Let Her Go Page 8

  When did a child learn who its mother was? Was it at the moment the cells met and merged and multiplied, when a mother’s blood started to flow through the umbilical cord, or when the baby’s body reacted to its mother’s hormones when she felt fear, or shed a tear? Or was it the moment when a baby was born and looked into her mother’s eyes, then nursed from her breast? Zoe’s eyes filled with tears. No, a child was yours when she was made up of part of you, not just your genes but your love, your utter devotion to her. That’s what Zoe had, that’s what she could give this baby.

  And now that she was holding the child, her child, Lachlan’s child, she didn’t ever want to put her down. She sat on a chair in the corner and just held her new daughter close as the nurses bustled around the room, writing, counting instruments, bundling laundry into a basket. They kept their eyes expertly averted as Nadia and Eddie hugged silently.

  After a while, minutes maybe, the baby began to squirm, turn her head from side to side, licking her lips, opening and closing her mouth. Not yet, baby, not yet. This had been in their plan too: Nadia would breastfeed, just for a week, and then she would express milk. Just to give the baby the best start. But Zoe didn’t want to give her back now. She glanced over; Nadia was looking at them. Zoe smiled at her but dropped her eyes when Nadia smiled sadly in return.

  Zoe swallowed, then stood up and walked to the bed. ‘I think she’s hungry,’ she whispered.

  Nadia nodded. ‘Shall I try to feed her?’

  And although it terrified Zoe to let Nadia and the baby connect again, she smiled at her sister, who had done so much for her, nodded, and handed the baby to her.

  * * *

  While Nadia started to feed the baby, Zoe left the room, went down in the lift, then walked through the hospital lobby, past the gift shop full of teddy bears and shiny balloons on sticks, and out of the sliding doors to get some fresh air. The sun was low in the sky. She rubbed at the goosebumps on her arms, then sat on a wooden bench and called Lachlan.

  He answered straight away. ‘Hi, how’s the baby?’

  Zoe let out a sigh, leaned back on the bench and looked up to the sky, smiling. It was so nice to be able to be excited without feeling guilty about Nadia seeing her happiness. ‘Oh, Lach, she’s perfect. I held her for ages, but then she needed a feed, so I’ve left her in the room with Nadia and Eddie. How are you? Any word on when you can leave?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m on the seven-twenty flight tonight, so I’ll get in by nine.’ He sounded tired.

  ‘Oh, thank God! That’s brilliant. Can you come straight here from the airport?’

  ‘Of course.’ His voice broke. ‘All I want to do is be there with you and the baby. It’s been a horrible day …’

  Zoe couldn’t imagine how hard it had been for him, being stuck out in Kalgoorlie, unable to get back to see his daughter being born. ‘Oh, babe, it’s OK. You’ll be here in a few hours and then we’ll all be together. In a week’s time it’ll just be the three of us, at last.’

  ‘Are we still going to go to Nadia’s?’

  Zoe hesitated. ‘Yeah. We agreed, just for a few days after they’re discharged. I wish we could just go home straight away, but we owe it to Nadia. Just to give her some time, and to get the feeding all sorted. It’s best for the baby.’

  ‘OK. As long as you’re sure.’

  Zoe laughed. ‘I’m not. Not really. But Nadia can’t drive for weeks, and she needs time to say goodbye. Anyway, no point worrying about it – it’s in the plan, best to stick to it. Hey, look, I better go. I’m going to call Mum so she can bring in Nadia’s kids to meet their … cousin.’

  ‘OK, I’ll let you know when I get on the flight.’

  ‘Lachlan?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We should give her a name. Our daughter. Do you want to wait until you get here, or are you still happy with …’

  ‘Louise,’ he said firmly.

  Zoe laughed. ‘Louise. It’s perfect.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Jesus Christ, Lou! What have you done?’

  The voice wrenched Lou from a restless sleep. She jumped up, heart racing, then fell back on the pillow again. She screwed her eyes shut as her head pounded. ‘Turn off the light, Mum!’

  ‘No, I will not! Look at the state of you!’

