The Mothers

by Genevieve Gannon

  ‘If you sue the clinic, and we win, it doesn’t do anything to protect us if there’s a custody claim, does it?’ Dan asked.

  ‘No. But you have a better chance of fighting off any claims on the child if you have a legal team funded by a juicy settlement.’

  ‘We’ll have to think about it,’ Dan said.

  Grace nodded.

  Elliott tapped his pen against his pad. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll do some research and be in touch in the next couple of days. In the meantime, I’m going to have my secretary set up an appointment to have a DNA test. Now, I don’t want you to worry, this is just for our information. If there was a mix-up we need to know exactly what error was made.’ As he shook their hands the links of his heavy gold watch shook.

  ‘Thank you, Elliott,’ Dan said. ‘I’m glad we came.’

  ‘I am too,’ the lawyer replied. ‘It’s best to be on the front foot with these sorts of things.’

  Grace and Dan had almost reached their car, which was parked at Dan’s newspaper office in Pyrmont, when his phone rang.

  He looked at it quizzically. ‘Elliott. Hello?’ Grace watched as he listened, nodding. He hung up and said: ‘We need to go back.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about, just something about paperwork we need to fill out.’ He pressed her hand.

  When they returned to the office Elliott was waiting at reception with a young woman, who was holding some forms.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Arden,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming back. There was just one thing I needed from you, Mr Arden. It will only take a moment.’

  ‘Sure,’ Dan said.

  ‘Please come with me,’ the young woman said.

  After Dan and the paralegal disappeared down the hall, Elliott looked at Grace. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘A glass of water would be nice.’

  He smiled. ‘Of course. Through here.’

  Elliott led Grace to a small kitchenette where he filled a glass with Perrier. He watched as she drank. ‘Grace,’ he said, tenting his fingers again, ‘I don’t know quite how to ask this so I’m just going to come out with it. The story Dan told me in the boardroom … there’s no way he could be mistaken about the baby’s paternity?’

  ‘Mistaken?’ She looked at him blankly.

  ‘Well, you gave birth to a little boy who doesn’t look like you, or Dan. Such an outcome is not as uncommon as you think.’

  Grace wasn’t picking up on the implication. ‘I don’t—’

  ‘I have a second guiding principle. It’s that the simplest answer is often the correct one.’

  Realisation hit Grace and she felt her face burn. ‘You think I slept with someone else?’

  Elliott held up his hands. ‘I’m not accusing you. I just have to ask. Grace.’ He placed a hand on her arm. ‘No judgment. But you’ve got to be one hundred per cent straight with me on this.’

  ‘No. No, there’s no way.’ She pulled away. ‘I would never. And even if I had, there is no way I would have got pregnant. We did seven rounds of IVF and nothing.’ Her anger was swamped by embarrassment. Shame. ‘I’ve got medical records to prove it. Oh God. Is that what people will think? This is a nightmare.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Grace. I had to ask that. I believe you.’

  ‘How could you think I would drag my husband through this? That I would make up an IVF error to hide an affair?’

  ‘I apologise. Truly. I’m on your side.’

  ‘Even we don’t know exactly what happened. That’s why we need your help.’

  ‘I understand.’ He laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘And I’m here to help. But we’re in unchartered territory. It may be a long road ahead.’

  Twenty-seven

  Ashley was shaking as she got into her car and drove away from Coogee. Her eyes were on the road, but in her mind she could see only Priya Laghari’s face. Her large dark eyes had lit up when the news she had a son had sunk in, and just as quickly, that light had gone out as she realised the unique conundrum she was in. Ashley was certain she had done the right thing. But what of Grace and Dan? And little Sam? He was the one she had done this for. He deserved to know the truth. Out of everyone, he was the one whose rights most needed to be protected.

  The blast of a horn brought her back to reality. Her car was lagging twenty kilometres below the speed limit and traffic had built up behind her. As a ute zoomed past her, the driver jeered and gestured abusively. Ashley’s sweaty hands were slippery on the wheel. Another car roared past. Honk-honk-honk, it blared.

