by Lilian Darcy
'I do. I know I do. I just don't want—'
'You're not pressuring me, OK?' he insisted. 'Are you going to ring from home or from your office, or where?'
'My office, I guess.'
'Strangely enough, I've suddenly thought of a patient I need to come and consult you about.'
'It's all right. Gillian won't ask questions, and Linda's not there on Monday mornings.'
'Sure you don't want me to come over tonight?'
'Mom and Maddy won't be gone long.'
'I'd like to meet your mother.'
'Not tonight, Steve.' Her tension had pushed to breaking point now, and she didn't want to bring the two halves of her universe together tonight, no matter how well behaved everyone was.
Steve arrived at her office the next morning only moments after she'd walked through the door herself, but it was a wasted trip. Dr Strickland wasn't in his rooms, and his receptionist had no information on the test.
'He'll call you when he has the result,' she promised in a voice of professional sympathy.
'Does he have my pager number?' Candace demanded, jittery and sick. 'And the number of the recovery annexe at the hospital?'
'I'll take those down for you,' said the same patient voice. 'He'll phone you as soon as he can.'
'Nothing?' Steve correctly guessed when she'd put down the phone.
'Nothing.' She gave a thin shrug.
'What are you thinking?' he demanded. 'You're frowning.'
'I'm thinking about the intractable, unbridgeable chasm between doctors and patients,' she said. 'Thinking about how many times I've left those sorts of phone calls until the end of the day, even when I've had a result on my desk first thing in the morning, because I've been too flat out with other stuff, blithely ignoring the fact that an extra eight hours of waiting feels like eight weeks to the patient concerned.'
'You're going to reform from now on?'
'I can't!' she answered. 'Realistically, next time it happens I'm going to have another person on hold on the phone while I'm glancing through the pathology reports, I'm going to be running late for surgery, the patient's not going to be picking up the phone if I do squeeze in a call over lunch, and it's going to get left until the end of the day.'
'Sounds like a familiar story.'
'And I know Ian Strickland has fifty other patients he's thinking about today, and some of those patients—infertility cases, people with cancer—would wish they were in my position, waiting for my kind of news.'
She gave a laugh that was more like a sob, and he came around the desk to where she sat and wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing his cheek against hers.
'Don't torture yourself,' he said.; 'Do you have all my numbers? Because as soon as Strickland does reach you, I want you to do your damnedest to reach me.'
'I will,' she promised.
'And we're going to see each other tonight whether we have a result or not. Maddy can have a tantrum about it if she likes.'
'She won't. Mom's very good at keeping Maddy's feet on the ground.'
'Come over for dinner, the three of you.'
'No, not that.'
She said it too quickly. Just couldn't face the thought of all those vibes. Mom trying to assess this man who'd made her daughter pregnant. Maddy feeling hostile. Steve pretending everything was fine and normal and easy.
He was silent for a moment, then said, 'She knows, doesn't she? Your mother? About the pregnancy.'
'Gee, you're almost as clairvoyant as she is!'
'What did she say?'
'A fair bit. Most of it pretty good. Gave me some things to think about.'
Another short silence, as if he wanted to ask more. But he didn't. 'I should go,' he said instead.
'I hope you'll hear from me.'
'So do I.'
Dr Strickland phoned at four o'clock. Candace had a patient with her, but had told Gillian that she wanted this particular call put through at once, no matter what.
'Yes, Dr Strickland?' She was dizzy and sick with apprehension, and drenched in clamminess.
'I have the result on your chorionic biopsy in front of me.'
'Yes?'
He didn't waste words. 'Good news, Dr Fletcher.'
'How good?'
'The best. You're carrying a healthy— Did you want to know the sex?'
'No... Yes. Yes!'
'It's a boy who's genetically normal in everything we're able to test for. On this occasion, that thickened skin at the nuchal fold which we noted on the scan was insignificant.'
