by Susan Lewis
The noise was so deafening, the scene so heartbreakingly harrowing, that it took a while before anyone heard a man’s voice roaring, ‘Stop! All of you stop.’
As silence fell, Andee turned to find Gould standing at the door with … Penny?
‘She was trying to make herself heard,’ Gould explained, ‘so I helped.’
Penny seemed reluctant to come forward, and was quick to look over her shoulder when another car arrived.
It turned out to be Henry Gibbs.
Appearing careful to avoid anyone’s eyes, Penny said, ‘I have the contract,’ and taking it from an attaché case she handed it to Gould. ‘You will see,’ she went on, ‘that the law in Texas requires the embryo to be transferred to a surrogate mother a minimum of fourteen days before the agreement with the intended parents is signed. The dates on the contract, and on the medical records, show that in Juliette’s case it happened thirteen days before.’
When she’d finished no one spoke. Andee wasn’t entirely sure any of them actually understood what had just been said.
Going for clarity, she said, ‘Are you telling us that the contract is void?’
Penny’s eyes still met no one’s as she nodded.
Andee said to Jonathan, ‘Was the baby not conceived in the normal way?’
He shook his head. ‘We were both donors at the time. It happened in a laboratory. We didn’t fall in love until after.’
Andee looked at Penny, not entirely sure what to make of this.
Penny’s eyes were on Jonathan, but he wasn’t looking at her.
‘He’s telling the truth,’ Penny said, and turning around she began walking away.
‘Wait!’ Andee called after her, but Penny kept going.
‘Does this mean we can keep the baby?’ Juliette asked, looking from Jonathan to Andee and back again.
‘We have an emergency care order,’ a social worker reminded everyone.
Henry Gibbs took the contract from Gould.
No one moved, even Alexander fell silent, as Gibbs cast an eye over a highlighted clause of the agreement. When he’d finished, he held out a hand for the order, took it and tore it in half.
Still clearly unsure of events, Jonathan said. ‘Is it all over?’
As Gould nodded for the police officers to leave, the social workers, deprived of their care order and backup, could only follow.
‘We’ll get it sorted with the court,’ Henry Gibbs promised Jonathan and Juliette, ‘but I think I can safely say that no one will be back to try and take your baby away.’
‘I’ll catch you later,’ Graeme said softly to Andee as he left the house with Blake and Jenny.
Biting back words she hadn’t even considered, Andee simply nodded, and after waiting for her mother to come inside, she closed the front door and hugged her.
‘Are you all right?’ Maureen murmured. ‘I didn’t realise Graeme was back.’
‘I think he came to make sure his sister’s house was still standing,’ Andee told her, only half joking. ‘Now go see your great-grandson. They’re waiting for you.’
Maureen hesitated. ‘Is it really all sorted?’ she whispered. ‘We don’t have to go through some ghastly trial?’
Shrinking from how badly it would have affected her mother’s health if they’d had to battle with Jonathan and the baby on one side and Penny on the other, Andee said, ‘It’s not looking likely.’
Maureen seemed to breathe. ‘Where’s Penny?’ she asked.
Andee had been wondering the same. ‘At her hotel, I suppose. Or she might be on her way back to London by now.’ Seeing how anxious her mother looked, she added, ‘I’ll try calling her …’
‘Maureen! You’re here,’ Jonathan cried, and coming to wrap her in his arms he hugged her so hard that Maureen started to gasp.
‘Sorry,’ he said, pulling back and wiping the tears on his cheeks.
‘Oh, there, there,’ Maureen soothed, clasping his handsome young face in her hands. ‘It’s all fine now, my love. You’re keeping your baby and you’re going to be such a good daddy.’
‘I still can’t believe it,’ Jonathan choked, looking at Andee. ‘I keep thinking it was a trick, and that she’ll be back any minute laughing and poking fun at me for believing it …’
‘Ssh,’ Maureen chided. ‘It’s not going to happen.’
