The Mothers

by Genevieve Gannon

  ‘We’ll get through it,’ he said, subduing the animal inside her with his strong fingers.

  He smelled of plaster dust. Beneath that odour she could detect his skin and his hair. It was the perfume of her only love and her happiest days. Of honeymoon mornings and late nights in the tiny student apartment they had shared when she had been accepted into university. He had worked lovingly and uncomplainingly to support them while she studied. They’d been so happy. The memories had been forgotten lately as distance gaped between them. But with his touch and compassion, it felt like her husband was returning to her. He kissed her temple, and she felt his lip brush her cheek. She turned her head, and his breath entered the whorls of her ear. He leaned closer and kissed its inner chamber, then again, more firmly. Her mouth broke open and he kissed this too, like a man with a craving. Priya couldn’t stop herself from kissing him back. She swivelled her hips, sinking onto him. She parted one leg and slid down so that his body was moored in the delta between her legs.

  He bucked. It had been so long since they had made love spontaneously and joyously. The coupling recently had been regimented and purposeful. Nick ripped his shirt off and tugged his T-shirt free from his pants. He was breathing heavily now and Priya knew nothing would stop what was about to happen. She could not order her thoughts. Nick was removing her clothes and the air hitting her body stoked her arousal. He stood, and turned her onto her back. He hovered a moment, waiting. He was watching her, seeking permission. Priya reached for him and pulled him into her. He gave a shout and a shudder, then kissed her breathlessly, desperately. She kissed him back and felt the familiar rhythm of her husband. He moved with self-assuredness, innately understanding what she wanted. Memories came to her, floating like fireflies carried by a breeze. They were beacons reminding her of the first time their bodies had crashed together, and what a revelation it had been for her. Nick was nothing like the timid, bookish boys she had known, with their over-wet lips and impatient hurtling towards the end.

  Once twenty-two-year-old Priya had given in to Nick after a post-exams party, everything had changed. She wasn’t tossed aside by the hurricane and discarded in the wake of spent passion, as she had feared. He had come back to her, again and again. They had been in love, wildly so. They had been together for eight years when their first year of marriage brought the pain of his first indiscretion, but they had come through it stronger. It was the silent nothingness that resulted from their attempts to conceive that had seemed to stifle things. She could see it now. Disappointment had leaked into their marriage like poisonous gas, quietly shutting it down. As Priya clung to Nick, one half of her brain glowed in ecstasy, another part, almost outside her body, remained rational. She could fight for him. She could take on those blank, blonde strangers who offered themselves up online like day-old bread. The question she couldn’t answer was, if she was going to spend the rest of their lives worrying he was sneaking around behind her back, was he worth fighting for?

  Seven

  Grace never ceased to be amazed by her body’s endless capacity to work itself up into a frenzy. She had taken dozens of pregnancy tests in her lifetime and every single time, as she tore the sticks from their cardboard boxes, her palms grew sweaty and her pulse started galloping off like a stallion after a shot had been fired. Today was no different.

  Grace willed her hands to not shake as she unbuttoned her jeans. She had spent years visiting friends to celebrate their babies, years waking up early on a Saturday to purchase flowers and size triple-0 jumpsuits. Years putting on a brave face to coo and gush at showers, in birthing suites, at first birthdays and then, inevitably, back at the same house for another baby shower. She did the test, placed the stick on the edge of the basin, washed her hands and set her alarm for three minutes. She paced the hallway, vibrating between abject fear and fervent prayer, thinking surely she had paid her dues. Surely it was her turn.

  Her timer pinged and she hurried into the bathroom. A single blue line stared at her, like the slash on a roadblock sign, denying her. She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed a sob, let the shock rush over her, and its residue corrode her. It was not her turn. It felt like it would never be her turn.

  As Grace poured a slug of gin into a glass then twisted in some lime, a familiar sadness descended. A tiresome blankness.

