Anna Foster.”
Her eyes stayed on Lane as she walked past her. She needed to get to the lawyer’s office, yet, everything in her wanted to turn around and stop Lane.
“Anna, hi, I thought you’d call early.”
Anna swallowed heavily. “Yeah, sorry, I just—I need to know, can I see them? Tell me I can.”
Nausea played in her stomach. Anna tried to ignore it and focus on what Lorna was going to say. She breathed deeply.
There was silence on the phone.
“Lorna?”
Lorna sighed. “I am really, genuinely sorry, but I couldn’t get you cleared to see the kids before the trial.”
Anna refused to let it hit her, refused to stop in her tracks. Instead, she sped up, walking faster towards her car.
“There’s really no way?”
“I’m sorry, no. If things don’t go your way at the trial and you don’t get them back into temporary custody, we’ll be able to sort something out then.”
Anna forced her key into the car and opened the door, climbing in and slamming it shut, leaning forward to rest her forehead on the steering wheel, eyes closed.
“That’s if the reason I don’t get them isn’t that they find me guilty and I’m in court for neglect of my niece and nephew.”
Lorna’s silence answered that one.
“Can my mother see them, at least?”
“Yes. That’s the silver lining, I got it cleared for her to go. She can see them this afternoon at four. I’ll call her with the details.”
A breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding burst out. “Good. That’s good.”
“It is good.” Lorna paused. “I really am sorry. I just want you to know that I did everything I could.”
Anna’s eyes welled up under her closed lids. “I really appreciate that, Lorna. I’m sorry, I’ve got to get to the lawyer’s.”
“I’ll call your mother and arrange things with her. Take care of yourself, Anna. I’ll see you Friday.”
The steering wheel was digging into her forehead. “I’ll see you then.”
The thought of the trial filled her with dread, but she sat up straight, refusing to let the tears that had formed fall. So many things were whirling around her head. She started the car and pulled out of the lot, heading for Scott’s office.
Her mind was a mess—the kids, the trial, not getting to see them, Cathy, her accusations. If she got them back, she’d still have the custody trial. If she didn’t, she’d still have the custody trial with much more diminished chances of getting the kids permanently. Or she’d be in jail. If she didn’t get them, who knew how long until the system cleared her to see them.
It had been four days, and already Anna was going out of her mind without them.
And then, of course, there was Lane. What if her mother and Kym were right? That she’d panicked and called it wrong. Thinking that was like torture. Could she really have Lane back? Could she really have Lane and maybe, come Friday, the kids?
It almost seemed too much to hope for.
That’s if Lane would even take her back. Would Lane understand that it hadn’t been Anna abandoning Lane, but her refusing to abandon the kids? That she hadn’t wanted to do it but that she had been filled with fear and panic and done the only thing possible that had felt like action?
She pulled up to Scott’s office and thought she was going to be ill with the stress sitting like a rock in her stomach. When she made it up to the reception desk, Anna realized that, for some reason, she had expected a young, sleek woman to be Scott Matthews’ secretary. Instead, a woman in her late sixties who looked like she could be Anna’s grandmother greeted her with a friendly smile.
“Hello, dear, can I help you?’
Anna felt like crawling onto her lap and being hugged. She blinked and tried to snap herself out of it. “Uh, yes. I’m Anna Foster. I have an appointment?”
“Yes, he’s expecting you, dear. Take a seat, and Mr Matthews won’t be a minute.”
Anna sat down on one of the squishy chairs that made the waiting room look more like a study than an office. The receptionist peered over her desk.
“Can I get you anything, love? Some water? A nice cup of tea?”
“No, thank you anyway.”
“Sing out if you change your mind. Cup of tea can do wonders.” She winked.
Anna smiled, and the woman went back to her computer, typing far faster than Anna would have expected. Anna’s own mother still sent her dodgy text messages that had been wrongly autocorrected and asked her regularly why her Facebook kept lighting up with red things on the top right hand corner.
Anna looked down at her phone, surprised to see she had two missed calls, one from her mother and the other from Hayley. Pressing the button for her voicemail, Anna heard her mother’s voice first.
“Anna honey. I just had Lorna call me. I can’t help but feel she’s on our side. That Cathy woman is going down. That’s what you say, isn’t it? It’s not that she’s going off? Though she is off, off her damn rocker. Anyway, she said she’s spoken to you. I’m seeing them at four.”
Anna could hear the relief in her mother’s voice.
“Call me to give me any messages you want for them. I-I’m so sorry that you couldn’t come, sweetie. But we’ll get this mess sorted on Friday. Call me back; that’s an order.”
It sounded like her mother was about to hang up, and Anna went to press the button for the next message when suddenly Sandra’s voice came back on, much fiercer, making her jump.
“Are you back with Lane yet? You better be, young lady.”
Anna gritted her teeth and pressed for the next message, her whole body tensing as Hayley’s voice came over the speaker.