  Rattled, she tried to reassure herself. She had done the ethical thing, but it gave her no comfort. And, Roger. He would be livid when he discovered she had spilled the secret. He was wrong to conceal the mix-up, but she knew he wouldn’t see it that way. All he would see was that she had gone behind his back. He would see it as a betrayal. Their relationship was over. The realisation registered dully. His attitude towards the error was unforgivable and revealed him to be an unethical doctor and an uncaring man.

  The Health Complaints Commissioner would have to get involved. If there was to be an investigation, her actions would most likely be examined. She braced herself against the steering wheel. Her body felt flushed and her skull full of pressure as if it were expanding outward. The world began to sway. She felt like she was suffocating.

  Ashley pulled her car over to the side of the road and threw open her door, gasping for air. She put her head between her knees and tried to breathe, taking huge gulps of oxygen. She wished she could disappear. Her eyes stung with tears and her chest burned. There was a water bottle in her bag. She reached for it and drank deeply.

  As the panic receded a curt text arrived from Roger: Where are you?

  Ashley could feel the anger vibrating through the transmission, as if he knew what she had done. She had avoided him for days.

  She wondered momentarily if she had miscalculated when she called Priya. But it hadn’t been a calculation, she knew; it had been instinct. She had been carried along by righteous anger, fearful that Roger would seek to conceal the truth from the biological mother, and others would conspire to keep the truth of the little boy’s origins from him.

  Her phone rang. Roger again. She cancelled the call and started the car engine.

  Twenty-eight

  If you could save ten strangers’ lives by sacrificing yourself, would you do it?

  Hypotheticals. It was a game Priya and Viv used to love playing when they were growing up.

  Sometimes the question was about gross-out childishness. Would you rather eat maggots or dog poo? Sometimes it was a macabre moral conundrum. What if you, me and Mum ran into a hungry cannibal giant and you could only save one of us. Who would you sacrifice, Mum or me?

  Now, the game had come horrifyingly true. Priya could practically hear teenage Viv reciting the predicament she’d cooked up with a girlish thrill. What if you’d wanted a baby all your life but you couldn’t have one. Just as you’ve given up hope you learn your baby already exists. He’s happy and healthy and living with another couple. The only way you can have your baby is if you take him from them. You don’t know them. But they’re good people. It’s not their fault they have your baby and they love him. What would you do?

  ‘I wish she’d never told me,’ Priya said as she turned the envelope over in her hand.

  ‘There’s no hurry to make a decision.’ Viv put a plate of biscuits in front of her sister.

  ‘Every minute I delay they’re with him, growing more and more attached, making the situation worse.’

  ‘What does your instinct tell you?’

  When playing hypotheticals, Priya was always the pragmatic one. She would ponder the problem, her bottom lip sticking out and her eyes moving from side to side as she tallied the consequences of the options before her. Ultimately she would choose the answer that would be easier on her. Viv tended towards the self-sacrificing answer. (I’d let the giant eat me so that you and Mum could live.) It was easy to be noble
when there was little chance of running into a cannibal giant in Sydney’s south-west.

  ‘I can hardly think straight. I’m so angry at the clinic,’ Priya said. ‘My little boy is out there somewhere. I want to knock on every door in Sydney until I find him. But when I think about that door opening, and the couple, I just feel so bad for them. I’m so conflicted.’

  She slipped the piece of paper from the envelope. It was a printout of the surgery schedule on the day of the insemination. The couple that came in after Priya was the pair who had Sadavir. Grace Arden. Spouse: Daniel Arden.

  ‘Don’t think about them. What do you want?’

  ‘I think, how can I take their child? But then, he’s not just my son. He’s your nephew and he’s Avani, Shanti and Shanaya’s cousin. What if he turns ten and finds out he has a whole other family? One that looks like him, and has the same mannerisms, allergies, tastes, medical history. The same culture. Won’t he want to know why we didn’t want him?’

