‘Let’s go check out the freezer.’
She nodded. Soon they were moving down the white corridor towards the storage freezer. Dale opened the door.
‘Do you want to do it, or should I?’
Ashley grabbed hold of the top drawer and pulled it open. She searched through the alphabetical listings. The name Archer jumped out at her. The one next to theirs held a vial marked Arden. She slowly removed it. It contained a frozen morula. Female. There was a code: Possible exclusion. The Ardens’ embryo had never been used. The child Grace had given birth to could not possibly be her own. Someone had made a terrible mistake, and for a second, Doctor Ashley Li thought her heart had actually stopped.
Ashley sat on the floor massaging her temples, trying to picture the day of the botched transfer, but almost a year had passed. She had no more chance of remembering the events of 5 September than of 13 July or 7 November. But when she focused on the last time she had seen Grace and Dan Arden in the clinic, there was something—a muddy memory, just out of reach. She concentrated on it. There had been an error with their paperwork. Doris had called her into the reception area right before the transfer. Ashley tried to recall the details, but her instincts told her that the paperwork wasn’t the problem.
Once she was in the transfer room, Ashley would have been given the catheter already loaded. She didn’t want to shift blame, but the simple fact was that it was the embryologist’s work. She tried to picture who was on staff that day, but she had done so many transfers with the Ardens it was difficult to say. She didn’t want to avoid taking responsibility. She didn’t want anyone to be responsible. This was a nightmare.
‘I bet nothing like this has ever happened before,’ Dale said. ‘Whoa. We’re going to be on the news.’
‘No! Dale, just … let me think.’ Ashley’s stomach twisted as the implications sank in.
‘What’s there to think about? This is, like, medical malpractice. I mean, this is a serious breach of our duty of care.’
‘And what if we report it, what then? This couple has their baby taken away from them.’
Dale opened his mouth to argue, but stopped himself. ‘I didn’t think of that. But somewhere out there is the baby’s real mother.’ ‘What’s a real mother, Dale?’ she snapped. ‘Somewhere out there I have a real father who has never bothered to learn my name.’ Dale blinked, startled. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. ‘But Ashley, this is a completely separate set of circumstances. This child has parents out there who—given they were doing IVF—probably want him.’
‘I need to think. If the Ardens’ morula is still in our freezer, whose baby did Grace give birth to?’
‘It has to be that other couple,’ Dale said. ‘The Archers.’
‘We don’t know that for sure. It could be anyone’s.’
Ashley returned to Doris’s desk, with Dale on her heels. She scrolled back through the daily logs until she found the record for Priya Archer.
She opened Priya’s file. Had she had a successful pregnancy? Ashley’s mind was bounding ahead. If the Ardens had the Archers’ baby, and the Archers had the Ardens’ baby, then maybe … maybe it wasn’t so bad. How many embryos had the Archers had on ice? She knew she was grasping desperately. Sam was the Archers’ child. They would want their son. But it seemed easier if they had one of their own … She clicked open the file. Priya had not had a successful transfer.
There was a note. Priya had started treatment with her husband, Nick, but in the end had used donor sperm. The husband was no longer in the picture. She was of Indian heritage, and sought an Indian donor.
‘Oh my God,’ Ashley said as the black-and-white image of the baby flashed in her mind.
Grace knew. Grace knew she had someone else’s child and she hadn’t said anything. That’s why she was so secretive at the market. It explained why there were no photos of Sam online.
‘That’s why she was acting so strangely,’ Ashley said, hardly able to believe it.
She re-read the notes on the Ardens’ case over and over, searching for a clue she had missed, some proof she had got it all wrong. But deep down she knew that she was not wrong.
Dale was watching her. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’ She bit her thumbnail. ‘What do you think?’
‘This is above my pay grade.’
‘I suppose we have to report it to the Health Complaints Commissioner.’
‘And Doctor Osmond?’
‘He’ll need to be told.’ The thought turned her blood cold. Roger would want to know who had been treating the patients. He would want to know who had threatened his reputation and endangered the clinic. He would explode.
‘Come on,’ she said, shutting down Doris’s computer. ‘It’s late. There’s nothing we can do tonight.’
Dale nodded. Before they left she stopped and grabbed his arm. ‘Dale, promise me you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone until I’ve figured out the best way forward.’
‘You think I want to cause more trouble?’
‘Dale.’
‘Okay, I swear. Not a word.’
Ashley went straight to Roger’s office the next morning, and in clear and clinical language laid out everything she had discovered. He was holding a pen in his hand, clicking it as he listened. The clicking grew faster as he learned the facts, in-out-in-out.
‘Does anyone else know?’
She thought of Dale. ‘No.’
‘And you say it was just a hunch that made you investigate this? Nobody has complained?’
‘You saw the way Grace Arden was acting. I was worried about her. I thought maybe the genetic testing had missed something. I wanted to help.’
‘Do the biological patients have any idea?’
‘You’re the first person I’ve told.’
He leaned back in his chair. His pen clicking slowed. In. Out. In. Out.
‘Well, if we have a healthy baby, and happy parents, with no complaints, I don’t really see that there’s any role for us to play.’