“Hey, it’s me. Just checking in, to see if you’ve had any news. Hope Scott’s looking after you; he really is a genius in the courtroom. Um—call me, if you need anything. I was thinking, if you needed some support, I could come down for a night or two. I know what you’re like when you’re stressed. Let me know, anyway…even if it’s just for a night. Take care.”
Anna hung up her phone and glared at it. I know what you’re like when you’re stressed. The tone of her voice hadn’t left a lot to the imagination about what Hayley had been offering.
Anna leant back in her chair. Her head hurt. There was just too much going on.
She almost gave a derisive snort: Hayley had broken up with her because of the kids and, now that the kids were out of the picture for a night or two, she was offering to pop in for a quickie. The whole thing made Anna feel irrationally angry.
“Anna?”
Her head snapped up to see Scott Matthews standing there.
“Good morning. Did you want to come through?”
The meeting with Scott didn’t leave Anna feeling much better. He went over the witne
sses he had gathered to speak at the trial, as well as those who had given written testimonies. Speaking on the day would be Sandra, Andrew—Anna’s eyebrows had risen at that; what would he have to say? He lived in his whisky bottle—McDermott, Tanya from the day care and Lane.
Anna was confused about the last one. “I thought you said Lane wouldn’t be questioned, due to the allegations?”
“At first I thought that would be best, but she would most likely be called by the other side anyway, so I thought it would be a good idea.”
“What about Kym?”
“She will be called as well, to testify that there is no relationship between the two of you beyond friendship.” He shifted in his seat, hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “And I have to ask again, I’m sorry, there definitely isn’t, is there?”
Anna gave a small laugh. “No, there’s not. Kym is just a friend.”
“Okay. Sorry again.”
Scott let her know how the trial would run. It would be in more of an office setting, he said. The case was working as almost a “State versus Anna” situation, as it wasn’t Cathy personally prosecuting her, but the state’s child services following up on complaints. Nevertheless, Cathy would be there.
Anna clenched her jaw.
There would only be a judge, but no jury and no media or people able to sit in. Witnesses would sit out in the hall until called. Anna breathed easier at this. It sounded a lot less scary than the TV courtroom drama she had been imagining.
“Will Ella be called?” It was something that had been nagging at her; she didn’t want Ella to go through that.
Scott shook his head. “No. We try and avoid putting kids out there like that. The school counsellor will speak, and hopefully the testimonies will be enough. Under certain circumstances, the judge will ask to have the child be called, but hopefully not in this case.”
He said he’d have her in again tomorrow to go over the questions he’d ask, and then, all of a sudden, Anna was back outside, blinking in the daylight. She called her mother, keeping the conversation brief.
The most important thing she said was, “Tell them I’m doing everything I can to be with them. And I think about them all the time. And I’m—tell Ella I’m looking forward to pancakes.”
Then she went back to work, to finish up her day.
Anna didn’t see Lane again, and Kym was in some kind of psych emergency on the fourth floor, meaning Anna couldn’t rant at her. On the plus side, it meant she couldn’t give Anna the stink eye every time she walked past.
Because, damn, Kym could give a good stink eye.
Sandra called just after six with an update on Ella and Toby.
“They’re…they’re okay, Anna.”
Anna sucked in a breath. “Why the hesitation, Mum?”
Sandra sighed. “Ella is quiet. Toby was ecstatic to see me, but then very clingy. He cried when they took him back. Ella clung to my pants leg so tight I thought they wouldn’t be able to take her away.”
Leaning against the wall, Anna closed her eyes and dropped her head back against it. “But they’re safe? Did you meet the foster parents?”
“They’re safe, and well, and they’re looked after. There’s some policy, I didn’t meet them. Ella said they were ‘okay’, though. I told them what you told me to, that you’re doing everything you can to have them back with you.”
“Did Ella believe you?”
“Of course.” Her mother’s voice was high.
“Mum?”
“She believed it.”
Anna balled her hand into a fist. “Mum.”
Her mother sighed. “She…she asked why you didn’t have your own kids before this, if you’d ever wanted them. I think she’s been thinking too much.”
Anna felt ill. “What did you say?!”
“I’m not new to childhood questions. I told her you didn’t have kids yet because you didn’t know you wanted any until you had them.”
Anna let a breath out. “Did she believe that, at least? Mum—” Anna’s voice cracked. “I need Ella to know how much I want them back.”
“She believed that, honey.”
“What else did you do?”
Toby had been incredibly attached, and even Ella had spent the entire time leaning against Sandra’s side. They’d read books, and Sandra had made sure to cuddle them nonstop and to ask, without scaring Ella, as much as she could about how they were being looked after. Anna soaked in every word, closing her eyes and trying to picture the kids. When she got off the phone with her mother, she felt hollow.
At least they were okay.
