Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

The corner of the hospital canteen was quiet. Joanna had bought a fresh notepad and pen from the hospital shop to make sure she wrote everything down. Her head was such a fog these days that she didn't want to run the risk of forgetting anything.

True to form, Sally had a recommendation for a family solicitor by ten o'clock the next morning. Now she was sitting with Charlotte so that Joanna could focus on speaking to the solicitor. She wanted to make sure that she knew her rights. Maybe even start to get the process in motion.

In the circumstances, the solicitor had agreed to conduct their first meeting over FaceTime. Joanna hadn't known what to expect, but speaking to a woman who looked to be around her age helped to put her at her ease.

‘Hi, I'm Louise, one of the partners here. I've been given the details of your case. Firstly, I wanted to offer my condolences for your situation.'

Joanna swallowed. The only way she was going to get through this was to not think about Charlotte and just focus on the legal side of things. ‘Thank you.'

‘I know that you have some questions for me, so this will be a preliminary discussion to make you aware of the issues to consider and then we can talk about how you might like to go forward.'

Joanna already knew how she wanted to go forward. ‘If my daughter doesn't regain consciousness, I'd like to apply for custody of her child.'

Louise made a temple with her hands and rested her chin on the top. ‘Well, firstly, it's not called custody any longer. It would be a Child Arrangements Order and there are two types. Lives with and spends time with.'

Joanna was scribbling everything down as Louise spoke, so she had to reread the two phrases to grasp the difference between them. ‘So, if the baby's father is in prison, then the baby definitely won't be able to live with him. So can I have a—' she looked at her notes ‘—a child arrangement order so that the baby lives with me?'

Louise's smile was kind but professional. ‘Mrs Woodley. Joanna. We're getting ahead of ourselves here. Am I right in saying that your grandchild hasn't yet been born?'

‘Yes, they're…' she pushed the image of Charlotte from her mind and tried to concentrate, ‘they're waiting as long as they can to give them the best chance.'

Now it was Louise's turn to make a note of what she was saying. ‘I see. And the baby's father is on remand, awaiting trial?'

Joanna squeezed her pen so tight that she almost snapped it. ‘That's right.'

She could only imagine some of the things this solicitor had heard in her career, because she didn't look fazed by this information at all. ‘Right. Well, there's a lot of unknowns at the moment, but I can understand that you want to be ready for any eventuality. Why don't I put you through to my assistant so that she can make an appointment for you to come into the office?'

She couldn't wait that long to know what her chances were. ‘Please. I just need to know if there's something I can do now. Something that will prevent him from coming for my grandchild. I know he is legally her parent, but I can't risk him or his family taking her from me.'

Louise held her pencil at either end and leaned forwards towards the screen. ‘Is your daughter married to the baby's father?'

She couldn't bear the thought. ‘No, they just lived together.'

‘Then, actually, he doesn't have parental responsibility for your grandchild.'

That sounded more hopeful. ‘What do you mean?'

Louise sat back in her seat. Joanna could tell that she'd explained this more than a few times. ‘A mother automatically has parental responsibility for a child. But there are only three ways that a man can get it. Being married to the mother, which you've already said he isn't, being registered on the birth certificate or by court order.'

Joanna's heart lifted for the first time in days. This was so much better than she could've hoped for. ‘So he doesn't have any right to the baby?'

Louise shook her head. ‘No. He doesn't. In a case like this, if your daughter doesn't recover, social services will apply for an interim care order for the child.'

Social services? The warm flicker of hope she'd had was extinguished by a bucket of cold fear. ‘But it doesn't need to go into care. I'm here. I'll look after it.'

Louise's voice was kind. ‘It's just how it works. When the baby is born, the hospital will notify social services and the emergency team will take the baby into emergency foster care. They will apply for an emergency protection order and will then speak to family members and any associated persons who wish to apply for guardianship.'

Joanna's throat was so dry that she had to swallow before she could speak. ‘Associated persons? What does that mean?'

Louise held out her hands as if she was encompassing the whole world. ‘Anyone who is connected with the child who wants to look after it. For example, the father, grandparents, aunts or uncles, older siblings.'

This didn't make sense. ‘But if Freddie, the father, is found guilty, surely they won't let his mother have the baby?'

Louise's head tilt said otherwise. ‘If the paternal grandmother wants to apply for guardianship, she will have an opportunity to do so.'

This was terrible, terrible news. ‘And Freddie? The baby's father. What if he is found not guilty? Will he be able to have parental responsibility? Will they just give the baby to him?'

‘No. Not necessarily. Everything is decided in the best interests of the child.'

Anxiety fluttered in Joanna's chest. The best interests of Charlotte's child would be to stay with her, where he or she would be safe. ‘How will they decide what that is?'

‘We can talk about this in more detail when you come in. But assessments are completed on each person. The social worker and the team will run police checks, look at their financial position, everything that relates to the person's capacity to look after the child.'

Financial checks? Those calls from the bank about the mortgage. Would that count against her? ‘And all the while, the baby would be in a foster home? With complete strangers? How long does that take?'

Even one night would be too long, but she wasn't prepared for the response that came after a pause. ‘The reports must be completed within twenty-eight weeks.'

Joanna folded her arm tight against her stomach to stop the anxiety prickling there. Twenty-eight weeks? Seven months? The baby would be half a year old before she could bring her home? ‘But that's awful!'

‘I can understand how it looks that way, really I can. But it's all done in the best interests of the child. They need to be very sure that they are placing the baby in the best possible circumstances.'

Joanna needed time to get her head around all of this. Not for one moment had she considered that Charlotte's child would be taken into care. When she was here, waiting, wanting to love that baby.

