A Mother’s Sacrifice Read online

‘Who was on the phone anyway?’ she asks, changing the subject.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I turn around and look out of the window, as if the answer might be waiting for me beyond the windowpane. ‘It was silent when I answered.’

  ‘Probably a sales call. I was thinking I might nip to the shops after this, if you don’t mind.’

  Through the window’s reflection I watch as she gently eases herself down on the sofa, placing my cup of tea and the biscuits onto the coffee table. ‘Where to?’ I ask.

  ‘You haven’t got much milk left and I thought I could make a casserole for your tea, save you the bother, what with you not feeling well.’ She looks down at her feet.

  ‘That would be nice. Thank you.’ I turn back around to face her, making sure it is actually my bone-idle, mouthy mother-in-law talking and not some complete stranger.

  ‘And I’ll take Cory with me. To give him a bit of fresh air.’

  Anger bites at my insides. It’s obvious she doesn’t trust me to be alone with my own son. ‘You go by all means but you’re not taking Cory.’

  Her eyebrows knit together into a frown. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s not safe.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What isn’t safe?’

  It’s obvious from her expression that James hasn’t told her about my fears regarding Cory, which is understandable really, given that James believes I’m stark raving mad. Although Tamzin is being worryingly nice to me, I don’t want the responsibility of telling her about Cory’s true parentage. Besides, surely a revelation so life-changing ought to come from James himself? It’s definitely going to hit her hard and I can’t single-handedly deal with her reaction in my current state of mind.

  ‘No reason,’ I reply at last, hiding my lie behind my hand.

  ‘Well, why can’t I take him then?’ Defiance flits across her face.

  I look down at my watch, desperately trying to think of a plausible excuse.’ He’s due a feed at two.’

  ‘It’s only twelve. I’ll nip to the shop and we’ll have a leisurely stroll back along The Groves.’ The Groves is a picturesque riverside walk situated less than a mile from my house. ‘Why don’t you come with us? Might do you good.’

  The thought of stepping outside the door fills me with dread; this morning’s antidepressant yet again has left me exhausted, although luckily not quite as ill as yesterday. ‘I can’t. I’ve got too much to do here,’ I lie.

  ‘Well, can I? With Cory? Please.’

  Her sudden polite, almost shy, plea, knocks me off balance. She must believe I really have lost the plot to be so uncharacteristically nice. ‘Fine,’ I find myself saying. ‘But don’t walk anywhere unless you’re surrounded by people.’

  She looks at me oddly, but doesn’t comment further.

  Five minutes after Tamzin leaves the house with Cory, the phone rings yet again, causing my mouth to fill with saliva. I make my way over towards it, am almost upon it when it abruptly stops. I look out of the window, see a man walk past on the street just beyond my garden fence, the wind blowing his ginger hair up and off his face, a mobile phone glued to his ear. Recognition floods through me, my stomach tightening. I run out of the lounge into the hallway and towards the front door where I fight with the key in the lock, my fingers turning to jelly. A blast of cold air hits me head-on as I finally open it. I pelt down the garden, ignoring the sharp gravel which embeds itself into my bare feet. ‘Come back,’ I shout, having reached the street. ‘Come back now!’

  The man stops in his tracks and looks back at me, his facial features too far away for me to make out his expression. ‘What’s up?’

  I walk towards him, panic drying the inside of my mouth. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? Don’t try and deny it. I know it’s you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ For every step I take forward he takes one back. ‘Louisa, isn’t it?’

  ‘How do you know my name? You were never supposed to know it! We were anonymous!’ Fat tears roll down my cheeks. ‘You can’t have Cory. He’s mine and James’s. You knew what you signed up for.’

  ‘Louisa, please.’ He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple straining against his throat. ‘Do you want me to call your husband?’

  ‘Don’t you ring my husband! You’re not worthy of speaking to him. You’re half the man he is.’

  ‘Sean, what’s happening?’

  I flick my gaze over the road to where a lady is standing at her garden gate, a boy of about nine cowering by her side.

  ‘She just started going crazy,’ replies the man, before turning away from me and practically running across the road.

