Second Mother
The papers youre trying to slip me, Ive seen already, Mrs. Patterson. You wont catch me out a second time.
She didnt even blink. There she stood, right in the doorway of my own kitchen, dressed in that classic beige coat with the faux pearl buttons, clutching her handbag over her arm as if she were about to stroll into a garden party instead of trampling through someone elses life. The air smelled of expensive perfumethe same bottle Simon had brought her back from London for her birthday. She kissed him all over for thatthen told him he clearly had taste, which is more than I can say for some.
Ellie, youve entirely misunderstood, she said in that voice of hers I could read like a pamphletsoft on the surface, granite underneath. Really, I want whats best for you. Only that.
I put my tea down on the table. I wasnt trembling, which was quite novel for me; a year ago, just a flicker of her eyes wouldve sent my toes curling.
Youve wished so much good on me already, I spent a year clawing out of depression. I think thats probably enough.
She narrowed her eyesa look always followed by something distinctly unpleasant. Seven years of knowing her had left me well rehearsed.
I know youre tired. All those treatments, the endless doctors, trotting in and out of clinics. Thats why Im here: to help. Just a simple form, reallyto relocate
To relocate what exactly?
Oh, just some paperwork. Financial bits. So youre protected, you know, if anything were to happen.
I stared at her hands, covered in fine rings, at the folder she cradled like a sad bouquet.
Hand it over, I said.
For the first time in her life, she hesitated. Only for a moment, but it was there.
But she handed me the folder all the same. I leafed through it right there at the table, not even bothering to sit down. First page. Second. Then the third stopped me shortI read it twice, not believing my eyes.
It was a divorce application. Ready-made, nicely formatted, my name and just a blank for my signature.
Suddenly the kitchen fell into such silence I could hear a car pass on the street and a child somewhere wailing in the distance.
You I honestly couldnt find my words. Youve come round to get me to sign my own divorce. Is that what counts as your well wishes?
Ellie, you simply arent seeing it. Simon needs a familya real one. Children. You cant give him that, not after all these years, all the money, the hopes. Nothing. Youre making yourselfand himmiserable. Let him go. Itd be the honourable thing.
I closed the folder and set it gently on the table, though inside I was burning.
Leave my house, I said.
Ellie
Please. Go now.
She left. And I was alone with that folder, her perfume lingering in the air, feeling like Id just backed away from the edge of a cliff in the nick of time.
I was thirty. Simon thirty-two. Wed been married five years, trying for a child the last four. From the outside, I suppose people muttered vaguely about bad lucknot knowing what it actually means. Month after month of hope, crash, repeat. Tests, procedures, jabbing needles into my stomach every morning. No cryingstress is bad. No losing your temperstress is bad. Only calm thoughts allowedonly optimism, please.
I was doing my best to stay positive. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law was making rounds, telling anyone bored enough to listen that her daughter-in-law was not quite right in the head and really let herself go. Word gets around in a small English town. It always does.
Simon was away on business againas usual. Construction firm, so he travelled round all over the county. I didnt complain. He phoned every night, wed talk for ages, but I could hear weariness in his voice and kept the bad stuff to myself. For his sakeor mine. Hard to say.
The night Mrs. Patterson left, I sat by the window for ages, watching an entirely average November go by outside: bare trees, glistening pavements, people trudging with carrier bags. A woman led a little girl in a scarlet coat by the handthe girl leapt puddles, laughing. The woman didnt scold, just gripped her hand tighter.
I watched and thought: thats all I really want. Nothing fancy. Just a child giggling over a puddle. Just a hand to hold.
I didnt mention any of it to Simon. No need to worry him when he was a county away. Just told him I missed him. He said hed be back in a week and added that he loved mewhich I believed. I always did.
Then came that particular weekthe one where everything tipped sideways.
On Wednesday, my school friend Polly Simmons rangher voice tiptoed with caution, as if she were carrying something easily dropped.
Ells, have you heard what theyre saying about you?
No What now?
At the surgery. And at the salon on Church Lane. Theyre sayinglook, its sillybut theyre saying youve got someone else. Another man.
