With or Without You

by Shari Low

  He’d nodded. ‘Sure, but only if you don’t have some weird bubonic plague that will cut me down in my prime. You sound terrible. Have you got the flu?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I’d answered, appreciating his concerned expression. I followed him into the hall, biting my tongue not to comment on the beautiful wood panelling and gorgeous wallpaper above it. Nate hadn’t the first clue about decorating, so I knew that must have been Janet’s work. Before she jogged off.

  We’d headed into the living room, and it was a small victory when, in the midst of a sea of new decor and furnishings, I spotted a print on the wall. It was only small. A black and white scene of a beautiful sunset over water, an image that I knew so well. We’d bought it on one of our first days together, when we’d jumped in the car and headed down to a village on Loch Lomond called Luss, the same village we’d later married in. We’d sat on the edge of the old wooden pier in the rain, and talked all afternoon, glad to be away from university and the rest of the world for just one day. I’d known then that I loved him, known that he was a keeper. Sad how things change. We’d spotted the print in a little gift shop and bought two, one for each of us – and we’d drawn our initials in a love heart on the back of them both. Then we’d walked through the grounds of the beautiful ancient church and stopped to read the words on a gravestone, about a group of men, Baronet James Colquhoun and four others, one only a boy, who’d drowned together in the loch in 1873. The sadness of the story made the moment even more poignant.

  We’d strolled on through the deserted, winding streets, and it felt like we were the only people there. Just the two of us. All that mattered.

  I’ve no idea when or how we lost that, but it was long before I’d packed the second print away and moved out of our home. It still lay in a box in my loft, with everything else that had sentimental value from my time with Nate. A decade of cards. My wedding photos. Every note he’d ever written to me.

  ‘Do you want something? Tea? Coffee? Actually, I don’t know why I asked that because I’m not sure if I have either of those things.’ He was strictly a water, milk, beer guy.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Again, it was a struggle to get the words out as my larynx appeared to have constricted to the size of a straw.

  There was a pause as he waited to for me to explain and I waited to see if the ground would open up and swallow me. It didn’t, so I knew I had to go for it.

  ‘Okay. I have to tell you something…’ I started.

  ‘Oh Christ, is it Ida? Is she ill?’ His genuine concern made my heart melt. I blamed the hormones.

  ‘No, no, Mum is fine. She’s indestructible in fact. As always,’ I’d said. Ida had loved him, but she had eventually come to terms with the divorce thanks to Doctor Richard Campbell. She still hadn’t got over that split and I was going to have to break it to her that the Richard option definitely wouldn’t be back on the table now. Although, perhaps the prospect of a grandchild would make up for it and Nate would once again take the ‘favourite’ slot.

  The words got stuck again, until I’d blurted, ‘I don’t know how to say this…’

  ‘You’re ill?’ he’d guessed, concern oozing.

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘You’re…’ Now it was his words that were stuck. I couldn’t take my eyes of his face as I waited for the reaction. I knew him so well and I could always tell what he was thinking. And right now he was thinking…

  ‘Wow. That didn’t even make the top ten of things I thought you were here to say.’

  ‘I know it must be a bit of a shock.’

  ‘And is it… I mean, who… Erm, do you think…’ He couldn’t say it in case he hurt me.

  ‘Yes, it’s yours. Definitely.’

  ‘Wow,’ he’d said again. I wasn’t sure if it was a delighted ‘wow’ or a horrified ‘wow’, so I didn’t say anything for a moment. After a few seconds, I realised he was still just standing in front of me, looking at me, as if he were waiting for me to say something else. So of course, at that point I started to ramble.

  ‘I know this is a huge shock and you’ll need time to adjust and I’m not looking for anything from you at all. I mean, other than seeing the baby and being its dad. But I had to tell you because… well, it’s half you, so even though we’re not married anymore and we’re never getting back together, I wanted you to know from the start so that you have time to come to terms with it and…’

  ‘I don’t need to come to terms with it,’ he’d said, quietly.

