The Sight of You

by Holly Miller

  I woke early this morning. Finn was still sleeping and I didn’t want to disturb him. He looked so handsome and peaceful, brown and bare-chested next to me on the mattress.

  So I crept into the bathroom alone, where, five minutes later, I wept quiet tears of happiness.

  * * *

  • • •

  We’re working off breakfast with a walk along the Swan River. Everything this morning is an exultant shade of blue—the sky, the water, the glass faces of the high-rises. Finn’s talking about taking his family out for dinner somewhere, a thank-you for their hospitality, before we fly home. I’m listening but also drifting, tuning in and then out, struggling to focus.

  “Finn,” I say, as we reach the water’s edge. He’s wearing a baseball cap and shades, is mulling over our options for restaurants later.

  He turns to me. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess that might be a bit heavy on the seafood. We could try that Greek place instead?”

  “Finn, I need to tell you something.”

  Perhaps instinctively, he takes my hand. I like to feel the ring around his wedding finger—it still seems like a novelty to me, to be Mrs. Callie Petersen, to have a ring around my own finger too.

  “Cal, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I say quietly. “I’m pregnant.”

  The softest of gasps, then the warmest of kisses, cheeks wet with tears, shoulders shaking in disbelief. He wraps me in his arms and we stay like that for several minutes while around us our life quietly transforms, becomes rich with new color, lustrous with light.

  He pulls gently away and levels his face to mine, removing his sunglasses so I can look right into his eyes. “When . . . when did you . . . ?”

  “This morning. I’ve been feeling a bit queasy.” I lined my suitcase with pregnancy tests when we left the UK, just in case.

  It’s something we’ve talked about from the start. Finn’s from a big, loving family, and he’s made no secret about wanting children of his own. That was something I wanted too, but I was nervous about things he didn’t see an issue with—like how he would cope with stepping back from our social life, how we’d fit a baby into our tiny flat, whether Murphy would deal with the upheaval okay. Not to mention whether I’d even get pregnant, being in my late thirties—I’d read so many horror stories about the dreaded biological clock. We’ve been trying for five months, so the relief and gratitude I feel now is immense. It’s all come together. I just have to hope we can adjust to the change we’ve got coming, the different lifestyle that lies ahead.

  “Callie . . . I love you so much. This is the best news.”

  “I love you too. I’m so excited.”

  “Are you feeling all right? Sure you want to walk? It’s pretty hot. We could just go and—”

  “I’m fine.” I laugh. “Actually, the fresh air’s helping.”

  “Can’t believe I didn’t notice.”

  “It’s only been the last couple of days. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, in case it was nothing.”

  He grins. “Well, we should make plans. Although . . . what should they be? I haven’t got a clue what we do next.”

  “Me either. That’s part of the fun, I guess.”

  “Should we Skype everyone? Tell them?”

  I want to tell Joel. The thought is urgent and alarming, until suddenly I realize.

  Joel already knows. He has done for years.

  I think for you the best is yet to come.

  “Callie?”

  I ease Joel from my mind, squeeze Finn’s hand. “Let’s wait until we get home. I quite like the idea of this being our secret, just for a while.”

  He smiles, puts an arm around my shoulders. “Well, we should celebrate, at least. What can you have—cake?”

  I smile. “I’m still full from breakfast. And slightly nauseous, if I’m honest.”

  “Is it weird?” Finn asks me, after a moment. “I mean, apart from the nausea . . . how do you feel?”

  I don’t even need to think about it. “I feel euphoric.”

  And that’s it—the best and only way to describe it.

  86.

  Joel—five years after

  And finally, I’d like to thank my three children. You make me proud every day. All of you.”

  The room murmurs approval. Glasses are raised in our direction.

