Claiming Noah (25 page)

Catriona couldn't decide which was worse: losing her son or James's deceit. She thought she knew everything about James, but the fact that he had kept Sebastian's death secret from her made her question everything he had ever told her. What else in her life had been a lie? She was furious at James for what he had done to her and refused to visit him in the remand centre or attend his committal hearing. Spencer went and called Catriona afterwards to tell her that James's case had been committed for trial. She had been sitting on the couch with the phone on her lap, drinking her way through a bottle of wine and trying not to think about the hearing.

‘So, what does that mean?' Catriona asked him. ‘He'll have a full trial, with a jury and all of that?'

‘I think so.'

‘Did he say anything at the hearing?'

‘Just his plea.'

Catriona waited for Spencer to elaborate, but he didn't. She swilled the wine around in her glass, watching the ruby liquid catch the light from the lamp that dangled over her head.

‘So, what was it?' she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

‘Guilty to illegally obtaining confidential information about the child, but not guilty to kidnapping him.'

She scoffed. ‘How can he say he's not guilty of that?'

‘He said it's not because he didn't take him, but because he doesn't consider it kidnapping.'

‘Oh.' She picked at a strand of blonde hair that was coiled on one of the couch cushions, wishing her resolve was strong enough not to wonder how James was coping. ‘Spencer, can I ask you something?'

‘Of course.'

‘How did he find out that there was a child out there? I've never seen any information. We agreed with the clinic that we didn't want to know.'

There was a pause. ‘They didn't go into any of the details at the hearing. Sorry. Just something about a donor register.'

‘You haven't asked James about it?'

‘No. We mainly just talk about you.'

‘About me?'

‘He's worried about you. About how you're coping. He's desperate to see you.'

‘I'm sure he is.'

‘Are you planning to visit him?'

Catriona snorted and took a sip of wine. ‘No.'

But her desire to quell the questions which consumed her mind was too strong to ignore, so the next day she called Spencer and told him that the next time he went to visit James, she wanted to go with him.

•  •  •

Three days later Catriona found herself sitting in Spencer's car in the car park of the Silverwater Correctional Complex, staring at the imposing facade in front of her. James was in the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre, the MRRC, where he would stay until his trial was over.

The complex didn't look like a prison to Catriona. It looked more like a high school, with a dense community of buildings, ovals and basketball courts. Only the eight-metre security fence lined with curls of razor wire betrayed the identity of the occupants within.

Spencer placed a reassuring hand on Catriona's tensed shoulder. ‘Are you ready?'

‘No,' Catriona said, but she got out of the car and walked towards the prison.

As they walked through the entrance, Catriona felt a mix of anger and nerves at the thought of coming face-to-face with James for the first time since his arrest. The last time she had seen him he had been standing in his pyjama pants on their staircase on the morning of his fortieth birthday party, and now she was going to see him incarcerated in the prison where he would most likely remain for a number of years.

Catriona and Spencer passed through the security screening and were taken to the visitor centre by a uniformed officer. The room was bare of adornments other than a series of wooden seats and tables bolted to the floor, a row of vending machines against one wall, and glass doors leading to an astro-turfed children's playground. Half of the tables were occupied by men in white jumpsuits and people dressed normally, like her. She had purposely dressed down for the occasion, in jeans and a T-shirt, not wanting James to think she had made an effort with her appearance for his sake.

Catriona looked around the visitor centre for James, but she couldn't see him.

‘We have to take a seat first,' Spencer told her as he directed her by the elbow to a table in the far corner of the room. ‘Then they'll bring James in to see us.'

A few minutes later, James appeared in the doorway. Like the other men in the room he wore a white jumpsuit that was zipped at the back, marked with the word ‘Visits' in black lettering. His face broke into a smile when he saw Catriona. He tried to embrace her when he reached their table but she pulled back, out of his reach. She asked herself what she was doing in this room, with a man who had become a stranger to her. She no longer wanted to hear what he had to say. No words from him would make any difference to her at this point. Feeling her anger rise at his proximity, she balled her hands into fists and felt her fingernails cut into her palms.

James looked dejected as he sat down, but he maintained a fixed smile as he looked back and forth between Spencer and Catriona.

‘How are you both?' he asked with a false brightness that contradicted the defeated look on his face and the darkness under his eyes.

When Catriona didn't respond, Spencer spoke up instead. ‘I'm good, mate. No complaints. But how are you? Are they treating you okay?'

‘Well, you know how it is in here; it's not exactly the Hilton.' From the corner of her eye Catriona saw James staring at her, but when she didn't speak to him or meet his gaze he tried again. ‘Cat? How are you? I've been calling you, but you haven't accepted any of my phone calls.'

‘How am I?' Catriona said, her voice deliberately slow and menacing as she finally made eye contact with him. ‘Well, let's recap, shall we? I woke up on the morning of my husband and son's birthday party and my biggest concern of the day was whether I could decorate an Elmo cake well enough. Then, within the space of a few hours, my husband was arrested, my son was taken from me, and I'm told by a therapist that the child I gave birth to died twenty-one months earlier. So, how am I? Fucking
brilliant
, James, couldn't be any better.'

She leaned back in the chair and looked away from him as the smile slid off James's face.

‘Please don't be like that. You have to understand that I did it for us, for our family.' He tried to take her hand across the table but Catriona snatched it away from him. The thought of him touching her repulsed her.

Spencer tried to interject. ‘Mate, you have to appreciate she's still in shock. Finding out that your child has died isn't something you can get over quickly.'

‘Stay out of it,' James snapped at Spencer and then turned his attention back to Catriona. ‘He's
our
son, you know. It's not like I kidnapped a stranger. He's our son, our flesh and blood. He should be with us, not with strangers.'

