The Mothers

by Genevieve Gannon

The hospital, however, was efficient and clean. Much of the equipment was ancient, but it was well maintained by fastidious staff. From time to time a diplomat or businessman would come in with their wife for fertility treatment but mostly Ashley delivered babies. At dusk she rode her bike home to her house in a gated community, past boxy buildings and exposed wires. The work was easy, but the challenge of finding her way in a foreign country invigorated her.

  She and Samara would often meet for lunch, eschewing the American fast-food chains that dominated the main road, instead eating sisig and adobo with perfectly caramelised pork, and icy halo-halo on stools in the sun outside the alley stalls.

  ‘You don’t miss your Sydney life?’

  Ashley shrugged. ‘I miss my mum. But we Skype. It’s nice working at this end of the pregnancy, when you get the see the babies, instead of just cells in a dish.’

  The days went quickly. Whenever Ashley felt low she went up to the viewing area and looked at the babies in their samosa swaddles. She was daydreaming there one rare quiet afternoon when a nurse burst through the stairwell door. ‘I found you!’ she said, her cheeks flushed. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Ashley asked.

  ‘Come quickly. It’s urgent.’

  Ashley followed the young woman back down the stairs to the neo-natal intensive-care unit on level three.

  ‘They’re in here,’ the registrar said, her shoes clipping the linoleum.

  Side by side in plastic cribs were two babies with legs like spindles and arms as fragile as twigs. They had no names, no date of birth and they were desperately malnourished.

  Samara was helping one of the specialists, Doctor Marie Chavez. ‘They can’t be more than a day old,’ Doctor Chavez was saying.

  ‘They don’t even look full term,’ said Samara.

  ‘I’d estimate a gestational age of thirty-two weeks,’ said Doctor Chavez. ‘They’re small, but they look healthy. Doctor Li, could you please assist? I want a vitamin K shot for each. Doctor De Silva, on top of the normal newborn screens, I want to check blood glucose levels and screen for sepsis, hep B, hep C and HIV.’

  ‘Where’s their mother?’ Ashley asked.

  ‘They were abandoned.’

  ‘How awful. Do we have a next of kin?’

  ‘No, we don’t know anything about them,’ Samara said. ‘The police found them in a dumpster wrapped in newspaper. An officer heard a mewling coming from the bin. He thought it was a cat.’

  Ashley went to one of the babies and administered one milligram of Vitamin K. His skin was soft and tattooed with smudged black letters where the newsprint had adhered to his skin.

  ‘Poor little mites,’ Ashley said, injecting the second baby, who screwed up his face but didn’t cry.

  ‘They seem to be responding well,’ Doctor Chavez said.

  Ashley lowered her head so she was level with their little bodies. ‘What are the police doing about finding their family?’

  ‘They’ll investigate, but unless someone comes forward there’s not much hope.’

  ‘This isn’t the first time this has happened,’ Samara said.

  ‘What will happen to them?’

  ‘The Department of Social Welfare and Development usually takes care of cases like this,’ Doctor Chavez said.

  ‘State-run care is notoriously overburdened,’ Samara said sadly.

  ‘There must be a relative who can claim them,’ Ashley said.

  ‘We’ll reach out to the churches.’

  ‘Could we get the local paper to run a story?’

  Doctor Chavez laid a hand on Ashley’s shoulder. ‘You could try that, but don’t get your hopes up. I’m afraid the odds are against these two little ones.’

  Forty-nine

  Grace’s clothes hung off her. She was wearing jeans from her university years while purging her wardrobe of all the dresses and shirts she wore when she was nursing. She pulled a flannelette shirt from the bottom wardrobe drawer and rubbed it against her cheek. Clinging to the cotton fibres was the faint aroma of baby powder, No Tears shampoo and milk. In other words, Sam. The pain was so acute she gave an involuntary whimper, then she threw the shirt into the packing box that was open at her feet.

  Her hair was blonde again. The roots that had grown through were tawny, but with a bit of care from her hairdresser the colour was restored. She taped up the box of old clothes and carried it downstairs to the car boot. Dan was riding up the street with his backpack slung low on his back. He dismounted and wheeled the bike up the path.

