by Brandon Witt
I made lemon meringue and pavlova for Patrick to try and spent ages searching Op Shops and discount stores for presents for Christmas. When I realized Patrick didn’t own a single Christmas decoration, I threw a fit and dragged him to the shops and made him pick out some stuff. I found a plant nursery that sold us a real pine tree in a pot that Patrick could smell, then together we picked out decorative baubles that played music, wind chimes in festive colors, and enough tinsel to keep Skylah happy should she visit. Together we decorated our little tree. I made Patrick bring some essential oils home from the perfumery and I cut out candy cane shapes from cardboard and dipped them in peppermint oil so they gave off a lovely scent, then hung them all over the house. They looked pretty and Patrick liked the smell.
A couple of days before Christmas, Patrick asked, “Jake? Do you have any extra Christmas wrapping paper?”
I loaded the last plate in the dishwasher and pressed the button to turn it on. “Sure. What do you want me to wrap for you?”
He hesitated in the doorway. “No. I want to do it. If you could just get me the paper and some tape?”
I smiled to myself and guessed that he’d bought me a present. Well, I hoped that he’d bought me a present. His presents were already wrapped and stacked under the tree. I fetched him paper, sticky tape, scissors, and some ribbon, and he shut himself away in his study to do his own thing.
Suddenly it was Christmas Eve. I drove Patrick to work and then hit the shops to battle the crowds for the freshest ingredients. I had planned an elaborate breakfast for Christmas morning as well as a romantic dinner. Christmas was midweek, which thankfully meant I had no Tav shifts to work around, so I was focused on giving Patrick the best Christmas I knew how. I still remembered his confession that he usually spent the day alone. I baked all morning before cleaning the house from top to bottom. When I vacuumed the lounge room, I noticed a stack of presents at the back of the tree that I hadn’t placed there. They didn’t have tags on them, but I grinned at the sight and resisted the urge to finger and shake them.
That night we danced to music from the telecast of Carols in the Domain and sweetly kissed each other all over in the flickering candlelight.
I didn’t think anything could rock the boat.
I was wrong.
WE DROVE to Mum’s house around 11 o’clock. Christmas morning had gone off fantastically. Patrick had gotten a bit emotional over his presents from me and admitted that it was the first Christmas present he’d opened on Christmas morning for over five years.
He was soon laughing over his gifts, though. I’d found him a pair of budgie-smugglers at the Op Shop that still had the tags attached, and had paid a whole dollar for them. I’d also bought him some socks with cartoon characters on them, a pair of reindeer ears, a box of expensive chocolates, and a CD of Jazz-Blues songs that he favored.
For Gregor I’d bought a new chew toy.
Patrick looked at me funny when I passed him Gregor’s toy to open. “Do dogs get Christmas presents?” he’d asked.
“Sure,” I blithely told him. “Why not?”
I figured that the present he bought me would be expensive and I told myself to accept it without protest. That was all well and good until I pulled the red-striped paper off the box and found he’d bought me an iPad.
“Holy shit, Patrick! You can’t spend that sort of money on me!” I protested.
He just smiled. “You deserve it. Besides, it’s not only for you. You need your own e-mail address so I can e-mail you during the day. Plus there are a lot of apps we can buy that help me. There’s an app that reads braille, in case there’s something you need to read, and tons more. Just use your manners, then shut up. I’ll give you a hint—it’s either please, thank you, or sorry.”
My thank-you took quite a few minutes and required tissues to clean up. Thankfully, Gregor had taken his new toy and had left the room. That dog was way too intelligent, and I didn’t want to confuse and terrify him with the things I did to his master.
Mysteriously, Patrick had also managed to buy my entire family presents without my knowledge, so together we packed up the car with more gifts than I could have ever imagined, loaded the desserts carefully in the boot, stashed Gregor in the backseat in his new doggie seatbelt, and departed.
Mum’s house was filled with smiles and good spirits—and not the alcoholic kind. None of us brought alcohol, so we all drank soft drinks and juice. Skylah was high on excitement, and as soon as Lizzy arrived, we all piled into Mum’s tiny lounge room to pass out presents. The eight of us could barely fit.