  She had been prepared to fail the first time. She had felt herself passing through the stages of grief. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. And finally, acceptance. She ticked them off like items on a to-do list. The first transfer, she felt, was no more likely to result in a pregnancy than the initial consultation. There was no logic to this other than the instinct for self-preservation.

  But now, after the seventh time, she sat at their oversized table—purchased with the unspoken agreement that it would be needed for family dinners, homework and constructing model solar systems—and drank.

  ‘Have you seen my universal adapter?’ Dan asked as he carried his suit bag into the dining room. His face fell when he saw Grace’s fingers curled around her glass like a security blanket.

  ‘Did you take a—’

  ‘Yes.’

  He was silent a moment.

  ‘Do you want me to pull out of the trip?’

  ‘What? No, no of course not.’

  Dan was due to fly out to a press junket in LA.

  ‘Are you mad that I did the test without telling you?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course not.’ He kissed the top of her forehead. She still had to go into Empona for the blood test, and the only thing to be thankful for in this moment was that she was relieved of the sickening, knife-in-the-stomach anticipation.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not mad?’ she said. ‘You seem … something.’

  ‘Why would I be mad? I have to finish packing.’

  She poured herself another drink, then she ransacked the fridge until she found a small wheel of camembert they’d had since Easter. She had been avoiding soft cheese, along with shellfish and alcohol, so Dan had refrained in solidarity.

  She peeled the foil off the cheese and scooped some quince jelly from a jar. These were the luxuries her friends with children claimed they would trade their youngest for. ‘All I eat is Bega slices these days,’ Rochelle had said one night when she and Grace shared a cheese plate after a rare night out together at the theatre. It was a hollow complaint. The camembert tasted like fatty failure to Grace. What were cheese and sloe berries to a downy-cheeked babe?

  She returned to the fridge, knowing there were some muscatels in syrup somewhere. If she was going to wallow, she was going to go all out.

  That was another thing she could be grateful for. She and Dan both earned a good salary, which meant they were spared the financial anguish many infertile couples faced. She glumly ate another gooey piece of camembert, then pushed the plate away, feeling queasy.

  ‘Dan,’ she called. ‘Come and have some cheese before I eat any more. It’s going to make me sick … Dan?’

  When she got no answer she climbed the stairs to their bedroom. ‘Dan?’ It was empty.

  She heard a rustle in the study, so she pushed open the door. Papers were flapping by the window, which was propped open with a lead glass paperweight.

  ‘Dan?’

  She stopped outside the room neither of them went into. The door was kept closed. It was a waste of space but they couldn’t bear to do anything with it. Even in the short term. Even though it meant Dan’s mountain bike had become a permanent fixture in the dining room and Grace’s clarinet kept company with the ironing board in the laundry. The walls were white except for a small patchwork of colours where they had tested out squares of chalky pink and sailor blue. A pine dressing table sat against one wall with a few scattered items on top: a pile of folded, knitted baby jackets, a teddy bear, a bottle of No Tears baby shampoo that Grace had put aside almost two years ago thinking they would need it someday. Under a veil of dust, it looked like a shrine. She inched the door open, her heart starting to thump. �
��Dan?’

  It was empty.

  She returned to the dining room, where she heard movement coming from the kitchen.

  Dan was in the pantry. The light was off and he was cloaked in darkness. His back was to her and his shoulders were shaking. His face was in his hands as he sobbed silently. Grace stepped back, feeling she had trespassed on a private moment. The lonely figure broke the pieces of her heart into smaller fragments. She couldn’t leave him there in the dark, among the cornflakes and bags of rice. She stepped towards him and entwined her arms with his. He tensed at her touch, but then relaxed. He let out an anguished noise. She wrapped her arms around his chest, and pressed her body to his.

  ‘Sh, it’s okay,’ she said, then tenderly kissed the back of his neck. He clasped her hands and continued to sob.

  ‘Come out of here,’ she said, guiding him from the pantry and walking him to their bed. She eased him onto the mattress then lay down beside him, tucking his head under her chin and stroking his hair as he shook with silent grief.