  Lou opened her eyes slightly to peer at her mum. She was standing next to Lou’s single bed in pyjamas that were meant for someone Lou’s age, not an adult: multicoloured polka dots on the baggy white pants, a black velvet chicken on the grey top. Her hair, usually blow-dried into a straight bob, was unbrushed, matted on one side where she’d slept on it, and her eyes were puffy.

  Lou followed the line of her mum’s horrified gaze, then gasped and hugged her arms defensively against her chest. ‘I’ve told you not to come in here without knocking!’

  ‘I do not need to knock when my teenage daughter was arrested last night for breaking into my work and stealing amphetamines! And I certainly don’t need to knock when my daughter has cut herself all over her arm! My God, Lou! When did you do this?’

  Lou shrugged, face burning. She rolled onto her side, away from her mum, and wriggled down lower in the bed. As she pulled the white sheet up to her shoulders, she noticed dark brown spots of blood on the cotton. Usually she bandaged up her cuts, but she’d been too wasted last night. Tears welled up behind her closed eyes, but she set her jaw firmly.

  ‘I thought you’d stopped doing this to yourself. What were you trying to do? Look at me!’

  ‘Mum …’ Lou’s mouth was dry and rough; the words scraped through her throat. She slowly rolled back and opened her eyes.

  ‘Jesus, Lou, when will this end?’ Her mum pressed the bridge of her nose with her finger and thumb, then rubbed her eyes and blinked rapidly. Lou didn’t want to see her mum cry. That’s not what parents were meant to do; they were meant to be strong enough to take everything hurled at them. They were meant to be in control, but right now, her mum was flailing. But so was she; Lou needed someone to keep her afloat.

  She didn’t want to think about the sadness in her mum’s body, the way she had let her shoulders slump, her chin drop, her arms hang limp. Instead, she thought about Theo, how they’d laugh together later when she impersonated her mother’s shrill voice. They’d only been together for a few months, a few exhilarating months when finally someone understood her, cared about her, made her feel special. He was in his final year too, at the boys’ school along the highway from her own girls’ school. She bit the inside of her cheek as she remembered the sound of him driving off last night with Astrid and Ben. Surely one of them could have warned her when they saw the police car? Beeped the horn, called out, run inside to get her?

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  Lou blinked and looked at her mum. No, she thought, I’m not, because I’ve heard it all before. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stop bloody smiling, Lou, this isn’t funny!’

  Her mum’s chest rose and fell rapidly underneath the velvet chicken. She sat down on the edge of Lou’s bed and took her hand, and Lou relaxed: it was the same old pattern, every time. Her mum yelled and got upset, then the fear took over, the fear that if she pushed too much, she’d lose her daughter – maybe Lou would kill herself next time, or maybe she’d run away to whatever horrors her mother imagined were out there. It was just the dance they did, the game they played. They both knew how it worked, and they were both too afraid to change it.

  ‘Darling, you need to understand how serious this is. I have to go and call Matthew and tell him that my own daughter broke into his surgery and stole sample packs of amphetamines, with my keys, and that she knew the alarm code. I could lose my job, Lou, do you understand that?’ Her mum was blinking away tears now, her voice trembling. ‘The police want to charge you, and I’m sure Matthew will too. Do you know what that means? To be seventeen, charged with breaking and entering, stealing prohibited drugs? What that’ll mean to your future? For school, university, jobs? A criminal record?’ />
  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ she said in a monotone.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I just don’t know what to think any more, Lou. Your dad and I love you so much, but you do these things … Why don’t you talk to me? Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? We’re here to help you!’

  Lou’s face began to tingle; she knew her cheeks were turning red. Her mother was the last person she would talk to about her feelings. Her mum knew nothing about her. She didn’t really care how Lou felt anyway; this was about her getting in trouble at work, having to admit to her friends that her daughter wasn’t perfect, and that maybe she wasn’t going to finish year twelve and go to university and have a wonderful career. Lou drew up her knees; her stomach churned.

  ‘I need to go to the toilet.’

  Her mother sighed, then rubbed her face with her hands. ‘What do you want us to do, darling? What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Why does something have to be wrong?’

