The device buzzed again.
I’m so sorry about everything, Pri.
Priya contemplated the message. Then, for the second time that day, she walked downstairs to check her letterbox. It was empty. Her heart sank. She had been emotionally fortifying herself for the worst-case scenario: outrage, anger, abuse or a threat peppered with legal jargon. She hadn’t expected silence.
Maybe her letter had gone missing, she thought. They couldn’t just ignore a revelation like that. She had been very gracious in her offer. After all, she was the one who had lost her son. She had hoped for some sympathy. Maybe an interest in meeting the genetic mother of their baby. Her anger flared. How dare they ignore her? If it wasn’t for her they wouldn’t even have a son. Should she write again?
Her phone buzzed one more time. Nick: I won’t harass you but I’m here if you need X.
She bit her lip and dialled his number. He answered on the first ring.
‘Priya?’
‘Nick. There’s something you should know.’
Nick and Priya sat on a log at the edge of the dog park and watched Jacker chase ibises away from the rubbish bins. The sky was grey. Damp from the log was seeping through their pants.
‘This is unbelievable,’ Nick said finally.
‘I know. It feels like a dream.’
‘I can’t believe another couple has our baby.’
Priya’s heart squeezed. ‘Nick.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Not our baby. My baby.’
‘What?’ Nick said, shocked.
‘The baby, he’s not yours.’
Nick’s brow creased. ‘I don’t understand. Empona made the mistake, right?’
She placed a hand on his arm and spoke gently. ‘After we broke up I went through two rounds with donor sperm.’
Nick frowned, absorbing the information.
‘The father is a man from Bangalore. I wanted someone who would give me a child that looked like me. I thought it would be less confusing for the baby.’
He swallowed hard. ‘I can’t believe this.’
‘Nick, what did you think, that I was going to use the sperm of a man who was with another woman?’
‘I told you I never shacked up—’
‘I didn’t mean …’ She held up her hand. ‘I was just trying to explain my frame of mind at the time. I don’t want to fight. The point is, after we separated I still wanted a child. I wouldn’t have gone through it with your sample without telling you.’
‘Yeah, but—’
Nick got up and walked towards the playground. He was wearing the same blue-and-white chequered shirt he’d had on the day she’d discovered the Bumble app in his phone. He seemed smaller now. He’d lost weight. Priya wondered if he was eating properly. Vestiges of loving concern filled her with the urge to cook him a big tray of roast potatoes. He kept walking and she grew worried he was going to leave.
He turned around and paced up and down the grassy verge. In the sky behind him were kites and drones, evidence of children below. A long moment passed before he spoke. ‘We’ve been together half our lives. How could you just do it with someone else like that?’ His voice quavered. ‘After everything we’ve been through.’
Priya looked him in the eye as she answered: ‘That’s the question I used to ask myself every minute of every day after I saw those messages in your phone.’
Nick’s face fell. He paced some more. ‘I never shacked up with her.’ He threw his arm up.
‘No.’ Priya stood. ‘You are not allowed to be mad. You broke us. I didn’t want to do it alone. You forced me.’
‘I shouldn’t have even told her we split.’ His tone was gentler now. ‘I was alone and she just appeared … I’m not making excuses, I just want you to show me you understand that I didn’t just sub her in, like a reserve on the footy field. She … she was bonkers, if you want to know the truth.’
‘Let’s not talk about her,’ Priya said.
He socked his fist into his palm. ‘So, these people, you’ve written to them?’
‘Yes. I never heard back.’
‘How could they—how could they not respond?’ He spoke haltingly, clenching and unclenching his fists.
She looked at him, at his clear blue eyes, which had for so long been home to her.
‘I’m sorry too,’ she said.
He furrowed his brow. ‘For what?’
‘It’s a lot to dump on you. Not just the mix-up, but everything. Telling you I tried to have a baby with a donor. The divorce isn’t even final yet. When I thought that you might have a family with her—if you did that, I’d—’ She realised she wasn’t angry anymore.