  Dan took a cab to the airport in the morning. ‘I’ll be back in time for the blood test,’ he said, kissing the end of her nose.

  ‘I can’t bear the thought of going through the whole routine at Empona.’

  ‘It’s two days away. Maybe it was a false negative.’

  ‘Don’t even think it,’ she said. ‘That’s the point of taking the test early. To guard against hope.’

  The house was cold without Dan. Grace made microwave mac ’n’ cheese for dinner and ate it from a mug. There was a gaping hole in the middle of the week, which had been previously occupied by the bake-off. Mr Lombardo had shut the program down for good, citing parents’ concerns after news of the nightclub incident had trickled out. Grace felt like she had failed Bridget. The young student had taken full advantage of the kitchen practice time Grace had arranged from her, and Grace strongly believed that if Bridget wanted to explore her passion for cooking, she should have every opportunity to do so. At least there was something she could do about that, Grace thought, picking up her phone.

  The Saturday morning peace was broken by the blare of Grace’s alarm. She slammed it off and swung her legs out of bed. Dan’s flight was due in at two in the afternoon. She would pick him up from the airport then drive straight to Empona for the test that would confirm what she already knew. But that wasn’t her focus now.

  She dressed quickly and was soon on the road to Corella. When she pulled into the driveway Bridget Hennessy was standing at the door to the boarding house, as planned, in casual clothes. She bounced on the balls of her feet with excitement as Grace’s car came to a stop. By her side was her calico bag.

  ‘Hop in,’ Grace called.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mrs Arden,’ Bridget said as she fastened her seat-belt.

  ‘Now remember, if anyone asks, I approved your request to attend a lecture series at Sydney University,’ Grace said. ‘We don’t want this getting back to your father.’

  Bridget nodded her head in fierce agreement.

  Grace had little doubt as to exactly which parents had been so vehement that the bake-off be shut down. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Are you all belted in? Good. Let’s go.’

  She set her GPS for the Cordon Bleu culinary school in Rozelle.

  Six hours later Doctor Li confirmed what they already knew. The latest attempt hadn’t taken.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Grace, Dan,’ she said.

  Grace expelled a long gust of air. ‘I never thought we’d have to do it eight times.’

  ‘Well, we have a couple of options after the last collection,’ Doctor Li said.

  The young physician had done her job well on the latest retrieval. With her skilled and steady hand, she had removed nine eggs. When it had come time to implant them, five had been viable. They still had four left on ice, three blastocysts and one-strong looking morula—an embryo not quite as developed as a blastocyst but still good enough to transfer.

  ‘Could we just talk about the genetic test results again,’ Grace said. ‘We’re still a bit confused. I know we have three viable embryos but the fourth isn’t as strong?’

  Doctor Li nodded. ‘Essentially, the test returned a possible error. They can’t rule out there being a problem, but they also don’t know for sure that there is.’

  ‘If we don’t implant it, we could be wasting a perfectly good embryo, but we’ll only see if there is an error if we implant it.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And testing it again could damage it?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Yes. My recommendation would be that since you have three other viable embryos, we should not transfer the embryo with the potential problem. Not yet, at least.’

  ‘But what does it mean?’ Grace asked.

  ‘We can’t say for sure. There could be an abnormality with part of one of the chromosomes. It appears as a deletion. It’s unclear if the deletion is an accurate representation of an abnormal chromosome or a misrepresentation of a healthy chromosome. That is to say, we don’t know if the error is in the embryo or the test.’

  ‘So it could be fine?’

  Doctor Li nodded. ‘She could be fine.’

  ‘It’s a girl?’ Grace asked, a smile appearing on her face.

  ‘Yes, this embryo is female. But as I said, I don’t recommend implanting it now. You have three normal embryos and, if you agree, I’d like to transfer them all.’

  ‘What, all three at once?’