‘You saw the lawyer tear up the care order,’ Andee reminded him. ‘He wouldn’t have done that if he weren’t confident that it has no worth.’
‘But what if there’s another contract and that one was a fake?’
Aching for how cruel his mother must have been to Jonathan for him to think like this, Andee recalled the way Penny had looked at him before she left. It had been impossible to know what she was feeling, but Andee knew it wasn’t nothing. ‘I swear I don’t think she’d have come here to expose the mistake unless it was genuine,’ she told him.
He turned round as Juliette appeared, and seeing Maureen she fell into the arms of her tiny son’s great-grandmother.
Remembering how reassuring those arms had been for her over the years, Andee whispered to Jonathan, ‘Come on, let’s go outside.’
He followed her around to the back of the house where two swing chairs, a padded wicker sofa and a coffee table doubling as a backgammon board were absorbing the warmth of the early afternoon sunshine. The garden, stretching all the way to the stream that separated it from the Burlingford estate, was alive with colourful flowers. Only yesterday Rowzee had texted to say they should be cut and put in vases for her guests to enjoy.
‘I’m not sure what we should do now,’ Jonathan said, sitting next to Andee on a top step of the wooden deck. ‘I’m afraid if we try to leave she’ll suddenly spring out of nowhere and grab the baby before we know what’s happening.’
Taking his hand, Andee said, ‘I honestly don’t think she’s as bad as she tries to make out.’
Scoffing, Jonathan said, ‘You don’t know the half.’
‘I realise things have been difficult …’
‘She’s my real mother. She’s a part of me. That goes beyond difficult.’ Disgust, shame, thickened his voice.
Realising that he still had a long way to go to recover from learning that Ana wasn’t his birth mother, Andee searched for some words of comfort. They were hard to find when Penny had behaved the way she had, especially over the baby. He would understandably struggle to forgive that. Andee couldn’t help wondering if Penny’s ambivalence – to put it kindly – towards her son might in some way be connected to seeing how horrified he’d been to learn that she was his mother. No matter what she said, it must have cut very deeply to realise she was so despised.
‘You’re going to defend her, aren’t you?’ he accused.
Still holding his hand between both of hers, she said, ‘I can’t do that when I don’t know enough about what’s gone on between you, but I will say this: I truly believe she came here today to try and make you see that she’s not all bad.’
Astonished, Jonathan cried, ‘She fucked up a contract. That’s what she came to tell us.’
‘But she could have got the lawyers to do that. She didn’t need to be here in person. I believe she came because she wanted you to know that she was making the court case go away, and that she was doing it for you.’
He clearly wasn’t buying it. ‘If there hadn’t been a problem with that contract our son wouldn’t be with us now, you have to know that. In fact, she’s probably known all along that there was a problem, so she didn’t need to put us through any of this. She could have made it known a long time ago.’
‘Maybe she’s only just checked the detail. OK, I can see you’re not ready to consider that either. Look, I can’t make excuses for her, I don’t know her well enough to do that, but during the short time I have known her, as an adult I mean, I’ve got a sense of the terrible conflict, even fear, that’s raging away inside her. She’s struggling badly, and what’s been happening lately is clearly bringing it to a head. It
’s my belief that she loves you deeply, but she has no idea how to show it, she’s probably even afraid to try.’
He turned to look at her, his eyes showing a tormented disbelief. ‘You said it yourself, you haven’t known her for long,’ he replied. ‘She’s vindictive, sadistic … She’s bloody inhuman. Even Pappa says that about her.’
‘But he still cares for her?’