As she was leaving for the day, come eight o’clock, she again went to turn down the hallway to the day care—out of habit—never mind the late hour, and never mind that the kids weren’t with her.
With a heavy sigh, Anna hooked her bag back onto her shoulder and headed home, the car ride a blur as she turned up the music to try to drown out the silence. In spite of herself, her eyes kept flickering from the road to Toby’s car seat in the rear-view mirror.
Anna suddenly took a U-turn, back to the hospital.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go home and sit in an empty house, to eventually cave and have a cigarette. The rooms were suffocating as she passed the time waiting until she was tired enough to try to sleep. Coiled tension filled her body. Anna didn’t know what to do about anything, and the painful truth was there wasn’t anything she could do. She was completely hopeless, dependent on a system that had caused the problem in the first place.
She gritted her teeth, fingers gripping the steering wheel hard enough to turn her knuckles white.
She needed to work out what to say to Lane.
Back at the hospital, Anna walked through the entrance, itching to enter an operating room and do something constructive, to put her brain to use and to not have time to think about Ella and Toby or Lane. She was walking down towards the elevator, eyes on the ground, lost in thought. When she looked up, she saw Lane and Tess a few metres ahead, with their backs to her, about to walk into the same elevator.
Anna’s stomach clenched. Tess, biting into an apple, was walking just behind Lane.
Kym suddenly stepped into Anna’s field of vision, making it impossible to see Lane’s face as she walked into the elevator, until Kym grabbed Tess by the back of the shirt, pulling her backwards and out of the elevator. Tess let out a muffled “Hey!” around the apple in her mouth.
With her other hand, Kym reached forward, wrapped her fingers around Anna’s wrist and yanked her forward, letting go as Anna’s momentum carried her towards the door. Finally, Kym gave the small of her back a shove, hissing “Fix this!” as she passed.
Anna suddenly found herself standing in the elevator, wide eyed, as Lane turned to look at her in surprise.
Glancing out the door, Anna saw Kym still gripping a pissed-off-looking Tess’s uniform top as the doors started to close. With an overly cheerful wave, Kym grinned.
Terrified, Anna turned back to Lane and they stared at each other.
“Hey.” Anna finally said, lamely.
“Hey.”
Anna licked her lips, which were suddenly dry, opening her mouth to say something, then closing it again.
Lane gave her a small smile that did not reach her eyes. “It’s okay, Anna. Kym gets excited. You don’t have to say anything.”
Anna took in a heavy breath and hit the emergency stop button, heart hammering in her chest. She barely knew what to say.
Confusion etched over Lane’s features.
“I-I am so, sorry, Lane.”
“Don’t, Anna, you don’t need to be. I understand.”
A foot of space was all that was between them as Anna took another small step. “I am. I’m so sorry. I…” She flicked her eyes up to the ceiling before looking back to Lane. “I panicked.”
Crossing her arms in front of her, Lane nodded. She took a small step backwards. “I know. I get it. I would have done the same thing.”
Anna matched Lane’s backward step with one going forward, trying to sort out her words. “I—”
“Actually, no.” Lane’s tone was still soft. “I wouldn’t have. It’s not what I would have done.”
Dread settled over her. Lane wouldn’t forgive her. Maybe she did see it as Anna abandoning her, rather than Anna desperately clutching at something that would help her keep the kids, even if it was the wrong thing.
Voice hoarse, Lane continued, “I wouldn’t have done it. But,” she sighed, “I understand why you did, Anna.” As if trying to protect herself, Lane’s arms tightened around her middle.
Anna cursed herself, and Cathy, for Lane’s protective stance. What if she’d broken what they had between them permanently?
“I…I panicked. I’ve had it pointed out to me that I call things wrong, sometimes.”
Questioning eyes met her own as Lane finally looked up from the floor.
“I…Lane…” Her voice cracked. “Can you forgive that? I was…God, I’m still so scared I’m not going to get them back.”
“You…you want me to forgive that?”
Anna closed her eyes. She’d pushed Lane too far. Despite knowing it was wrong, she had really hoped Lane would understand where she was coming from enough to forgive what she’d done. Gentle hands cupped her cheeks. Anna’s eyes opened, swallowing heavily when she saw Lane’s face inches from her own.
“Are you asking, because you want this back? Or…” Lane bit her lip. “or because, you want forgiveness so you don’t feel guilty?”
Resting her hands over Lane’s, Anna shook her head. “I want this back, Lane. I can’t…I can’t breathe without you. Everything’s been so hard.”
“I thought you were just apologising.”
“I was, but also…I don’t want to do this without you.” Anna leant forward, hesitating a second with her lips hovering over Lane’s before pressing a kiss to her lips. She melted into it, relishing the feel of Lane under her after days of turmoil. Slowly, she pulled back and rested her forehead against Lane’s. “I need to have them back. I can’t be without them. But, God, Lane, I can’t be without you, either.”