The Blinding Light (29 page)

“She’s contracting?” I asked in alarm.

“Just a bit. The baby is still ten weeks premature. At this stage the odds are about fifty-fifty if it needs to be delivered. So we’re just making sure things don’t deteriorate to the point where delivery is the only option. Best case scenario is that things settle in the next day and she can go home to strict bed rest. My personal feeling is that she’s going to go early. We need to get that baby to at least thirty-five weeks, but perhaps you should make sure everything is ready at home, just in case?”

I was startled. “Didn’t she tell you? The baby is to be privately adopted.”

The midwife was disconcerted and looked at her notes. “Oh. No. There’s nothing on here about that. That’s fine, we can note that down, but perhaps you should notify the adopting party?”

She showed us to the single room where Mum was and left us to say good-bye. Several monitors surrounded the bed, each with cords snaking over to my mother, some disappearing under the covers. I could see they had a monitor for Mum’s heart rate, plus another showing the baby’s stats.

I approached the bed on silent feet. “Mum?”

Mum fluttered her eyelids and raised her hand to cover the mound of her stomach. She blinked and smiled wanly at me. “Hi, sweetie. Sorry about all this.”

I leaned down and kissed her forehead gently. “There’s nothing to be sorry about, Mum. The nurse told us what’s happening, so we’re just coming to say a quick goodbye and leaving you here to rest. She told us you can come home in a couple of days.”

“That’s good. He needs some more growing before he’s set loose on the world,” she joked.

I tried to pull up a smile. I don’t think it worked. “Mum, I don’t want to stress you but I need to talk to you about something serious. The adopting parents—they need to be told. The baby may come early and they need to be prepared. If you want, I can tell Melanie tomorrow to warn the parents?”

“Oh, love….” Mum’s hand clutched mine. “I thought you would’ve guessed by now.”

“Guessed what, Mum?” I pulled a chair up beside her as she flicked a glance at Patrick hovering near the door. “Don’t worry about Patrick. I tell him everything, anyway. He’ll take it to the grave if you want him to.”

Mum turned back to me with a wobbly smile and tears in her eyes. “Oh, love….” she repeated again.

“What is it?”

“There are no adopting parents to inform. Melanie knows that.”

My mind spun with fear. “What do you mean, Mum? You’re keeping the baby?”

“No, love. I’m adopting out the baby, but the couple who I hope will take him are a sweet gay couple who haven’t been together for very long, but who love each other desperately.”

“What?” My chin nearly bounced off my knees, it dropped so fast.

“Yes. They’re the nicest couple, and I desperately want to give them this child to raise, which I know they will do with love, respect, and care. They have a large home with a big backyard, a stable income, a loving family for support, and the younger of the couple has already raised three girls, so I know he’s competent and capable. The two of them have so much to give, and this baby will start them out on the right track. Maybe in a few years, they will be able to adopt again and give him a sibling. But it needs to be all legal, and Melanie has all the paperwork ready so that no one can ever doubt their claim to this baby. Because this is their baby. It isn’t my baby. I’ve known that from the start. This baby is payment for a debt I owe. Now, go away and let me sleep. I need to make sure my gift to them is safe.”

She closed her eyes and moved both hands until they were resting over her stomach. I lurched to my feet and left the room with Patrick at my side. My head was spinning—along with my heart and several major organs by the feel of it. We made it outside to the car park but it was a case of the blind leading the blind.

Or perhaps more accurately it was the seeing-eye dog leading the blind who was leading the blinded. How could I not have seen this possibility? How could I have not suspected how my mother was thinking? How long had she been plotting this?

I blinked, realizing that I was sitting behind the wheel of the car, just staring through the windscreen. Patrick had clipped Gregor into place in the backseat and was sitting beside me, waiting for my shock to wear off.

What did he think about this?

“Did you know?” I asked.

“Of course not,” he immediately replied, so quickly that I never doubted him for a moment.

I blinked rapidly, trying to snap out of the shocked state I was in. “I just can’t believe that my mother would do this.”