  It’s then that I realise where I know him from. He’s my neighbour! The guy I’ve let on to for many years in passing. Embarrassment heats my cheeks.

  ‘Are you all right, Louisa? Do you want to come inside for a hot drink? Where’s your baby?’ His wife has started to make her way across the road towards me, her smiling face and umpteen questions making me dizzy. I shake my head, slowly backing away from her. I don’t know how they know my name. I don’t know them, not really. Has James been talking to them about me? Has he told them to keep an eye on me?

  Turning on my heel, I run back towards my house, their confused stares burning into the back of my skull.

  As I step through the open door, the phone starts ringing once again. I yank out a dozen strands of hair as I fly down the hallway, enjoy the burning sensation which spreads across my scalp. Entering the lounge, I launch myself at the phone, almost knocking it from its holster. ‘Who is it?’ I shout down the receiver. ‘What the hell do you want?’

  Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Be faithful unto death. The computerised voice hollows out my insides, emptying my lungs of air. I drop the phone, feel my legs buckle beneath me, as if somebody has severed me at the knee. As I lie in a heap on the floor, a strangled plea rises from deep inside of me. My throat burns from the strain, my head pounding so hard I fear a blood clot. The lounge closes in around me as memories of my life rain down upon me, a choir of voices gibbering and tittering to one another inside my mind. But there is one thing I’m now sure of. I am not crazy. Somebody wants me dead!

  Grabbing the phone, I pull myself up, ignoring the heckling voices inside my mind and the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside. I bash out James’s number into the handset, hear the familiar sound of the ringtone. He doesn’t answer. ‘Cory…’ I garble to his voicemail. ‘Cory isn’t safe.’ I cut the call, quickly tap out Tamzin’s number, grateful for my photographic memory.

  ‘Louisa, we’re fine. We…’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the shop. Why, what’s the matter?’

  ‘You need to take Cory away from here,’ I whisper, aware of the footsteps on the gravel outside my front door growing louder. ‘He’s in danger. Get the bus home to your house and lock all the doors and windows. Call the police and tell them Cory is in danger and to come right away. You can’t come back here with him, it’s not safe. He’s got a key. He might even be here now.’

  ‘Who’s got a key? Louisa, speak to me, you aren’t making any sense.’

  ‘The donor. Cory’s sperm donor. He’s going to kill me and take him.’

  She sucks in air. ‘What in heaven’s name are you talking about? What donor?’

  ‘Just do it!’ I shout. ‘For once in your life do as you’re told.’

  ‘But I haven’t got any nappies for him at home or milk or…’ Her voice is suddenly small.

  ‘Just go! Don’t come back here no matter what. Anyway, I won’t be in. I’m going to the clinic, to find out who Cory’s father is once and for all.’ I know I sound crazy but I am past caring. My priority is Cory’s safety; it is no longer important what happens to me.

  ‘All right, Louisa,’ she says at last, her voice shaking. ‘All right.’

  The knock on the front door makes me jump even though I was half expecting it. I peer out of the window, relief flooding through me upon seei
ng Sean and his wife, their eyes connecting with mine through the glass. They both look terrified. ‘Go away, go away now or I’m calling the police.’

  They shoot each other a look before slowly backing away, the wife’s arms raised in surrender.

  I wait until they have reached the gate before dialling another number I know off by heart. A number that once lived on my speed dial.

  ‘Hello, SureLife Fertility Clinic, thank…’

  ‘Thank God you’re open,’ I interrupt. ‘I wasn’t sure with it being Boxing Day.’

  ‘Yes, we pride ourselves on being open all…’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I say, cutting off the well-spoken receptionist for the second time in as many seconds. ‘Get me Doctor Hughes. Now!’

  ‘Erm…’ Her hesitancy hangs on the line. ‘I’m afraid he can’t come to the phone right now. He’s very busy in theatre today.’

  ‘This is an emergency! My son’s sperm donor wants to kidnap him. He’s threatened to kill me!’

  The receptionist gasps. ‘Well, you need to call the police. I, erm…’ she stutters, clearly having never dealt with such a situation before.

