A Mother’s Sacrifice

by Gemma Metcalfe

  I look around the table at a sea of faces all gawping at me. ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘That’s really lovely of you. Isn’t it, James?’

  James looks across the table at Magda and swallows loudly. ‘Mags, you’re one in a million. You have supported us from the moment we met you.’

  ‘I am truly blessed to be a part of your journey,’ she says to him, her eyes burning holes into his. ‘Louisa is the luckiest lady I know.’

  My jaw stiffens, something about their exchange not sitting well with me. You’re just being paranoid. Stop it! ‘It was really lovely to finally meet you,’ I say, turning to Helen in an attempt to pull my thoughts, and eyes, away from Magda and James. ‘Mags tells me you don’t live far from here. You’re always welcome to nip round for a cuppa.’ For a reason I can’t quite put my finger on, I am drawn to Helen. Perhaps it’s because both of our lives have been ravaged by tragedy, or maybe it’s because, in the back of my mind, I know I have seen her some place else. ‘Have we met before?’ I ask her. ‘You look familiar.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she mutters, dropping her gaze onto her lap while rubbing the gold crucifix around her neck. ‘Since Luke… well, I’ve hardly been out.’

  ‘The pharmacy…’ I say, all of a sudden remembering seeing her two days ago as she’d crouched down beside the female hygiene aisle, her hair as dirty and lank as it is today. ‘I think you were in the pharmacy the other day.’

  ‘Yes, maybe.’ Her cheeks redden and she looks as if she’s about to burst into tears.

  Oh shit! I could kick myself as I suddenly remember the phone call Magda received while in the coffee shop; Ron’s assistant concerned about Helen loitering around the pharmacy. Obviously I’ve touched a nerve, and I could bloody kick myself.

  ‘That solves it then,’ I offer through a smile. ‘I am sorry for your loss, by the way. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for you.’

  ‘Well…’ interrupts Annette, an after-dinner mint clasped between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Ron and I would like to make a little toast of our own.’ She looks over at Ron who appears to be virtually comatose. ‘Ron!’ she shouts, causing him to sit up straight like a soldier called to attention. ‘I was just saying we have an announcement, dear… and it would be preferable if you were alive to witness it.’

  ‘Right you are, dear,’ he slurs, his head lolling back down onto his chest. ‘Break a leg.’

  A rush of blood surges through me for a reason I can’t quite articulate.

  ‘Louisa, are you still with us?’ she asks. ‘’You’ve gone a little pale.’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ I say, fanning myself with my hand in an attempt to cool down. ‘Go on, what’s your announcement?’ I flick my eyes over towards James who shakes his head at me, clearly as much in the dark as I am.

  Silence descends all around us, the slow ticking of the clock acting as a physical countdown. ‘Come on then,’ I say, unable to take the tension for a moment longer. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well…’ Annette takes a deep breath and rubs her stomach in semi-circles. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Magda stiffen. ‘Ron and I are going to be parents!’

  I sit open-mouthed, momentarily unable to speak.

  ‘You haven’t even had another round of IVF lately,’ says Magda, her voice rising both in pitch and volume. ‘Unless you have and didn’t tell me?’

  I look over at Annette, see a smirk formulating behind her eyes. ‘Oh no… this one wasn’t IVF,’ she says, the smirk sliding down onto her lips. ‘This was all natural. I guess miracles do happen after all.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I think I’m going to be sick!’ Magda jumps up and flies out of the room… her muffled cry as painful as the pounding inside my head.

  ‘Mags, you in there?’ I tap open the door to the master bedroom, feeling like a stranger in my own home. The overspill from the landing light seeps into the darkness, illuminating Magda who sits on the edge of my bed, the weak light reducing her multicoloured hair to varying shades of grey. She is cradling Cory in her arms, her face wet with tears. I leave the door ajar so I don’t have to switch on the bedroom light. For some reason it doesn’t feel right to do so, as if seeing Magda anything less than perfect will somehow shift the dynamics between us. Since I have known her, she has fought to be the ‘happy one’ in our friendship; always battling through her sadness with a smile, pasting over her grief with yet another hair dye, reinventing herself over and over again as if searching for the person who isn’t maternal, for the woman whose womb doesn’t ache for a child that never comes.