  It’s Dad’s seventieth, so we’re celebrating with him at the dingy old rugby club down the road. There’s everything you’d expect from a party at a dingy old rugby club: a jaded-looking DJ working through Doug’s Beatles-centric playlist, a limp buffet consisting of tuna and chicken (with the odd chipolata thrown in for good measure), lots of people standing statically in groups, trying to make their drinks last. I know simply from looking at it that the white wine’s warm, and that eighty percent of the conversation here is heavily accountancy-based. Still, it’s Dad’s party, organized by Doug. It was hardly going to feature award-winning cocktails and Idris Elba on the decks.

  Or maybe it all feels predictable because I’ve already dreamed about it. Two weeks ago, in a dream that seemed to last a lifetime.

  After the speeches I find Tamsin at a table near the back with Harry and Amber. Harry, who’s almost five, is absorbed in a book. Amber, now twelve, has her headphones firmly on.

  Wise girl.

  I catch her eye, mouth, All right?

  She looks up from her iPad, shrugs. Boring.

  Blame your other uncle, I mouth pointedly, gesturing at Doug. She grins.

  I lean back in my chair, grab a handful of dry-roasted peanuts. “How’s it going, sis?”

  Tamsin bites her lip, adjusts her sea-green dress at the shoulder. “It’s a success, right? He’s having a good time, isn’t he?”

  I glance over at Dad. He’s telling a story to a group of his badminton buddies that they all appear enraptured by. God knows what it could be. That time he nearly lost the shuttlecock? “Absolutely. Look at him. Haven’t seen him this animated since the 2010 Budget.”

  Tamsin smiles, sips her wine. Winces. “God, this stuff is tepid.”

  “How are you, Harry?” I ask my nephew.

  “Good,” he says meekly. (He’s not wrong, actually: Harry is the most angelic child I’ve ever had the pleasure to encounter. No wonder we’re only half-related.) “Nearly done it.” He lifts up his activity book for me to see. It’s all about outer space, looks frighteningly scientific.

  “Good stuff,” I tell him encouragingly, then pull a face at my sister. “Christ, Tam, that’s virtually homework.”

  She holds her hands up. “Don’t blame me. He wanted to bring it. Won’t put the damn thing down.”

  “You’ve given birth to a genius,” I whisper. “Can’t we just exploit him on YouTube for a bit and then retire?”

  She shoves me softly on the arm. “Nice that Kieran and Zoë could make it.”

  I look at my friend and his wife, charming the socks off a couple twice their age. Even Steve and Hayley are here somewhere (though I have a sneaky feeling Steve’s touting for business. I caught him browbeating two octogenarians earlier into touching their toes).

  “Hello, you two.” Warren sits down next to me, claps me on the knee.

  I’m pleased Dad invited Warren. I’d thought he might not want to, but in the end he just shrugged and said okay. Like we were merely discussing an acquaintance from times gone by. Neither he nor Warren seems to have the energy for jousting over Mum, or me. It’s so exhausting, one-upmanship: to be honest, I don’t think either of them can be arsed.

  I told Dad and Doug, eventually. About the dreams. They were the last to know (not that they realized or would have particularly cared). The conversation was short and stilted, and we’ve not discussed it since. Who knows if they even believe me? But I’ve been honest with both of them, at least—perhaps for the fir
st time in my life. Surviving my breakup with Callie has made me fearless in many ways, perhaps a touch reckless. Lots of things are now a breeze, I’ve found, after getting through that.

  Just . . . trust people to love you, Joel.

  As Warren starts talking to Harry about the solar system, Amber leans absentmindedly against me. I put an arm around her, kiss the top of her head. And for once she doesn’t pretend to vomit, or tell me to get off.

  I smile at Tamsin, and she smiles back. It all worked out, we’re saying. We’re doing okay.

  * * *

  • • •

  After the party, Warren goes back to Cornwall. But I’m staying a few more nights. The next day, I drive for about an hour into the country, where I’ve arranged to meet someone.

  * * *

  • • •

  I spot her white-blond hair from across the pub. She’s bagged the best spot in the place, close to the open fire.