  Bollocks. Had I misjudged him altogether? Was he going to want nothing to do with me or the baby? It wasn’t such a long shot. In all the years we were married we’d barely even discussed having a family, other than to throw out the occasional casual comment about it being something we’d do one day. Maybe now that he was older he’d decided that his life was perfectly fulfilled without kids and I’d just come and thrown a positive pregnancy test into his future.

  ‘You don’t?’ I’d stuttered.

  He’d answered by wrapping me in a bear hug. ‘This is amazing news, Liv. A bit of a shock, but amazing.’ I could hear the incredulous laughter in his voice. ‘And no matter what, we’ll figure it all out and make it work. It’ll be great.’

  I wasn’t a crier, but tears had sprung to my bottom lids.

  That, right there, was why Nate Jamieson would make an incredible dad.

  There was no time for tears now. Not, here, tonight, while I lay in this hospital bed, using every technique I could conjure up to keep myself focussed and together, and to manage the panic and pain.

  There was a knock at the door, then the midwife, Jane, popped her head around.

  ‘Liv, you’ve got a visitor,’ she said, smiling, before beckoning Nate in the door.

  He strode over and immediately took my hand. I could tell from the slight sheen on his forehead that he’d been running.

  ‘I got here as quickly…’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I reassured him. ‘We’ve got a little while to go yet.’

  ‘I’ll pop back in ten minutes and see how you’re doing,’ Jane said, before her head disappeared from view.

  Nate’s furrowed brow told me he was concerned. ‘Are you okay?’

  I nodded. ‘I am. Although I might not be in about…’ I looked at the clock that I’d been using to time my contractions, ‘… eight minutes, so you might want to brace yourself.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got you.’ He put his hand on my stomach. ‘And I’ve got you too,’ he told my bump. Our bump.

  I had no idea how the future would play out for us, but right here, right now, I was just grateful that he was the one holding my hand. We could do this. Just me, Nate, and our baby…

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m here!’ came the screech that accompanied the whirlwind that blew into the room, followed by a concerned midwife.

  ‘Liv, I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop her.’

  ‘It’s okay, Jane,’ I said, trying not to sigh. ‘This is my mother.’

  Jane gave me a look that I interpreted as ‘rather you than me’. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it in my life.

  ‘Right,’ Ida proclaimed. ‘Nate, budge up and give me room,’ she said, dislodging Nate from his position by my side. ‘In fact, is there anywhere you could get a cup of tea? Hospitals always make me thirsty. And I like to have a cuppa when I’m putting my make-up on.’ At that, she pulled a cosmetic case from her bag and began touching up her visage. ‘Liv, pull your hair back, darling, and I’ll sort you out too. You could do with a bit of colour.’

  Unreasonable. Self-centred. Demanding. Stroppy. Single-minded. Immature. With poorly developed decision-making skills.

  After decades of dealing with my mother, bringing up this baby would be a doddle.

  Chapter Nine

  The Ceremony

  May 2007

  The pews were full and the organist was warming up his fingers with what sounded vaguely like ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’.

/>   Sasha exhaled. ‘Jesus… no offence,’ she looked heavenward, ‘but whoever wrote that song had never heard this organist at work.’

  ‘Sasha! You can’t say that in church!’ Chloe chided.

  Despite the solemnity of the surroundings, I dissolved into fits of giggles.

  ‘Right, are we ready? Come on, little guy, we’ve got this,’ Nate said, scooping nine-month-old Finn out of his pram. Yep, it had taken us a while to organise the christening. My heart panged a little. Nate was so handsome in his suit, and Finn couldn’t have been more gorgeous in his little soft white trousers and shirt. Of course, there was a good chance that he’d vomit over them at any point in the proceedings, so I was keen to get things underway.