Skylah cleaned up in the presents department with a swag of Barbie and Bratz dolls, plus all their matching accessories. Maria received car seat covers in anticipation of her buying a car, clothes, bags, and new stationery she would need for university. Lizzy received vouchers for her favorite clothing stores, a new funky handbag, and a CD of her favorite band. Ellie received a bread maker that she raved over, a painting, a crochet-for-beginners pattern book, and a large bag of yarn to kick-start her new hobby. Mum received a new cookbook but got teary over the new clothes we all bought her.
Surprisingly, even Patrick received presents—a coffee mug, some satin boxer shorts with sexy sayings on them (and a wink in my direction), and a pack of braille playing cards.
The best Christmas present I received was sitting next to me on the lounge, but I still managed to exclaim over the two new shirts, the pack of underwear, the box claiming to contain the best of party and drinking games, and a coffee mug that matched Patrick’s.
Ellie left to find a garbage bag for all the wrapping and packaging while we all checked out our gadgets and toys. I didn’t even see the disaster looming. In the movies they at least give you music to cue you that the hero’s life is about to be irrevocably changed.
Instead what we got was a shriek.
A high-pitched, extremely loud shriek was followed by the rushing of feet before Lizzy burst back into the room—I’d never even noticed she’d gone—and shouted, “Holy fuck, Mother!”
I was on my feet in alarm, wondering what fiasco had befallen Lizzy, when I realized she was waving around a slip of paper. The paper was long, like a strip off the toilet roll, but was white on one side and mostly black on the other side. I tried to focus on the pictures as Lizzy waved them around in distress. They looked like tiny x-rays.
Lizzy was still yelling at Mum. “I can’t fucking believe the fucking things you do to us! What the fuck were you thinking? You can’t fucking help yourself, can you?”
“Hey!” I shouted, trying to get her attention. “Enough with the swearing in front of the child. Calm down and tell me what the hell is wrong!”
“What’s wrong?” Lizzy screamed back. “Our mother is fucking pregnant!”
Pregnant?
Shit.
Oh, fuck.
Oh, fuckfuckfuckfuck.
The room froze like in some morbid scene in a parody. The news was just too astounding to comprehend. Belatedly, I realized that the strip of paper Lizzy was holding was a series of ultrasounds. Of a baby. Of the baby. Of the baby inside my mother…. Oh, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
Ellie was the first to recover. “No. She can’t be.”
We all turned in unison toward our mother as if some great puppeteer were pulling the strings. She was standing near the Christmas tree, its lights still winking festively in contrast to our current emotions. She didn’t move—neither confirming nor denying the accusation—but her face went terribly pale.
Oh, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. A baby? Another one?
“Oh, dear.” It was Maria who understated the problem. At least she didn’t swear.
I swallowed and realized they were now all looking toward me for guidance. Oh, sweet fuckups of fuckups. Whatever my first response was would set the tone for the rest of the family. They would follow my lead. I was their leader. I drew a deep breath and turned to Luke.
“Luke, would you be so kind as to take Patrick and Skylah out
side for a few minutes? I think we need to have a family pow-wow. Lunch might be delayed a bit.”
“Sure, man.” Luke was already moving, placing his hand under Patrick’s arm and pushing Skylah in the direction of the back door. I grabbed the paper off Lizzy and had a look for myself. Sure enough, there was the recognizable form of a baby’s oversized skull and tiny body floating in the oval of my mother’s womb. The writing at the top of the picture said, “Corrine Manning, 11w4d” and the date from last Thursday.
The back door hadn’t even closed, and Lizzy’s mouth was off again, “I can’t believe she could be so fucking stupid. I went searching through her drawers looking for alcohol because she’s such a ditz I knew she would have some somewhere. I never knew just what the hell I was going to find. Fucking stupid!”