'Th-thank you,' she stammered. 'Thank you!' Then she gabbled to her elderly patient, Stan Caldecott, 'Will you please excuse me for a moment, Mr Caldecott?'
She fled the office, ignored Gillian's startled look, paced up and down the deserted corridor outside the rooms she shared with Linda, gave several dry, shaky sobs, then had to stand there for several moments, bringing her breathing and her expression under control.
She gave Mr Caldecott his post-surgery check-up on autopilot, deeply thankful that he was the last patient of the day, and the moment he was out the door she closed it and turned to the phone. Tried Steve's rooms. Was told he'd left for the day. Tried his mobile phone. Reached him in the middle of the supermarket.
'It's normal,' she said shakily. 'He's a boy. And he's fine. Completely fine.'
'Lord, I just want to see you!' came Steve's voice, husky and deep, different from usual yet achingly familiar.
'Yes,' she answered. 'Yes!'
'Right now.'
'Yes. I don't think I should drive. I'm—'
'I'll be there, OK? Don't leave!'
She didn't, although the minutes dragged until his arrival.
Gillian had obviously noticed Candace's agitation as she wandered out of her consulting room and into the rear office, ran her fingers automatically through a drawer of files and wandered out again. Darting into Candace's consulting room, the receptionist said in a stage whisper, 'Is everything all right?'
'I've just had some good news. Very good news. Family. Private.' She waved a hand. 'I'm...light-headed with relief.'
'That's great, Dr Fletcher. I'll head off, then, shall I?'
'Yes. Fine.'
Gillian left and then Steve arrived, lunged through the waiting room without the slightest pause and took her in his arms. He brushed her mouth with his lips, buried his face in the tendrils of hair that had slipped free of their clip, stroked her back and then squeezed her and lifted her from the ground to whirl her around the room.
'You're crazy!' she accused, laughing. 'Completely!'
They were both a little crazy that night. When they had calmed down enough to think, Candace phoned her mother at the beach house and told her the news.
'You can start living again now,' Elaine said.
'Yes, that's what it feels like. As if my whole life has been on hold these past three weeks. Steve's here and we're going to... Well, I don't know what we're going to do, but I might not be home for a couple of hours, OK?'
'If you get home before midnight, my girl, I'll ground you for a week!' Elaine said.
There was no danger of Candace getting home before midnight. Steve drove her up to Braidwood for dinner, and it was more than an hour's trip each way.
'I'm sorry. I hope this is all right,' he said as they looped and curved along the forested highway. 'But I need to cover some ground and feel some speed under my wheels.'
'It's fine. I think I'm the same. I'm just so happy for him, Steve. That he's going to come into the world now with everything going for him, instead of with such a struggle ahead.'
'I thought maybe we were going to have to step off a cliff-edge today, but we don't. It's good. We're having a boy!'
'Haven't had one of those before.' She laughed with a secret joy and delight that no words could have expressed.
'Smell this forest,' he said a moment later. 'Don't you love this? This is the lungs of the planet.'
She took a deep, appreciative brea
th of the air coming through the open car window, as he was doing. 'The planet's been sucking on breath mints.'
'No! Gee, Candace, is that how it smells to you? It's so much fresher than that.'
'Australians are so weird about the smell of eucalyptus!'
'And proud of it!'
She humoured the father of her child. 'It's beautiful. The sunset is beautiful, too.'
The little town of Braidwood, with its well-preserved 150-year-old buildings, was chilly but clear-skied. They weren't dressed for fine dining, so chose a quiet little place that served pizzas baked in a wood-fired oven. They were piping hot, crisp, flavourful and delicious.
They didn't linger too long over the meal. Steve bought a bottle of red wine from the hotel bottle-shop and Candace allowed herself the first small half-glass of alcohol she'd drunk since learning of her pregnancy. He had only one glass as well, and they corked up the bottle and brought it with them.
'For next time,' Steve said.
'Good wine doesn't keep for long.'
'Next time won't be long away, will it?'