  ‘I need you to tell me the donor’s details,’ I plead. ‘Tell me where he lives. I have to stop him!’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that…’ she says more forcefully, seemingly having composed herself. ‘Not unless the police request it. If you want I can make you an appointment with Doctor Hughes for another day but…’

  ‘Forget it!’ I shout, throwing the phone against the wall. ‘I’ll find out myself.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Louisa

  Now

  ‘Forty quid, love.’ The black-cab driver fiddles around with the meter, ramping up the fare from twenty pounds to forty. He turns around to face me, his palm open. ‘Double fair,’ he adds, obviously noticing my stunned expression. ‘It’s Christmas.’

  I rummage around in the side compartment of my bag, my heart sinking as I realise that, in my panic to escape the house, I have left my purse on the kitchen counter. ‘I’m sorry. I only have twenty pounds,’ I say, seeing the scrunched-up note amidst the dummies, rattles, hair pins and loose change. And erm…’ I count out the few larger coins in my hand. ‘Two pound eighty.’

  He blows out a pungent breath of stale beer, his wiry grey eyebrows furrowing into a frown. ‘Don’t mess me about, eh, love, I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I say, panicking, his heavy bulk and tattooed neck unnerving me. I unzip the larger compartment of my bag, even though I know full well my purse isn’t in there. ‘Please…’ I beg. ‘I left the house in a rush because my son’s sperm donor is trying to kill me. I left my purse on the side but I can give you my address and you can come for the rest tomorrow.’

  With each word spoken, he appears to physically recoil from me, his frown unravelling into a look of shock. ‘Just give me what you have,’ he mutters. ‘Call it the season of goodwill.’

  I press the money into his open palm, grateful when he releases the lock on the back of the cab. ‘Thank you,’ I say, as I step out into SureLife’s car park, having no idea how I’m going to get back home. ‘And Merry Christmas.’

  The car park is sparse, with only a dozen or so cars occupying the spaces. Up ahead, the clinic’s normally picturesque garden is bare, the grass discoloured and patchy. The two weeping willow trees, which normally frame the entrance in cherry-pink blossom, stand naked, their infertile branches hanging like threadbare tassels.

  I step through the entrance of the clinic into the brightly lit corridor, Bonsai trees in irrigated planters splitting it in two. To the right, the confectionery shop is shut, the iron-grey shutters locked in position. A quick glance to the right reveals a lone barista leisurely hand-drying a saucer in the empty cafeteria, her expression set to one of boredom. A marbled sign above my head directs me to the reception area, but of course I know which way to go.

  I haven’t been to SureLife since my twenty-week scan. James felt that, as an anaesthesiologist working for the NHS, he’d be a hypocrite to pay for private care over and above what was necessary. I didn’t mind switching back to the NHS to give birth, even though I would have preferred to remain under the watchful eye of Doctor Hughes and his team. But I didn’t for one second believe James had developed a sudden moral conscience, considering it more likely that the clinic served as a permanent reminder of his own failure. It wasn’t really a surprise that he wanted Cory delivered in a hospital which had no prior knowledge of our situation. I was just as desperate to put the details surrounding Cory’s conception to the back of my mind, so I happily went along with everything, even promising never to speak of the donor again. But of course I now realise that denial was the worst possible course of action, one that has broken me emotionally as well as mentally.

  I continue down the corridor, finally taking a sharp right which opens up into a vast open space of whitewashed walls and pinewood, the two-storey glass windows bringing the outside in. Memories flood to my mind’s surface, causing my eyes to glisten. So many times I waited in the confines of this plush waiting area, a place equipped with flatscreen TVs and tan, leather-clad chairs, a mixture of emotions flitting through my mind as I waited for my name to be called: hope, fear, despair, belief – a never-ending cycle of torment.