Lizzy may’ve been an adult, but she was still my little sister who I had raised. I speared her with a forbidding look and pointed to the lounge I had been sitting on. “She’s your mother and you will show some manners, like I taught you. Now sit down and shut up for a while and let me deal with it.” She pouted but obeyed, glaring in my direction with her arms crossed defensively over her chest. I didn’t care. I had more things on my mind than a woman having a temper tantrum like a child.
Ellie was leaning against the wall, biting her fingernails as she did when she was stressed, looking toward me with big eyes. Maria was sitting on the floor in the midst of all our discarded Christmas paper, looking scared. I thought of sending her from the room, but she was nearly eighteen and she was going to have to deal with this situation as well.
Mum was twisting her hands together in trepidation, so I tilted my head toward the second lounge across from Lizzy and she sank into it gratefully. I had no idea when I had become the parent and she had become the child. Probably when I was nine, and she fell pregnant with Maria.
Pregnant.
Nappies, bottles, sleepless nights, prams, cots, daycare, solids, crawling, walking….
Oh, dear Jesus. Not again.
First things first, though. I needed to get the truth. The whole truth.
“Is it true?” I asked. “Are you pregnant?”
“Yes.” Mum wouldn’t meet my eyes, just stared at the floor in front of her, twisting her fingers.
“When did you find out?”
She swallowed but still didn’t look up. “About six weeks ago. I went to the doctor with the stomach flu and he did a test.”
The pieces all fell into place. A stomach flu that was really morning sickness. The constant vomiting. The giving up alcohol and cigarettes.
“Who’s the father?” We all waited with bated breath to find out.
Mum rubbed at her forehead without looking up. “I don’t know. I can’t even remember having sex.” I closed my eyes in disappointment. My mother—the party girl. Still.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Lizzy burst out. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to us!”
But before I could snap at her, Ellie burst in. “You’re such a hypocrite, Lizzy. Doing this to us? What does it have to do with you anyway? It’s not like you ever visit Mum or contribute money to make sure Maria has enough to eat and for bills. You just go to your big, fancy school and leech off Jake if you don’t have enough money at the end of the week. And besides, if there’s a problem, you won’t be around. You’ve just finished telling us you’re off to Sydney. How about you think of someone other than you for once?”
Lizzy made a sound of shock but thankfully kept her tongue. “Cool it,” I ordered. “We have things to get through here.” I took a seat next to Lizzy and leaned forward, gently asking, “Mum? Why didn’t you tell us? How did this happen? I thought I bought you an IUD a couple of years ago?” How many sons drove their mothers to a GP and asked to have contraception inserted? My life was just one big thrill after another.
My mother looked up at me with beseeching eyes. “It came out…. The IUD, I mean. I had it checked at the clinic when they did my STD screening. It wasn’t in right so they took it out. I didn’t bother with a new one because… well, I thought I was menopausal. I hadn’t had a period for a long while and I hadn’t fallen pregnant even when my IUD hadn’t been inserted properly. I just didn’t know, Jake. I didn’t know that I could… I would never wish me on a baby. When the doctor told me, I felt so sick. Sick to my stomach. So I went off to take care of it.”
I knew what she meant. Unfortunately, Maria didn’t and had to ask the question. “Take care of it? What do you mean?”
I threw her a quick look. “An abortion, doll.” Maria’s eyes grew wide with distress, like I knew they would. Maria was extremely pro-life. “Go on, Mum. What happened?” I urged.
Mum sniffled a bit. “I went to that new place—Pregnancy Problem House? They’ve just opened up and they help you with stuff like this. They let me talk to a counselor to make sure I knew about my options. It was too late to take the morning-after pill, so if I didn’t want the baby, I’d have to have a procedure. They talked me through what options I had, when I had to make my mind up by and all that. I’ve been going every couple of days to see them. The counselors are really nice. And I’m not even the oldest mother there. There’s another lady I’ve spoken to. She’s forty-eight.”
“So what are you going to do, Mum?” That was the big question.
