What's Yours Is Mine (29 page)

“I don't even
want
the thing!” I wail to Michelle as soon as I get home. “It's probably going to die or end up spastic anyway!”

Michelle holds out my bathrobe, and I step out of the shower and slide my arms into it. “She is not an ‘it,' she's your daughter,” she says sharply. “It's about time you stopped feeling so bloody sorry for yourself, and started to think about her. She didn't ask to be born three months early, Susannah. You're the one responsible for that. And for your own health problems too, I might add. Your sister has every right to be mad at you.”

“I knew you'd take her side. Why don't you just go and tell her she can have it, if you think I'm such a terrible person?”

Michelle propels me into the bedroom, and pushes me down onto the stool in front of the mirror. Freeing my wet hair from the neck of my bathrobe, she gently starts to comb it through. “You're not a terrible person. You're a
frightened
one. Even Grace would struggle with what you've been through over the past few weeks. She's angry with you, but she doesn't hate you.
You're
the only person who does that.”

“Is this the bit where you tell me to let go of the past and get in touch with my inner child?”

“Something like that,” Michelle says thoughtfully.

The next day, she offers to take me out for the day to cheer me up. I imagine a trip to The Mall, or maybe even a pampering spa. When we arrive at our destination and I realize what she really has in mind, I freak out.

Michelle, however, is unmoved. “I don't care if you never want to take her home,” she says. “You have to accept that you're her mother. Until you do, you're never going to get past your guilt.”

“I don't feel guilty!”

“Of course you do. When you look at her, you see the proof of what you did. It's why you feel so disgusted by her. You need to get past it if you ever want to move on with your life.”

I refuse to get out of the car. Michelle simply takes out
Life of Pi
and starts reading. For two hours, we sit in the hospital car park in a Mexican standoff, until finally I give in and agree to go and see it. Michelle accompanies me up to the NICU, but refuses to come in and give me moral support.

“This is a mess of your own making, Susannah,” she says crisply. “Deal with it.”

For thirty minutes, I sit in the NICU and stare anywhere but at the incubator, then come out and declare myself won over. Michelle, however, isn't having any of it. Instead, she drags me back to the hospital the next morning, and the next. I have no choice but to go with her: I'm
tired and sick and frankly too fucking knackered to put up a fight.
Maybe
, I think fleetingly,
if my mother had been as tough as Michelle is, I might not have gone quite so far off the rails
.

Eventually, on the third or fourth day of this, I steel myself to look at it. Only for a moment, but at least I do it without losing my lunch. The next day, it's easier; each day after that, easier yet. There are still times I want to puke my guts up, but every so often, there are times when I almost feel sorry for her, too. She's so small, and she fights
so hard
. Every single breath is a battle for her. But respect to her: she doesn't give up. She keeps on sucking oxygen into her tiny, unfinished lungs, and she keeps on pushing carbon dioxide out. In, out. In, out. In, out. Her kidneys pack up, her liver breaks down, she suffers respiratory arrest and repeated infections; but she never stops fighting.
In, out
.

When Ava is four weeks old—I'd have been thirty-three weeks pregnant—her doctors cautiously declare themselves pleased with her progress so far.

I have to admit I'm relieved. I won't deny I'm getting fond of her, but that doesn't mean I want a spazz for a daughter.

To celebrate, they finally take her out of the incubator for a few minutes and let me hold her. And the moment she's in my arms, I know:
I can't walk away from this
.

“Not out of the woods yet,” I tell Michelle, as we drive home. “She's still on the ventilator most of the time, but her lungs are miles better. She can't come home for ages yet, they don't usually let preemies out till at least the
day they would've been due. But they reckon she's a real toughie. I gotta give her props for that.”

I tense, waiting for Michelle to make a big song and dance because I've mentioned bringing Ava home. She says nothing, and after a moment, I relax. It's not like I've definitely decided to keep her, or anything. I'm just, you know … saying.

