Claiming Noah (40 page)

Catriona stared at him until he opened his eyes and lifted his chin from his hands. ‘Thank you for telling me,' she said quietly as she stood up. She had taken a few steps towards the door when James called out to her.

She turned around. ‘Yes?'

‘Just be careful around Spencer, okay? He's not the guy you think he is.'

Catriona had already formed the same impression.

•  •  •

As she drove home thinking about Noah and Sebastian, Catriona found herself heading in a direction she hadn't intended. She pulled into the car park of Waverley Cemetery and, for the second time in as many weeks, walked to the site where her son's ashes were buried. The day was humid and Catriona sweltered under the tight fabric of her dress. Her heels sank into the grass as she walked and she realised how inappropriately dressed she would look to anyone who saw her.

As she neared Sebastian's plaque, Catriona noticed a woman and a small child standing in front of the garden she was walking towards. With the glare from the sun glinting off the white headstones into her eyes it was difficult to see much besides the outline of the pair. The child was holding the woman's hand and staring towards the ocean. The woman was holding a potted plant in her other hand and appeared to be looking down towards the memorial plaques that ringed the garden. Catriona hesitated, not wanting to walk closer and disturb the pair in a moment of grief, but the woman noticed her standing there and returned her stare. Catriona drew closer until the sun was blocked from her view by the dense foliage of a tall pine tree – and then the woman's face came into focus. It was Diana Simmons. Her hair was shorter than it had been during the custody hearing. Catriona remembered long brown hair, tied back in a ponytail, but now Diana's hair only just reached her shoulders. It was definitely her, though, because the child whose hand she was holding was Noah.

Catriona paused mid-stride, too stunned to either turn around or keep walking. She felt her knees shake and willed them to hold her weight. Diana was watching her, and even from this distance Catriona could tell that she was as shocked by Catriona's presence as Catriona was by hers. Without knowing what else to do she forced herself to walk forwards, her attempt at confidence thwarted by her shaking legs and sinking heels.

‘Hello,' she said to Diana as she reached the pair, hearing the tremor in her voice. ‘How are you?'

At the sound of Catriona's voice, Noah's head turned towards her. A smile of recognition spread across his face and warmed her heart. In spite of how unnerved she was from the shock of seeing them both, Catriona couldn't help but return Noah's smile. She noticed his face had matured over the past nine months; his cheeks had lost some of their plumpness and his cheekbones were more defined. His hair had lengthened and thickened as well; he now had a mass of dark brown curls, one of which draped becomingly over his forehead.

‘Hi buddy,' Catriona said to Noah. ‘I've missed that smile.' She looked back to Diana, only now wondering why they were here. ‘Have you lost someone too?'

‘My father,' Diana said, looking down at the plaque in front of her. ‘He passed away five years ago.'

Catriona looked down the row of plaques and recognised the spot where Sebastian's ashes were buried, only a couple of metres away. She couldn't get used to seeing his name in a cemetery. The glass vase sat where Catriona had left it filled with sunflowers nearly two weeks ago, but it was empty now. The sunflowers would have long since perished from the heat and must have been removed from the vase by a groundskeeper.

‘Is your son here too?' Diana asked, her voice soft.

Catriona nodded and pointed out the plaque. ‘Yes, Sebastian.'

Diana's gaze followed the direction of Catriona's finger. ‘I heard at your husband's hearing how your son passed away. I'm so sorry, I can't even imagine how you must have felt when you found out about it.'

Even though Diana's cheeks were already pink from the heat of the day, Catriona thought she saw a deeper flush spread across her face. Diana held out the potted plant. ‘Here, why don't you give this to Sebastian?'

‘No,' Catriona said, not meaning for it to come out as vehemently as it did. ‘I mean, thank you, but I can't. It's for your father.'

Diana smiled at her and Catriona marvelled at how much compassion she had, especially when it was directed towards the wife of the man who had kidnapped her son. If their situations had been reversed, Catriona wasn't sure that she would have been able to treat Diana the same way.

