The Mother-in-Law(77)

“If you’re fine,” I say, with a smile of my own, “we’ll stay.”

It occurs to me that I should be taking every opportunity to be outside. I should be breathing in fresh air, walking in the mountains and working my way through my bucket list. But my bucket list is fairly short, fairly uninspiring. In fact, the only thing on my bucket list is to spend time with my family, and to make sure they are going to be okay after I leave them behind.

“The website you need for the email address is here,” Lucy had said a couple of weeks earlier, thrusting a piece of paper at me. She’d arrived at my house unannounced again, and started talking double time as if she’d chicken out if she didn’t. “Regarding bitcoins, the first thing you need to do is get a bitcoin wallet. There’s an app you can download to your phone. Then you need to buy some bitcoins. You should be able to do this directly from the app.”

I stared at her. She might as well have been speaking Chinese. She’d watched me for a second or two, then sighed and reached for my phone.

Within half an hour, I had everything I needed. Two bottles of the drug, the Latuben, had arrived yesterday and now they were in my fridge door, ready to drink. (It was tasteless, apparently, and should be drunk alone, though you could follow it with a glass of wine if you wished.) I’d written the letter. I needed to see Gerard about the will—I’d leave every cent to the charity to ensure that none of my family could be seen to benefit from my death. I’ll let the children know what I’d done. And then I’d go and see Tom, wherever he was.

The waitress arrives and Nettie and I both order tea.

“How are you?” I ask Nettie, when the waitress is gone.

“I’m good,” she says, and then there’s a few beats of silence. “I mean, I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I did wonder. I’m sorry, darling.”

“Yes, well, it’s what I wanted to talk to you about. At the last IVF appointment Dr. Sheldon said there were two problems, my eggs and my uterus. She said my best chance would be to use a donor egg and a surrogate.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, after a moment or two.

“Really? I don’t even know what I’m thinking.”

The waitress returns with our drinks, and places them on the table. I pick up my mug and lift it to my mouth.

“Listen, I get it,” Nettie says. “It took me a while to process it too. I mean . . . it wouldn’t be biologically my child, I wouldn’t carry it in my body. At first I wasn’t really on board. Then I started thinking . . . it would be a child created by us, for us. I would be able to be part of the pregnancy, I would be there at the birth. I would still be a mother. And Mum, that is the most important thing to me.”

“What about adoption?” I ask, and Nettie’s face falls. I realize that this had been the part where I was supposed to get swept up in excitement.

“Do you know how many adoptions took place in Victoria last year?” she says. “Six. Six! Four of which were inter-family. Adopting is nearly impossible in Australia.”

“And surrogacy? That’s possible in Australia?”

“There is altruistic surrogacy in Australia. Where a friend or family member offers to do it. I asked Lucy if she’d do it, but she wasn’t open to the idea.” Nettie is speaking quickly, almost maniacally. Her hands, I notice, are shaking. “And it’s illegal to be a surrogate for financial gain. The most common way, and the route our doctor suggested, was to source a donor egg from India, and pay a surrogate in the U.S.A. The thing is . . . it’s not cheap. The process, including the eggs, the insemination, the surrogate’s medical expenses and fees, . . . it will all come to well over a hundred thousand.”

She finally pauses, takes a breath.

“A hundred thousand dollars?” I stare at her. “Can you afford that?”

Nettie holds my gaze. “No. But you can.”

I put my tea back in its saucer. Suddenly I understand the purpose of the visit. I feel a little foolish that it’s taken me this long.

“You wouldn’t even miss the money,” she says, already countering my yet-to-vocalize arguments. “And it would be a grandchild!”

“But what if it didn’t work? What if we found a surrogate and you implanted an embryo and it didn’t . . . take? What then?”

“We’d try again.”

“How many times, Nettie? At a hundred thousand dollars per go?”

She shrugs as if it’s a minor detail, something that can be ironed out later. “As many as it takes, I guess.”

How had I not seen this? I knew she was desperate to have a baby, I’d suspected she might have even been depressed over it. But today, I wonder if it’s more than that. If it’s the beginning—or middle—of a descent into madness.

“So what you’re really asking me for,” I say carefully, “is access to unlimited funds.”

“This is my last chance. I need you, Mum.”

All at once, I’m back at Orchard House, sitting opposite my mother, begging. Begging for a baby. I close my eyes, take a breath.

“I’ll think about it, okay?”





55: DIANA


THE PAST

I’m standing in the dining room sorting through donations of baby clothes when I hear the distinct sound of footsteps on the parquetry floor. I go very still. The footsteps are heavier than Nettie’s, less precise and careful. It is in moments like these that I see my vulnerability—an elderly-ish woman alone in a huge, cavernous house. I creep a few steps toward the double doors and catch a glimpse of a huge, lumbering shadow.