  I look out now towards the rear of the reception area and the clinic’s famous glass-panelled staircase, complete with a snaking chrome banister which connects the lower floor to the upper. A sign on the wall next to the staircase directs its fortunate patients to ‘antenatal care’, a haven infertile couples only dream of reaching. Magda once told me that the support group had unofficially named the staircase the ‘stairway to heaven’, which I remember thinking was pretty apt. I pull in a shaky breath, grateful that SureLife provided me with my little miracle, despite everything that has happened since. I take a quick glance around the waiting area, my heart breaking for the half-dozen couples scattered across the room, their expressions downcast and words hushed. To the left of me, a picture-perfect receptionist taps away at the keyboard of an Apple Mac desktop computer. I make my way over towards her but she doesn’t bother to look up at me until I am practically on top of her, seemingly miles away in whatever task she has been entrusted with.

  ‘Hello, can I help you?’ She looks up at me warily, her bright, white smile not reaching her eyes.

  ‘I called you earlier. About my son’s donor and the fact he’s stalking me.’ My words echo around the reception area, causing a flurry of panicked whispers to break out behind me.

  She stares at me, wide-eyed, her perfect lips parted. ‘I’ve told you already. I can’t help you. You need to leave.’ She flicks her eyes over to the waiting area, her cheeks flushing pink.

  ‘Can’t you see this is an emergency?’ I raise my voice despite not meaning to, my attempt at being calm quickly faltering. ‘As the hospital who impregnated me with this lunatic’s semen, I think you have a duty of care!’

  ‘You really do need to leave, otherwise I’ll have to call the police.’ She reaches over to the phone, which is slightly out of her reach.

  Seeing the entrance to the ‘embryology department’ up ahead, I turn away from her and make my way towards it, my feet soon breaking out into a fast walk as I hear her sharp scream, demanding I come back. I continue unnerved, experience telling me that this opening leads to a corridor which runs directly to the operating theatre, the place where I was told Doctor Hughes was when I phoned not thirty minutes ago. I begin to sprint as I hear the clattering of the receptionist’s heels behind me, the corridor dimly lit and stuffy. Above my head, a red light flashes above the theatre door, indicating that it’s in use. I don’t care… I cannot wait any longer. I need to speak to Doctor Hughes. If anybody knows who my son’s sperm donor is, this man does. I hear the receptionist’s plea for me to stop as my hand connects with the swinging door to the theatre, catching sight of my reflection in the glass, my hair wild and my eyes blazing.
r />   ‘Stop!’ I scream, my heart lurching upon seeing the semi-naked woman on the operating table in front of me, a masked surgeon ready to insert something inside of her. ‘Don’t do it! The donors here are crazy. Mine is trying to kill me!’

  I rush towards the woman, her bare legs hoisted up in stirrups. The theatre is dark apart from the almost blinding light of the surgical lamp shining directly on her lower half. A cannula sticks out of her hand, the IV drip coiling around a metal pole and into a fluid bag which hangs above her head.

  ‘Where is Doctor Hughes?’ I fight against a woman in green scrubs and a surgical mask who is pushing me backwards while shouting a succession of words I don’t understand. She holds what appears to be a syringe in her hand and continually looks back over her shoulder into the darkness. I manage to escape her clutches, run towards a single door situated on the opposite side of the theatre, the large red sign on the front difficult to read in the dark. I push my way through it, become instantly blinded by light, the room almost bare, the hard surfaces and walls a bright white, the air thick with cleaning fluid. A doctor, this time in blue scrubs, peers down the lens of a heavy-duty microscope. He turns to face me, his mouth covered with a surgical mask, leaving only his eyes on show. Dark-brown eyes widen upon seeing me, surprise igniting to panic.

  ‘Doctor Hughes…’ I begin, instantly recognising him. ‘There’s been a problem with the donor.’ Just as I open my mouth to continue, sharp nails dig into my shoulders from behind, yanking me back out of the room, causing me to bang my head on the door frame. The next few seconds are a blur, a disfigurement of shouts and cries, of bright lights and tunnels of darkness, before finally my back connects with something hard.

  Looking up, I realise I am on the floor, back in the corridor, staring up at the ceiling. My head hurts, my shoulders stinging with pain. It is then that I notice the receptionist from earlier on the floor to the side of me. She pulls herself up into a standing position, her pristine blonde hair now strewn across her face, her white blouse twisted to the side. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ Her voice shakes with anger.