‘Please take it,' Diana said. ‘Dad was a terrible gardener anyway, a real black thumb.'

Catriona took the plant from her. It was a miniature daisy in a small terracotta pot. She smiled, pained but touched. ‘That's really nice of you, thanks.'

She kneeled down and placed the plant next to the stone marker holding up Sebastian's plaque, pausing for a moment to pull out a stray weed that had escaped the notice of the gardeners. As she straightened up and wiped the dirt from the pot off her hands, she noticed that Noah was watching her. Catriona reached out to brush back the curl that had fallen in front of his eyes, but as her hand neared his face she realised he wasn't hers to touch any more. She drew her hand back and crossed her arms across her chest instead.

‘He's grown a lot,' she said to Diana and winced to herself when she realised she had spoken about him as if he were a child she had met only once or twice.

‘He grows more every day, I'm sure of it.' Diana squinted against the bright sun. ‘Do you want to hold him? You don't have to, of course . . . I just thought, you know, you might want to.'

Catriona hesitated, unsure of how Noah would react to her after the amount of time they had spent apart, and whether she would be able to control her emotions being that close to him again. But she nodded, kneeled down in front of Noah and held out her arms. He let go of Diana's hand and walked into Catriona's outstretched arms with none of the hesitation she had felt. She picked him up and straightened to a standing position. His small arms curled around the back of her neck and he rested his head on her shoulder, his legs wrapped around her waist. She remembered that pose well; it was the way he had hung on to her every night when she carried him up the stairs to bed.

Catriona closed her eyes and breathed deeply as she rubbed the length of Noah's back with her free hand. He still had the same aroma of soap and sweat that she remembered. His back felt hot through his T-shirt, and his breath was warm and damp against her neck.

When she opened her eyes Diana was watching her, with more than a hint of pity showing on her face.

‘He remembers me,' Catriona said. ‘I wasn't sure that he would.'

The pity disappeared and was replaced by a genuine smile. ‘Of course he does, you're very important to him.'

‘Well, he is to me, too,' Catriona said, adjusting Noah in her arms. He was a lot heavier than he had been when she last held him.

The two women stood in silence for a few minutes, with Diana staring out towards the ocean and Catriona holding Noah. When he started to squirm Diana held out her arms and Catriona reluctantly handed him to her.

‘Well, we should be off now,' Diana said once Noah was balanced on her hip. She glanced at Sebastian's plaque before looking back to Catriona. ‘Do you think we could . . . well . . . catch up occasionally? I'd like for you to be able to see Noah, and for him to see you. And I'd like for us to be friends, if that's not too weird.'

Catriona was silent for a moment, stunned into muteness at the prospect of seeing Noah regularly, but Diana obviously mistook her silence as indignation.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, reaching for Catriona's arm. ‘Forget I mentioned it—'

‘I'd love to.'

Diana smiled and, as Catriona looked from her to Noah, she was struck by how similar they looked, with the same dark hair and dark eyes. Had she not known the truth, Catriona would never have guessed that Diana wasn't Noah's biological mother.

‘Why don't you come over for dinner some time next week?' Diana said. ‘I'll call you to arrange a date, I still have your number.'

‘Are you sure your husband won't mind?' Catriona asked, feeling suddenly wary at the thought of coming face-to-face with Liam Simmons. She knew it was unlikely that he would be as kind to her as his wife.

Diana looked uncomfortable, and Catriona regretted her question.

‘We're not together any more,' Diana said. ‘We decided to separate.' Then a look of horror passed over her face. ‘Oh, please don't think that we planned it that way, to help us with the custody case. I promise you we didn't.'

Catriona hoped she was telling the truth, but she knew it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. The judge was always going to award custody to Noah's legal parents. She stroked Noah's cheek and smiled at him. ‘I'll see you soon. You be good for your mum.'

Catriona froze, shocked not only that she had uttered those words, but also that she meant them. Diana's face displayed a mirror image of shock, and neither woman spoke as the words hung in the air between them, as visible as the headstones in the cemetery.