But when I get the letter from Grace's lawyer the following Monday, I freak. Weird to think that the mere thought of losing Ava is enough to drive me postal these days.

It's Michelle who talks me down from the ledge. As she points out, the law is on my side. Two days after we get the letter, she's found a ball-breaking Oxford solicitor who's creaming her jeans at the thought of doing battle with Grace's fancy-ass London lawyer.

“Nicholas Lyon's a decent man, but he must know he hasn't got a prayer with this one,” Siobhan Meaghan says, practically licking her lips. “It's almost unheard of for the father to win custody in these sorts of cases. Frankly, I'm surprised Nicholas is even pursuing it.”

She hasn't met my sister. Grace will have twisted his arm so far up his back he'll look like a pretzel.

“First things first: a DNA test on the baby,” Siobhan says, snapping her fingers at her secretary. “Regardless of Mr. Stabler's assertion that he's infertile, we want to be sure. Your sister's entire case rests on her claim to the child through her husband's paternity. Might as well shake that tree first and see what comes out.”

The second letter from Grace's lawyer arrived this morning. I'm guessing she got on the horn to him the minute she found out from Claudia that Blake had had the snip. She must have been fucking tickled pink.

I was really hoping Ava was his. His genes are a lot cuter than Tom the Hobbit's, for a start. And I suppose somewhere deep down I was still hoping it'd make the difference with Blake and me. Dumb, I know. But the heart wants what it wants.

Michelle gives me a brisk “chin up” nod. She knows better than to go all soft and mushy on me. I don't know what I'd do without her, to be honest. Aside from all the practical stuff, like a roof over my head and cash to pay a lawyer, she's the best friend I've ever had. The only friend, really. Growing up, it was the boys who liked me, not the girls, and it wasn't friendship they were after. OK, technically he's Michael, not Michelle. But I've got so used to the two of them, I really don't notice most of the time who's in residence.

I keep it together till we get out of Siobhan's office, and then I lose it again. I read the papers (well, the
News of the World
); whatever Siobhan says now about “slam dunks,” I know nothing's certain once you get into court. And I've hardly got a great track record as a mother. I put my sons in care, and my premature daughter into an incubator. I'm living in a trannie's spare bedroom without a man or a job or a penny to my name. How could any court not pick Grace over me? Even Tom turned against me in the end. I thought he was on my side, but it's his signature
on the court papers. He and Grace will get back together and take my baby. They'll take Ava, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Michelle puts her arms around me as I start to bawl. Her expensive blond wig (real Ukrainian hair, apparently) tickles my cheek, and she smells of Chanel No. 5. She's a classy trannie, I'll give her that.

“I should just give Grace what she wants,” I mumble into her shoulder. “She'll get Ava anyway. I should hand her over and take the kidney. I might as well get something out of it, too.”

“Throw a pity party, why don't you? Grace is
not
going to take your daughter. Grow some balls! Siobhan is writing to your mum's hospital now about a possible transplant from her. If anyone can make that happen, she can. But if it doesn't work out, you're at the top of the transplant list.” She rubs my back as if I'm a child. “Stop being so negative. You're always punishing yourself. You need to learn to live with the past, and move on.”

Impulsively, I turn and kiss her cheek. In the next second, she's kissing me back, properly, on the mouth. Lips, tongues, everything. Lust strips through me, swirling up my groin with the strength of a hurricane. I'm stunned by the force of my reaction.

I break away, shocked. “You can't kiss me like that! You're my best friend!”

“Exactly why I should kiss you like that.” She laughs and starts the car. “Oh, put your skirts down, Miss Havisham. I'm not going to ravage you.”

My cheeks flame. I can still feel that snog in my pussy. Christ! Am I turning into a lezza or something? I've never felt like that when a bloke's kissed me, not even Blake!
What the fuck is going on?