  ‘Are you joking? Louise, you are stealing drugs, you are cutting yourself – do you think that’s normal?’

  ‘Lots of kids do it. It’s not a big deal.’

  ‘For God’s sake, of course it’s a big deal! I don’t get why you don’t understand this!’ Her mother stood up, her face livid. ‘I can’t talk to you right now. Get up, get yourself cleaned up and come straight through for breakfast. I’m going to call work and tell them what happened, then the police to find out what they are going to do, and I am going to discuss the consequences of this with your father. When you come down, we will let you know what is going to happen, but be very clear, Louise, this is extremely serious.’

  Lou watched her mother stomp in bare feet over the carpet and out of the room, then pull the door closed behind her. Lou’s eyes prickled with tears. She wanted to call Astrid, but her dad had taken her phone off her last night on the way back from the police station. She wondered if Astrid had called her, or Theo or Ben. For all they knew, she was locked up in a police cell with rapists and murderers. They acted like they were her friends, but she was the one who’d taken all the risk, and look what had happened. They were just as guilty as her, but instead of being in trouble, they were sleeping off their hangovers while their parents sat downstairs reading the Sunday papers, eating croissants and drinking pots of tea. Lou’s eyes filled with tears. What had she done? She felt like shit.

  She let the tears fall, and looked at the smudges of dried blood bridging the ladder of cuts on her left forearm. Some of the lacerations were deeper than usual. Her arm stung. What a mess she was. Maybe they’d scar this time and then they’d be etched on her forever, a lifelong reminder of last night. Was her mum serious? Would the police charge her? Would she have to go to juvie? And what about school? She hated so much about it – the rules, the snobbery and hypocrisy – but she didn’t want to be expelled either. Maybe she could get a job; but if her mum was right, perhaps no one would hire a seventeen-year-old with a criminal record. A sweat came over her; she smelled the alcohol oozing from her pores.

  She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, waited for the pounding in her head to stop, then shuffled towards the door. As she opened it, she could hear her mum and dad talking in low voices from the kitchen, but she didn’t want to hear what they were saying. She headed for her bathroom.

  Chapter Eight

  Zoe stood on one side of the patio doors and looked through her own hazy reflection at Nadia, sitting on a frayed wicker chair, leaning back on a faded blue cushion with her bare feet resting on another cushion on top of a wooden garden table. Her fair hair framed her pale face as she gazed down at Louise, asleep in the crook of her arm. It would have looked like any other picture of a contented mother and her infant, if it wasn’t for the tear running down Nadia’s face from beneath her sunglasses. Zoe felt a pang of something, something unpleasant that made her feel like they were little kids again: jealousy, the part of her that wanted to run over and lay claim to Louise, to take her from Nadia like a toy that she didn’t want to share. Zoe pushed the feeling away. Why should she be jealous of Nadia now that she had what she’d always wanted? Or perhaps the sensation was guilt, but really, what did she have to feel guilty about? They had all gone into this knowing it wouldn’t be easy. Zoe closed her eyes for a moment; it was almost over.

  Nadia hadn’t seen her yet, and Zoe didn’t move. She wished she knew what her sister was thinking. She could breeze over there and act like there was nothing unusual about this situation, sink back into the other chair, put her feet up too and chat away. But there was no protocol for this, no book to read to tell you what to do, what to feel, how to act. She would give Nadia a few more minutes, she decided. Zoe had the rest of her life with Louise; Nadia had no time at all.

  Nadia suddenly sat up and raised her eyes to look at Zoe. They stared at each other, just for a moment, through the glass, speckled with streaks of dust and children’s fingerprints. Zoe tensed, then Nadia smiled, and Zoe’s face flushed. She reminded herself that Nadia had offered to do this for her; she was amazing. Smiling back, she slid open the glass door, then walked over to her sister and put her hand on her shoulder. ‘She’s asleep,’ she said quietly.

  Nadia nodded, silent, not taking her eyes off Louise.

  Zoe wanted to reach down and take Louise, but she forced herself to wait, to be patient. Soon she, Lachlan and Louise would be driving away, back down the long highway from the hills, through the suburbs, through the city, and back to Fremantle, leaving Nadia far behind them.

