The Secret Mother

by Shalini Boland

  Everything speeds back up and my heart jump-starts itself. Ka-boom. Ka-boom. A deafening sound that rattles the whole house and makes my vision blur.

  ‘What’s he talking about?’ Scott asks hesitantly, looking at Fisher, some kind of understanding dawning.

  Fisher is quiet, pale, his face twitching, his whole body sagging like a deflating balloon. Everyone turns to him. Even Carly has stopped swearing and is studying the doctor like he’s a rare specimen in a glass case.

  ‘What’s he talking about?’ Scott asks again. ‘We’re not stupid, Fisher. There’s something going on here.’

  If I wasn’t so paralysed with the possibility of what this could mean, I would have a cutting retort for Scott. But now isn’t the time for I told you so.

  ‘No,’ Fisher says. ‘There’s nothing going on. He’s just a little boy. He has an active imagination.’ But it’s obvious that James Fisher is lying. The bluster and outrage has disappeared from his face. Instead, he now looks scared, shrunken, defeated.

  ‘You were on duty that night, weren’t you?’ I say to him.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Scott,’ I say, ‘you must remember. Fisher even changed the records to make out it was Dr Friedland on duty. But Friedland was sick that night, remember?’

  Realisation continues to spread across Scott’s face. Finally, he’s listening to me without his usual scepticism.

  ‘He’s covering something up, Scott. Something bad.’

  All the discoveries I’ve been trying to get Scott to pay attention to are finally beginning to sink into his resistant brain.

  ‘No,’ Fisher says. ‘You’ve got it all wrong.’

  In a flurry of movement, Scott pushes past me, grabs Fisher by the neck of his jumper and shoves him up against the wall, his head cracking against the plaster, his glasses falling onto the wooden floor with a thin clatter.

  Ben leaves Carly’s side and tries to pull Scott off the doctor. ‘Calm down,’ he tells Scott. ‘Let him go! Let him speak.’

  ‘What have you done?’ Scott asks Fisher through gritted teeth, hands at his throat, squeezing until the doctor’s face begins to turn purple.

  Harry has started to cry, and I swing him up into my arms so he’s facing away from the awful scene in front of me.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ I yell. ‘You’re scaring Harry! Scott, is that what you want? To traumatise a little boy?’

  My words seem to get through, because at last Scott releases his hold on Fisher. The doctor slides to the ground, clutching at his neck and gasping for air. Ben kneels by his side, checking he’s okay.

  Harry wriggles in my arms, wanting to be put down. ‘Daddy!’ he cries, twisting out of my grasp and running over to his choking father, throwing his arms around him and burying his face in his chest. ‘Daddy, why are they shouting at you? Why are you shaking?’ His words break down into sobs, and I feel terrible that our arrival here is the cause of this little boy’s distress. But we needed to come: I have to find out the truth.

  Fisher begins to sob. He encircles Harry in his arms and kisses the top of his head. ‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ he says, looking up at me and Scott, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Carly comes and stands beside me, rubbing at her wrists and rolling her shoulders. I should ask her if she’s okay, but I find myself unable to speak. I’m still in shock at the thought of what Dr Fisher is about to reveal.

  ‘Shall I take Harry downstairs?’ Ben asks, walking over to where the little boy has pressed himself into his father’s body. ‘Harry? Shall we go and play downstairs? Want to show me your room?’

  ‘I don’t want to go!’ Harry cries. ‘I want to stay with Daddy.’

  ‘Did I hear you say you like trains?’ Ben asks. ‘Have you got any good ones you can show me?’

  ‘Show him your trains, Harry,’ Fisher grunts, peeling his son off his chest.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ Harry wails.

  ‘Harry,’ Fisher says, his voice stern despite its new hoarseness.

  Harry stands, his cheeks tear-stained, his lower lip trembling, but he lets Ben take his hand.

  ‘Come on, Carly,’ Ben says, turning back to her. ‘You too.’

  ‘I’m staying to hear this,’ she replies.

  ‘No, you’re not. Come on,’ Ben insists.

  ‘No way. I’m not going anywh—’

  ‘Please, Carly,’ I say. ‘Our deal still stands, but this conversation is between me, Scott and Dr Fisher. Okay?’

