Let Her Go Read online

  After turning on the tap to hide the noise, she kneeled in front of the toilet and tucked her hair behind her ears. Even though the cleaner had been the previous day, the foul smell of drains turned her stomach, and once she started retching, she couldn’t stop. She coughed to try to disguise the sound. When it was finally over, she flushed the toilet and curled up on her side on the bathroom tiles. Her forehead was clammy and the roots of her hair were damp with sweat. This was the worst of it, she had told herself. But she had been wrong: perhaps it was the worst time physically, but emotionally, every single day since then had been more and more difficult.

  Breathing slowly, she had gotten to her feet again, splashed her face with the water still gushing from the tap, then patted her skin dry with the towel. She brushed her teeth, swilled mouthwash, then went back out into the bedroom.

  Eddie had placed her pillow on top of his own to prop himself up, and was reading something on his phone. He looked up as she collapsed into bed. ‘I told you this wouldn’t be easy.’

  Nadia closed her eyes. ‘I’m fine, Eddie.’

  ‘I’m not an idiot. I know what morning sickness is, I’ve seen you go through it three times. You can tell me, you know, you don’t have to pretend.’

  ‘I’m not pretending anything. I feel a bit nauseous but I’m OK.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Leave me alone! What are you saying it like that for?’

  ‘Because I don’t know what you’re trying to prove.’

  ‘Please. Just let me rest for a few minutes.’ He was right: what was she trying to prove, and who was she trying to prove it to?

  He sighed. ‘Sorry. Come here …’ He lifted up the blanket for her to come closer.

  Nadia shuffled her body towards him, then turned so her back was against his chest. He dropped his arm and the blanket around her. She put her hand on his broad arm, soft with hair. As she began to relax, her eyes filled with tears. It was so hard not to think about the tiny baby inside her. With her own children, she had welcomed the nausea, knowing it was a sign that the pregnancy was strong, that hormones were flooding her body and making sure she knew to be careful, to watch what she ate, because her babies were growing. But this pregnancy – Zoe and Lachlan’s – was different. She didn’t want to think like that about the child she was carrying, to be reminded of it every moment of the day, every time she breathed; she didn’t want to think about the child at all. She knew then that when she felt the quickening in a few months, the tiny flutters and twitches of the growing baby, it would be impossible to keep herself and the child separate. Closing her eyes, she let a tear drip down her cheek as she heard Harry cry and the girls laugh. She had promised that the children wouldn’t suffer because of the pregnancy; she had promised that nothing would change. How could she have thought that was possible? With a sigh, Nadia had forced herself to get up and start the day, wishing that it was already over and they could go back to normal.

  But the pregnancy was over now, and yet things were far from normal. The fact that she couldn’t talk about it without breaking down attested to that.

  * * *

  Zoe slid open the screen door to the back garden, wincing as it screeched. She froze, listening, with her white washing basket balanced on her hip, one bare foot poised to step outside. Louise was only now starting to get into a routine, and Zoe had finally managed to rock her to sleep. But, thankfully, there was no noise from her room.

  Zoe tiptoed outside. She loved spending all her time with Louise, but it was harder work than she’d anticipated, especially when Lachlan was away, as he was now, so she needed the time when Louise napped to get things done. Although – not that she’d ever admit it to Lachlan – in many other ways, things were easier when he was away: his moods had become difficult to predict, and often he was so distant towards her and Louise that it made little difference whether he was there or not. Zoe understood how tiring it was for him to work away, and that he’d want some solitude when he came back home, but he needed to make up for the time he spent on the mines so that he and Louise had a good relationship.

  They’d gone to Kings Park on the weekend, just before Lachlan left for Kalgoorlie again. After weeks of spring rain, it had been a clear sunny day, warm and still. They walked past colourful wildflowers to a shady spot under a sugar gum tree, overlooking the Swan River; behind the river, on the horizon, were the hills of the Darling Range. Zoe put a sunhat on Louise, then laid her on her back on the picnic blanket. A breeze blew in off the river, swishing through the leaves above them, and dappling their faces with sunlight. After they’d eaten the sandwiches she’d made, Zoe sat with her legs bent to the side, leaning on her right hand, looking down at her own freckled arm next to Louise’s pale, smooth skin. Lachlan lay on his back, his thongs discarded near their bags. Every so often, he raised his head just enough to sip from a can of lemonade, then relaxed back down again and closed his eyes. Louise rolled her head on the rug, eyes wide, watching a butterfly flap around her face. Zoe smiled to herself as she looked at her little family.

