The Mother-in-Law(78)

“Oh.” I find my heart. “Patrick.”

“Sorry to sneak up on you,” he says. “The door was unlocked.”

Patrick doesn’t often drop by for a visit. In fact, I’m not sure he ever has without Nettie.

“I need to talk to you about Nettie,” he says.

He pulls out the chair closest to me and sits. I remain standing.

“What’s wrong with Nettie?” I ask.

Patrick raises an eyebrow. “Are you seriously asking what is wrong with Nettie?”

As I recover from my surprise, irritation kicks in. Patrick has a nerve coming here, speaking to me like this, when everyone in the world knows he’s messing around on my daughter. “This is about the surrogacy?” I upend a new bag of baby clothes onto the table.

“What else?” Absently, Patrick picks up a tiny knitted jacket. “I’m assuming Netiie has her wires crossed because she says you’re thinking about paying for it.”

I frown. “And you’ve come to plead your case?”

“Actually I’ve come to plead the opposite.”

This catches me off guard. “You’re coming to me because you don’t want money?”

I admit, I’m lost. In the many visits I’ve had from my children and their spouses, never has anyone asked me not to give money.

“Nettie would kill me if she know I was here obviously.” Patrick looks out the window, onto the garden. “She’s on a mission for a baby. She’s obsessed by it.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“You don’t know anything.” He raises his voice, cutting through any pretense of decorum between us. “It’s like she’s possessed. Some days I’ll be talking to her and it’s like she’s not even there! Her legs and stomach are covered in bruises from injecting herself with hormones. She spends her entire life on the internet reading stories from people who managed to conceive after years of trying. She trawls through forums of people who have done IUI or IVF or lately, surrogacy. She doesn’t talk about anything else. Nothing else.”

He tosses the little jacket back onto the table.

For a moment, I’m taken aback. Only a moment. “That must have been awful for you,” I say quietly. “No wonder you had to find multiple girlfriends to ease your burden.”

Patrick stares at me.

“You’ll need to go a little farther away than country Victoria if you don’t want to keep a secret around these parts, Patrick.”

Patrick has the decency to look ashamed, which is something, I suppose.

I study him. “So . . . you don’t want a baby, is that it? You don’t want to be shackled to Nettie?”

“No, that’s not it. I do want a baby. At least I did. But I accepted it wasn’t going to happen a few years back. Nettie didn’t. And now I . . . I don’t know how to help her. She’s either a walking zombie or she’s totally manic from her latest fertility idea. She’s not the same person I married.”

He looks so sad I rein in my anger.

“So what do you want from me, Patrick?”

“I don’t want anything. That’s exactly my point.”

“Actually you do want something. You want me to withhold money from my daughter so you can avoid having a conversation with her that you need to have.”

Patrick opens his mouth but I get in first.

“—and what happens next? Once Nettie gives up on her baby dream? You give up your girlfriends and you all live happily ever after?”

He exhales. “I don’t know, okay?”

But he does know. And suddenly I do too. There are age restrictions around surrogacy in Australia, even for intended parents. In a few years, Nettie and Patrick will be too old to become parents. Which means, Patrick just has to ride out Nettie’s craziness for another year or two. And with my recent “cancer” diagnosis, in two or three years he’ll be able to enjoy a comfortable, childless life. A life with all the little extras he’s enjoyed with us over the years. Whisky, cigars, homes by the beach. Now that it’s within his reach, he’s not going to give it up.

“Well,” I say. “Regardless of whether I give Nettie this money for surrogacy, you need to talk to her. You need to tell her about the other women, and you need to tell her you no longer want a baby.”

Patrick shakes his head. This has not gone the way he wanted. He thought he could come here and form some alliance with me, I realize. Me and him against my daughter. The idea makes me sick to my stomach.

“Diana I really don’t think—”

“If you don’t, Patrick . . . I will.”

Patrick’s eyes flash as he rises to his feet. He smiles, a horrible mean smile. “Look at you, acting all concerned about your daughter. Nettie’s spent her whole life vying for your attention, and you’ve never given her the time of day. You’ve spent more time worrying about your refugee women than your own children. And now you’re acting holier-than-thou. Who do you think you are?”

“I think I’m her mother.”

“Some mother.”

He squares up against me, but I’m not scared. If Patrick wants me to change my mind, he’s going to have to kill me.