I was silent for about three secondsjust long enough to puzzle out where this rumour had come from. Didnt take much detective work.
Whos spreading it, Polly?
She hesitated. Well, they say it was Mrs. Patterson, told Sheila at Bridge Club Ellie, you know I dont believe a word. You ought to know. Thats all.
Yes, thanks. I should.
No tears. I just sat on the sofa, silent, trying to work out what horrible thing Id really done to deserve this. Never was rude, never argued, never even called her by her first name. Ever. Always Mrs. Patterson, those seven years. Even in my thoughts.
Did she resent me just for being Simons wife? Or did it gnaw at her that I couldnt give her grandkids? Or maybe I was just too ordinary for her? Her Simon the up-and-coming project manager, while I was an infant school teacher by the roundabout. Perhaps that was it.
I never really found an answer. Not then, not later either.
On Friday I went to my usual check-up at Hopefield Clinic. Dr. Sally Neville and I were practically family by that point, after so much time battling together. Kind, quietly sharp woman. When one IVF round after another flopped, she always explained patiently, checked again, hunted for answers. There were nonemystery infertility, they called it. Both of us in the clear. Which is what doctors say when theyve run out of ideas: carry on trying.
I flicked through a magazine in the waiting area, not reading a word. Next to me, a beaming woman with a neat baby bumppractically glowing. I didnt envy her. That was important, reallyI didnt. I just quietly longed for the same.
That was when I heard Simons voice.
I turnedand nearly did a double take. There he was, chatting to the young receptionist. Alive, real, a duffle bag slung over his shoulder, in that steel-grey jacket I bought him two years ago.
Simon?
He spun, momentarily surprised, then beamed and hugged meand I buried my nose in his jacket, catching the scent of travel, exhaustion, and something deeply familiar.
You werent due for three days, I mumbled.
Got away early. Thought Id surprise you. When I popped home and you werent there, I guessed where youd be.
He took my hand, squeezed it. We found seats together while I waited my turn. In the endI couldnt keep it in. I told him everything: about the divorce papers, the rumours, all the pretending I couldnt keep up.
He sat silentlistening, stone-faced. His jaw worked, a sure sign he was keeping something bottled up.
Why didnt you tell me right away?
I didnt want to worry you
Ellie.
You were away, already tired, I
Ellie, he said, and I recognised in his tone that he wasnt angryjust deeply, deeply sad. Im your husband. Thats the first thing. Second: we really need to talk about Mum properly. I know shes not always you know.
She hates me, Simon.
He didnt answer. Which told me a lot.
Then Dr. Neville called me in. Simon went with me. Thats when things took an even sharper, stranger turn.
She seemed tenseflicking through my file, peering at the screen, then back at us.
Ellie, I need to ask something. In between our IVF cycles, did you take any medication? Not prescribed by me?
I was puzzled.
No. Never. I followed the instructions to the letter.
She nodded, slowly. About two years ago, someone approached our clinic. Suggested we, well, tweak your test results. Not by much, just enough. For a fee.
The room fell very still.
I refused, she went on. But at the other clinicwhere you did your first two attemptsIve since learned nothing was refused there. A colleague of mine worked there and, wellher conscience caught up with her.
Simon stood up, tense. Who came to you? Who?
I genuinely dont know. It was a womanmiddle-aged, confident. No name, just a mysterious phone call.
Simon exhaled, slow and deliberate. I stared out at the little courtyard with its solitary bench and skeletal autumn birch, feeling this was something from another planet. Who in their right mind A mother? Real, actual mothers didnt do thisdid they?
But deep down, in the quietest corner of myself, I knew. Id known all along. Just refused to let the thought in.
We need to talk, Simon said.
We got in the car. He stared through the windscreen for the longest time, the rain worming down the glass.
Simon
Justgive me a minute.
We waited as the rain drummed.
Its her, he said at lastnot a question, a statement.
Im not certain
But I am. Because Im an idiot. She kept on about her contacts in the hospitals and how much they cared about us. I thought it was just her being her. But
He stopped.