Michelle calmly drives us home, as unruffled as the Queen on a State visit. I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof. The second she pulls to a halt outside the studio, I'm out and down the garden path like a startled rabbit, before remembering that she has the keys. I put about ten feet between us as she unlocks the door. Was that kiss a one-off? Am I going to be safe in my bed tonight? Or is she going to sneak in and slip under the covers and …

I can't help it. Just the thought is enough. Without hesitating, I grab her and kiss her again.

We barely make it to the bedroom. We tumble onto the bed, yanking at each other's clothes, lips and hands and skin exploring, probing, tasting, touching. I'm in no doubt that if it was Michelle who kissed me earlier, it's Michael making love to me now. His cock presses hard against my belly, and I struggle breathlessly with the zip of his skirt. I'm so hot for him that I don't waste time thinking it's weird that he's wearing flounces. He shucks the skirt off, along with a whisper of silk and lace. In seconds his cock springs into my hand, and I guide him into me as he rips my own knickers away.

My back arches to meet him. I open my eyes, losing myself in his. They're gray and green and flecked with desire. I could care less that they're also beautifully made up with delicate shades of plum and two coats of mascara.

“I don't want to hurt you,” he says, stroking my still-healing stomach.

“You couldn't,” I breathe.

Gently, mindful of my scars and the dialysis stent and my fragile heart, Michael moves inside me. We don't take our eyes off each other. We're barely moving, and yet the sensations in my body are the most intense I've ever experienced. I can feel him from my earlobes to the tips of my toes.

His pupils dilate, and I know he's feeling it, too. We're both standing at the edge of Niagara Falls, ready for the wave to sweep us away.

And then it comes, and I realize everything else up to now has been like paddling in a puddle.

Afterwards, we lie for a long moment, still coupled. “You're my best friend,” I whisper, as he slowly wilts inside me. “You're not supposed to make love to me like that.”

He smiles back. “Exactly why I should make love to you like that.”

When the phone rings, I resist the intrusion. “Leave it.”

“It could be Ava,” he replies.

The hospital number comes up on the caller ID. Michael squeezes my hand, and gets up to answer it. I brace myself, knowing that nothing could prepare me for the death of my daughter.

But when Michael puts down the phone, he's grinning like a bloody Cheshire cat.

“You don't need your sister, or your mother,” he says. “They've gone and found you a donor.”

I can't let her do it. Even Susannah has a conscience, however hard she tries to bury it. One day, she'll be sorry if she goes ahead with this.

Stealing Mum's kidney! How can she even
think
about it? Mum isn't brain-dead! She's not in a permanent vegetative state, like that poor boy who was crushed in the Hillsborough football disaster, or that girl in America, the one they kept alive on a life-support machine for years before the husband finally won the right to switch it off. Mum's just had a stroke. She could wake up at any moment. Susannah can't filch her body parts while she's not looking!

Perhaps I've been too angry for too long, but to my surprise I simply don't have it in me anymore to hate Susannah over this. I'm hardly in a position to take the moral high ground, given my attempt to blackmail her into handing over her daughter. And I know if Mum was conscious, she'd be insisting she give Susannah her kidney, and her heart and lungs too if Zee needed them.

In the end, I don't really have a choice. I'm quite certain Zee's feisty Irish lawyer had no intention of taking this to court; it'd be thrown out in a moment, even if Susannah does have Mum's power of attorney. That lawyer knew I'd step in. Smart woman.

I don't like being manipulated, but in this case, I'll let it go. If I'd done the right thing in the first place, Susannah would never have gone down this route. I can't blame her.

The lift doors open, and I step out into the hospital corridor, not even looking up. This place is as familiar to me as my own home these days. Sometimes it seems as if my life has been spent living in the shadows of one hospital or another. Susannah, when she was little. Mum, for the last nine months. And now Ava.

I haven't been to see her for several weeks, not since I found out that Michael was bringing Susannah here every day. I have to accept that Ava is her daughter, not mine. Somehow, I have to find the strength to let her go.

But first, I need to say goodbye. It's time. After today, she won't be my baby. She'll be my niece. It's going to take me some time to get used to that; I don't think the gnawing ache will ever go away.