  She had a flashback to primary-school recess when the other kids ate cakes and fruit buns, and screwed up their faces and pinched their noses as Priya and Viv unpacked roti bread. Their scorn had burned. She and her sister shuffled closer together and finished their morning snack. She thought of Darsh holding her hand in the transfer room, and cheerily trying to rouse her from her post-separation rut. How could she deny this baby his family? ‘I wouldn’t even know what to do,’ Priya said.

  ‘You would have to get a lawyer.’ Rajesh had been sitting quietly at the table.

  ‘I … I don’t think I could take their baby,’ Priya said. ‘I don’t think I could live with myself.’

  ‘Could you live with yourself knowing that your son is out there somewhere and you did nothing?’ Viv said. ‘He’s family.’

  ‘Honestly,’ Rajesh said, leaning forward with a look of intense concentration on his face, ‘I think if you can get a DNA test to prove that baby is your biological son you’ve got a strong case. A very strong case.’

  ‘It’s so hard to wrap my brain around it. Right now, I don’t think I can do it. But then I think, what if in a year or two I realise I was foolish to let this go, and I try to get custody, and the judge rules against me because I waited a whole year. I feel like, I have to make a decision now and it’s just too much.’

  Every time she thought about it her heart started to pound and she felt like her brain was being overloaded.

  ‘And what about these doctors who did this?’ Viv said. ‘They sound incompetent. We don’t know what care they take with the embryos. How many times have you been treated there?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘And you have no baby. Who knows what they’re doing behind closed doors. Who monitors these places?’

  Priya contemplated this. What if—as Rajesh had suggested—she was awarded custody. She would suddenly be responsible for a two-month-old boy. It was more than the human mind could grasp. She felt so unprepared. She would need a cot, a change table, formula, nappies, a baby thermometer and much, much more. She didn’t know how to swaddle a baby. What if he got a fever? She had anticipated that if she adopted, or chose a surrogate, she would have time to learn these things. This, she thought, is why you shouldn’t play God.

  ‘They are doctors and they’re putting babies in their bodies of the wrong people,’ said Rajesh. ‘Even if you don’t want to try to get custody, something needs to be done about the clinic.’

  That night, Priya lay awake for hours turning over possible outcomes in her head. Maybe, she thought, it wasn’t an all-or-nothing situation. Perhaps Grace and Dan Arden would be willing to compromise. Let her meet him. And in exchange, she’d promise not to make a parental claim. The more she thought about it, the more she convinced herself this was a good idea. She could propose a civilised sort of good-faith agreement. Maybe in time she could babysit, and become a godmother figure, or something. Aunty Priya, who always sent a birthday card with a crisp ten-dollar bill in it and was invited to school plays and graduations.

  She went to her desk, pulled out some writing paper and a pen. She thought about what she would want from them, and what they might be comfortable offering. She didn’t want to leave any room for misinterpretation. Most of all, she thought about what was best for the baby. Sadavir. When he grew up he would want answers, and together they could sit him down and explain what had happened. Why he looked like Aunty Priya but lived with Grace and Dan. Then, she began to write. It took two hours, but around one am she had a letter that she was happy with.

  Dear Grace and Dan,

  To open with a cliché, this is the hardest letter I have ever had to write. In fact, I’m certain it is one of the hardest letters anyone has ever had to write for I feel sure nobody in history has ever found themselves in the situation the three of us face right now.

  I was a patient at the Empona clinic in Alexandria at the same time you were. I had been undergoing treatment with my now ex-husband since 2015. My doctor, Cecelia Carmichael, collected six eggs after a stimulated ovulation. After I separated from my husband, the eggs were fertilised with donor sperm and the subsequent embryos were frozen.

  I returned to the clinic in September 2015 to be implanted with embryos fertilised by a donor I selected to give me the best genetic match to my child. I am of Indian descent and I was eager for my child to look like me. I felt it was important for the child too, so that he could feel connected to my family.