  She doesn’t speak as I gently sit down beside her, the mattress indenting under my weight. Cory is asleep in her arms, his face relaxed and devoid of expression, reminding me of a china doll. Magda reaches out and strokes his fingers, her touch gentle. I hold on to my words, understanding that she needs to have this moment with my son. Her pain is so familiar to me and yet I suddenly feel like I am no longer eligible to share it. The bond which bound us together has been broken. No longer are we two mothers without children. No longer are we a united front against the ‘others’: the woman in the coffee shop who ordered two muffins because she was ‘eating for two’, the frazzled-looking mum in the supermarket who juggled identical twins and a trolley full of food. We envied them, we admired them, we wished we were them…

  And now I have become them. Annette has become them. And Magda has become ‘the other’.

  ‘I understand how absolutely shit this must feel.’ I reach out to her, placing my hand on top of hers.

  She sniffs up. ‘I must seem like a bitch. Annette and Ron have been trying for ever… and after losing that little one at eight weeks. Oh God, I’m evil.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Look, if it was me, and Annette had looked at me with that smug grin, I’d probably have rammed the pigs in blankets down her throat.’

  ‘I couldn’t have subjected Bindy to that. She was such a lovable pooch.’ She exhales a small, sad laugh. ‘I am happy for them, really I am. But seeing you with Cory, and then Annette rubbing her stomach…’

  ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to explain, I get it. But it will happen for you, Magda, one day.’

  ‘When did you become so clichéd, eh, Louisa?’ Her voice hardens, which surprises me. ‘We bloody hate those people, remember. Stop trying and it will happen, what’s meant to be will be, what’s for you won’t go by you.’

  ‘Well, what do I know?’ I say, trying to defuse the situation before it properly ignites. ‘I’m a bloody nutter! I think my son’s sperm donor is coming to take him, I’m taking medication that could sedate an ape and I’m turning as bald as Harry Hill!’

  She laughs, a small, tired laugh which isn’t really a laugh at all. ‘I don’t deserve you as a friend. You’re too good for me. I’m not a good person, not really.’

  I wrap my arm around her, pull her into my side. ‘Of course you are, Mags, you’re the best.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I try and be the person everybody expects me to be, but sometimes it’s too hard. Sometimes…’ She pauses, as if wanting to say more but suddenly conscious of what I might think. I stay silent, knowing from experience that she’ll talk when she’s ready. ‘When Helen cries night after night about losing Luke,’ she continues finally, ‘do you know what I think?’ She looks up at me, her eyes glassy with tears. ‘I think she shouldn’t complain so much because at least she was a mother for eight years. How horrible is that?’

  I bite my lip, somewhat shocked by her revelation even if I can understand it on some level. ‘Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you,’ I say, the thought popping into my head unannounced. ‘I want to ask you a favour.’

  She nods for me to continue. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Will you be Cory’s godmother?’

  She tenses up, her words seemingly frozen in her mouth. When she finally speaks, her voice is barely a whisper. ‘Thank you. I do love him, you know that, don’t you?’

  I kiss her cheek, happy that th
e brief animosity of earlier seems to have been dissipated. ‘I know you do. And if anything should ever happen to James or me you’re the only person I want caring for Cory. So you’re saying yes? You will be his godmother?’

  She looks down at my sleeping son, her love for him so strong I can almost feel it. ‘I would be honoured.’

  We fall silent as I follow Magda into the dining room a few moments later, my previous headache now a whopping migraine. James stares up at me and raises his eyebrows, as if uncomfortable with the whole situation. I offer him a tight smile before turning my attention to Annette whose eyes are glassy and puffy as if she’s been crying. She holds a crumpled serviette up to her nose and blows into it noisily. Ron is kneeling down by her side, his balding head practically wedged into her bosom. The whole scene looks a little rehearsed, as if the two of them are performing a two-man show.

  ‘Are you all right, Magda?’ Helen is the first to speak. She rubs the gold crucifix between her fingers while she waits for a reply, one Magda seems reluctant to give. I wonder for a moment if Magda is annoyed with Helen. After all, Helen is her sister; surely she should have been the one upstairs comforting her?