“I had the scan—you know the one to make sure the baby is okay? He seems to be fine. Of course they can’t tell if it is a boy or a girl yet, but I’m sure it’s a boy. He has all his legs and doesn’t seem to have Down Syndrome. Due to my age, there’s a big risk of the baby not being quite right, but he’s tested fine so far.”
“So are you keeping the baby? What are the risks to you?”
Mum sighed and looked down again. “There’s an increased risk of miscarriage during the first three months, which is why I wasn’t going to tell you guys for another couple of weeks. There are no real problems to me, but older mums have a higher… incidence, they call it. A higher incidence of stillbirths. So they just want to watch me closely and make sure I’m healthy as I can be.”
“And what are you going to do when the baby’s born?”
She shook her head and looked regretful. “I can’t keep him, Jake. I know that. I don’t have the energy or the ability to look after a baby. But I can’t just kill him either. I’ve got a long way to go before I know if he’ll even make it, but I want to at least give him a chance. I’ve talked to the counselor at Pregnancy Problem House and I’m looking into a private adoption. They can help me with that.”
“A what?” Maria was aghast. “He’s our brother! You can’t just give him away!”
Ellie was a little more grounded. “I think an adoption is a great idea. Mum’s certainly not in any state to care for a baby, and I don’t really want to be raising him. I have enough problems with dealing on my own with Skylah.”
“I’ll raise him,” Maria said stubbornly. “I can help Mum.”
“No way!” I vetoed that idea immediately. “You’re about to go to university. You can’t be caring for a baby and study too.”
“We can all help out,” Maria pleaded. “Can’t we all babysit?”
I sighed in exasperation. “A baby is not like caring for a bunny rabbit, doll. You need to have one person who is willing to do the all-night shifts when he’s sick, run him to the doctor, take him for checkups, get his immunizations done, make sure he’s fed and has enough clothes. Sure we can all babysit, but someone needs to take responsibility for him. If Mum’s not willing to do that, then maybe adoption is the best option.”
“But he’s our brother!” she wailed.
I felt for her. This was not an easy choice. “It’s Mum’s decision, poppet. If Mum doesn’t want to raise him or if she thinks she won’t be able to raise him, then it’s best that the little fella has two parents who can. But,” I held my hand up when Maria went to argue, “we need to focus on the here and now. Mum needs to get through another six months of pregnancy before any final decisions
are made.”
Maria pouted but settled down and I turned back to Mum. “So what can I do to help, Ma? Tell me what you need and I’ll help you.”
She leaned forward and cupped my cheek. “I love you, Jacob Manning. You have always been there for me. You have always taken the burden from my shoulders and carried it all by yourself. But this is one you can’t help me with. I just need to grow this baby all by myself. The booze urge is an hourly battle, but I’ve got a little one relying on me to keep off the grog and I’m determined to give this baby the best chance in life. Maria’s helping me eat right and you’re checking up on me. So you just need to watch over me until he’s ready to be born.”
“I can do that, Mum,” I vowed.
“The counselors at Pregnancy Problem House have shown me files of all the people waiting just to adopt a baby to love. There’s a couple I have in mind who would love a baby but can’t have one of their own. With a private adoption, I get to choose who my baby goes to, and last week I decided I’d give him to them. They don’t know it yet, but I’ll tell them about my decision when the time is closer. I need to do this. If I could make this dream come true for them, then I know I’ve done at least one worthwhile thing on this earth.”
I got up and pulled her into my arms. “You have a son who loves you and three beautiful daughters. You are worthwhile, Mum.”
She squeezed me tight before pulling back to smile wobbly at the room. “Isn’t this Christmas Day? Why are we all in here moping about! Let’s go and get lunch on the table and dig in.”
There were many unanswered questions and doubts, but I allowed them to be pushed aside, and we all put on our best faces before descending on the kitchen to haul out all the food.
I WAS good at pretending, and we managed to celebrate Christmas even though my boat had been rocked. I was suffering badly from seasickness, and in the end there was no romantic dinner with Patrick, just leftovers and an early night. He held me tightly in his arms in the darkness of our room and waited for me to speak.