  Then a shadow passed over them. Zoe looked up, shielding her eyes with her hand.

  ‘Hi, guys!’

  ‘Pete, mate, how are you?’ Lachlan smiled, stood up. He slapped Pete on the back and grinned. ‘You remember my wife, Zoe?’

  ‘Hi!’ Zoe picked up Louise and stood up too. Pete was an old workmate of Lachlan’s. He was heavier than she remembered, with a solid paunch. His face was lined by years in the sun. He was walking a panting black labrador on a lead.

  ‘Of course!’ said Pete. ‘It’s been a while – probably haven’t seen you since that Christmas party, what, three years ago?’

  Zoe laughed. ‘Yeah, probably. God, that was a big night! Are you still working up north?’

  ‘Nah, got sick of the travelling. I’ve got a job here now, a boring nine to five. Money’s not so good, but better for the wife, you know. And who’s this little one?’ Pete leaned forward and stroked Louise’s cheek; she smiled, then turned her head into Zoe’s shoulder.

  ‘This is our little girl, Louise,’ Zoe said.

  Pete turned to Lachlan. ‘I didn’t know you had a baby! Congratulations! You kept that one quiet.’

  Zoe looked at Lachlan; he shrugged, then put his hand on Louise’s shoulder. ‘Yeah, she’s two months old now.’

  ‘Seven weeks,’ Zoe said, making sure she kept smiling as Lachlan shifted from foot to foot. ‘Have you got kids yet, Pete? Lachlan never tells me anything …’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, an eighteen-month-old, and another on the way.’

  Lachlan laughed. ‘See, I didn’t know you were having another one either, you’re as bad as me.’

  Louise squirmed; Zoe shifted her into her other arm and bounced up and down at the knees while the men talked about work, but she wasn’t really listening. Lachlan and Pete didn’t work together any more, but they had many mutual friends. How could Pete not have heard that they had a baby? Especially given how Louise was born – people didn’t forget that in a hurry. She held Louise tightly to her until they said their goodbyes and Pete walked away with his dog waddling beside him.

  As soon as he left, Zoe handed Louise to Lachlan. ‘Here, take her.’ She collected the sandwich crusts, scrunched them up with the used cling wrap and threw them in the esky, then wrapped up the cheese and chucked that in too. Her face burned.

  Lachlan strapped Louise into her stroller, then looked up. ‘What’s wrong now?’

  Zoe shook her head. ‘Forget it.’ She moved the esky onto the grass, grabbed the picnic blanket and shook it out.

  ‘Careful!’ Lachlan flapped his hand in front of his face. ‘Forget what?’

  ‘You really don’t know?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Fine. Why didn’t Pete know you had a baby? Why didn’t you tell him?’

  ‘Jesus, Zoe. I didn’t not tell him, I haven’t seen him for ages. I was hardly going to call everyone I’ve ever known. I don’t go round making a big deal of i
t.’

  ‘A big deal? You don’t think having a baby is a big deal? I don’t understand why you haven’t told people!’ Zoe looked at him with wide eyes. ‘Why aren’t you shouting it out? We haven’t done anything wrong, Lachie!’

  ‘Of course we haven’t done anything wrong.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘But people haven’t seen you pregnant, so they don’t expect to see us with Louise, and I just don’t want to have to explain all the gory details every time. Everybody wants to know how it happened, whose kid she really is.’

  ‘She’s our kid!’

  ‘Yeah, but they assume that we’ve paid some poor bloody Indian woman to take all the risks while we lounge around, and then when they hear about Nadia they make jokes about me making babies with your sister, or —’

  ‘That’s ridiculous! Who says that about you and Nadia? People don’t think that! Maybe that’s what you think about, but no one else does!’ Zoe realised as she said it that she was finally voicing a long-buried fear, the fear that her sister and husband shared such an intimate connection.

  Lachlan shook his head, his face grim, then started to push the stroller away.

  ‘That’s right, just walk away, as usual!’ Zoe picked up the nappy bag and picnic blanket, then stormed after him. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t carry our child. I’m sorry that you have to put up with questions about where our daughter came from and that you’re ashamed of her.’ Zoe wished she could stop the words, but she couldn’t. She wanted to hurt Lachlan, to make him feel rejected in the same way she thought he was rejecting her – and Louise.