  She scowls, but does as I ask and goes to join Ben and Harry.

  As their footsteps recede, Fisher, still huddled on the floor, begins to tremble. Tears stream down his cheeks. ‘My God,’ he murmurs. ‘What have I done?’

  I stare at him in silence, wondering what can be so bad that he’s been reduced to this snivelling wreck of a man, not daring to imagine what he’s about to tell us. But at the same time, I’m almost sure I know.

  ‘Maybe you’d better start at the beginning,’ I say at last, my voice not sounding like my own. I kneel opposite him, not taking my eyes from his face.

  Scott remains on his feet, arms crossed over his chest, still simmering with rage.

  ‘I… I did something terrible,’ Fisher says. ‘Beyond terrible.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I say.

  ‘All right,’ he says quietly. ‘All right.’ He takes a breath and stares up at the ceiling for a moment, briefly clenching his fists. ‘You already know I’m an obstetrician. And yes, I used to practise at the Balmoral Clinic.’ His voice is croaky, barely more than a whisper after Scott nearly strangled him. His eyes are bloodshot and his hands quiver so much he places them between his knees to still them. ‘The night you gave birth, your consultant, Max Friedland, was taken ill and I was called in to cover for him. What you may not know is that my own wife, Liz, also went into labour that night. She was in the suite next to yours.’

  I’m listening to him with a kind of fascinated dread, barely breathing.

  Fisher’s eyes glaze as he remembers. ‘You were already in good hands with your midwife when I arrived, so I concentrated on looking after Liz. Naturally, I wanted to be with my wife during the birth of our first child, but as the clinic was short-staffed and your delivery seemed straightforward, I was happy to cover. I told your midwife that I’d come to you immediately if you got into any difficulty, but she assured me that things were progressing well.

  ‘But then…’ He looks from me to Scott, finally lowering his gaze back down to his knees. ‘But then, my own child got into difficulties. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the neck, cutting off blood flow and oxygen. I would normally have a midwife in the room with me, but I was overconfident – I thought I had the situation under control.’ His voice breaks and he clears his throat. ‘I tried everything I could to save her, but I panicked. I’m usually calm, professional. I deliver hundreds of healthy children every year, but this was my child, my wife. The child we’d been trying for ten years to conceive. I… I couldn’t save my own baby. She died. My child died. I couldn’t save her. It was my fault.’

  ‘She?’ Scott questions immediately. ‘Her?’

  ‘I made a decision,’ Fisher says. ‘A split-second decision that’s haunted me ever since. You have to believe me, I never planned for it to happen. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I didn’t know how to tell Liz our baby was gone.’

  My heart beats in time with his words. A slow marching drum, getting faster.

  Fisher turns to me. ‘You had already given birth to one healthy twin. The next one was coming, and that’s when I did it.’

  I’m shaking now. My whole body, top-to-toe, my teeth chattering. I know what he’s going to say, but I don’t want to hear it. How will I bear it?

  ‘Lily was my daughter,’ Fisher says. ‘Mine and Liz’s. But she died a few moments after birth and I was grieving. I don’t think I was in my right mind.’

  ‘Lily
was yours?’ I whisper, a chill sweeping through me.

  But Fisher doesn’t reply. He’s intent on his confession. ‘Scott, you were on your phone, texting family members to say you had a son. I told you that mobiles interfered with the hospital equipment and sent you out of the room. Told you to go to the parents’ lounge. I said you had about twenty minutes before your next child came along. I lied.’

  He turns back to me. ‘Just before your second child was born, I sent the midwife to check on another woman in labour. You were still woozy from the birth and from the effects of the pain relief. In a moment of utter madness, I swapped them. I swapped my dead child for your living one.’ He pulls at his cheeks, unable to look at me or Scott, his gaze fixed on some distant spot.

  ‘Harry… he was Sam’s brother,’ Fisher says. ‘He was your second child. He is your second child. I’ve done a terrible thing, I know. I have no excuses. At the time, I told myself that you already had one healthy child. I told myself I did it for Liz, to save her from grief. It would have destroyed her… I am so very, very sorry.’

