Keeping Sam (3 page)

‘Which was exactly why,’ Barbara continued, once again addressing Elizabeth, ‘it seemed appropriate for David and I to look after the boy when his mother was no longer able to.’

‘I see.’ Elizabeth paused, then wrote something in her notebook. She glanced up and looked directly at Kate. There was something in her expression Kate didn’t like at all. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it was pity.

‘Mrs Steiner,’ Elizabeth said, ‘perhaps you would like to explain to your daughter the steps you took to safeguard Sam’s future.’ Her tone was wary, guarded. Kate looked at her mother in surprise.

‘What steps?’ A small hand touched her leg, and she glanced down and saw her son trying to climb onto her lap. She reached for him and he came readily, fitting into her arms, still holding two of his bricks in chubby fingers.

‘Blue,’ he said. Kate smiled and kissed his head.

‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘Blue. Very good.’

Barbara was watching them, her expression unreadable. Kate could sense that the atmosphere between them was beginning to make even Elizabeth uncomfortable, although Kate imagined the woman had been in far worse situations than this. She smiled to herself grimly. Welcome to a Steiner family reunion. We all love each other here.

Taking strength from her son’s tacit approval, Kate decided to do her best to see things from her mother’s point of view. She had done well by Sam; she only had his best interests at heart. There was a long way to go, there were still many questions to answer, but today was not the day to air old grievances.

‘What steps have you taken, Mum?’ Kate asked again, but this time she smiled warmly, hugging Sam to her chest.

Her mother registered the tiniest sign of discomfort. She smoothed her hands down the sides of her immaculately cut skirt, and crossed her trim ankles neatly.

‘As I said earlier, we – your father and I – were under the impression you very likely would not wake up from the coma, or indeed recover from the injuries you sustained. Therefore, we decided after having Sam with us for six months that we would make it official.’

‘Official?’ Kate held Sam tight against her body. He fitted the bricks together, then unclamped them. Together, apart. He giggled, then held them up to show to Kate. She kissed his cheek, never taking her eyes from her mother’s face.

‘Official, yes. So that he would be protected.’ As Barbara spoke, she finally met Kate’s gaze. Her eyes were cold, her expression unflinching.

Kate felt a chill settle over her, prickling her scalp, raising goose bumps on her arms. The warmth from Sam’s little body did nothing to counter it. He began to wriggle, good-naturedly pushing himself out of her arms before toddling away with a wide-legged gait to the toy box across the room. Kate sat on the cold tiles and stared up at the two women who looked down at her, one full of sympathy, the other a study in antipathy. Her leg had gone to sleep, and now she was unable to reach her crutch or find the strength to push herself up from the floor.

Elizabeth spoke softly. ‘Your parents applied for Special Guardianship, Kate. The court awarded it three months ago. They have parental responsibility for Sam now, too. I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. I thought–’ she paused and glanced at Barbara, whose expression was still carved from stone. ‘I thought it might have been better for your mother to explain it. It seems I was quite wrong.’

‘But who,’ said Kate, her voice rasping in her throat, ‘who did you need to protect him from?’

Yet even as she said the words, she knew. Her mother’s letter, the oblique references to Kate’s lifestyle and background, the tone of judgment, as though Kate herself were responsible for the attack, the coma, everything. She knew. Her parents were trying to protect Sam from his own mother.

And if that were the case, there must be a reason.

Just how much else had her amnesia made her forget?

***

They sat on the promenade, on a concrete bench, with seagulls shouting and squawking around them. The sound of children playing in the breakers on the shoreline was almost too much for Kate to bear. And yet at the same time it was comforting. Elizabeth sat silently by her side, thumbing through her phone, occasionally tapping out a message, or writing something in her notepad. The sun was relentless; it was an all-or-nothing kind of summer this year. Kate had been protected in hospital, only going outside into the atrium once a day for fresh air. Here, exposed to the sea air and the brash August climate in Corrin Cove, Kate felt more vulnerable than ever.

