What's Yours Is Mine (22 page)

“Grace,” I say, “can I talk to you?”

I think afterwards that if Tom hadn't been there, Grace might actually have killed me.

THERE'S ONLY ONE
person who can make it better, but she's not here. Instead, when Tom drops me off at the studio, his normally cheery hobbit face gray and drawn, it's Michael who opens the door.

He does his best. He makes tea and sits me down on the sofa and listens while I sob hysterically, even though I can tell he's desperate to be anywhere but here.

“I've never seen her like this before,” I hiccup, when I've finally stopped crying and reached the sniveling, shuddering stage. “She
hates
me.”

Silently, Michael passes me another tissue.

“You should've seen the way she looked at the kitchen knife,” I say pitifully. “If it wasn't for the baby, I think she'd have killed me there and then.”

“I'm sure that's not true,” Michael mumbles.

I grab another tissue from the box, and blow my nose loudly. “It is. She's been mad at me loads of times—after I left the boys in care she didn't speak to me for five years—but she's never been like this. The way she just kept saying the baby was hers, like some kind of zombie. It was totally
weird. And then she
smiled
. Like, this cold, hard smile as if she hated me so much it actually turned her on.”

Michael flushes to the tips of his ears. If I wasn't so upset, it'd be sweet.

“She's never going to forgive me, is she?” I say miserably. “There's no going back now. She's never going to get over this.”

He looks at me helplessly, saying nothing, because there is nothing to say. Even I can see that what I've done is unforgivable. Grace didn't need to tell me: as far as she's concerned, she no longer has a sister. And this time, she means it.

Michael offers me dinner, but I can't eat. Instead, I follow him upstairs to his spare room, a tiny box-room under the eaves over the studio. It's a bit cold, but after two weeks in a hospital bed, I'm just glad to be sleeping on my own without the constant noise and disturbance of patients moaning and coughing, and nurses waking you up to give you your medication. I change into an oversized T-shirt that used to be Tom's, and scramble into the narrow single bed. It's actually made up with blankets and sheets and one of those candlewick bedspreads like we used to have when we were kids. It's strangely comforting. I don't expect to fall asleep easily, but I'm out almost as soon as my head hits the pillow.

The next morning, Michael has already disappeared, no doubt terrified of more girly tears and confidences. I hope Michelle comes back. I really need to talk to her.

I make myself a cup of sweet tea, and search the studio
galley kitchen for something quick and easy to eat. On Michael's side of the fridge are probiotic yoghurts and tofu and prune juice. Thankfully, on Michelle's there are chocolate mousses and Camembert.

I'm hanging on the fridge door and debating whether I can be arsed to make an omelet when I hear Michael come back in. “D'you have any eggs?” I ask, without turning around. “I thought I'd whip up a quick—”

“If I had any eggs, we wouldn't be in this mess,” Grace says.

I nearly drop the carton of milk in my hand as I spin around. My sister hovers in the doorway, as if afraid to cross some invisible line. She looks totally different from yesterday: tired and red-eyed, but calm. That scary look in her eyes has gone.

I nod warily, and she takes a couple of steps forward. I don't move from the fridge. For all I know, she's got a Smith & Wesson tucked in her expensive handbag.

“We need to talk,” she blurts out finally. “We can't leave it the way we did yesterday. This isn't just about us. A child is involved.”

“I'm not going to change my mind,” I warn.

Grace glances around, taking in the half-finished canvases and tubes of paint and cans of brushes and turpentine on the floor. Seen through her eyes, it does look a bit of a pigsty.

She pulls a plastic garden chair over to the chipped Formica table, and then looks around fruitlessly for a second, before clearing a heap of small canvases from a
wooden stool. She sits down, and after a long moment, I unfold my arms and join her at the table, kicking my chair farther away from it just to make the point.

“I've never had a child,” she says, so quietly I have to strain to hear. “I'm not a mother. I can't begin to imagine how it must feel to have a baby grow inside you.”

