Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Twenty-Three Years Ago
Helen realised too late that she shouldn’t have done it. She shouldn’t have gotten the test to determine who Julie’s real parents were because she hadn’t believed it would work out this way. She honestly hadn’t. She’d thought it would put her mind at ease, not tear her entire world apart.
She sat on the bed, a pillow squeezed to her chest, and cried. She cried until the pillow was soaked, and there were no more tears left to cry. What to do now?
The letter from the IVF facility lay on the comforter beside her.
We’re sorry to inform you…
Her child was in Australia. How was that possible? The other side of the world. A little girl. The parents who were raising her had called her Matilda. They’d been informed of the mishap as well and were currently no doubt processing the information just as she was. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for them yet hating them a little at the same time. They were raising her child. They’d been raising her child for two long years. And she’d been raising theirs.
As soon as she thought of Julie, she leapt to her feet and tip-toed across the hallway to Julie’s bedroom. The toddler was asleep with her arms and legs flung out like a star, covers strewn across the end of the bed and pooled on the floor. As usual. She often wondered how such a small creature could wreak such havoc on her bed each night. But laying there, she looked like an angel, with her long brown hair in braids on either side of her head, and her big eyes finally shut for the night after a long day of relentless questions.
Why do I brush my teeth?
Why is the toothpaste so bitey?
Do you use toothpaste?
If the sky is so big, why are stars so small?
How do you know the stars are big?
And on and on. She was a precocious two-year-old with an extraordinary vocabulary. And the moment she was able to form sentences, the questions started and didn’t stop until her eyes were shut.
Helen stared down at her, more tears forming and blurring her vision. Her throat ached and she wanted to groan, but didn’t dare in case she woke the baby. The last thing she needed was for Julie to see her sobbing her eyes out, she’d want to know why and then what could Helen say to comfort her?
She couldn’t tell anyone this. Definitely not Julie. And not her family either. It would change the way they all thought about her. She wanted so badly to have her child back, to be able to raise her and love her the way she’d always dreamed. But that would mean giving Julie to strangers on the other side of the world and never seeing her again. She couldn’t do that. Couldn’t give up her baby.
It was a no-win situation. There was no good solution. If they did switch toddlers, it would traumatise both children for life. Perhaps the other couple were good parents. Perhaps Matilda was happy. She hoped so. If she could find out what they were like, reassure herself that Matilda was in good hands, maybe she could let it go. Maybe she and Julie could go back to their lives and pretend none of this had happened, that it was all a bad dream. But she knew deep down that wasn’t possible. Her life was changed forever. It would never be the same.
After she’d watched Julie sleep for what seemed like hours, she padded to the office and sat down at the computer. The couple in Australia had allowed the IVF clinic to share their phone number with her. She picked up the phone and dialled.