God, Ellie. Four years.
I didnt cry. Id learnt how not to cry when it mattered most. I just took his hand. Palm against palm.
What now? I asked.
He met my eyestired, reddened from a weeks poor sleep.
Do you believe me? That I had no idea? he asked.
I looked at him for a long time, and at last said, I do. The truth.
We sat there, talking through options. The police? What, with a doctors tale unsupported by proof, a divorce form unsigned? Just my word against hers. Wed need evidence.
Then I remembered Pollys cottage out by the forest, a rambling, old two-bed in a forgotten village the other side of Winchester. She never bothered to sell itclaimed shed do it up for retirementand I still had the keys from a holiday two summers ago.
I think we need to go away, I said.
Where?
Somewhere she wont follow at once, where we can think. Because if we confront her directly, shell twist it round as she always does.
He nodded.
We drove home, packed in twenty minutesclothes for a few days, chargers, documents, his laptop, notebooks. If any nosy neighbours saw, so what? People go away with bags all the time.
I phoned Polly en route.
Pol, dont ask questionsjust tell me, are the cottage keys still working?
Of course. Are you all right, love?
Not entirely. Will explain later.
Go. Theres logs in the shed, gas and bedding in the cupboard. Mind the miceI imagine theyve set up shop in my absence.
Thank you.
Elliejust be careful, all right?
I didnt ask what she meant. I knew.
We drove through the night as the rain thickened. Simon said nothing, I stared out at the world morphing past in yellowed headlight. I was scared, not of the darkness, not of running, but of how a person can know their daughter-in-law is enduring years of injections, tears and disappointment and still pay someonemultiple someonesto keep her childless.
Toxic families. Id read the phrase in magazine agony columns, scoffed. Thought it belonged to strangers far away. Turned out it meant us.
The cottage was cold but in one piece, heavy with the scent of old wood and autumn moss. Simon got the fire going, I pulled out musty quilts from a wardrobe. We made endless tea in chipped mugs with silly sheep pictures and talkedreally talkedfor the first time in years.
Tell me everything, from the start, he said.
So I did: the sharp, pointy little hurts, all those suspicious phone calls on the wrong days. How at the first clinicthe Haventhe doctor was always somehow distracted, the cycles always snagged on technicalitiesmachine failure, delayed results, medication switched for something else. I thought it was bad luck. I didnt see it as sabotage.
Simon listened, eyes sometimes closed.
She always told me you werent disciplining yourself, whatever that meant. Eating rubbish, being nervous for no reason, and some doctor supposedly confided in heryou were the problem.
And you believed her?
He paused a long time.
I didnt believebut I didnt exactly not believe. I suppose I hoped itd just resolve itself. I waswhats the wordcowardly.
No. You just loved her. Its not the same.
He looked at me and my chest squeezed tight.
Next morning we started planning. Simply confronting her would never work. Shed flip the narrative so adroitly youd end up apologising. Id seen it countless times.
Wed need a recordingher own words.
Shell come, Simon said firmly. When she realises Im back early and weve disappeared, shell hunt us down. She always does.
How do you know?
She always needs to control things. Its who she is.
We rehearsed. He had a decent recording app on his phonetried it secretly in his shirt pocket. Decided Id do most of the talking, ask directly, let her incriminate herself.
We waited three days in that creaky cottage, the place smelling of smoke and wet wool. For once, we actually lived together: cooking, tramping about the misty woods, having proper conversations, no longer keeping up appearances. Somewhere in those days, we burned off old pretence and found ourselves againraw, older, but quietly together.
One evening, Simon hugged me from behind on the kitchen lino and said, Once this is over, lets move. Really move.
You mean it?
Theres a job up in Cornwall I got offered. Didnt take it because of Mum. Now Im rethinking.
I didnt answer. Just laid my hands over his.
She arrived on the fourth day, Sunday afternoon. We heard her car tyres crunch the gravel before shed even reached the gate. Simon quickly flicked his phone recorder on, slipped it in his pocket.
Ready? he asked.
Yes, I saidwhich, for once, was true.