  She smiles when I approach, and I bend down to hug her. It feels easy and right, not awkward as I’d worried it might.

  “Sorry. Am I late?”

  Her eyes are Arctic blue, but her laugh is full and warm. She looks casual in a T-shirt with a slogan I wouldn’t be able to read without staring, a loose toffee-colored cardigan. “Not at all. I was early.”

  Rose contacted me via the surgery a few months ago, asked if I remembered her. I did, of course. Suggested meeting up when I was next in her neck of the woods.

  “Cheers.” We chink glasses, her white wine against my lime and soda.

  “So how did the retreat work out in the end?” I ask. The morning after we met, I left before it got light. I’d started thinking about Callie again, and I wanted to go home.

  “Well, I’ve carried on with the yoga. And I’m down to a coffee a day.”

  “That’s pretty impressive. Fruit and veg?”

  She runs one hand through her hair. The air turns briefly sweet with her perfume. “Still pitiful. How about you?”

  “Oh, my problems were more . . .” I trail off. I can see myself opening up to Rose in a way I don’t feel fully ready for. What do I say?

  “In your head?”

  I nod, sip my drink.

  A pause. Her eyes are captivating. “Well, I guess we were all there with issues of one kind or another.”

  “True.”

  “Or, in the words of my ex-husband, when I got home: You go somewhere like that to be fixed, not for a holiday.”

  I smile. “Ouch.”

  She winces, then laughs. “That was . . . my clumsy way of saying I’m divorced.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t be.” She sips her wine. “Funnily enough, it was going on the retreat that made me see the light.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “The power of affirmations?”

  “Yes! Cheers to that.”

  We chink glasses again.

  “And you’re a vet,” I say.

  “Sure am. Did you like my ruse?”

  In her e-mail to the surgery, she pretended we’d met at some conference I’d never heard of. A quick search of Google confirmed she’d invented it, of course. But it also revealed that Rose Jackson was a vet.

  We chat for a while about our jobs. My time out and route back in, her practice and mine. The pros and cons of outsourcing out-of-hours work (her surgery does, mine doesn’t). Compassion fatigue. Treating wild animals. Being on call at Christmas. I like her straightforwardness, her quick sense of humor. The way she touches my forearm occasionally when I’ve made her laugh. The warmth of her smile.

  “So you know I’m divorced,” she says, when our conversation eventually lulls. “What about you?”

  “Single, but . . .”

  She’s nudging a beer mat around the table with her fingertips. “Not looking.”

  I frown. “I’m sorry. It’s complicated.”

  “Someone else in the picture?”

  I think of Callie. “No,” I say honestly. “But I’m just not sure if I’m ready to get to know someone again . . . in that way, quite yet.”

  She smiles. “Fair enough. Thanks for being straight with me.”

  We drink up after that. Rose tells me she’s got tickets for a comedy night later she was half thinking she might invite me to. And perhaps I would have gone, if she hadn’t asked me so directly about my situation. But I realize I’m glad we’re ending it here.

  Because I like her. I’m attracted to her in a way I haven’t been to anyone since Callie. And I don’t want to mess that up, turn it into something throwaway through carelessness.

  If that means missing the boat with her, that’s just a chance I’ll have to take.

  “I’d like to keep in touch,” I say, as we’re getting ready to leave.

  Rose smiles. “Like pen pals?”

  I wince. “Sorry. Just heard that back in my head. That was lame.”

  “The lamest,” she agrees. “Lucky for you you’re so charming, isn’t it?”

  I’m not sure charming is how I’d describe myself right now. But as her compliment’s overly generous, I accept it without further argument.

  “Oh, I nearly forgot,” she says, standing up. “This is yours.”

  She hands me the coat I put around her shoulders at the retreat two years previously. She’s had it rolled up on the chair next to her this whole time. I didn’t even notice.

  “Keep it,” I say.