For several minutes, she doesn't say anything more. When I finally glance up, I'm shocked to see she's crying. I don't remember seeing my sister cry since we were children.

“Grace, please,” I say awkwardly, “don't do this. It's just going to make it worse.”

“When you offered to have a baby for me,” she continues, as if I haven't spoken, “it was like a dream come true. I'd given up having a family. Tom and I couldn't adopt, and I was too terrified of surrogacy, in case it went wrong.”

I flinch. I didn't think it was possible until now for me to feel any lower.

“But then you came home,” she says, her voice suddenly filled with wonder. “You offered to do this amazing thing for us. Maybe I should have stopped to think about it more. Tom wanted to, but I wouldn't listen. It seemed like the answer to my prayers, and I didn't stop to question it. I see now that I never even thought about what it would be like for you. You offered something I wanted, and I just took it.”

“I'm so sorry, Grace,” I say, and now I'm in tears, too. “I never meant to hurt you. I thought I could do it, I really did.”

“The thing is,” Grace says painfully, “it's not about you
or
me now. It's about this baby. What's best for
her
.”

The silence between us stretches. I realize my sister, the selfish, controlling career woman who has no experience of motherhood or children, is right. It
isn't
about us. It is about a little girl who has no say in what's going to happen to her, and is relying on us to make the right choice.

Think of the baby, Susannah. Can you really give her the best start in life? Grace will love this child with every ounce of her being. She'll want for nothing
.

For the first time since I left the hospital, I waver. What can I offer this baby? I don't have a home, a job, or a husband. If she stays with me, she'll grow up in a crappy council flat with drug dealers hanging around her school playground. There'll be a parade of sleazy stepdads in and out of her life—let's face it, my track record at picking men is hardly stellar. I had the benefit of two nice middle-class parents and a private school, and look how I turned out. What chance will my daughter have without even those advantages? Chances are she'll be pregnant herself before she's sixteen.

“I know it's not about fancy pushchairs and designer clothes,” Grace says quietly. “I can give her all the toys, all the
things
, she could possibly want, but that's not what really matters, is it? What matters is that she'll have two parents, a mother and a father, who'll love her and protect her no matter what happens. Please, Zee. Let us be her family. Not for my sake, but for hers.”

Maybe, if my daughter hadn't kicked,
right then
, I'd have said yes.

“I'm sorry, Grace. I'm her mother. She's meant to be with me.”

“What about Tom?” she says tearfully. “He's her father. Doesn't he get a say in this?”

I shake my head. “Tom isn't her father.”

She jerks back. “Not Tom? Then who—Wait. Not
Blake
?”

“It just happened,” I mumble. “A day or two after—you know, with Tom. And the jug.”

“How do you know? How do you
know
it's Blake's, and not Tom's?”

“Tom did it in a jug! It's bound to be Blake's, it just is. I'm sorry, I never meant—”

“It could be either of them,” she insists.

I get up from the table and pace towards the window. “It doesn't make any difference, Grace. Even if it is Tom's, she's still meant to be with me.”

“It makes all the difference in the world,” Grace says.

She stands up. “Please, Susannah. Think about what's best for
her.
”

“I am,” I say stubbornly.

Moments later, I hear the click of the door as she shuts it carefully behind her. I'm not sure which is more terrifying: her anger or this strange, eerie calm. I wonder what happens next. I know Grace. She isn't going to just give up. She'll be planning her next move already.

I don't have to wait long to find out what it is.

“If you go ahead with this,” Nicholas Lyon warns, “it's going to get very messy.”

Nicholas Lyon is clearly a decent man. He has a silver-framed photograph of his wife on his desk—I recognize her from her cookery show on television—and, next to it, another of his children, three pretty girls and two boys, the youngest a gummy-smiled baby. The wall behind him is covered with primary-colored artwork, and his pencils are propped in a lumped, misshapen clay pot with
hapY faTheRs Day
engraved in wobbly letters on the side.