‘They found drugs in your flat,’ Elizabeth said with a sigh. ‘It was in the police report. To be honest, I thought you knew. After you’d gone in the ambulance, the police dusted for prints, tried to work out if anything had been taken, the usual stuff. They found evidence of drug use, and a large quantity of cannabis. Plenty of people take recreational drugs, Kate. But I guess your parents … Well, they’re obviously kind of judgmental.’

Kate shook her head, incredulous. ‘But – I don’t take drugs. I mean, I did, once. A long time ago. It was Evan, Sam’s dad.
He
lived that kind of lifestyle, not me, although I guess I did get drawn into it at one time. I’m not making excuses but … I hadn’t taken anything for months before I got pregnant with Sam, Elizabeth, and certainly not after! For goodness sake, what do you take me for?’

Elizabeth shrugged. ‘It’s no skin off my nose what you did. Like I said, I’m just here to make sure Sam’s okay.’

‘So you think I was a bad parent too, is that it? That’s clearly what my mother thinks, and that’s why she’s done this. It all makes sense now, doesn’t it?’

The relentless questions of the policewoman who visited her in hospital, who, now Kate came to think about it, had always had a noticeable edge of suspicion and disapproval in her face. Daniel’s reluctance to share information with her; the vagueness of the doctors and the rest of the staff; her mother’s letter – the coldness in her eyes. They all thought she was a druggie. It was completely, entirely crazy.

‘And what, they think that was what the attack was about? A drug deal gone wrong?’

Elizabeth looked out towards the horizon. Her sunglasses were no longer holding back her hair, and Kate couldn’t see her eyes. ‘Something like that.’

‘They basically think I brought this on myself?’

‘I can’t tell you what the police think, Kate. And I probably shouldn’t be discussing with you what was in the report they released to us. But they didn’t press charges, so they can’t have thought your involvement overtly criminal.’

‘My involvement? I was hit over the head and knocked unconscious! I was unconscious for nearly ten months. How could they have pressed charges when I was in a coma?’

Elizabeth gave a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a laugh. ‘My dear, I’ve seen cases where the police have arrested someone within minutes of them coming round after a car crash where the rest of their family died. You don’t know the half of it.’

Kate decided she didn’t want to. She clasped her hands together and turned to face Elizabeth, blinking against a sudden burst of sea air that brought the taste of sand to her lips.

‘Listen. I don’t care what they think. I know the truth, and I’m telling you now that I never touched drugs, or even took one single alcoholic drink, all the time I was caring for Sam. My father is an alcoholic, did you know that? He’s a hypocrite, and she protects him – neither one of them is fit to look after my son, I don’t care what your special order says. But I’m here on my own now, I have no one, no family, no friends, just a boy who doesn’t even know who I am. If I’m going to get through this I need to know that at least one person believes the truth. Do you think you could be that person?’

Elizabeth reached up and took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were green in the slanted light, and measuring. She regarded Kate for a second or two, then she replaced the glasses and looked back out to sea. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I believe you. No problem.’

Chapter 4

Barbara Steiner took a glass jar down from the top shelf and removed two tea bags from it. These she flung into the waiting cups, tapping her nails on the shiny worktop while the kettle boiled ferociously. Her husband stood three feet behind her. She could sense him although he’d yet to speak.

The argument had started, like they so often seemed to these days, during breakfast. She knew it was partly her fault – waiting until this morning to tell him about their daughter’s visit had been unfair. He had reacted exactly as she’d predicted, proving she’d been right not to tell him any earlier.

‘I should have been here,’ he had thundered, throwing his paper down onto the polished table as he pushed himself to his feet. ‘I can’t believe you arranged it all behind my back.’

‘It wasn’t intentional,’ Barbara had countered. ‘She came with that social worker – I didn’t have much say over the date. And you always play golf on Fridays. I didn’t think you’d want your routine to be disrupted.’

He stood behind her now, but Barbara didn’t turn around. Let him be the first one to speak. It had been a long time since he’d lost his temper like that. So long she’d almost forgotten. The kettle clicked off. She poured water into the cups, then stood and watched the teabags steeping, not wanting to cross the kitchen to get the milk, not wanting to move past her husband.