Since he couldn’t deny that, he said belligerently, ‘Alex is the lucky one. At least he got to die before he found out that she-devil …’
‘Stop, please stop,’ Andee came in gently, but forcefully. ‘Your brother’s death was a tragedy that you really can’t use in that way. By the time your mother found out what had happened to him she had been through the kind of hell that made it impossible for her to think straight, or even know who she was any more, never mind how she should relate to anyone else. Frankly, I believe she’s still suffering in ways she might not even realise herself. That’s what serious drug addiction does to a person, and never forget those drugs were forced on her. Yes, she chose to leave home at fourteen because she felt unloved, unappreciated, and we are to blame for that, not her. Families, parents, get things wrong sometimes, but it doesn’t mean they don’t care, and in Penny’s case, as a parent, she hardly knows where to begin. You know you wouldn’t have been born if you hadn’t been part of the surrogacy deal that Sven set up. He did the wrong thing for the right reason, and you still love him …’
‘You have to stop now,’ he protested. ‘Pappa can never be compared to her.’
Putting an arm around him, Andee toyed with the idea of telling him that no girls had gone missing, that no one was trafficked or forced to do anything they didn’t want to, but decided to save it for later. It still had to be checked, and he already had enough to process for one day. So all she said was, ‘People are so complex, especially someone who’s suffered the way your mother has, that we often can’t even begin to understand them. I just want you to try to keep an open mind where she’s concerned. I’m having to do the same, because I swear she’s a mystery to me too, but as we all move forward from here one thing I know for certain is that we’re going to need one another every step of the way.’
‘That’s just where you’re wrong,’ he told her, ‘because she doesn’t need anyone, and she never has.’
It was early evening when Graeme returned to the coach house, unannounced, and asked Andee to take a stroll with him. Knowing she’d look ridiculous to the others if she refused, Andee followed him outside, already planning to tell him that they really didn’t need to have this conversation.
As they reached the hamlet, where they were greeted by the heady scents of freshly mown grass, honeysuckle and a neighbours barbecue, Andee said, ‘I can only begin to imagine what a shock it was for you when you arrived here today, but at least they seem to be taking good care of the place.’
With a note of humour, Graeme said, ‘I knew they would with you and your mother in charge of things, but you’re right, it was a bit of a shock to walk into that chaos. I’m still not entirely sure I understand everything that happened.’
Andee had to smile. ‘That makes two of us,’ she confessed, ‘but I guess the important thing is that the baby won’t be going to the States. In fact, once Jonathan gets past the fear of this being one of Penny’s cruel jokes, I think he’ll be very happy to take his little family to Italy so they can be close to Juliette’s parents.’
‘And how do you feel about that, having only just met him?’
‘Sad, because I’d like to get to know him better, and I know Luke and Alayna will want to meet him as soon as they find out they have another cousin. But we’ll visit him in Italy, and hopefully he’ll come to see us here. I guess my real concern right now is for Penny, and how she isn’t figuring in Jonathan’s plans for the future at all.’
‘Mm,’ he responded thoughtfully. ‘There’s obviously a lot of work to be done there, if they even want to do it.’
‘I think she does, but heaven only knows how she’ll go about it.’
‘And what about your mother? How’s she dealing with things?’
Andee wished she could give a proper answer to that, but all she could say was, ‘I’m not sure. One minute she seems to be holding it together very well, the next she looks completely shattered – and lost, like she’s not entirely sure what’s happening or what she should be doing. It’s been hard for her, and I’m not convinced that even the relief of Jonathan getting to keep the baby is making it much easier. Of course she’s happy about that, she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, but …’ She sighed heavily at the size of the but.
‘Really it’s all about Penny?’
Andee nodded, and they both waved to one of the neighbours as he returned from a walk on the moor with his dog. ‘She truly doesn’t know how to process the issues Penny’s thrown up, and frankly I don’t either. I’m not even sure we’ll hear from her again now the struggle for Alexander is over.’
‘But you’ve got her number.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
After a while he said, ‘Do you think she knew all along that the contract was invalid?’
‘I’ve no idea. Jonathan’s convinced of it, but if she did she’d have known we’d find out sooner or later, so why would she keep it to herself? My guess is she didn’t realise until it was checked against the medical file, and that might only have happened in the last day or two.’
‘Well, however it came to light, I dread to think of the kind of lawsuit she must be facing now.’