  ‘Looks like a successful morning,’ Grace said.

  ‘I got eight books,’ he replied, kissing her.

  ‘I’m glad you’re writing a book. I think it will be good for you.’

  ‘You’re right. A man needs a purpose in life. Did you see the email? We’ve had another offer on the house. Doug thinks we should hold out.’

  ‘No, I didn’t see that,’ Grace said. Dan showed her the offer on his phone. The sale of their Gottenham Street terrace was part of the purge. But the property market was softening. ‘Maybe we should accept it. It’s the best offer we’ve had in months,’ she said. ‘And it’s not like we need the money.’

  Grace and Dan had accepted a settlement from Empona. It was nowhere near enough for Grace, but it was far more than she wanted. It struck them that there was something grotesque in the suggestion that any amount of money could ever compensate for their loss. She wanted to throw the money in their face. She also wanted to strip them of every last cent.

  ‘I’ll go back to work eventually,’ she said. ‘And your book is sure to be a bestseller. I just want to be done with this place.’

  They had already purchased a large blue-and-white weatherboard house with three airy bedrooms and an open-plan living space near Coogee beach. It had fresh paint, fresh carpet, fresh everything. When Grace stood in the middle of the empty living room she could see the ocean.

  Dan nodded at the box. ‘You’re packing already.’

  ‘It’s just some old clothes for Vinnies.’

  He tapped his backpack. ‘I’m going to get started on some reading.’

  Grace returned to the bedroom and ripped more garments from their hangers and stuffed them in plastic bags. In went the yellow dress she had worn on the first fine day she took Sam out in his stroller. In went the red jumper with the knitted baubles that fascinated him, and that he loved to grab at with his tiny hands. In went Dan’s Midnight Oil T-shirt that he’d been wearing when she went into labour. He didn’t share her need to rid himself of everything Sam had ever touched, but she jammed it deep down among her knits and skirts anyway.

  She bundled up the bag and tossed it over her shoulder to put in the car boot. She was three steps from reaching the front door when the doorbell rang.

  It was Edna Goss. Desperate to help, she had insisted on tidying Grace and Dan’s front garden for the open for inspections.

  ‘I was just doing some weeding when the postman came past,’ she said. ‘I guess he thought I lived here because he handed this straight to me.’

  She gave Grace an envelope from the Department of Human Services’ Adoption Coordinator. Grace tore it open hungrily, then her face fell. Their latest application had been denied.

  Fifty

  ‘They’re lucky, really,’ Samara said. ‘The Santa Maria orphanage is a far better outcome than the dumpster they were rescued from.’

  She and Ashley stood over the twins’ humidicribs. It was late and the NICU was quiet except for the hum of machines and the snores of a mother dozing in a chair beside her baby.

  ‘But they deserve someone who will love them. So many people want babies. Can’t we do something to help find them a family?’ Ashley asked.

  She now spent every spare moment in the NICU watching over the twins. She willed them to grow strong, hoping they could sense that someone cared about them.

  ‘You know that adopting through the state can be incredibly slow. The staff are swamped and without
the proper paperwork it can be very difficult to arrange adoptions. How do you get a birth certificate for a baby found hidden in a bin? And that’s just the beginning. How do you prove they are eligible for adoption? You need a parental signature, or a death certificate.’

  ‘But we tried everything to find their family,’ Ashley said. ‘It’s so frustrating.’

  Samara shuffled closer to Ashley and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘There might be something you can do.’

  ‘Tell me; I’ll do anything.’

  ‘There’s a lawyer down in Manila who’s making a little headway expediting the process, and is starting to get a reputation in certain circles. He seems to know who to speak to and what to say.’

  ‘How do I find him?’

  ‘I don’t remember his full name but I can get it.’

  At the end of her shift, Ashley went back up to the nursery and gazed at the babies.

  ‘Do you want to come out for a beer?’ Samara asked, as she hooked a silk scarf around her neck.

  ‘Thanks, but I have work to do,’ Ashley lied. The most her night could promise was the glow of the television and a Kingfisher beer, but she wanted to be alone.