Leaving her coffee to get cold, she made her way back to the ward. When she opened the door to Charlotte's room, Sally looked up from her crossword and over the top of her reading glasses. ‘How did you get on?'

Being back in the room with Charlotte, the weight of the solicitor's words weighed even heavier and she couldn't even articulate them. All she could do was shake her head at Sally as her eyes filled with bitter, fearful tears.

Sally laid down her newspaper and patted the chair beside her. ‘Come and sit down. What's the matter? What did she say?'

Using her notes, Joanna explained what the solicitor had said. With each new piece of information, Sally's eyes got wider, her mouth rounder. Once Joanna had finished, her anger was palpable. ‘That's madness! Why wouldn't they just let you raise the baby? You're Charlotte's mother.'

Second time through, Joanna could at least understand a little of what the solicitor had tried to tell her. ‘They don't know me from Adam, though, do they? I could be a terrible person. They can't just hand over a newborn baby.'

‘Well, I know that, but…social care? A foster family?'

The words were obviously as distasteful to Sally as they were to Joanna. It didn't matter how nice the people were, they weren't family. They wouldn't love the baby like she would.

She could only heap hope onto the fact that it wouldn't get to that. ‘We just need to get Charlotte better. She's going to recover, I know she is. She's going to be here to raise the child herself.'

Sally sagged in her seat. Her voice was gentle. ‘She's gone, Joanna. The doctor explained that.'

The doctor didn't know her daughter. She leaned forwards and placed a hand on Charlotte's arm. ‘All the while she's breathing, there is still a chance.'

Sally closed her eyes for a second as if gathering strength. ‘It's the machine that's breathing, love. Not Charlotte. You have to accept that.'

So much pain threatened to overwhelm Joanna, she had to hold it back. ‘No! I don't want to accept it. I can't accept it.'

Sally gave a little nod. It wasn't acquiescence, but it was a reprieve from talking about it now.

When Sally went to hunt them down a sandwich at lunchtime, Joanna took the opportunity to call the bank. Considering how desperate they'd seemed to talk to her in the last couple of weeks, it took a lot of waiting and pressing of buttons before she got to speak to a real human being. If social services were going to investigate her suitability as a carer for Charlotte's baby, she would need to make sure everything was perfect. And that meant she couldn't have this problem with the house and mortgage hanging over her head.

It took so long to actually speak to someone, that Sally was back in the room to hear the tail of her conversation. When she ended the call, she was looking at her with concern. ‘Is everything okay, Jo? What's going on?'

There was little point in hiding it. ‘That was the bank. They've been trying to call me about the mortgage on the house.'

Sally frowned. ‘But wasn't that paid off when Steve passed away? Surely the life insurance would've paid it off?'

Not for the first time, she kicked herself. ‘We had to remortgage a few years back. When Steve had those problems with the business. He managed to get us locked into a good rate, but we stopped the life insurance to save some money.'

The rate at which Sally's hand flew to her mouth in shock merely confirmed how stupid they'd been. ‘Oh, Jo. I had no idea. How have you been paying the mortgage?'

Financial worries had added a further layer to the most difficult year of her life. She hadn't told anybody – even Charlotte – how close to the wire things were getting. ‘I've been paying the mortgage from our savings. Which has been okay up until now. But we're – I'm – getting low on funds and the fixed rate on the mortgage ends soon. I'm not going to be able to afford it. I've been looking for a job, but I'm not qualified for anything.'

That wasn't entirely true. She'd been in such a bad place those first few months after Steve died. It had just been easier to use their savings, stick her head in the sand.

Sally passed her a mozzarella and basil panini. ‘What are you going to do now?'

That was another question to add to her list. ‘I've explained the situation and they've said that I can apply for a mortgage holiday. But I have to go and see them in that time so that we can come up with a solution.'

‘Are you going to have to sell the house?'

She could see from Sally's face that she knew what that would mean. Joanna had never intended to live in this area for the rest of her life. After university, she'd only come home to stay a few months, get some money together. But then she'd met Steve when they were working at the Orsett Hall as wait staff. He'd just graduated, too. Was doing the same as her: a part-time job while he'd looked for work. Then her mum had needed her. Then his dad had got sick. Then Charlotte had started school. And, somehow, they'd never actually moved away.

Buying that house had been the only thing that'd made it okay. She loved it from the minute they viewed it for the first time. The Georgian windows, the red front door, the picture-perfect front garden. It'd been outside their price range, but Steve – as always – had found a way to make it happen. Of course, she was still working then, too.

Now it wasn't only the house itself that she might have to give up, but the memories that lived within it. It was the place where Charlotte had brought friends home for sleepovers, where Joanna had baked birthday cakes. It was the last place she'd laughed with Steve. The place they'd been a family.

Her eyes filled as she looked at Sally. ‘I don't know.'

‘Oh, love. We'll sort it out somehow. Maybe you can come and work for me?'

That made them both laugh at the mere thought of her joining the small team in Sally's design company. Joanna didn't have a creative bone in her body and Sally was a perfectionist of the highest order when it came to her work. ‘Well, I think that might be the end of a beautiful friendship.'

Sally shrugged. ‘Oh well, it was good while it lasted. Eat your sandwich.'

Though she didn't feel remotely hungry, she knew better than to argue. But she was just about to take a bite when her phone rang again. This time it wasn't the bank.

‘Hi, Joanna? It's Abbie. DC Lineham. I was wondering if I could come and meet with you tomorrow? We have some potential new information and I was wondering if you might be able to discuss it with me.'