‘Hey,’ he said, nudging her chin with his hand. ‘What a mess we made of things.’
‘Yeah,’ she laughed, and wiped the tears from her eyes with her thumb before looking up at him. He smiled.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.
Overcome, Priya could only nod.
‘Me too,’ she said.
‘I think you should see a lawyer. I’ll come with you if you’d like, or take Viv. But you should definitely get some advice.’
‘I thought of that. I can’t say why I resisted. I guess the thought of taking a baby from a couple was too horrible to contemplate.’ ‘What about the clinic?’
‘I can’t think about the clinic until I know what I want to do about Sadi … about the baby. The clinic might not know, and if they become aware, it might force my hand.’
‘But?’
‘I think about him constantly. Part of me screams out for him. He’s mine. But, she carried him. I mean, the DNA will most likely say he’s mine, but is he really mine? She nourished him from her bones and her blood. Her flesh. You know, they say you lose a tooth for every baby.’
‘I could never be as calm as you about this. That clinic, I’d want to burn it down.’
After a moment she asked, ‘What do you think is best for him?’ He looked at her and smiled. ‘I can’t imagine anyone being a better mother than you.’
When the sky had grown dark and the dog owners had taken their faithful canines home, Nick had suggested they get some dinner and talk some more. ‘This is big, Priya,’ he said.
She was grateful, and part of her wanted to say yes, but there was something she had to do, alone. A plan had formed as she’d been talking to Nick. She told him she was going to see Viv.
‘Say hello from me. I miss Viv and Rajesh, and the girls.’
‘I will and thanks, really,’ she said.
She climbed into her car and waved goodbye. She would go and see Viv, it wasn’t a lie. But there was a small detour she needed to make first. Glebe was only a short drive from the Chippendale park where Priya had met Nick. Talking to him had dredged up feelings about their marriage, about the letter, and about Grace and Dan. She called up the White Pages on her phone and searched again. Then she drove to Gottenham Street. She had to see. She had to know.
She parked opposite the terrace she had addressed the letter to. A large streetlight gave her a clear view of the house. The double-storey house was made of blue stone, with a verandah and a row of rusting iron spears for a fence. The front yard was paved with brick except for a small circle occupied by a full-grown cherry tree that obscured the front of the house.
Priya watched, mesmerised.
After a few minutes the door opened and a man appeared. Priya panicked and slid down in her seat. He wheeled a bike down the front path. He had dark hair and a solid build, and a warm open face. He seemed like a nice man, Priya thought. It was a confronting observation. Then he paused and turned as if someone was calling to him. The screen door swung open, and there was a woman. She had Morticia Addams hair, and a baby held against her chest. The child’s hair, a mess of black, matched his mother’s. But the rest of their colouring was different. The man and the woman looked European. The baby did not.
Priya’s breath caught in her throat as she realised she was looking at Sadavir. My Sadavir. Her heart sped up as she scanned hi
s face. He had heartbreaker eyelashes. Perfect full lips. Wide curious eyes. Priya put her hand to her neck, where she felt the galloping pace of her pulse. He looked just like her when she was that age, with chubby cheeks and chunky legs.
Now she knew with certainty that they had her boy. The man—Dan—walked his bike back up the path to the door so he could kiss the baby goodbye. The wife smiled, watching on.
They had ignored her letter. They knew they had her son and they had knowingly kept him from her. Priya was stupefied. Even though they had Anglo names it somehow hadn’t occurred to her that they were aware they had the wrong baby. Then, just as quickly, the mother and baby disappeared into the house and the man with the short dark beard threw his leg over his bike and rode to the end of the street and around the corner. Priya was left alone, trembling and short of breath, feeling like she had just been mugged.