  Sasha opened the door and gave my mum, standing up at the front, the prearranged signal. I’d indulged her. I couldn’t help myself. More accurately, I couldn’t face the sulking if I hadn’t. In fairness, Ida loved her grandson even more than she loved the spotlight. Just. So there she was, utterly resplendent in a cerise hat so large it could double as a satellite dish, standing at the microphone belting out Stevie Wonder’s ‘Sunshine Of My Life’. The organist appeared a touch put out that he’d been ordered to stand down. Ida didn’t need a musical accompaniment. There wasn’t an audience she couldn’t wow, or a room she couldn’t win over with that voice. At least, so she believed. This morning it was working. By the time she got to the chorus, the whole congregation was singing and swaying in their seats.

  They said that when you became a mother, you understood you own mother so much more. I didn’t, she was as much an enigma as ever, but I did find myself judging less and appreciating more. She’d been great with Finn. Of course, she wasn’t for babysitting overnight, or handling the food shifts, but she took him out regularly and paraded him around at every opportunity. I was grateful for the break. Three months after Finn arrived, I’d gone back to work on half-shifts, then increased it to full shifts at six months. The hospital staff day-care centre was a lifesaver during the days, and Nate took over when I was on a back shift or a night shift. So far, we were working it out, but I knew that it wasn’t Nate’s idea of the perfect scenario.

  He’d made that clear last week.

  I’d just come home from work, tired and drained and desperate to sleep. Being back on full-length shifts was tough, especially when Finn wasn’t sleeping through the night yet.

  I was touched, though, to see that Nate had really made an effort. There was a lasagne in the oven, a salad in the fridge, and Finn was fast asleep in his cot. Nate hadn’t stretched to washing, ironing or any of the other things that needed doing, but nevertheless I was grateful.

  He dished the lasagne into two bowls, then scooped the salad up with huge spoons and shared it between us.

  ‘So I’ve been thinking – and hear me out before you say no…’

  I was aware that conversations that started that way rarely went well.

  ‘Okay,’ I promised. My fingers may have been crossed.

  ‘School breaks up in four weeks and I’ll be off for six weeks. How about if you and Finn move back into the house for the summer? That way, I could do the night shift and be there for him whenever he needs me, instead of coming over here at allotted times.’

  On the face of it, it was a perfectly reasonable, some may say great, idea. But somewhere between fatigue and logical thinking, claxons were sounding in my head.

  ‘And this would be temporary?’ I asked. I knew him so well that I saw the flinch that told me there was something beneath this. ‘Ah,’ I said, understanding.

  It took him a moment to decide the best way to play this.

  ‘Look, Liv, I’m not going to lie to you – I do think about getting back together. We almost made it last time, didn’t we? And the fact that Finn’s here shows that we weren’t really over.’

  I was too tired to have this discussion, I really was, but letting it hang there would only prolong the uncertainty.

  Of course I’d given it thought. In many ways it made perfect sense, tying everything up in a neat little bow, just Nate, Finn and me, our family.

  It could be fantastic.

  But what if it wasn’t right? What if we got back together now – and let’s face it, that wouldn’t even be on the table if we hadn’t had Finn – and then in two, or three or five years’ time we realised that the problems we had seven years ago still existed? Would I walk away from the life that Finn had become used to? Or would I settle for a relationship that still left me unfulfilled, and spend a lifetime regretting going back?

  I didn’t know the answers, and until I did, until I was one hundred per cent sure of what the right thing was, then I wasn’t going to risk making the wrong move and screwing up my life, Finn’s life, or Nate’s life either.

  He deserved to be with someone who adored him in every way, not someone who was there because it was the sensible place to be.

  My head started to hurt as I tried to put together the right answer.

  ‘I love you for thinking all this through,’ I said. ‘And in so many ways it makes sense…’

  ‘But?’ he said, with real sadness and I realised he knew what was coming.

  So I explained everything. That I wasn’t sure, that I didn’t want to make the wrong decision for the right reasons, that I loved him, but I wasn’t sure it was the kind of love that could sustain a lifetime together. And the whole time, I felt like Cruella de Vil, kidnapping puppies.

  ‘Tell me honestly,’ I asked him, ‘are you one hundred per cent, absolutely positive about us? Would you have been at my door, begging for us to get back together if Finn wasn’t here?’