They wandered around the town, window-shopped in front of a couple of antique and craft shops and indulged in a flight of total fantasy about purchasing and renovating one of the old stone public buildings, set in spacious grounds. They argued about heritage paint colours and about whether to keep the hotchpotch of outbuildings at the back or pull them down. They bought imaginary horses and landscaped a fantasy swimming pool.
They talked about politics and music and travel, enjoying the sheer pleasure of being able to bat a subject back and forth like a ping-pong ball without it all being part of some painful undercurrent of awareness, a way of not talking about what really filled their minds—is the baby all right?
They didn't have to think that way any more. The baby was all right. He was a boy. He was real and normal. The shadow was gone.
Then it became too cold, so they drove back to Narralee, and didn't even talk about where Steve should park the car.
At his place.
'Mom said I wasn't allowed to get home before midnight...' she said as they came up his external stairs.
'That's a challenge I can rise to without any trouble at all.'
He had his arms around her before they were even inside.
It took days for the mood of light-headed happiness to wear off, and what was left behind was something richer—a contentment, though that word didn't seem strong enough, that Candace had never felt before.
She was newly energised, light on her feet, starving hungry... and she could feel the baby now. Her unborn son. No movements yet, but a distinct, slightly rounded hardness in her lower abdomen which she knew would grow daily.
People would soon have to be told. A few weeks ago, this had seemed like a huge hurdle, but it had faded into insignificance against the question of the baby's well-being, and Candace wasn't going to get her priorities wrong any more. It didn't matter if people knew. It didn't matter what they thought.
Only Maddy's feelings mattered. This was the only reason she still hugged the secret of her pregnancy to herself. She needed to find the right time to tell Maddy.
It came on a Sunday night, halfway through Elaine's visit, when Candace had counted off the fifteen-week milestone. Not the right time, but the inevitable time.
Steve had had the three of them to lunch, along with Matt and Helen and their young children, Jake, Claire and Annabelle, and the afternoon had stretched on until Maddy had whispered to Candace, 'Mom, I'm so bored! I mean, the kids are cute, but—'
'You can leave if you like.' She had pressed the frontdoor key into her daughter's hand.
Maddy's departure—managed with acceptable politeness and grace, to Candace's relief—had allowed the adults to enjoy another hour of conversation, and Candace had warmed increasingly to Steve's brother and sister-in-law. When Steve touched her openly a couple of times, she knew that seeds of understanding were sprouting rapidly in Matt's and Helen's minds. Candace and Steve were both laying the groundwork. But for what?
When Candace and her mother got home from Steve's, Maddy was at first sulky, then very vocal over dinner.
'Richard and Julia phoned when I got home. They'd been trying since noon, they said, and, of course, we forgot the cellphone. I could have gone to their place, but no-o-o. Instead, the most boring afternoon of my life. Why did we have to meet those people? Why were you trying so hard to be nice to them?'
'Oh, was I?' Candace was a little startled by this.
More so when her mother confirmed it.
'They won't have noticed, darling,' Elaine reassured her. 'We only did because we know you. You were wearing your best party voice and you'd starched your laugh. Don't you think it's about time you told her?' she added, without the slightest change of tone.
If she was hoping to slip the question past Maddy, she was destined for disappointment.
'Told me what?' came the sharp demand at once. 'I know about Steve. You haven't been sneaking out to meet him. I thought you'd taken my advice and it was over.'
'Whether it's over or not,' Elaine said, 'there's going to be...'
She stopped.
Candace glared at her mother, then immediately wished she had let Elaine bite the bullet. Realistically, there was never going to be an easy time for it.
Maddy, I'm pregnant.
'I'm not sure what's going to happen between us in the future, Maddy,' she forced herself to say, as calmly as possible. 'We...haven't talked about that. But there's one sense in which it's never going to be over. It's the same way with your father and me, despite what happened with the divorce. When you have a child with someone, they'll always be a part of your life.'