Ashley’s jaw dropped. ‘You can’t be serious, Roger?’
‘What are you suggesting—that we take the baby from his mother and father and give it to a woman who doesn’t even know he exists?’
‘No, but don’t you think she deserves to know?’
‘To what end? The family is happy. The biological mother has moved on with her life. What possible purpose would be served by dredging up the error?’
She looked at Roger as if seeing him for the first time. Their relationship had always been uneven—she the younger woman, still finding her feet, he the lauded miracle worker. But now the light of his halo was flickering. ‘How can you be so calm about this?’
‘I’m not calm at all. But it’s done now.’ His voice had a steely quality Ashley had never heard before.
‘We have to tell them,’ she said. ‘We have to call the mothers.’ ‘Has a complaint been filed?’ he said slowly, each word deliberate and loaded.
Ashley glared at him across his large mahogany desk. ‘No.’
‘Then we’ll review how this happened and look at what can be done to ensure it doesn’t happen again.’
‘What about the child?’
‘He stays with his birth parents. If nobody is upset, nothing needs to be done.’
‘The biological mother isn’t upset because she doesn’t know.’
‘Ashley!’ He slammed his hand on his desk. ‘There will be an internal investigation. We will deal with it at a clinical level and leave the family in peace. Now drop it.’
Ashley was speechless. All she could do was stare at the man she had shared a bed with for the past year and wonder how she could have been so wrong about him.
‘You just want to protect your reputation,’ she said finally.
‘I’m not going to tear apart a family!’ he boomed.
‘What about the family that will be destroyed by this secret?’
He got to his feet. ‘This is my clinic
. I’m the director. I’m your employer. Don’t you forget that. The decision is not yours to make.’
The young doctor stared at him, defiant. ‘It’s not yours either.’
‘Do you really want to rip a two-month-old boy from the arms of a mother and father who love him dearly?’
Ashley wanted to argue, but found she couldn’t. He had her there. No matter how sure she was that it was right that the child should know his biological parents, the thought that he might be taken from Grace and Dan was too cruel to bear. She imagined the little boy, thrust into the arms of strangers, wondering what had happened to the only mother and father he had ever known.
She turned and exited Roger’s office without a word.
On the other hand, a mistake had been made, and Grace and Dan had concealed it. She thought of the child. Not as he was now, but aged five, aged nine, aged twelve. She thought of his eighteenth birthday, and the years he would spend not knowing where he came from. Ashley had been inexorably shaped by the fact she had never known her own father. Sometimes when she stared at her reflection long enough she could no longer see herself; she just became a collection of parts that didn’t make sense. It was a confusing and lonely feeling. But there was one key difference between her situation and that of baby Sam. Her own father had abandoned her mother before Ashley had been born. He had no interest in her and his absence had haunted her her whole life.
She knew what she had to do.
Twenty-five
The call that would change everything came at one minute past eight in the morning. Priya was on a bus to work when the Empona clinic’s number flashed up on her phone. The familiar digits brought the memories of past calls rushing back: nail-biting fear and failed tests. She ignored the ringing. Five minutes later it started again. The caller wasn’t going to give up. With a ripple of irritation, Priya accepted the call.
‘Yes?’
‘Hello, I’m calling for Priya Laghari.’ Priya’s throat tightened. The tone of the voice on the phone put her on her guard. The woman sounded nervous—no, scared. She sounded scared.
‘This is Priya speaking.’
‘Ms Laghari. My name is Ashley Li, I’m calling about the Empona clinic. I need to speak with you urgently.’
‘What is it?’
‘Not on the phone.’
‘I’m sorry but I can hardly hear you.’
‘I said it can’t be on the phone. I need to discuss something delicate with you.’
Priya pulled her diary from her bag and flipped it open. ‘I can come in on Tuesday or Wednesday evening.’
‘No!’ There was a pause. When the woman spoke again her voice was even softer than before. ‘Not at the clinic. I’ll come to you. What part of town are you in?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Please. I will explain everything in person.’
They agreed to meet at a little French cafe in Coogee at five that afternoon. The woman had insisted it be somewhere quiet. Nine hours later Priya found herself ensconced in white linen and dark wood, facing a beautiful doctor who had just said the most extraordinary thing.
‘I don’t understand what you’re telling me,’ Priya said slowly.
The woman—Doctor Li, she said her name was—leaned across the table, keeping her body low. She was wearing dark Jackie O glasses, but even so Priya could tell she had the kind of beauty that men start wars over. It only added to the unreality of what she was hearing, as if this woman were a spirit who had stolen into the human realm to reveal an unimaginable truth hidden from mortals.
‘Something happened at the clinic. An error. A terrible, unintentional error. Your embryo was somehow implanted in another woman’s uterus and it resulted in a viable pregnancy.’ She paused. Priya waited. ‘And a live birth.’
Priya’s eyes grew wide. ‘You mean a baby?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it still …’
‘Alive? Yes. From what I can tell he’s perfectly fine.’
‘A boy?’
‘Yes.’
Priya felt light-headed. She understood what the woman was saying, but the words weren’t having any effect.