“Do what?”

“Leave it to the last minute before she told me! I mean, he could be here tomorrow. She’s just expecting me to step in like before and pick up the pieces. And she seems
happy
about it.”

“I think you’re seeing it the wrong way, Jake.” Patrick was firm but gentle with his rebuke.

“Wrong way?” I asked. “My mother wants me to adopt her baby and bring it up for her!”

Patrick grasped my hand and squeezed. “She doesn’t, and I think you’re jumping to hasty conclusions. She’s not wanting you to bring up the baby for her. She wants to
give
you the baby so that you have a chance at fatherhood. She’s doing this for
you
, not for her. I know it doesn’t make an ounce of difference to you, but I think you sometimes forget that I’m blind. I rely on my other four senses and I’ve found that often I can hear what people are implying with their speech when others don’t. I think it has to do with not having visual cues to distract me.” I waited to hear where he was going with this, still trying to get my shaking hands under control. “Didn’t you hear what your mother said in there? This baby is her repayment for a
debt
. Whether she means the money you paid for her loans or the fact you raised her children for her, I’m not sure. But she sees this baby as a way of cleaning the slate of everything she owes you.”

My mind backflipped. “She doesn’t owe me anything, Patrick. What I’ve done for her, I’ve done out of love.” I wanted him to know that. I may grumble about responsibilities and losing my childhood, but I would do it all again in an instant, just for the simple fact that I loved my mother and sisters.

“I know that, because I love you for your generosity and pure heart, but I don’t know your mother all that well. Maybe she needs to do this for herself. Now that I think about it, I think she had planned this from the start.”

“What? You mean she deliberately fell pregnant?” I was astounded at the thought.

“No, just the adoption bit. I remember the first day she met me, we had a discussion about children while you were inside doing something.” I remembered the conversation I’d overheard, but hadn’t it just been about suns and planets? “Your mum asked me whether I thought growing up without a mother had affected me. At the time I thought she was looking for confirmation of her own identity. You’re such a capable guy I think she’s felt rather incompetent as a mother. But now that I think about it, she was asking me would a child be alright with just having a father. She wanted to know, just in case you ever had the chance to raise one in a gay relationship. I bet you she was thinking about it all the way back then.”

“Then why didn’t she say something sooner!” I burst out in exasperation. I was getting upset that he was taking the news so calmly. Didn’t this spin his mind out?

Patrick tried to calm me by stroking my arm. “Because why would she promise you the stars if she couldn’t deliver? Jake, look at it logically. The nurse in there has told us the baby’s odds are still 50/50. That’s a huge risk. Before I asked you to move in with me I went over all the figures with Wally twenty times. I wanted to make sure everything was perfect for you before I asked. Why would Corrine give you a gift if it was only going to be yanked away from you?”

I scrubbed at my face with my palms. “But a baby, Patti-cake? Me? You? Us? Can we do it?”

Patrick was still calm, whereas I was getting seasick once again, since my boat was being rocked. “At the beginning, I wondered why nobody suggested what I thought was an obvious solution, but as the months went by, I just assumed that you didn’t think I’d make a good father. I know I’m blind, and that’s something that’s hard to get past.”

“What?” I protested. “I never thought that! I just never thought we would get a look-in with a private adoption. There must be hundreds of straight couples out there who have been waiting longer and who are better equipped to manage a baby than we are. Who would pick a gay couple over them?”

I realized that Patrick was so calm because he’d already thought this all through months before. He’d considered the idea of us adopting the child, but was waiting for me to approach the subject with him. When I hadn’t
—
because the thought had never entered my thick head!
—
he obviously concluded I’d discounted him as a competent parent.

Patrick groped for my hand again. “The whole idea of a private adoption is that the biological parents pick. As a close relation to the baby, there will be no challenge to you adopting the baby. It happens all the time—sisters having babies for their childless sibling, grandparents adopting the child of an underage mother. Why not a big brother?”

I looked into the face of the man who was my everything. “Are you saying you
want
to adopt this baby?” My brain function was sluggish with shock.