  Lachlan stopped, then spun around, eyes blazing. ‘Stop it! That’s a horrible thing to say. I’m not ashamed, I’m not blaming you – you are! Just give it a rest.’ Lachlan grabbed the esky in his left hand then pushed the stroller towards Zoe, the muscles in his forearms rigid.

  Zoe took a tiny step back, blinking away the tears that stung her eyes. She’d never seen him look so furious; now, she regretted pushing him so far. ‘Lachlan, calm down, just look at you —’

  ‘Look at me?’ he said quietly, his jaw bulging, as he stopped just in front of her.

  Zoe took a deep breath and lowered her eyes to look down at Louise, who was watching two dogs playing at the other end of the park. Louise shouldn’t have to hear this; the surrogacy had made her life confusing enough. Zoe had started this; why had she ruined such a nice day, their last day together for a fortnight? Lachlan was constantly on edge at the moment, and he’d never been like that before, but was he really the problem, or was he merely reacting to her own self-doubt and anger? ‘Sorry, my fault. Let’s go,’ Zoe mumbled.

  ‘No —’

  ‘People are watching! I want to go home!’ She had taken off towards the car, listening to the squeak of Louise’s stroller and the rhythmic clunking of the esky as Lachlan had followed her.

  Now, Zoe sighed and walked across her courtyard carrying the washing basket. The bricks were cool under her feet. She hadn’t slept well last night; she’d dreamed that there was a heavy blanket on her face and woken several times gasping for air, paralysed and confused in that hypnopompic moment between dreaming and waking.

  A breeze wafted through the garden and scattered the dry gum leaves across the pavers. She reached the washing line, strung between a branch of the gum tree in the back corner of the yard and the drainpipe on the wall, and put the basket down at her feet. She shuddered as a sticky thread brushed her forehead. A huge web glinted silver in the sun, extending between the clothesline and a branch of the tree. She let her heart settle: just a garden spider. Glancing back at the wall, she saw a messy redback nest tangled behind the drainpipe. She must call someone to spray it before Louise learned to crawl. She began hanging out the clothes on the section of line adjacent to the web.

  The doorbell rang inside the house. She jumped, then dropped the damp towel she was holding and hurried towards the back door. She didn’t stop to wipe the grit from the soles of her feet, but ran past Louise’s room, hoping to get to the front door before the bell rang again. Louise cried out. Zoe swore under her breath.

  ‘It’s only me!’ Nadia called from outside.

  Zoe tried to slide the chain open without scraping the metal, but Louise cried again. Too late. She let it fall with a clatter, then wrenched open the door.

  Nadia stood on the doorstep, smiling. She was wearing workout pants, running shoes and a tight pink lycra top. She had a big black bag slung over her shoulder and in her other hand, she held a white cardboard box.

  ‘Hi! I thought you might be in. I’ve just been to the gym so thought I’d pop in to see Louise – and you!’ Nadia frowned and raised her eyebrows as Louise cried. ‘Oh, sorry! Did I wake Louise?’

  Zoe forced herself to smile back. ‘Oh no, it was about time she woke up anyway, she’d been asleep for a while. I was just hanging out the washing before lunch …’ She gestured vaguely towards the back of the house and moved aside as Nadia stepped through the door.

  Zoe closed the door behind her sister. What was she doing here? Nadia never just dropped in; she lived almost an hour away. Then Zoe reminded herself of what Nadia had done for her, and how close they’d become again throughout the surrogacy. Louise shouldn’t change that.

  Nadia was halfway down the hall already; she turned back to Zoe. ‘Go and finish hanging your washing, I’ll get Louise up.’

  ‘No, that’s OK.’ Zoe stepped in front of Nadia and opened Louise’s door, then walked towards the cot.

  ‘Look,’ Nadia said, peering over Zoe’s shoulder. ‘She’s getting so big!’

  ‘Yes, she is.’ Zoe smiled, picked Louise up and turned around.

  ‘She looks so much like Lachlan, look at those blue eyes!’ Nadia reached out and stroked Louise’s arm.