  She lifted her hand off Nadia’s shoulder and sat down. The back of the chair creaked as she leaned back, trying to look relaxed. Eddie and Lachlan were kicking a footy on the green, even lawn with Charlotte, Violet and Harry. They were using the posts of the swing set as one goal, and the poles of the large round trampoline as the other. The lawn was framed by garden beds with neat rows of plants and flowers. Zoe thought about her own courtyard at home. The brick pavers there were unsteady, the sand beneath them eroded by the thousands of frantic ants that scurried around each summer, excavating their nests and biting her feet and ankles. But she would change that; it mattered, now that she had a daughter.

  She looked down at her feet, her old brown thongs, and stretched out her toes, looking at her chipped red nail polish. She looked up at Nadia. ‘You’ve got great kids.’

  Nadia nodded, swaying her upper body ever so slightly from side to side, rocking Louise as she slept. Zoe wanted to say it again, louder, to remind her to look up at her own children, not down at Louise. Was Nadia regretting this? Did she wish that Louise was hers, that four children would jump on that trampoline every day? She’d said that she was happy with three children, but that was before all this. Before Louise.

  Zoe’s heart began to pound. She looked at Nadia and Louise again, the way Nadia had both arms wrapped tightly around the baby, her baby, and her mouth went dry. She turned and stared at Lachlan, hoping he would look over and see what was going on, but he hadn’t even noticed she was there. Since Louise’s birth, he’d seemed preoccupied, distant. Zoe’s hands started to tremble; they needed to go.

  She fixed a grin on her face, then faked a yawn. ‘Well, I’d better go upstairs and make sure we’re packed.’ She stood up and walked back into the house before Nadia had a chance to reply.

  Upstairs, Zoe zipped up her suitcase and looked around the room for the last time. She had already stripped the bed; the sheets were bundled up in the far corner of the room. The grey carpet was flecked with threads, crumbs and tiny bits of tissues. She should have vacuumed: Nadia still wasn’t meant to do any lifting. She glanced at the clock on the wall. They needed to get going so they could be home in time for Louise’s next feed. There wasn’t enough time for a conversation, for a change of mind. There was only enough time for her, Lachlan and Louise to get in the car and drive away.

  Zoe couldn’t wait to be able to care for Louise without Nadia watching her, commenting on how sh
e might feed or settle or change her differently. Zoe was a new mum, and like every other first-time mother, she’d find her way. She knew how hard it must be for Nadia to watch Louise’s dependence shift away from her to Zoe. Still, it had been hard not to let her resentment grow; there was something about living with Nadia again that made her revert to their old dynamics, to letting her big sister take charge. But no, it was more than that. Zoe’s submission was not just to do with their history. It was the knowledge that she was not the one with the power; Nadia was. Zoe would forever need to fall at Nadia’s feet in gratitude. Because really, what she had done, what she was doing today in watching her flesh and blood be carried out of her home, was selfless. Zoe owed her so much and couldn’t risk upsetting her. Would it have been easier if they had taken Louise home straight from the hospital? Beforehand, it had seemed cruel to break the bond so abruptly, but maybe it would have been better after all. Had they prolonged the pain, cultivated the confusion for all of them? For Louise?

  Zoe scooped up a toppled pile of coins that trailed across the bedside cabinet, then picked up two glasses with dregs of cloudy water and put them by the door. She bent down for a ball of scrunched-up wrapping paper from one of the few gifts they’d received, then pulled Lachlan’s damp towel from the top of the door and threw it into the corner, on top of the sheets. The bassinette, adjacent to her side of the bed, had been stripped too, and those sheets were folded up in her suitcase. Nadia had insisted that Zoe take them, saying that she had no more use for them. But if she was so sure she didn’t want more children, why hadn’t she thrown them out after Harry was born? Why had she kept them all this time? Anyway, it didn’t matter. When Nadia insisted that she take the sheets, Zoe had smiled and thanked her, even though she had three brand-new sets at home. She would give these old ones to an op shop.