Dreading it too, Andee said, ‘It won’t be pretty, that’s for sure, and to be honest I don’t know how equipped she is to deal with it. She’s not as … invincible as she likes to make out, and I got the feeling when I was with her the other day that she’s afraid of something. Well, of course she is, given the mistake with the contract, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes deeper than that.’
As they reached the picnic area at the end of the hamlet where a stunning view of the bay and sunset was glittering tantalisingly through the trees, Graeme offered her his hand as they descended the few rugged steps into the glade. When she was there, he kept hold of it and folded it through his arm.
‘There’s something I need to discuss with you,’ he said, after a few moments of absorbing the beauty of their surroundings, ‘and before you say you know what it is, I don’t think you do … Why did you say that, by the way?’
Wishing she wasn’t having to admit this, she attempted to sound wry as she said, ‘Penny has photos of you with Nadia.’
Clearly startled, he turned to look at her. ‘What photos?’ he asked, apparently more perplexed than angry.
Starting to feel embarrassed now, Andee said, ‘She told me you seem very close.’
His eyebrows rose with some sort of understanding as he nodded. ‘And you saw these photos?’ he wondered.
This was becoming more awkward by the second. ‘She offered to show me, but I didn’t really want … She had someone following you, and I think that someone took Nadia to be me. You’re going to tell me they don’t exist?’
‘If she had someone following me I’m sure they do, but they’d be no different to photos of me with my sisters or your mother. Affectionate, fun, although there hasn’t been a lot of fun with Nadia lately, which brings me to what I want to discuss with you.’
Andee looked back at the view, preparing for the worst.
‘There’s no easy way of saying this,’ he began, ‘so I’ll come straight to the point. Nadia doesn’t want you working on the project any more.’
A beat after the shock, Andee felt the rejection like a slap.
‘The reason,’ he continued, ‘is probably what you’re suspecting … I don’t mean that there’s anything between us, but she would like there to be. I’ve told her many times that it’s not going to happen, but there’s so much at stake with this property – in that she’s paying me so well – that she thinks she’s calling all th
e shots. She knows now that she isn’t.’
Andee was very still as she regarded him closely, not quite sure of what he was saying.
‘If you’re not able to work on Nadia’s villa with me,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to do it.’
As understanding reached her, Andee’s jaw almost dropped. ‘But all that money,’ she protested. ‘It’s over a hundred thousand pounds.’
‘I won’t deny it would be good to have, but frankly I’d rather have you.’
She continued to stare at him, still trying to take it in. ‘But I’m not worth that much,’ she objected.
Laughing, he brought her to him and lowered his mouth tenderly to hers.
Minutes passed, birds sang, the distant sea soughed as she put her arms around him and felt so relieved and so complete that she simply ignored the text that had just arrived on her phone.
When finally he let her go, he said, ‘Considering all that’s been happening lately, maybe you’d better check that message.’
Seriously hoping it was something that could wait, she opened up the text. Seeing it was from Penny, she became aware of a strange feeling stealing over her.
Have you given any thought to how the book ends?
‘Oh my God,’ she murmured, knowing exactly what this meant, and grabbing Graeme’s hand she ran like the wind to her car.
Chapter Twenty
For the second time that day Andee was hammering on the door to Penny’s suite at the Grand hotel. The only difference this time was that the manager and Graeme were with her.
Her heart was thudding with fear. Have you given any thought to how the book ends? Kate Trask had chosen to escape her crimes, her shame and the lack of her son’s love by taking her own life.
‘Penny!’ she shouted fiercely. ‘Please let me in.’
Since she’d already told the manager what she feared, he didn’t hesitate in unlocking the door, and moments later she was bursting into the room.
She looked around, hardly able to see through her panic, until finally she spotted Penny sitting in one of the window seats, staring blankly out at the sea. She was clearly very much alive, and virtually collapsing with relief, Andee cried, ‘Why didn’t you answer? You must have heard me knocking.’