‘When did this happen? How?’
‘I don’t understand fully myself, but when I made the discovery, I felt compelled to tell you as soon as possible.’
Priya found herself short of breath. ‘I have a son?’
‘Technically, yes.’
‘I have a son.’
‘I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t have good cause.’
‘Why are you telling me at all? He must be, what, living with this other couple.’ She could hear her own heartbeat and see the tremble in her fingers as she reached for the milk jug next to her tea. She looked up at the woman. ‘How do you know this?’
The woman lifted her chin. ‘I’m a doctor at the clinic. Or … I was.’
A faded memory clicked into place; Priya had seen this woman before. That’s why she had butterflies when the doctor had entered the cafe. It wasn’t the sort of face you forget. Asian angles combined with an English-rose complexion. Priya looked up sharply. ‘Was it you?’ She couldn’t believe how calm she sounded, how rational her line of questioning.
‘I don’t believe so. I—we haven’t figured out how it happened. But I don’t believe the error was mine. The place is … well, it’s understaffed. An incredible number of couples come to Empona for treatment. It appears the embryologist was at fault. But … I can’t say for sure.’
‘I can’t believe this,’ Priya breathed. The little boy she had dreamed of was real, and living somewhere in Sydney. Sadavir. My Sadavir. She had been hoping and praying for him so much it almost felt as if she had willed him into being.
She reached for her tea and took a sip, but tasted nothing. She needed something normal to bring her back down to earth. She had not yet absorbed the force of the news, and for now she was only able to contemplate it as if it were an abstract maths problem, or a science question: if a human ovum is fertilised and placed in the uterus of another woman who carries the baby to term, who is the rightful parent of the child?
Another thought struck her: Nick’s sperm. Harvested. Labelled. Frozen. It was never supposed to have been used. But maybe it had.
‘Exactly when did this happen?’ she asked.
‘The error occurred last September. The baby was born in May. He’s two months old now.’
A picture was filling Priya’s mind—an infant, chubby and smelling of talc, with her eyes and her father’s nose and dimples from no-one-knows-where and maybe, Nick’s smile. But no, Empona never created an embryo from Nick’s sperm. They’d only got that far at the Parramatta clinic. A pang of disappointment jabbed Priya right in her gut. She had a son, but he wasn’t Nick’s. Why did that hurt? It was all too much.
‘What should I do?’
‘I can’t answer that.’
‘What normally happens in these situations? Has this ever happened before?’
‘I’d suggest finding a good medical-negligence lawyer. They’ll be able to advise you.’
‘I feel like I’m dreaming … I have to see him. Maybe the parents will let me meet him. Who are they? How can I reach them?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve already said too much.’
‘Then what was the point of any of this?’
‘You could seek damages.’
‘Damages?’
Ashley looked away sheepishly. ‘From the clinic. For emotional distress. I’m sorry, but I really should be going.’
‘How can I be sure this is real?’
The doctor stood and slung an expensive-looking bag over her shoulder. She appeared conflicted. ‘I wouldn’t put you through this if I didn’t have evidence of the error.’
‘But you’ve given me nothing. How can I prove this? What should I do?’
Dismay flitted across the doctor’s face. She winced, then frowned.
‘Ther
e must be something more you can tell me,’ Priya pleaded. Doctor Li pulled her wallet from her bag and placed a ten-dollar note on the table to pay for the tea. Then, slowly, as if as an afterthought, she retrieved an envelope that was folded in half and slid it across the table to Priya.
‘I’m so sorry this has happened,’ she said. ‘I really am.’
Priya reached out and touched the envelope, letting her fingers rest on it. She pulled it towards herself, her hand shaking.
‘Wait,’ she said.
But when she looked up, the beautiful doctor was gone.
Twenty-six
A load of laundry spun in the washing machine and another tumbled through the dryer. The pots and pans were in the dishwasher, and the portable heater radiated warmth onto a clotheshorse draped in knits. Grace turned on the kitchen tap and wondered how one little baby could seemingly be more work than a whole boarding house full of schoolgirls. She filled a pot with water, salted it and placed it on the stove. As she turned up the hotplate dial she heard a snap, a fizz and a crack! Everything went dark. The glow of the hotplate element faded to black and the radio made a sad little noise, like it had been shot.
‘Damn Victorian-era wiring,’ she said, turning the stovetop knob back off.
She ran upstairs to check on Sam—still sleeping soundly in his cot—then flipped open the fuse-box lid and shone the light of her mobile phone at it.
‘Is the whole house out?’ Dan asked, emerging from the bathroom in a haze of steam.
‘It’s not the fuse box,’ Grace said.
‘I’ll call an electrician.’
‘No!’ The word burst out of Grace’s mouth. ‘I’m tired,’ she added. ‘It’s late, if you call now we’ll have to sit up for God knows how long. Let’s just eat the salad and go to bed.’
They knew from experience in their creaking old house that after-hours electricians were capricious creatures who could take up to five hours to materialise, if at all. But that wasn’t what worried Grace. The thought of letting a stranger into her home unnerved her.
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