The Mother-in-Law(79)

56: DIANA


THE PAST . . .

After his pathetic attempt of trying to intimidate me, Patrick finally leaves. I finish sorting the baby clothes and then go into the study. I sit in Tom’s old study chair, running my fingers over the surface of the desk, picking up pens and notepads, touching the things that he touched. It’s been a year since he died and he’s started to disappear from other rooms, which have been cleaned numerous times, but I still feel him in here.

I remember that conversation we had a few years back, about the kids and money. It’s about support, Tom had said. Whether to give it or not. Patrick doesn’t want me to give them money for the surrogacy. Nettie does. One way or another, Nettie has a rough time ahead of her and she’ll need someone to support her.

I hear a key in the door and a moment later : “Diana? Are you home?”

It’s Lucy’s voice.

I sit up straight. Lucy hasn’t been here since the night she came to encrypt my email address and show me how to use bitcoins. I didn’t know if I would see her again after that. But here she is rounding the corner, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt and hot-pink ballet flats and a zebra scarf around her neck. Still fashionable, but a little more subtle these days. It’s as though she’s maturing, coming into herself, figuring out who she really is.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been by,” she says.

“Don’t apologise. I understand.”

I do understand. It’s a tall order visiting someone after you have helped them to procure drugs illegally to end their life? What would we talk about? The future was off-limits, obviously, as were plans for Christmas, or upcoming holidays. There was simply nothing left to discuss. Still I can’t deny the fact that I feel . . . happy to see Lucy. Over the past few months I’ve become accustomed to having her around, making food or doing the dishes or booking my appointments. It had made it feel all the more quiet when she wasn’t here. I’d been surprised, even humbled, by her devotion. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that, while I know she doesn’t want me to take my own life, she’s never, not once, tried to talk me out of it. It reminds me of the way she supports Ollie. Suddenly I see it for what it is: a gift.

“What are you doing here in the study?” she asks.

I look around the room. It feels empty, even filled with furniture. “Looking for Tom,” I admit with a smile.

A soft smile crosses her face. “It’s lovely, the way you love him.”

“Funny, I was just thinking the same about the way you love Ollie.”

The thing about death is that it puts things into perspective. I know what I care about now. I care about my children and my grandchildren. I care about my charity continuing to operate. I care about people getting a fair go.

And I care about Lucy.

Lucy presses her lips together, swallows. “You . . . you’ve never said that to me before.”

“No. But I should have. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

She crosses the room and puts her arms around me. “I’m going to miss you,” she says. She begins to sob in my arms, keening.

“Shhh.” I pat her back. “It’s all right, dear.”

Holding her, I feel myself soften. I can’t remember anyone holding me like this since . . . Tom. It brings tears to my own eyes.

“I’m not going to do it, Lucy,” I whisper into her ear.

Lucy stills, but remains where she is for a moment. When she finally lifts her head I feel a surprising sense of loss, a coldness where her warm head had just been.

“Really?”

“I can’t leave Nettie with everything that’s going on right now,” I say. “I can’t leave Ollie and my grandchildren. I can’t leave my charity.” Lucy’s hair has gone all static, fanning around her face like a mane. I pat it down, tuck it behind her eyes. “And I can’t leave you, Luc—”

Before I can finish, Lucy throws her arms around me again with such force that it takes my breath away.

“I love you, Diana,” she says.

I smile. “I love you too.”

And then, we stand there in the center of the room, holding each other, and crying.





57: DIANA


THE PAST . . .

They say little boys love their mothers, and I think there is something to it. Little girls love their mothers, too, of course, but a little boy’s love for his mother is pure, untainted. Boys see their mothers in the most primal way, a protector, devotee, a disciple. Sons bask in their mother’s love rather than questioning it or testing it.

What I like best about the mother-son relationship is the simplicity of it. When Ollie was a toddler, when times were really tight, I had fleeting pangs of guilt that I wasn’t able to give him things. I remember asking him what he wanted for his birthday and he replied, “I’d like to go to the beach and then eat vegemite sandwiches for dinner.” It was, perhaps, the only thing we could afford. For a moment I thought that’s why he’d said it, but then I realized he was too young for that. Sandwiches at the beach was simply his idea of a perfect day.

So today, when Ollie calls to suggest a visit, I don’t read into it, I expect that’s all he wants, a visit. Ollie is committed to Lucy, and his family comes first, but I like to think there’s still a part of his heart that is reserved for his dear old mum. But when he appears at the door, it is immediately apparent that he is not, in fact, here for a visit. He looks upset and he doesn’t try to hide it—he is in his work clothes, but looks scruffy, as if he’s slept at the office.