If Nicholas says it's going to get messy, I believe him. He's known as the best family lawyer in London precisely because he doesn't embark on litigation unless it's absolutely necessary. As, in this case, it is.

“I didn't want it to come to this, but Susannah hasn't given me much choice,” I say grimly. “I've tried to talk to her at least three times in the past two weeks. She won't even open the door to me now.”

Nicholas uncaps an old-fashioned fountain pen, and
pulls a pad of foolscap towards him. “In that case, let's discuss your options. The current law on surrogacy is rather convoluted, as science outpaces the judiciary, I'm afraid. Under the Surrogacy Arrangements Act, a surrogate mother is defined as a woman who carries a child in pursuance of an arrangement made before she began to carry the child, and made with a view to any child being handed over to, and the parental responsibility being met by, another person.” He looks up. “Under these terms, your sister fits the bill as a surrogate, even though there was never a written contract.”

“It didn't seem necessary,” I say helplessly. “She's my
sister.
”

“Indeed.” He nods briefly. “The law differentiates between total surrogates, who carry a child to whom they are not related, a host-womb, as it were, and partial surrogates. Your sister is a partial surrogate, in that she is the genetic mother of the child.”

“Does it make a difference?”

“I'm afraid it does. Under the law as it stands now, where the surrogate mother is also the genetic mother, she is legally the child's mother and has parental responsibility.”

“Susannah has parental responsibility?” I demand furiously. “She couldn't even spell it! She put her sons into care! If it wasn't for me, she wouldn't even
be
pregnant!”

Nicholas holds up a hand. “Please, Grace. This isn't about what's fair. This is about the law, and ultimately, what the law considers best for this baby.”

“What's best for her is to be with
us
, with Tom and me. Susannah doesn't have a place to live, or a proper job, she's got no money—”

“If the court determines the child should be with her, she will be entitled to benefits and housing,” Nicholas points out. “But naturally, her ability to provide a decent home for the child will form part of our case against her, should it come to that.”

“But I do
have
a case?”

“If we pursue the transfer of parental responsibility from Susannah to you,” he says, not answering the question, “there are two legal routes open to us. One is to ask the court to make a Parental Order under the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act in your favor, so that you and Tom are treated in law as the parents of Susannah's baby, which is the most straightforward option in this case. The other would be to adopt the child. Even if the court doesn't agree to transfer parental responsibility to you, it can still make a Residence Order in your favor. That would mean you would have custody of the child, even though Susannah would still share parental responsibility with you, rather as a divorced parent might with the custodial parent.”

“So we apply for the Parental Order,” I say briskly.

Nicholas hesitates. “It's not that simple, I'm afraid. You said that Susannah has stated your husband might
not
be the baby's father. If this does indeed prove to be the case, I'm afraid we won't be eligible for a Parental Order.”

“But what difference does it make? If the baby is better off with me, what does it matter who her father is? I'm still her aunt. I'm her nearest relative. I thought you said the court looked at what's best for the baby.”

“It does. But one of the conditions for granting a Parental Order is that at least one of those applying is the child's biological parent. If Tom
is
the baby's father, he can in turn extend parental responsibility to you on the slightly strange premise that you, as his wife, are the baby's legal stepparent. Otherwise, I'm afraid we don't have a leg to stand on.”

“But Susannah has
proved
she's a bad mother,” I plead. “She gave her two boys away! She can't give a baby a stable home! Some of the people she mixes with aren't even
safe
. She—”

“Grace. Even if what you say is true,” he says gently, “if Tom isn't the father, you have no legal right to the baby. The State may deem her an unfit mother and remove her from Susannah's care, but they still wouldn't give her to you.”

Nicholas's kind features blur. I look down, tears splashing on my hands as I twist them together in my lap. How can this be right? How can some faceless judge who has never even met me decide I don't deserve this baby? I may not be carrying her in my own body, but I've loved her since before she was conceived. I've traced her outline on the scan photographs so many times with my fingers, I've worn her image away. She is mine in every meaningful sense of the word.