  ‘I’m fine.’ Magda seems to have difficulty swallowing before taking several steps forward, stopping just short of where Annette is stooped over the table. ‘Annette, Ron, I’m so sorry. Of course I’m over the moon for you both.’ She reaches out and lightly places the tips of her fingers on Annette’s shoulder, as if terrified her touch will be rebuffed.

  ‘S’okay’ slurs Ron, who remains kneeling down. He’s so hammered I wonder how he’ll ever manage to stand back up. I suddenly have visions of us all standing in a line, yanking him up like he’s a giant turnip. Exhaustion washes over me at the thought, the bottom of my back now stiff with pain. I trail my eyes over the leftovers which still litter the table, the festive tablecloth hidden under multiple Pyrex dishes and gravy-smeared plates. I sigh, knowing I have neither the strength nor desire to tackle it all.

  ‘Annette, are we still friends?’ Magda asks, having received no response the first time. ‘It was just hard to hear, that’s all. You must understand that?’

  ‘You’ll have your baby soon, Mags,’ murmurs James, so quietly I wonder if I’ve imagined it.

  ‘Yes, we’re friends.’ Annette looks up at Magda, a beaming smile now on her face which is completely at odds with the nose blowing of a moment ago. ‘I don’t suppose I can be angry with you. I know all too well what barrenness does to a person.’

  A knot of anger tightens in my chest. How can she be so callous?

  ‘Thanks, honey,’ says Magda, either not registering Annette’s bitchiness or choosing to ignore it. ‘So, a baby…’ she continues, her voice much brighter than it needs to be. ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘I really thought it was the menopause,’ I hear Annette say, her voice sounding as if it’s coming from underwater. I lean against the door frame for support, another wave of dizziness taking hold, stronger this time, accompanied by a film of cold sweat. ‘After the miscarriage last year we decided to give the treatment a break. I’m getting on a bit now and we thought we might have had to revert to donor eggs. We were taking time out to decide what to do.’ I look over at her in an attempt to focus, see a smile creep into the crevices of her lips. I blink; one, two, three times, trying and failing to bring everything back into focus.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asks James, presumably to me.

  I nod my head.

  ‘Then, last week…’ Annette’s voice gathers speed. ‘Just after we met at Caffè Nero, I felt terribly faint. I thought with Louisa fainting we both might have had a bug. Obviously now I know hers was down to postnatal depression.’

  ‘I haven’t got postnatal depression,’ I say, or think; not sure which one.

  ‘So, anyway, I was walking past Boots and I thought, why not? Not like I haven’t seen a negative pregnancy test before. I couldn’t believe it when it came up pregnant plus five. It was like the greatest of all miracles.’

  ‘So how far gone are you then?’ asks Magda, or Helen, their faces turned away from me and their voices too similar to decipher.

  ‘We phoned SureLife immediately. Doctor Hughes managed to squeeze us in for a scan the following morning. We expected a little bean, you know, five or six weeks, something like that. Louisa, are you all right?’ she asks, her voice hardening. ‘Come and sit down or you’ll miss the best bit.’

  I make my way over to an empty chair, Ron’s I think, the one beside James. Annette is now sat opposite me, Magda still stood to the side of her. Thankfully, Ron has managed to stand back up and is slumped against the wall in front of me, the back of his head dangerously close to the mirror which hangs behind him. ‘Go on,’ I say, my words clogging in my throat. ‘’Tell us.’

  ‘Well, you’re not going to believe it.’ She looks me directly in the eye, as if only speaking to me. ‘I nearly jumped off the examination table when the little rascal started waving at me. I’m only thirty-four weeks gone!’

  A collective intake of breath shrinks the room.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Magda, her voice cracking. ‘Will you excuse me? I need the loo.’

  ‘I mean I knew I’d put on weight,’ continues Annette, oblivious to Magda’s obvious distress. I consider chasing after her again but I’m no longer sure my legs can take the weight. ‘And there was that spell in summer when I thought I had a stomach bug. But I had absolutely no idea I was pregnant. Can you believe we’re going to be parents in a matter of weeks?’