  ‘To save her from grief?’ I murmur almost to myself. ‘But what about my grief? What about that?’ He’s telling me he’s sorry. He did this heinous thing and he’s apologising like he took the last slice of cake, or scratched my car, or accidentally bumped me with his trolley in the supermarket. ‘You can’t just apologise for this,’ I spit. ‘You can’t make excuses and apologise for taking my living, breathing baby and swapping him for your dead daughter.’

  Fisher is still speaking. Saying the words over and over again. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘Stop it!’ I cry. ‘Just stop saying sorry. Stop it!’

  He closes his mouth for a moment before carrying on with his explanation, taking my life apart with his words. ‘My wife never knew,’ he says quickly. ‘She thought Harry was ours. She loved him like he was our own. So did I. I buried the truth deep, but the truth has sharp edges. It cut me up inside. Every day.’

  I want to scream at him that I know exactly how those sharp edges feel. But I will myself to stay quiet. To listen to the rest. His confession is spewing out of his mouth now like an airborne virus, infecting us all.

  ‘When my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer, something came over me. An epiphany. I thought, if I don’t tell her about Harry now, I’ll never have the chance. And so I confessed. I told her everything I’d done. She was devastated. Shocked. Disgusted. She had every right to be. She died a broken woman. I did that to her. All I ever wanted was to be a doctor. To help people. But instead…’ He trails off. Buries his face in his hands.

  The absolute knowledge of the truth takes the strength from my body, and I lower my head to the wooden floor, curl up and grip my knees, the truth gradually sinking in like poison from a syringe. I have no words now, only tears. My nostrils fill with the bitter odour of realisation. Of loss. Of everything that has been stripped from me. The grief for a dead daughter who was never mine to grieve for. The devastation after Sam died. Being a mother with no children to care for. All of it. All of it too much to bear, knowing that half of it need not have been borne in the first place.

  And yet, didn’t I know this even before now? Since that day Harry showed up in my kitchen, those brown curls so familiar, his eyes twin reflections of a lost child.

  I knew. Deep down, I knew.

  It’s what’s been driving me these past days. Pushing me on despite the risks. That primal knowledge burnt deep into my core: a mother’s knowledge.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Fisher repeats on a loop through his sobs. ‘I am so, so sorry.’

  A roar jerks me from my frozen position on the floor as Scott charges at Fisher, grabs him by his jumper and yanks him to his feet. I crawl to my knees and watch as he punches Fisher in the face, splitting his lip, sending droplets of blood spraying over him. The doctor’s hands come up too late to protect himself. He doesn’t even attempt to fight back. Just cowers and takes it.

  ‘I’ll kill you!’ Scott cries, pulling back his fist once more and smashing it into Fisher’s jaw. ‘I’ll fucking kill you, you worthless piece of shit.’

  He really is going to end up killing him. ‘Scott!’ I cry. ‘Please, Scott, stop.’

  ‘He’s ruined our lives, Tess!’ Scott says, letting another punch fly. ‘He took everything from us. Everything.’ His next punch is just as vicious. And the next and the next. ‘He deserves to die for what he did.’

  ‘Scott!’ I yell. ‘Please! Stop! Think of Harry!’

  He must have heeded me, for his next punch is a little less brutal. The one after that, not a punch at all. He finally turns away from Fisher, the man’s face a pulpy mess of blood, tears and snot. Scott’s own face is ashen with grief. I imagine that same grief etched across my features too.

  I hold out my arms and Scott staggers into them. We hold each other so tightly that it hurts. Physical pain to balance the other hurt. Fresh bruises so deep and raw that I can’t imagine they will ever fade.

  But then it sinks in: Harry is my son. He’s alive. He is here in this house.

  And I am his mother.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Eight months later

  A welcome breeze blows through the trees, rippling the leaves on the horse chestnut above me. It will soon be conker season. A red-faced woman in a flowery dress sits on the other end of the bench, issuing instructions to two young boys before they scamper off towards the play park. We catch each other’s eye and smile.