  She rode her bike home, waved at the sentry guard and unlocked the padlock on her gate. The fence surrounding her house was a concrete fortress crowned with looped razor wire. A cage within a cage. She let herself in and locked it behind her. The house was dark. She unbuckled her shoes, padded across the tiled lounge room and retrieved a beer from the fridge.

  When she woke up a few hours later she had a text from one of the nurses. It was a photo of the twins, each drinking from a bottle that looked like novelty oversized props in their small hands. They’re drinking by themselves! was the caption. They’ll be ready to be discharged soon.

  She texted Samara. Any luck finding that lawyer? We need to move quickly.

  Early the next morning Ashley unchained her bike and rode out to the orphanage. Iron bars confined the white complex like a prison. Rust bled dirty red stains onto the walls. The yard was desolate. Greenery was sparse.

  ‘We can’t send them there,’ Ashley said when she was back in the NICU. ‘We have to be able to do better for them.’ Samara took a card from her pocket and handed it to Ashley. ‘It might take time. And money. But he’s your best shot.’

  As soon as Ashley got home that evening she dialled the number on the card and asked for Mr Ramirez.

  ‘How can I help?’ boomed a voice with a reassuring timbre.

  ‘Hello, Mr Ramirez. My name is Ashley Li and I’m a doctor based about an hour north of Manila,’ Ashley began. She felt like she was lining up a job interview. She needed to convince this man to help her. She explained her situation, and what she was hoping to do for the two little boys.

  ‘And you say they were found in a dumpster?’ the lawyer asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So, no birth certificates?’

  ‘No certificates of any kind,’ she said. There was an agonising pause.

  ‘Never mind,’ Ramirez said. ‘That’s the sort of obstacle I try to overcome. It sounds like these two little ones deserve some loving intervention.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ashley laughed, relieved. ‘Yes, they do.’

  They were healthy, she explained, and growing stronger every day. They were alert and playful. She smiled as she pictured them, side by side, in the traditional Angeles City Hospital samosa swaddle. Still, nobody had come forward to claim them. ‘We tried everything to find a relative,’ she said.

  ‘Doctor Li, I think we can find a way around this. The first step, which you can initiate at your end, is to have the state declare them abandoned. Now, have you got a pen? I’m going to tell you what you’ll need to do …’

  The final call Ashley made that night was to Australia. She dialled a number she had copied from a website, feeling suddenly nervous, but excited too. The long-distance call rang, then connected.

  ‘Hello,’ Ashley said. ‘I’m trying to get in contact with Grace Arden.’

  Epilogue

  FEBRUARY 2023

  It had thundered all night, but now the sky was clear. Raindrops beaded windshields, and the neighbourhood shone, newly rinsed. Pink worms had risen to the surface of garden beds to writhe in the dirt. The day had been eagerly awaited, but now it was here, Grace was feeling wistful. It had come too soon. here, Grace was feeling wistful. It had come too soon.

  Sitting on the kitchen countertop were two matching Spiderman lunchboxes, each containing a ham and cheese sandwich, cut diagonally, along with an apple and a box of sultanas. Water had been decanted into identical drink bottles (also Spiderman themed) and two bran and blueberry muffins sat beside them, as a treat.

  Above her head Grace could hear the thump-thumpety-thumpthump of stiff Clarks school shoes running up and down the first-floor passage.

  ‘Dan,’ she called. ‘How are we going? It’s eight-thirty.’

  ‘Nearly there.’

  Soon after came the familiar stampede down the stairs.

  ‘Look at you,’ she said, beaming at the boys at the bottom of the stairs in their new, oversized uniforms. Everything sat slightly askew.

  Dan joined her. ‘Hold still.’ He snapped some photos of the boys. ‘One more. Now a silly one. Good.’ He hugged them and kissed them goodbye.

  Outside the boys jumped in the puddles. ‘Hey-hey, watch those new shoes,’ Grace called. ‘Come on, into the car.’

  Four legs and four arms tumbled into the back of the family wagon. The boys chatted happily as Grace pulled onto the road and drove towards the small primary school with the blue gates and a path painted with smiling sunflowers.