  ‘No,’ I reply, sickness congealing in the back of my throat. ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘Well, I think this is cause for celebration,’ says James, his tone falling just short of sincere. ‘Little Cory is going to be thrilled to have a playmate.’

  ‘Oh, and that’s the greatest thing of all,’ gushes Annette, her eyes still resting on mine. ‘We’re having a little boy!’

  I stare at her, everything finally sliding into place: the card, the quote, the slow, careful unpicking of my character. Annette is behind everything. Annette and Ron are going to steal my baby!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Annette

  After

  ‘I’m not surprised really that this has happened, officers. I could see she’d lost her marbles two days ago when we went round for Christmas lunch.’

  The two police officers slide their eyes over to one another in perfect synchronisation.

  ‘In what way?’ asks the female officer, who has a touch of nous about her unlike her incompetent sidekick.

  ‘Oh, pickled as a walnut, couldn’t tell her arse from her elbow, excuse my French.’

  ‘I believe you and your husband are pharmacists, is that correct?’ DC Kennedy fiddles around with the corner of his notepad.

  ‘We are. She’d been in to the pharmacy two days before Christmas Day with a prescription for antidepressants.’

  ‘And you served her?’

  I shake my head. ‘I was out food shopping. The weather, as you’re aware, was a nightmare. Still, it only lasted a day, didn’t it? Never can rely on the British weather, can you? I suppose this torrential rain isn’t helping much with your forensics?’

  ‘So, who served Louisa?’ asks Lawrie, not falling for any of my rhetorical questions. I like her, I like her a lot.

  ‘I can’t say I know for sure, but normally it would be our assistant, Dawn. Have you spoken to her yet?’

  Lawrie’s slight drop of the eyes informs me she hasn’t. Dearie me, and she was doing so well.

  ‘Where is your husband, Mrs Green?’ asks Kennedy, the bumfluff on his upper lip now wet with Earl Grey tea. I probably should have brought in Tetley’s – such a waste.

  ‘Scotland. We’re planning to move there for work and he’s gone ahead already. There are things to sort out.’

  ‘And when did he leave?’

  His nosiness is beginning to grate on me. ‘Yesterday.’

  He nods before placing the china cup ba
ck into its saucer on my eighteenth-century Italian coffee table, his hands shaking ever so slightly.

  The officers proceed to ask about our friendship, pushing for details which, if I’m honest, are pointless. It’s clear Bumfluff boy doesn’t believe I’m sad about the events which have befallen you, and, although not wrong entirely, he is certainly misguided. I never hated you, Louisa, not for a second. You simply had no backbone and I found that mildly irritating.

  ‘We met at SureLife’s support group,’ I say, ensuring I make full eye contact. ‘Ron and I attended after suffering a miscarriage at eight weeks.’ The memory of that day causes tears to spring into my eyes, which is embarrassing to say the least. ‘We paid for weekly scans, which is par for the course when attending SureLife. The seven-week check was marvellous. The baby was no bigger than a lentil, of course, but it flashed on and off like an orb… its heartbeat, that was,’ I add, clarifying the situation for Bumfluff boy. ‘Lentil or no lentil, that was my baby and I loved him.’

  ‘Him? You can’t tell the sex at seven weeks.’ Bumfluff raises his eyebrows, which sends him soaring up in my estimation. Who would have thought he’d know something like that?

  ‘Figure of speech obviously.’ I swallow down another influx of tears at the memory, not enjoying this sudden loss of control. ‘A week later we attended SureLife for the eight-week scan. I had stopped vomiting five days prior and thought perhaps I was lucky. But…’

  ‘You don’t have to continue, Mrs Green.’ DC Lawrie breaks eye contact and circles her thumbs round and round each other. Heavens above, she’ll be requiring a handkerchief herself in a moment. I really did read her wrong. Sometimes you never can tell.

  ‘It’s fine. The baby had passed. Which isn’t uncommon, especially at my age. Doctor Hughes suggested we use donor eggs and we were weighing our options when we attended the support group.’

  ‘And that’s where you first met Louisa?’