It was a good twenty minutes before Priya calmed down. She had only caught a glimpse of the baby. A flash. But when she saw his face, something inside her shifted, and awoke. Up until this moment, he had been a theoretical baby. Someone born to another woman; someone who, on paper, and in vials of blood, may be hers but was unknown to her. But when she saw his curls, his lashes, the dimples in his cheeks, so like her sister’s, he became real, and a raging river of righteous, angry love awoke in her veins. He looked a little like Avani. His ringlets were just like her own at that age. She had seen his face before in her own baby photos, except her ears had been pierced with gold studs in line with the practices of her culture. A culture he would be denied if she left him with his birth parents.
And then there was the mother. Grace. Her eyes appeared pale blue, even from a distance. She had very long black hair, but there was something not quite right about it. It was flat. Lifeless. The hair, it was off. The door swung open again and the woman appeared, alone this time. She walked to the gate, which she opened, then lifted a black garbage bag into the rubbish bin waiting on the nature strip. Priya realised something with a shock: around the woman’s crown, and in the part, her black hair was starting to grow out, revealing pale, wheat-coloured roots. Priya squinted, then started the car and did a U-turn and drove past the house very slowly as the woman walked back up the garden path. Priya scrutinised the woman and her light brows and realised she was naturally blonde. She had dyed her hair black so as not to arouse suspicion. She didn’t want anyone to notice how different she was to her baby. She didn’t want anyone to guess that he wasn’t hers. She had dyed her hair to conceal the truth so she could continue living with Sadavir. My Sadavir. Reality hit Priya like a bullet and she was filled with a howling, white-hot rage.
Thirty-one
Ashley worked quickly, sliding perfume and hand cream off the dressing table in Roger’s bedroom into her open bag. One of her jackets was lying across his armchair, so she stuffed that into her bag too.
She opened the ivory box containing Roger’s cufflinks and quickly sifted through the silver until she found the pearl studs her mother had given her when she graduated medical school. She checked her watch—half an hour until he’d be home—and rummaged through his drawers for items of her clothing.
She spotted her pendant sitting in a coil of chain on his bedside table. She picked it up by the clasp and the silver charm slipped silently off the end and fell behind the bedside table. Ashley bent down to get it.
‘What are you doing?’
She jumped. Roger was standing at the door, watching her, as he loosened his tie. His eyes flicked to her large bag, now overflowing with clothes and cosmetics.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
Ashley got up off her knees. ‘I’m clearing out some things,’ she said matter-of-factly as she smoothed down her skirt. Fluff from the carpet had stuck to her knees.
‘Why?’ His voice was ice.
‘Roger, I don’t think this is working out.’ She picked up the bag and lifted her chin. He didn’t respond. ‘I don’t think it’s been working for some time.’
‘You’re leaving for good?’
‘I think it’s best.’
‘Is this because of the mix-up?’
‘No.’ She looked at the door, uneasy. ‘It’s for a lot of reasons.’
She had never officially moved in with Roger but spent most nights there, and his bathroom cupboard, drawers and wardrobes had been under siege from her feminine lotions and silky items of clothing for months. Now, the perfumed brigade was in full retreat. There were drawers she had not checked, but she just wanted to be out of there. He watched silently.
‘This is for you,’ she said, placing an envelope on the end of the bed.
‘What’s that?’
‘My letter of resignation.’
‘So, it is about the mix-up.’
She straightened her back. ‘I think your decision is wrong.’
‘What will you do?’ His voice betrayed no emotion.
‘Get another job.’
‘Not in reproductive medicine you won’t. Not in Sydney. There’s a non-competition clause in your contract.’
‘Only for twelve months. I’m going to take some time off. Figure out what will make me happy.’
Roger chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Good luck with that.’ He walked into the ensuite and slammed the door.
Ashley hurried down the front steps of Roger’s house. There was one more thing she had to do before she turned her back on Empona for good, and she had to do it now, before her security pass was decommissioned.
She drove towards the clinic, swerving in and out of lanes as her speedometer nudged the sixty-kilometre speed limit. She had thought she’d have at least another day or two to clear out her office before she confronted Roger. To gather her things. Her insurance. Never mind, she thought, as she parked and ran into the dark, silent building, armed with her phone camera.