Catriona was the first to recover. ‘He was always yours,' she said to Diana, knowing as she spoke the words that they were true. And she knew that she was okay with that.

Diana smiled and Catriona saw tears forming in her eyes. ‘Thank you,' Diana said as she turned to leave.

Catriona watched as they walked away from her, Diana with her back to Catriona, and Noah smiling and waving at her over Diana's shoulder. He continued to wave until they were just small figures in the distance, silhouetted by the sun.

•  •  •

Catriona arrived home from the cemetery and set her bag and keys on the table in the hallway. She heard cricket playing on the television, and when she walked into the living room Spencer was sitting on the couch reading the weekend newspaper, his bare feet casually resting on the coffee table. When he noticed her standing in the doorway he took his feet off the table and folded up the newspaper.

‘What's wrong?' he asked.

Catriona wished she could tell Spencer about the day she'd had, how she had gone to visit Sebastian and the surprise she had felt when she encountered Diana and Noah. She wanted to tell him how Noah had remembered her, and hugged her, and how she was going to see him again next week. But she knew she couldn't tell Spencer any of that. She knew she would never be able to trust him again. The more she thought about the lies he had told her, the more manipulated she felt by him. He had manoeuvred himself into her life in a way that made it seem as if he were doing her a favour, and now she wasn't sure that she wanted him in it anymore.

Instead of answering Spencer's question, Catriona walked over and sat next to him on the couch. She pressed mute on the remote control to silence the television. ‘I went to see James today,' she said.

‘Oh.' Spencer's gaze left her face and moved to a spot on the floor. ‘Look, I'm sorry I told him we were seeing each other. I know you said not to tell him, but I just thought—'

‘I told him that I missed him.'

Spencer's gaze moved back to her face and she saw that she had shocked him.

‘And is that true?' he asked quietly.

Catriona felt a flutter of indecision, but she forced herself to hold her resolve. ‘Yes.'

‘What else did you two talk about?' he asked. He sounded wary and she could tell he was worried that James had told her the truth about Noah.

‘Everything,' she said, as there was so much weight in that word that she didn't need to say any more.

Spencer ran a hand across his head and stared at the television, which was still on mute. Catriona watched him, waiting for him to speak. She had never seen him angry before. It both alarmed and intrigued her.

‘So, you're just going to take his side then?' he said, his tone bitter.

She looked over to the photo frames sitting on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. She hadn't removed the photo of her, James and Sebastian that had been taken by her parents at the hospital just after Sebastian was born. She couldn't bring herself to hide that photo in a box when it reminded her of a memory that was so precious. Her right hand absently drifted to her stomach until she noticed Spencer watching her and then she clasped her hands together in her lap instead.

‘I think we've been trying to convince ourselves that this relationship is something other than what it is,' Catriona said, moving her gaze back to Spencer. ‘We both needed someone to care about us, and we mistook compassion and companionship for something else. I tried to pretend you were someone other than who you are, and you did the same with me.'

‘Well, no, that's not—'

‘I know I was the one who instigated us getting together and I'm sorry for that. You were right when you said I was trying to get back at James by being with you.'

Spencer's eyes widened and then he laughed, a quiet, cruel laugh that sent a chill through her. ‘Wow, it's all coming out, isn't it? Well, while we're being truthful, I can tell you that you're right about one thing. I've been trying to convince myself that this relationship is for me. Not just this relationship, this whole life. All of this.' He flung out an arm to indicate the living room. ‘I've been trying to convince myself that I deserve to live like this, in a nice house, with nice things and a beautiful woman, but it doesn't fit me properly. It's like a shirt that's a size too small.'

Despite her uneasiness Catriona smiled to herself at the analogy, but Spencer wasn't finished.

‘It could have been my life, if James had taken the blame for Mr Burgden instead of me. I could have finished school, and got a degree, and lived a respectable life. I could have owned a living room where everything is colour-coordinated and the rug cost as much as a holiday.'