'You mean... ?' Maddy choked, flushed and looked down at Candace's stomach.
'Yes. I'm pregnant.'
'That is just—! That is just—! How could you? Brittany was bad enough, but at least she's young! God, I'm going to be so embarrassed!'
She stumbled out of the room, her eyes narrowed and burning, her cheeks flushed and her whole gangly yet graceful teenage body looking like one big scowl. The door of her room slammed.
One day she's going to have to think of a more original punctuation point to her angry exits, Candace thought. The door-slamming is getting old.
The humour was grim, and she kept it to herself.
'That went well,' she said aloud instead, the sarcasm light but deadly.
'You didn't really think it could, did you?'
'No, of course I didn't, Mom. But I thought perhaps she might be concerned about a few issues that are actually relevant, like distance and commitment, instead of my age and her embarrassment.'
'Now you're being as selfish as she is.'
'Oh, I am? Oh, thanks!'
'Honey—'
'Maybe I'll slam a door or two as well. Maybe we all should. Just not speak to each other for the rest of your stay.'
'We'll be going in a week,' Elaine reminded her helpfully.
'I know.' Candace paced the room. 'And I'm terrified because I don't know when I'll see you again. I don't know anything.'
'Not even what you want?'
'Not even what I want,' Candace said. 'Or what I have the right to ask. Of you, of Maddy, or of Steve.'
The atmosphere was tense and unsettled between the three of them for the remainder of Elaine's and Maddy's stay, and Candace was weighed down by mixed feelings when she drove them to Sydney for their Saturday afternoon departure. Maddy still hadn't said one pleasant word about the baby. She'd been uncomfortable enough about Brittany's pregnancy, but her feelings seemed even stronger about this one. Totally hostile. She didn't have a moment to spare for Candace's stubborn, illogical joy about the healthy boy growing inside her.
How is she going to be to live with if I go back early, when I'm sticking out like an extra shelf, and later, when my energy's consumed with a newborn? Can our relationship survive, or will there be permanent damage? Candace wondered.
Wh
enever she thought about Maddy's feelings, she was torn between anger and an understanding that didn't help her to find solutions.
The anger was selfish in many ways. Elaine had recognised this, and so did Candace herself. The recognition didn't always help in keeping the feeling at bay.
Nothing helped.
In four weeks, she would be halfway through her pregnancy. Three months after that, she would no longer be permitted on an international flight. If she was going to cut her stay here short and have the baby back home, that decision had to be made soon. Handling her own prenatal care, as she had been doing so far, wasn't going to be satisfactory for much longer.
She could check her own blood pressure and blood sugar, check her weight gain and her urine for the presence of protein, but she didn't have much experience of obstetrics, and didn't trust that she'd pick up on a more obscure problem, or that she'd be able to accurately assess the baby's size and growth.
At her age—'Yes, Maddy, thanks for the birthday cake you made me last week, but you're right, thirty-nine is old,' she told her daughter in imagination as she drove south from the airport—and after such a long gap in her child-bearing, she wanted to see someone with a lot of experience.
She would go to a top Boston obstetrician if she went home, and perhaps to Graeme Boland, down at Harpoon Bay, if she stayed here. He had a good reputation, she knew. Not down-to-earth Linda, although Linda's reputation was good as well. Linda was too close.
At the moment, however, Boston seemed the more likely place.
Why, though?
Steve was waiting for her when she reached home after the drive back from Sydney, as she had half known he would be. There was a note to that effect on her front door.
'Come straight down. I'll be home. I'll leave a message on your machine if I'm called out.'
After checking her machine and finding no message, she went, eager to see him without the stress of knowing that her mother and her daughter were close at hand.
He opened the door before she'd even knocked. His chest was bare and brown and his jeans hung precariously on his hips, as if he didn't particularly want them to stay up. She loved the way that line of hair, black against the light nutmeg brown of his skin, arrowed down the centre of his lower stomach towards his groin.