The reception doors slid silently open and she made straight for the freezer. She opened the storage unit and snapped a photo of the Arden morula. She took several photos from different angles in case she missed anything, then she did the same for the Archer sample. When she returned them to their respective slots she took photos of them in situ, side by side. Then she went to her office and grabbed as much as she could, jamming documents and papers into the bag filled with her clothes and cosmetics.
Next she went to Doris’s desk and took photos of everything she and Dale had uncovered—schedules, calendars, the roster from the day of the error, and the days leading up to it and after it. She returned everything—it was vital it appear untouched—and was straightening Doris’s desk when a tiny green light caught her eye. The lift doors were parting. At a quarter to eleven on a weeknight it could only be one person. Ashley darted for the fire-escape door. Her fingers were closing around the handle when she locked eyes with Roger as he stepped out of the lift and into the dim corridor.
His eyes narrowed. ‘What are you doing?’
She had seen his single-minded ambition. She knew now that what she had once considered his immovable professionalism was closer to Napoleonic brutality. He would protect his name, his business, his reputation above all else. Now he was looking at her like a bull that had seen red, a shark that had smelled blood.
They glared at each other through the glass door that separated them, Roger the hunter, Ashley the prey. His eyes fell on the bag full of paperwork in her hand. He touched his security pass to the sensor and the door began to open. Ashley darted into the stairwell. She knew she couldn’t outrun the lift and if he followed her down the stairs the chase would be short—her best chance was up.
She sprinted to the sixth floor, threw open the fire door, bolted to the lifts and urgently slam-slam-slammed her thumb into the down button. The doors parted and she raced inside, furiously pressing G button. She held her breath as the lift moved south. It didn’t stop at five, or four, but sailed safely to the ground.
As she entered the lobby she ripped off her heels, bounded across the marble floor and onto the street. The footpa
th tore the soles of her stockings as she ran for her car. She climbed inside and locked the doors, too scared to look back. Her breathing was shallow. The enormity of what was happening was seeping into her consciousness. A mix-up, a cover-up, an angry and powerful former lover, a phone full of evidence and a baby in the wrong hands. Without taking her eyes from the road she fiddled with the heater knob, trying to find the setting that would clear the fog on the windscreen. She could hardly see as she started the ignition and pulled into the traffic.
‘Slow down,’ she told herself through gritted teeth. ‘Or you’ll run off the road.’
She pressed her foot against the accelerator, but realised she couldn’t go home. If Roger wanted to find her, that’s the first place he would look. All of her friends were connected to the clinic, or the industry, in one way or another. There was only one place she would feel safe tonight, only one person she could count on. She changed lanes and headed west to her mother’s house.
Thirty-two
Sam’s first winter passed with all the force of an old man blowing on his soup. The weathervane on Mrs Goss’s roof remained still, and people went out without overcoats, even late at night.
Inside their terrace, Grace was bathing her baby son and revel-ling in his smiles. Sam loved baths. Fiona, who frequently came over to spend time with her grandson, said it reminded babies of being in the womb. As the water lapped around him he splashed and laughed.
‘Oh, look at you,’ Grace said, ticking his belly so his grin grew wider, exposing his gums.
A knock at the door interrupted the moment.
‘Who could that be?’ she asked with a nursery-song rhythm.
Grace lifted Sam from the tub and wrapped him in a towel. Holding him close she went downstairs and peered down the hallway to the front door. She could see two silhouettes through the frosted glass. Her chest tightened. Grace had always wanted to replace the glass panel. It felt unsafe. But in their new, secretive life, it was proving useful. The shadows knocked again. Grace considered ignoring them, letting them think there was nobody home. She took Sam back upstairs and laid him on his change table. Dan shuffled in in his pyjamas, still bleary-eyed from the three am feed. Grace and Dan tried to split the late-night feeds and were both surviving on thin, wiry sleep. When Sam woke, the whole house woke, and after Dan got up to give their baby the milk Grace had expressed earlier, she lay awake listening.
The Mothers Page 23