Patrick smiled gently. “I would love to raise a child, Jake. I’d love to raise a child
with you
. And I already know how much you love that baby. I’ve seen your hurt, your grief, your care—and he isn’t even born. I’ve been rather jealous over your love for him.”

My mind began racing ahead, trying to picture us with a baby. I couldn’t do it. To me babies were hard work
—
something that cried and needed to be cuddled in the little time I had between school and housework. I remembered the fear of leaving Maria with Mum while I attended school. I remembered rushing home and sighing in relief that Maria was still alive
—
albeit wet and hungry. I remembered stealing money from Mum’s purse so I could buy nappies and baby food from the local shop. I remembered the fevers I didn’t know how to treat and the times when the baby had cried for no reason I could work out. It had been a nightmare.

I looked over at Patrick who had a half smile on his face, and remembered another smile—this one from a sweet little baby who chortled with laughter now that her big brother was finally home to play with her. I remembered her first words—“Dayk”—and her first sentence—“Dayk’s home!” I remembered her first steps when she let go of the lounge and walked into my arms. I remembered the bad dreams she had so she would sleep in my bed and we would cuddle all night. I remembered the hugs and the kisses. I remembered the innocence and trust my sisters had in me that made me feel like Superman.

I remembered other things too—things I thought I had forgotten: the Father’s Day card that Lizzy made me in class, every single year for the eight years she was at primary school; the Christmases and birthdays where we didn’t have any money, but we made each other paper airplanes and Play-doh figurines for presents; the day Ellie made me a chocolate cake for my birthday that was rock hard on the outside and gooey in the middle, but we all ate it anyway, straight from the tin using our spoons. I remembered Maria’s first merit certificate at school, Lizzy’s first high school report card that was straight As, teaching Ellie to drive, and watching each of them graduate high school. I remembered the laughter and the love.

Looking back I’m pretty sure the good days eclipsed the bad.

Did I want to do that all again? Would it be the same? Would raising a child in a loving relationship be so different? I could only imagine that with Patrick at my side it would be very different. For a start, money would not be a problem for us. And Patrick was there as an extra pair of hands who could help with the things that needed doing—even if it were just a person to hold me in the middle of the night and tell me that it will be all okay tomorrow. Would fatherhood be the same as being forced to be the responsible big brother?

“Is it even legal?” I asked him, hope slowly blossoming in my stomach.

As usual, I was ten steps behind his thinking. I was still thinking of the logistics of bottles and nappies, while he was already planning the assault from the paperwork side. “Your mum said that Melanie knows, so there must be some way we can adopt the baby or else Melanie would’ve told her it was impossible. And if they say it’s not possible, then we can hire a team of lawyers. I have money sitting around waiting for a good cause. I’m ready to challenge the laws of our state. We may not have gay marriage yet, but by God, I’m ready to make sure the courts allow gay couples to adopt. And Max had some pretty powerful friends who can help me. If you want me to, Jake, I will fight for this with every breath in my body. If you want this, then I will make it happen, I promise.”

“But do you want
this
baby,” I asked, trying to make sure he wasn’t doing this just for my sake. “If you want a baby, we can buy one on eBay in a couple of years, like we said.” Patrick rolled his eyes, but I needed to make sure he understood I was serious. “It doesn’t have to be
this
baby. Don’t rush the decision just because you
think
this is our only chance. It will break my heart to have my brother put up for adoption, that’s true. But it will completely shatter me if we adopt him, only for you to tell me you really didn’t want him in the first place and then walk away from us. You have to be sure, Patrick. Babies are forever.”

Patrick nodded seriously. “I know, Jake. Was I expecting to adopt a baby so early in our relationship?—of course not. But he’s nearly here and I’m sure we can cope. I can support you both, if that’s giving you any doubts. I’m 100 percent behind you. I love you, and if you want this baby, then I say let’s do it. Naturally you’ll need to be the main caretaker, but if you show me how, I can help. I’m sure I will be an excellent bottle-giverer and pram-rockerer.”