  She blinks once or twice, then puts out a hand. A formal good-bye. “Okay. Just . . . call me, then. If you ever want it back, I mean.”

  “Deal.” I take her hand, shake it. Meet her eye and smile.

  87.

  Callie—five years after

  After the twins’ first feed of the day, once Finn’s left for work, I head out with the buggy and Murphy for a walk along the seafront.

  It took us a long while to pull off the miracle of both babies feeding and napping at roughly the same time, but we’re finally starting to emerge from the mayhem of the first few months. We feel bruised with exhaustion and more than a little dazed—I mean, we’ve still barely recovered from the shock of having twins—but somehow, we’ve made it through intact.

  Euan and Robyn are five months old today. I still can’t quite believe it. I’m not yet over reaching out to touch them, wondering if they’re really ours.

  When they were first born, Finn’s enormous social network came into its own. Friends and family supported us in shifts, cooking and sterilizing and washing and dog walking. And now that we’re through those tough first months, I’m feeling increasingly lavish with love, ambrosial with fortune. When I hold my babies close to my chest, the rise and fall of their bath-warm weight feels like my heartbeat outside my own body.

  * * *

  • • •

  The one-way street where we live is narrow and cluttered with cars, and there’s plenty of weekday traffic, but once I’m on the promenade, I have only to look out to sea to feel washed over with calm.

  Thankfully, my usual bench isn’t too damp. It’s the same one Grace and Ben sat on together the morning after they met on a night out in Brighton, with hot tea and bacon sandwiches, and giddy beating hearts. I know because she took a selfie, posted it on Facebook a few months later (The day after we met!), and I remember the hotel in the background.

  I settle down with the decaf Finn made me this morning before leaving for work. He does that every day now, because it’s easily more trouble than it’s worth for me to try to maneuver the double buggy into the café at the end of our road. I’ve brought along a slice of drømmekage too, because if you can’t have cake for breakfast when you’re a new mum, when can you? We eat it a lot, these days—ever since Finn found my recipe and baked it for me as a surprise while I was out one afternoon. I didn’t have the heart to give him the history.

  I
rock the buggy with my foot, make faces at the babies, adjust their hats and socks. I swig from my travel mug and tuck into my cake, break off a chunk for Murphy.

  And then a sense. That he’s close by, somehow. The feeling’s so strong that I start and swivel around, scan the people on the pavement for his face.

  I turn back to the twins, glance down at them. You’re crazy. Joel’s not here. Why on earth would he be? I haven’t thought about him—not properly—in weeks. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, the black magic it performs inside my mind.

  During my pregnancy I experienced terrible insomnia, the nights like vast lakes of unspent minutes through which I had to wade. To stop myself staring at the ceiling, I would get out of bed and do laps of the flat in my pajamas while Finn slept, Murphy trotting after me like he knew I could do with the moral support.

  Sometimes we’d sit by the living room window together, where I’d talk to Grace in my head. And sometimes—only sometimes—I’d imagine Joel was awake too, that we were looking out of different windows at the same dizzying tessellation of hot blue stars.

  But for the sake of the babies cocooned in my womb, and for Finn curled up in our bed, I couldn’t let my thoughts wander too far into the future. If the past few years have taught me anything, it’s that being in the present is what counts.

  Finn and I had a drink last night—our first proper one together since the twins were born. Finn wanted to make an occasion of it, so he decanted a nice bottle of red unknowingly into the carafe Joel bought me for Christmas six years ago. We drank from the matching glasses too—and just for a moment I let myself imagine Joel’s smile, the way he said, So you can always be at a pavement café, somewhere in the Med.

  Finn must have sensed my thoughts were wandering, because he nudged me with his foot, asked if I was feeling okay. And I smiled and said yes because, actually, I was. We had made it. We’d got through the soupy slog of those first days of parenthood, and we were coming out the other side. This felt like a toast to that. And it seemed only right to remember Joel in that moment too, to raise a glass to him in my mind and thank him for all he’d given me.