She let herself in, as if she owned the place. Surveyed us both.
Simon. Her voice, honed steel. I didnt know youd be here.
You thought I was still on the road, I imagine.
Then she turned on me, that assessing, forensic gaze. Ellie, what have you filled his head with?
Only the truth, Mrs. Patterson.
What truth? You always imagine things. Doctors say its your nerves
Which doctors? I asked evenly. The ones you paid, so our IVF rounds always failed?
Just a beathalf a seconds pause. But I saw it.
Dont be ridiculous, she snapped, voice rising.
Am I? Haven Clinic employed a Dr. Morton two years ago. Ring a bell?
She didnt answer.
She told Dr. Neville. About the offer. And that she accepted. So, Mrs. Patterson, lets not go around the housesdid you do it?
Youre quite mad.
Mum, Simon saidin that tone full of everything unspokenyou know I can tell when you lie. Ive done it all my life. Answer her.
Something crumpled in hernot outwardly (she held herself as straight as ever) but inside. I felt it.
I did it for you, she saidbut the words were for Simon, not me. She was never the right woman, Simon. Just a plain teacher, no family, no background You deserved better. I poured everything into you
Mum
I only wanted you to figure it out for yourself. For it to fall apart quietly, no scandal, just common sense. No one got hurt
No one got hurt?
My voice was unrecognisable to me. Four years, Mrs. Patterson. Every month, hope dashed. Injections, blood tests, diet sheets, no coffee, no heavy bags. Believing it was all my fault. That I didnt deserve a baby. No one got hurt?
She met my gaze. For the first time in seven years, I saw something in her eyes beyond ice. Not quite sympathy, but something human.
You stole four years from me, I said. And you call it caring for your son.
Im his mother, she whispered, the fight gone.
And Im his wife, I replied.
Simon came to my sideshoulder to shoulder.
We recorded this, he said. Everything you just said. Not just hearsay now.
She stared at him, as if seeing him clearly for the first time.
Youll show this to the police? she askedalmost businesslike.
Yes.
Im your mother.
I know.
She hesitated, then left.
Wait I called after her, not knowing why.
She paused, but didnt turn.
Did you ever really love him? Or was he just yours to keep hold of?
No answer. The door closed.
Simon stood a moment, then ran a hand down his face, switched off the recording.
Ill call Mark, he saidhis old mate, now a detective. Hell know what to do.
All right.
I stood on the porch, breathing in the scent of pine and sodden leaves. Her car was gone. Just tyre patterns marking her brief existence here.
From then on, it was out of our hands. The police took the recording, took statements from Dr. Neville, and eventually from Dr. Morton at the first clinic. A tidy sum exchanged for sabotage, it turned out. But guilt, it seems, cant be fully bought off.
Mrs. Patterson was charged two weeks later. At her own home. I learned it from Mark, who rang Simon. He sat and stared at the phone for ages.
How are you feeling? I asked.
I dont know, he said honestly.
Thats fine. Not to know.
Shes my mum, Ellie.
I know, Simon.
He wandered the room, picked up a book, put it down.
You know the worst bit? he asked. That its not a surprise. Deep down, I always sensed she was capablenot this, exactly, but something like it. But I denied it, because whod believe their mother could You tell yourself youre making it up.
Thats how toxic relationships work, I said. Not with fireworks, but by grinding you down until you distrust your own eyes.
He looked up.
Did you always know?
No. I was just very, very tired, Simon. Sometimes exhaustion makes you wiser. Or just numb. I cant say which.
Three weeks later, we finally left. Never went back to the old flat. Simon packed up while I stayed with Polly. We handed the keys to the landlord and drove to Cornwall.
Autumn there was nothing like in Hampshire. Soft, golden, improbably bright. We rented a flat near the sea. Simon started his new job. I spent my days making soups, roaming fresh markets, nesting.
Dr. Neville put us in touch with a local specialistDr. Irene Williams. Kind, no-nonsense, and stubbornly hopeful, she told us: Everythings possible. Dont give up.
We started againno interference, no botched tests, nobody sabotaging us in the shadows.