  His hesitation was enough of an answer. He ran his fingers through his hair, already getting longer as we approached the summer holidays, and sighed. ‘I don’t know,’ he said truthfully. ‘But I feel like this life we’re having is in limbo. We’re not together, but we’re not apart.’

  I understood what he was saying and I could see now that it wasn’t fair in the long term for either of us.

  ‘Getting back together just to give us a label isn’t the answer either. Look, I appreciate the offer to move back in over the summer, but I think it’s best if we keep our own space. We’ll work out a schedule for Finn. Let’s set up a room in your house for him, so you don’t always need to come here. That way, we can share the sleepless nights.’ I hoped that would make him smile, but it barely sparked a reaction, so I went for sincere and truthful. ‘I love you, Nate, I really do, and I want you to be happy.’

  ‘Even if it’s without you?’ he asked.

  I nodded, hating that I was hurting his feelings. ‘Even if it’s without me. And look, just to get this out of the way, if you start seeing other people I won’t be upset.’

  I wasn’t completely sure that was true, but, let’s face it, I was too knackered to get upset about pretty much anything at the moment. I felt better that we’d agreed a plan, even if it was a plan to change nothing.

  Now, at the church, walking up the aisle to christen our son, I hoped that we looked like a couple that was figuring things out as best they could. It had taken us almost a year to finally get round to doing this, but I was glad that we had. Neither of us were particularly religious, but I looked at this as covering bases. Nate had been christened. I’d been christened. It seemed right that Finn was too. Besides, any reason to have everyone we loved under the one roof was nothing but a blessing.

  At the font, the minister waited patiently, as Ida prolonged the final note of the song until her lungs must have been fairly close to collapse. He didn’t even seem to mind when the congregation burst into an enthusiastic round of applause and Ida waved like she was the closing act on the main stage at Glastonbury. It was the same minister who had officiated at Chloe’s wedding, so he knew what he was getting into with another event attended by pretty much the same crowd.

  Beside him were Finn’s godparents, the subject of tense discussion between Nate and I in the last few months.


  Chloe and Connor were indisputable choices, as was Sasha. However, Nate lobbied hard to have Justin there too.

  ‘He’s been my one of my closest mates for years, Liv. He’s like a brother to me.’

  ‘A brother who cheated on one of our best friends, trashed her life and lied to us all for most of the time he knew us,’ I’d shot back. Alcohol had played a huge part, but ultimately, he was responsible for what he’d done to Sasha, and I couldn’t stand the thought of her being upset by having Justin thrust in her face.

  ‘I know, I know. But I’m asking you, Liv, let me have this. I think he needs it. He’s not been great over the last few months and I’m worried about him. Let me give him something to look forward to.’

  That one had touched my sympathy gene. I’d been in his company a couple of times in the last year and could see how he was deteriorating. Madeleine was right about the fact he was drinking himself into oblivion. He’d always covered it up to others with parties, fun and revelry, but since Sasha had told him to leave it was like he’d lost any kind of structure that he’d ever had and now he was just a maudlin guy with an undeniable alcohol problem. Not the best candidate for a godfather. But… Maybe this would help him. Give him a reason to sober up. I couldn’t refuse.

  ‘Okay, I get it. I do. I’d hate it if he wasn’t there.’ It was true. No matter how badly he’d behaved, he was still the guy who’d been family for all these years and I still loved him. ‘I’m not saying no, but I’ll need to speak to Sasha,’ I’d sighed, dreading the conversation.

  I’d braced myself for a reaction that could be anywhere between fury, irritation and exasperation, but in the end, it was far simpler than I thought it would be.

  ‘I understand,’ she’d said, with totally matter-of-fact candour.

  ‘You do?’

  She’d nodded. ‘If I fucked up, I mean really fucked up, had an affair, wrecked my life, even if I lied to you, would you turn your back on me?’

  I saw where she was going with this. ‘No.’

  ‘So it’s good that Nate isn’t turning his back on Justin. I’ll never forgive him for what he did, but you should. It’s not like he’s galloped off to some happy-ever-after existence. He’s going to need his friends…’