  Those two weeks were full of the hope that I might finally get the family I craved. I had had so many disappointments. I prayed. I meditated and I pictured myself with my baby. After two weeks, with shaking hands and a thumping heart, I took a test. It was negative. I would not get my baby.

  Little did I know my baby was growing—he just wasn’t growing in me. It appears that a clinician made an error and a doctor implanted my embryo in your uterus, Grace. My understanding is that you are presently raising a son who is the product of my egg and the donor sperm I chose. He has my DNA and he carries in him my genetic material, and the bloodline of my family.

  Rest assured I mean no threat to you. When I learned of this development I was at a loss for what to do. I only want the chance to see the child grow, and to know that he is healthy. I would like to offer you my thanks, for the love and care you have given our son.

  She had put a lot of thought into that line. Your son didn’t feel right, but my son felt provocative. Our son was in keeping with the spirit of her proposal.

  Perhaps, in time, a friendship will grow and the boy will have the opportunity of knowing both the parents who raised him, and the mother who will always love him from afar. I hope you will consider this suggestion as the best way to achieve a fair outcome out of a strange and unforeseeable situation.

  Sincerely,

  Priya Laghari (Archer)

  Below she wrote her phone number and her email address. Her hands were trembling, but a sense of accomplishment was settling the storm in her soul. It was a good resolution and a good letter. How could they do anything but reply that they too would like to make the best of this unfortunate situation?

  Priya stood and walked to her window. In a neighbouring yard sat a sandpit filled with bright plastic toys. A rush of jealousy hit. It seemed so unfair. She pressed her forehead to the cool glass. As she stared at the plastic tricycle and thought of the chubby legs that would power it, anger bloomed in her chest and she couldn’t help but direct it towards these faceless people. The sense of injustice stung. Tears filled her eyes. She had to tell herself this was not their plan and that they were all victims of the clinic. It horrified her to think how they would feel when they learned the child wasn’t their own.

  Underneath it all, she felt an affectionate gratitude towards them. She had a son, and these two strangers had nurtured and cared for him. Although she grieved her failed pregnancies, she couldn’t grieve this lost chance. Her son had survived, against all odds. He was brought into the world amid error and doubt, yet his will to live had prevailed. S
uch a special baby would surely grow up to be a remarkable man. She hoped desperately that she would come to be a part of his life.

  Priya folded the letter and sealed it in an envelope. She had, of course, Googled the couple when she had learned their names. She knew that Grace worked at a girls’ school and Dan was a journalist. She went to Dan’s newspaper’s website to find their postal address. On a whim she typed Dan’s name into the search field. As she toggled through his articles she came across a piece he had written about the decline of strip shopping. The opening line was: ‘In my neighbourhood of Glebe …’ Priya quickly tapped D and G Arden into the White Pages search engine and was surprised when an address popped up. Gottenham Street. Her baby was in Gottenham Street. She carefully copied the address onto the envelope, then pasted on a stamp.

  She propped the envelope up on the windowsill, knowing she would hardly be able to sleep until it was sent. The nearest postbox was a kilometre away. She went to bed but ten minutes later she was up again. Her car was being serviced, so she ordered an Uber. She waited by the window until the car pulled into view.

  ‘Just down to the postbox on Beach Street, please,’ she said, sliding into the back seat clutching the letter.

  A few minutes later they were pulling up near the curb. The dark trees looked menacing under the streetlights.

  ‘Can you wait, please?’ Priya asked the driver. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’ She hopped out of the vehicle and ran the few short steps to the letterbox. Without hesitation she grabbed hold of the cold metal handle, pulled it towards her and shoved the letter into the chute. She breathed. It was done. It was done. A week ago she had felt more alone that she ever had in her life. Now she had taken the first step to becoming a piece of a new and modern family, with a surely grateful couple and a baby. Sadavir. My Sadavir. She knew she wouldn’t be able to call him that. Whatever moniker the birth parents had chosen, she would respect, but she would always think of him by his intended name, the grandson of Dyuti’s father, Sadavir, a foreman at a silk factory in Kerala who had done everything he could to give his children a better life.