  Zoe’s face burned as her smile faded away. Why did Nadia have to say that? To emphasise that Louise didn’t look like her, Zoe? ‘Do you want to go and see Aunty Nadia?’ she said to Louise, in a high-pitched voice that she knew sounded silly and strained. She held Louise out towards Nadia, who took her as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Louise’s face wrinkled and her mouth opened. She looked back at Zoe then coughed out a cry.

  ‘Aw, bit tired still?’ Zoe said and stepped closer, hoping her relief didn’t show on her face.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Nadia said. ‘Aren’t you, Lou-Lou? Yes!’ She made a stupid face and nuzzled her head into Louise’s chest. Louise stopped crying, frowned, then tilted her head to the side and smiled. ‘Aw, look. That’s the first smile she’s given me!’

  ‘Yeah. I wasn’t sure at first if she was just practising, but she’s definitely smiling at people now.’ Zoe cleared her throat. ‘Well, I’ll go and finish hanging that washing, be right back.’

  Back outside, she pursed her lips and let out a long, slow breath. She quickly shook out the damp towels in the basket and pegged them up, not wanting to leave Louise alone with Nadia for too long. She closed her eyes; she was being ridiculous.

  Returning inside, Zoe forced herself not to rush to Louise, but instead took the kettle, tipped the old water down the sink, then refilled it. While it boiled, she took down her red teapot and spooned tea leaves from a floral caddy into the strainer. She opened the cupboard above the sink to get the mugs, then changed her mind and reached onto the top shelf for the pale duck-egg blue cups and saucers that she and Lachlan had been given as a wedding present. After wiping the dust from the insides of the cups with some paper towel, she placed them on the saucers. She opened the lid of the box that Nadia had brought with her, now sitting on the kitchen bench; it held two chocolate éclairs. She put them on a plate, then filled the teapot with boiling water.

  ‘Nadia, tea’s ready.’

  Nadia appeared in the kitchen, Louise in her arms. ‘Thanks! I can’t believe how much Lou has grown in the past couple of weeks. She looks … well, not like a newborn any more. She’s a proper baby now.’

  Zoe nodded and smiled. ‘I know. It’s amazing to see
.’

  ‘Shame Lachlan isn’t here to watch her grow. When’s he back?’

  ‘Another week yet. It goes quickly, though, and at least he’ll be back for Christmas this year. How’s life up in the hills?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s good. Oh, I don’t know, sometimes it feels like it’s so far away from everyone, but we like the space …’ Nadia sighed, and looked towards the teapot. ‘The tea will be ready now, do you think?’

  ‘I like it strong.’ Zoe reached for a chocolate éclair and took a big bite. ‘Mmm.’ She picked up the plate and held it out to Nadia.

  Nadia shook her head. ‘I couldn’t eat a whole one! Go and cut a bit off for me, would you?’

  Zoe blushed and licked cream from the corner of her mouth, putting down her own pastry. She took a knife from the top drawer and cut off about a third of the éclair, then held the plate out to Nadia again. ‘I’ll take Louise.’

  Nadia took the piece. ‘No, don’t worry. I’m an expert at eating one-handed, you’ll get used to it.’ She sat down at the table, held the éclair out of the baby’s reach and took a nibble. ‘So, how are you coping with Louise?’

  Zoe sat opposite her. ‘Oh, well, you know, it’s tiring, but we’re doing OK.’ She tilted her head and smiled at Louise, still in Nadia’s arms.

  Nadia frowned at Zoe. ‘You look like you’ve lost weight. Are you eating OK?’

  Zoe looked down at her legs. Her pants were a little loose on her. ‘Yeah, maybe I have. Not that I’m complaining!’ she laughed. ‘Sometimes when Lachlan’s away it’s easier for me just to eat some cereal for dinner, or eggs on toast.’

  ‘You know I’m here if you ever need anything. I’ve been through it three times so I’ve learned a few things along the way. Or if you ever need me to pick you up some groceries or anything, just ask. I can even bring you meals.’

  Zoe reached her hand across the table to Nadia. ‘Thanks, Nadia. I really appreciate it, but we’re fine, honestly!’ Zoe knew that she could do with some help, but she didn’t feel she could admit it to her sister. She didn’t want to do anything to let Nadia down, to make her think that she wasn’t looking after Louise properly, not after everything Nadia had done for her. ‘I’m going to Mum’s for dinner tomorrow night so she’ll feed me up.’