  ‘At least there’s a bit of shade here,’ the woman says, pulling a water bottle out of a rucksack and taking a long swig. ‘I almost melted on the walk over. Not that I’m complaining,’ she adds. ‘We’ll miss the sun soon enough.’

  I nod and smile, then turn my attention back to the playground.

  ‘Boy or girl?’ the woman asks. ‘Or both?’

  ‘Boy,’ I reply, my heart swelling. ‘Over there on the monkey bars.’ I point to Harry, who has made it all the way to the end and is now checking to see that I witnessed the momentous event. I clap my hands at his achievement, and the woman next to me claps too, making Harry puff his chest out with pride.

  ‘Right,’ she says, rising to her feet again, ‘no rest for the wicked. I’d better go and give my two a push on the swings.’

  ‘Bye,’ I say with a smile.

  ‘Did you see me, Mummy?’ Harry runs over. I give him a kiss and make him take a few sips of water. ‘I went all the way to the end without stopping!’

  ‘You were brilliant,’ I say. ‘Super-strong muscles. Must be all those vegetables you’ve been eating.’ I pat the bench and he hops up beside me. ‘Want a snack?’ I ask.

  He nods, so I pull a small pot of grapes from my bag, remove the lid and pass it to him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says, and I kiss the top of his head, his curls damp with sweat.

  ‘When am I going to Scott’s?’ he asks.

  ‘Not until next weekend,’ I reply. ‘He’s taking you to the cinema, remember?’ Even though Harry calls me ‘Mummy’, he refuses to call Scott ‘Daddy’, which I know hurts my ex-husband a lot, but I suppose Harry already feels as though he has a father, even if he doesn’t see him any more.

  James Fisher has been struck off the UK medical register. He’s also serving six years for child abduction and for false imprisonment for the unlawful detention of Carly Dean. Scott didn’t think it was a long enough sentence, but I happen to think it’s the perfect amount of time. He took almost six years of Harry’s life from us, so he can have six years taken from his own life. I know what he did was terrible, but he’ll have a lifetime to live with the consequences – alone.

  I told the social worker that I would accept my son still having contact with Fisher if that’s what Harry wanted. But it turns out Fisher doesn’t want Harry to visit him in prison. He thinks it would be too upsetting. I can’t say I’m not relieved.

  Angela Merida Flores was prepared to go to prison for what she did, but it turns out she h
ad nothing to worry about. For how could she be prosecuted for returning a child to his rightful parent? After a lengthy investigation, she was cleared of all wrongdoing.

  I didn’t tell the police about Carly’s unlawful entrance to my house. She apologised to me, and I figured that in the scheme of things, she actually ended up helping me get my son back. If it wasn’t for her, I would never have pursued Fisher so doggedly, and none of this would ever have come out. I’d still be plain old Tessa. Childless. Of doubtful sanity. The thought makes me shudder. So I let it go.

  Carly sold her story to the newspapers with my consent, and I received a nice chunk of cash, which went towards the purchase of my new two-bedroom garden flat – a lovely light, airy place in a converted Edwardian building around the corner from Moretti’s, a handy minute’s stroll to work. I sold the house that was once a home for me and Scott. It was a relief to leave the hurt of that place behind. Like shedding a skin that had grown too tight.

  I didn’t end up taking the manager’s job Ben offered me, as I want to spend as much time as I can with Harry. But I have been consulting over his plans for the new and improved garden centre, and it’s been fun getting my landscape-architect head back on.

  Scott also has his hands full with his and Ellie’s new son, Harry’s half-brother, Aiden. It’s funny, but whenever I go there to drop Harry round, Ellie can’t even look me in the eye. Maybe she feels guilty for accusing me, or awkward or something. She should just apologise and get over herself. I think she’s finding motherhood harder than she thought she would, and Scott looks stressed every time I see him. The smug air they previously wore around me has evaporated, to be replaced by, if not respect, then maybe a little humility, although they would be the last to admit it.

  It’s been a wonderful yet hard few months. The adjustment for Harry has been pretty traumatic at times. He and I both still have weekly counselling. And he still misses Liz, his ‘other mummy’. When he first came to live with me, we had a social worker visit us regularly, but she was finally satisfied that we were okay to be left alone together. That I’m a fit parent.