  ‘It’s not something I like to do, but given your age, Grace, I think it’s our best shot.’

  ‘Three,’ Dan repeated.

  ‘What are the chances that all three will take?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Honestly, very little, which is why I think we should try.’

  ‘What about two?’ Dan asked. ‘What are the odds of two taking, and we end up with twins?’

  The idea of two babies appealed to Grace. It would mean the one baby they wished for would get a sibling after all. She knew there was no chance of it happening otherwise.

  ‘I don’t think you’re likely to end up with twins,’ Doctor Li said, extinguishing Grace’s burgeoning fantasy of matching jumpsuits. ‘Doctor Li,’ she said. ‘I have to ask, if we put three embryos in, what are our chances of getting even one to take?’

  ‘With three, I think you have a fighting chance.’

  Grace smiled, with hope in her heart.

  ‘You don’t have to make a decision today. But we’ll book you in for a transfer date. Go home and talk it over. You can decide between now and then.’

  A knowing look passed between Dan and Grace. ‘If you think this is our best chance,’ Dan said, ‘then we don’t have to think about it.’

  Eight

  Six am frost covered the yard, turning it as white as if someone had sprayed the grass with fake snow. It was a rare sight in June, even in Western Sydney, which experienced an entirely different climate to the subtropical east. It had already been the coldest June on record and it was only going to get colder, the TV weather reporter had said. But inside her house, Priya was starting to sweat. She pulled off her jumper and turned down the dial on the heater.

  She laid an old bed sheet in the passageway to protect the floorboards, then lifted Nick’s desk onto it and dragged it out to the studio where she jammed it up against the wall. The old desk joined Nick’s barbells, kettle weights and his toolbox, which were neatly stacked in a pile, the product of her morning’s work. She returned to the second bedroom to pick up a few stay items.

  They had decided they would lay carpet in the second bedroom, so she didn’t bother putting more sheets down. Priya went out to the shed and fetched a tin of paint and a knife. Jacker followed as she brought it into the second bedroom, wagging his tail and licking his chops.

  ‘It’s not food, you silly thing,’ she laughed as she dug the blade under the lid and prised it open.

  Dollops of paint the colour of a springtime sky splattered onto the wood as she dunked her r
oller into the tray, liberally coating it. She painted the ceiling, and when it was dry she brought in the ladder and hand-painted fluffy white clouds and golden stars. She worked all day, painting a fat sun in one corner and a sleeping moon in another. She added cherubs riding shooting stars like rodeo cowboys. Next, she mixed white into the blue to lighten it and painted Saraswati—the Hindu goddess of music—riding her swan and playing a veena. In another corner she depicted Krishna with a flute in his hands. Next to him she painted another pink cherub. In the Archer sky, Judeo-Christian references mixed with Hindu deities. Priya imagined lying on her back with a squirming toddler in her arms, pointing out the gods. She did not adhere to her parents’ faith, but she wanted her child to be aware of it. She realised, sadly, if she didn’t teach him—or her—nobody would.

  Once Priya had finished the mural she began to sketch a jungle scene on the white walls. She was adding colour to a giraffe when she heard the door slam, followed by the sound of Nick kicking his boots off by the door.

  ‘How’s my patient?’ he called. ‘Why are you out of bed?’ He folded his arms when he came into the room and found Priya working. ‘You didn’t move all of that stuff by yourself?’

  ‘Nick, I’m fine.’

  ‘You just had surgery.’

  ‘It was a minor procedure. Besides, Stav helped,’ she lied.

  Nick’s face broke into a smile. ‘That looks fantastic,’ he said, walking around the room and appraising her work. He rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I promise.’

  Doctor Carmichael had performed a quick, clean laparoscopic cystectomy and excised a lump the size of a peppercorn. Priya was prescribed anti-inflammatories and a few days of bed rest. ‘We’ll make an appointment for ten days from now and see how you’re healing. All going well we can start you on the treatment,’ the doctor had said.