Third time lucky, as they say.
In February I found out. Simon was home; I stood in the bathroom staring at two blue lines. I went out and handed him the test in silence.
He looked at it for ages, eyes gradually reddening.
Ellie he croaked.
Yes, I said.
He hugged me so tightly I could hardly breathe. I didnt mind.
Arthur was born in October. Seven pounds, chubby, solemn-eyed, hair as dark as treacle. The midwives joked wed given birth to a budding philosopher.
I criednot from pain, but because when they laid him on my chest, the weight of those four stolen years finally liftedjust a bit.
It never goes away entirely. Some things dont. But it stops feeling so heavy.
Simon held my hand, still does, like the day outside the clinic.
Arthur was three months old before we finally unwound over a cup of tea, candles flickering on the kitchen sill, Cornish rain whispering at the windows.
Simon, I said.
Mmm?
Do you think about her?
He knew I meant his mother.
Sometimes. Not as much, these days.
Me too. Sometimes I wonder how its even possible. Then I look at himI nodded towards the nurseryand think, well, we made it. Were here.
Are you angry with me? he asked quietlylike someone whos wanted to know a long time but didnt dare.
For what?
For not seeing it. Or not wanting to.
I thought about it properly, not just for the sake of an answer.
No, I said, finally. Im not angry. But there is somethingsmall, like a splinter. Not pain, exactly, but you know its there.
He accepted that, didnt protest.
Thats fair, he said.
I try to be honest. Im tired of pretending things are fine when theyre not.
Are things fine?
Almost. Arthurs healthy, youre here, we have a home. I wrapped my hands around my mug. Were not who we were beforemaybe thats good, maybe not. It just is.
He watched the flame. It flickered.
Remember Siskin Cottage, after she left, you stood on the porch?
I do.
I watched you, thinking: how is she carrying all of this? Four yearsall of it. And still standing.
I broke, I admitted. Just not in front of you.
I know. Im sorry.
We could both have done things differently, Simon. Lets not play the blame game now.
From the nursery a small noiseArthur murmured in his sleep. We both turned, held our breath.
Silence.
Hes asleep, Simon said.
He is.
We sat then, enjoying a rare good silencethe kind only possible with those you truly know, when nothing needs saying and you dont want to move.
Are you happy? he asked, suddenly.
I thought about itgenuinely.
Yes, I said. Just its a different flavour of happy than I expected. I thought happiness was when nothing hurts. Turns out, its when enough is good, though some bits still ache. And you still wish the day wouldnt end.
He smiled, slowlylike someone relearning the motion.
A good flavour, he said.
Yes, I agreed. With a hint of bitterness, but good all the same.The kitchen clock ticked on, unhurried. I glanced at Simon, who wore that soft, rumpled look of a man fully at home, and realized how far wed travelled, not just in miles, but in spirit. The past, with all its sharp edges and shadows, was still thereneither forgiven nor forgottenbut shrunk by the glow of the small boy sleeping just down the hall.
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the old sash window. Simon reached across the table, his fingertips brushing mine, a gentle reassurance.
Were all right, arent we? he said, almost a whisper.
We are, I murmured.
A log shifted in the stove, sending up a little flare of light. I thought of those long years lost, the years Mrs. Patterson had tried to shape to her will. If somewhere, she thought of usof Simon, of Arthur, of what shed doneI hoped she understood that control and love were never the same thing.
I stood, refilled my cup, and for once, didnt look back. The ache in me was part of the shape of my happiness, proof that Id lived and lost and found, through pain and persistence, a gentler strength.
When I looked at Arthurhis brow furrowed in sleep, one fist curled, dreaming untroubled dreamsI knew nothing would ever be simple or easy. But the quiet, imperfect joy of our little household was ours, irreplaceable. We had made something from the wreckage: a family stitched together with truth and forgiveness, stronger at the seams.
I sat again, Simons hand finding mine under the table.
Ready for tomorrow? he asked, nodding toward the futurejust an ordinary day, with all its little chores and challenges waiting in the morning.
Always, I said. And for the first time in years, I truly meant it.
