Page 83 of The Mother-in-Law

‘Because a long time ago,’ he says, dropping his head into his hands, ‘you made me promise I’d never ask Mum for money again.’

54

DIANA

The past . . .

Imeet Nettie at a café, at her suggestion. Nettie and I don’t usually meet at cafés, but nothing is normal lately.

I told the children that I have breast cancer a couple of weeks ago. Ollie went through the motions of shock and sadness, which I expected. Nettie’s reaction was less expected. I thought she’d have a controlled but concerned reaction—asking for information, statistics, names of doctors. But she hadn’t asked a single question. Her mind had been elsewhere, even then.

Since Tom died, I’ve noticed her behaviour has become increasingly odd. Every so often she’ll come to the house, but rather than speak to me, she’ll just wander about searching for Tom in the folds of the curtains and the creases of the sofa. She never says that is what she is doing, but I know because I do it too. Once, just a few weeks after Tom’s death, I came home and found her curled up on his side of the bed. I left her there and snuck away. Sometimes we need to grieve together, and sometimes we need to grieve alone.

As I approach the café, I notice there’s a playground across the road full of mothers bundled in puffer jackets pushing babies in strollers or shouting up at older kids who have climbed to the top of a climbing frame to come down for morning tea. I am wondering if I should find us a table inside, away from it all—after all, why make it worse for Nettie?—when I see her sitting at a table out the front.

‘Mum!’

I nearly don’t recognise her. She’s thinner than she’s ever been and her skin is sallow and pale, and yet at the same time she looks slightly more alive than the last time I saw her. The idea flickers through my mind that she might be pregnant. I can’t decide if that would be good news or not.

‘Hello, darling.’ I kiss her cheek and sit opposite her on a cold metal chair. There are mushroom heaters dotted about and woollen blankets on the backs of the chairs, but it doesn’t replace the shelter of four walls, in my opinion. ‘Isn’t it a little cold out here?’

‘I’m fine.’ Nettie smiles.

Nettie comes across, I’m assured by most people I know, as a happy, cheery person who never has a bad word to say about anyone. And she is, indeed, smiley—at least she used to be. But there are some things only a mother can tell. This smile, for instance, is not indicative of happiness. It is a smile of strategy; a smile of digging her heels in. It’s a smile that says:We’re sitting outside. If you don’t want to, you’re going to have to be the one to rock the boat. Every one of Nettie’s smiles means something.

‘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 said a couple of weeks ago, thrusting a piece of paper at me. She 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 direct from the app.’

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

Now I have two bottles of the drug, Latuben, in my fridge door, ready to drink. (It is tasteless, apparently, and should be drunk by itself, though you can follow it with a glass of wine if you wish.) I’ve written the letter. I need to see Gerard about the will—I will leave every cent to the charity to ensure that none of my family can be seen to benefit from my death. I’ll let the children know what I’ve done. And then I’ll go and see Tom, wherever he is.

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 are 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.’

The waitress returns with our drinks and places them on the table before us.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she says.

I lift the cup to my mouth. ‘Really?Idon’t even know what I’m thinking.’

‘Listen, I get it. 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 createdbyus,forus. 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 realise that this is when I am supposed to get swept up in excitement, and I’ve failed her.

‘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?’