‘You know, I hardly recognised her yesterday,’ Barbara said. ‘I thought about the girl we raised, that sweet little girl, and then I thought about the last time we saw her, lying in hospital, dead to the world.’

‘I want to see her.’ David was standing closer now; she could feel his breath on her neck. ‘There are things I need to say.’

Barbara closed her eyes. ‘You realise that she wants to take Samuel away from us, don’t you? That’s what she’s here for, David. That’s all she’s here for. She hasn’t come to make things right, to say sorry for all the lies she told about you the day she left home. There were no signs of remorse, or regret, or sadness. Not for us, anyway.’

She turned to him. His skin was mottled red, with white patches around his mouth. Anger. Or something else. She hoped it was anger.

‘You do remember, don’t you?’ she pressed. ‘You remember the lies she told? How much she hurt you? Hurt us?’

‘Stop it. I don’t want to rake over old ground anymore. The next time Kate visits, I want to be here. Understand?’ He picked up his cup and poured the contents into the sink. Then he grabbed his keys from the counter and headed for the door.

‘David – wait.’ She half ran after him, catching his sleeve as he pulled on his jacket. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Out.’

‘She won’t want to see you. She hates you.’

Her hand flew up to her mouth involuntarily, and she took a step away from him. But David only regarded her sadly.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, ‘but it won’t work.’

She squared her shoulders. ‘What am I thinking?’

‘Barbara, you brought the boy here, it was your decision and I supported you in it. But now our daughter is well again and she is here, on our own doorstep, and you can’t ... I won’t … You should give Sam back to her. Like you said, he’s her son.’

‘Give him back? Are you mad?’ Barbara paled. She steadied herself against a console table. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that we were only ever looking after him until she got better, and now she’s better.’

‘He’s not a toy we borrowed, David! He’s a little boy.’ Her voice was edging close to hysteria; her husband stopped her with a frown, but then he swallowed and looked away. She noticed his eyes, the pinkness around them. Wavery, not quite focused. She should stop him driving, but she knew from experience it would only lead to another row. She didn’t have the energy for another row.

Barbara glared at her husband’s departing back with something close to hatred. Give Samuel back to Kate? How could he even suggest such a thing? She closed the door softly behind him, then held her hands over her eyes to cool them. No matter what happened, whatever her daughter said or did – whatever David said or did – no one would take Samuel away from her. She simply could not let that happen.

***

The woman was twenty minutes late. It simply wasn’t good enough, not when the appointment had been arranged for a specific time, and Barbara had had to arrange for a babysitter for Samuel. It was hot and sticky in the waiting room, but Barbara had worn her lightest linen shift dress, and had twisted her hair into a French pleat so it didn’t lie heavily on her neck. She tapped her fingers on the arm of the wooden chair. Was it so very difficult to keep to an appointment system? She supposed solicitors were very busy and important and constantly in demand, dealing as they must with all sorts of undesirables.

Her last visit had been no different. This was where she had sought advice six months ago, found out about the Special Guardianship Order. At least then they’d offered her a cup of tea. Today, nothing. She glanced at the collection of dog-eared magazines again. Pseudo celebrity gossip and “real life” stories to make your toes curl. No, thank you very much.

Finally her name was called and she walked through the double doors into Bridget Cohen’s office. This was more like it – wooden panelling, certificates on the walls, a nice view of the bay. The prosperity of her legal counsel calmed her: she was in safe hands now.

‘Mrs Steiner. How nice to see you again.’

Barbara sat down and shook her solicitor’s hand.

Bridget flicked through a manila file on her desk, then pulled out a sheet of paper and gave it a cursory glance. ‘Here we are. Samuel Steiner. And how is Samuel doing?’

Barbara hadn’t come all this way to indulge in small talk. ‘As I said on the phone, my daughter, Samuel’s mother, has … Well, she has recovered from her accident and appears to be quite fit and well, and now she wants to take her son back.’ Barbara paused and smoothed her palms along the length of her thighs. ‘I told her that we have an order from the court to look after the boy, so she can’t simply take him away. That is correct, is it not?’

The solicitor regarded Barbara steadily. ‘May I ask you a question, Mrs Steiner?’