  ‘You know, I used to be a teacher.’

  ‘We know, Mum,’ Xavier said. His school cap sat low over his brow. He pushed it up so he could see out the window. They passed other children climbing into cars with new backpacks on their backs, on their way to class for the first time.

  ‘What do you think will be the best part of school?’ Grace asked.

  ‘I like the alphabet song.’

  ‘I like duck-duck-goose.’

  ‘And what about the garden? I liked the garden,’ Grace said. On orientation day they had picked peas and popped them from their pods into a big green bucket.

  ‘Duck-duck-goose.’

  ‘Alphabet song!’

  Xavier began to sing. ‘A-B-C-D!’

  Joseph followed his brother’s example. ‘E-F-G!’

  ‘H-I-J-K,’ Grace joined in. ‘L-M-N-O-Peeee!’ The pee always cracked the boys up. Grace waited until the cackling stopped and then prompted them: ‘Q-R-S.’

  ‘T-U-V,’ the chorus continued along its bouncy, sing-song way. As she completed a left turn Grace glanced up at her rear-view mirror to watch the boys sing together.

  When they finished they went back to the beginning. Faster this time, racing each other. Competitiveness, Grace already knew, would be a feature of their shared future. The song was barely over a second when their jaws swung open, poised, as they eyeballed each other—Shall we?—and then the alphabet song began again. Double speed this time and punctuated with giggles.

  Listening to them, Grace wondered if it was time to go back to work. The boys were doing wonderfully and her psychologist had been gently suggesting she was ready. She wouldn’t take on a role at a boarding house, or anything that would mean time away from her family. But perhaps she could teach again. She had loved teaching the boys the alphabet song, and how to write their names. The first successful attempt was exhibited on the fridge: Joseph Arden and Xavier Arden spelled out in wonky purple crayon. Grace had never been prouder.

  She found a parking space and eased the car into it.

  ‘We’re here,’ she announced. The boys squealed.

  They had been so excited about this day—wearing their uniforms around the house—but when they reached the blue school gate their courage disappeared.

  ‘Come on, come on, they’ll start without you.’
Grace nudged them along. ‘Are we ready?’ She took each of the twins by the hand and walked them to the gate. ‘Now be good boys,’ she said, kneeling. She picked a piece of lint of Joseph’s collar, stalling, surprised by how hard it was to let them go. ‘Let me just—’ She bent and tightened each of their laces.

  She was mustering the courage for the final goodbye when she heard something that took her breath away. Her heart stilled. She cocked her ears. It sounded like … a woman’s voice … familiar. She heard it again: ‘Sam!’

  As Grace stood and slowly turned, the hairs on her arms stood up. Before he came into focus she knew it was him. His shiny black curls had come in thick. His big eyes were unforgettable and now he was running up the sunflower path waving at the kindergarten kids who were arriving for the first time. At this young stage of life, the differences in ages were marked and this little boy, Grace knew, was exactly seven years and nine months old. She was aware that she was staring at him but she couldn’t look away. He stopped at the end of the path, where she stood, her boys melting into the folds of her skirt.

  ‘Mummy,’ the curly-haired boy said, and Grace’s heart began to pound. ‘Mummy!’ He turned around. A woman and a little girl who looked to also be starting kindergarten followed the boy up the path. Sam was pointing at Grace. ‘That lady’s got hair like Rapunzel.’ He turned and ran to his mother and tugged her arm.

  ‘Yes,’ Priya breathed, barely audible. ‘Isn’t she pretty.’ The two women faced each other. Priya’s dark hair had also grown long since the trial.

  ‘He’s usually very shy,’ Priya said, with an unsure smile. Grace tried to speak, but she couldn’t find the words.

  ‘This is Isa, my daughter,’ Priya said, then she bent down to the twins. ‘And who do we have here?’

  Grace placed a hand on each boy’s shoulder. ‘This is Xavier, and this is Joseph.’

  ‘Aren’t they handsome,’ Priya said. Joseph covered his face with Grace’s skirt. ‘Is it your first day of school?’ Priya asked. Xavier nodded.

  ‘I’m in Year Two,’ Priya’s son announced.