‘You replaced our child,' Catriona spat out in response, turning back to look at him. ‘Do you not understand how sick that is? It's not like replacing a dead goldfish. Sebastian was our son. You can't just replace him with another child.'

James opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but no words came out.

‘Where did you bury him?' she asked James, her voice now a whisper. ‘I don't even know where my own son is buried.'

James bowed his head, not meeting her gaze as he responded. ‘He was cremated. I couldn't bear to think of his little body lying in the ground. There's a plaque at Waverley Cemetery. I used to visit it on Tuesday afternoons while you were at work. I went there with . . .'

He trailed off as the sound of his son's name stuck in his throat.

‘The child you were passing off as Sebastian?' Catriona said.

James sighed deeply and cradled his head in his hands. Had she not been so angry, Catriona would have felt sorry for what was obviously a broken man.

‘You can't think that it was an easy thing for me to do,' he said, his voice muffled as he buried his head against his chest. ‘When Sebastian died I was in shock, I didn't know what to do. I was a wreck, I couldn't think straight, and I was too scared to tell you. I thought you'd blame me for his death and even if you didn't I knew you'd never go through IVF again, not after . . . well, you know.'

He looked up at that point and Catriona wondered if he would be brave enough, or stupid enough, to bring up her psychosis. He was. ‘Not after what you went through when Sebastian was born. I knew you wouldn't ever want to have another child.'

He paused for a moment to gauge her reaction, but he must have interpreted Catriona's blank stare as an invitation, because he kept going.

‘I panicked.' He started to cry. ‘Sebastian had gone down to sleep, just as usual. I did everything you were meant to: laid him on his back, no loose covers, good ventilation. But then a couple of hours later the baby monitor alarm went off and when I went into his room he wasn't breathing. His little face was blue. I rushed him to the hospital but it was too late, he was already dead.'

He shuddered at the memory. ‘And then a guy had to come out to the house to examine Sebastian's room, some paediatric pathologist. And they performed an autopsy to determine the cause of death. I guess I should have been relieved when they said it wasn't anything I had done, but I couldn't stop picturing his tiny blue face and the feel of his stiff body in my arms. I'm never going to be able to forget that.'

Spencer listened to James's story in silence, but after a couple of minutes passed without a word from Catriona or James he leaned forward and put his hand on James's shoulder.

‘I can't imagine how awful that must have been for you, mate,' he said. ‘Finding your child like that.' He looked between Catriona and James and when neither of them spoke he rose from his chair. ‘I'll leave you two alone.' He shook James's hand and patted him on the back before he turned to Catriona. ‘I'll meet you at the car,' he said to her, to which she replied with a nod.

A few more minutes passed with both Catriona and James silent, staring at the table.

Eventually, it was Catriona who broke the silence. ‘But why didn't you just tell me that Sebastian had died? If it wasn't your fault, like you said.'

James lifted his head and looked at her, and she was surprised by the defiance in his eyes. ‘I wanted a son. When Sebastian died and I couldn't bring him back I went in search of the next best thing. I knew there was a chance that we had another child out there and when I found the details on the donor register I couldn't believe my luck. There was another child, a boy, only a month younger than Sebastian. It was like it was meant to be.'

Catriona attempted to retain composure amid her shock. How could James not understand the sheer lunacy of what he had done?

‘But . . . that boy was someone else's child,' was all she could manage.

‘He was
our
child!' A security guard started to walk towards them in response to James's outburst, but Catriona made a gesture to the guard to indicate they were fine.

‘Keep your voice down,' the guard called out to James, ‘or I'll take you back to your cell.'

James glared at the guard and turned back to Catriona. ‘He was our child. Still is. I knew that the second I laid eyes on him.'

A chill ran through Catriona. She wanted him to stop talking, but her desire to find out what he had done was stronger. ‘How did you find him?'

‘The register had the contact details for the couple who adopted him. They were in Concord, not far from us. So, I went to find him. I waited at the address until I saw a woman and baby leave the house. They went to the park, and I followed them. Then I got a good look at him when the woman took him out of his pram and put him down on a blanket.'

‘That was his mother, James,' Catriona said. ‘Don't try to make this easier on yourself by pretending she wasn't.'

‘
You're
his mother,' James said. ‘And when I saw him he was identical to Sebastian in every way. They looked more like twins than just brothers.'

‘Of course,' said Catriona, more to herself than to James. ‘They're brothers.'

James seemed encouraged by Catriona's reaction. ‘Yes, they're brothers.
Full
brothers. And when I noticed that even the pram was identical to ours it confirmed to me that he was meant to be with us. So, the next day I went back to the house, with our pram, and I waited until the woman left the house again. I followed her to a shopping centre and then followed her around for a while until she was alone, and distracted. When I noticed she had left the pram a few metres away from her I knew that was my chance. I switched the prams and brought him home with me, back to where he belonged.'

Catriona watched him, her mouth agape. She couldn't believe the candid way he had described the episode. He said it so calmly, with no remorse or recognition that what he had done was wrong. He may as well have been describing a visit to the dentist.

‘They're both our children,' James continued. ‘I'm not saying it was right to take him from those people, but he's not their son, he's ours.'

When Catriona didn't respond he kept talking. ‘You didn't realise. When you got home from the clinic you didn't realise that it wasn't the same baby. Doesn't that tell you how similar they were? If you couldn't tell the difference nobody else would have been able to either.'

At that point Catriona scraped back her chair, stood up and walked out of the room without a glance back at James. She was standing by the car, smoking, when Spencer walked up to her a few minutes later from the other side of the car park. It had taken her five attempts to light the cigarette because her hands were shaking so badly.