It was—I checked—6:17am. Sarah never left this early, she’d be at Frost well before 7am if she did. When I poked my head out my bedroom door just to be very certain it wasn’t Rob leaving to catch an early flight or something, I spotted his dusty work jacket still hung by the front door. I couldn’t hear him snoring, though.
Shit, I thought, feeling uneasy and climbing back underneath my warm doona. I really hope nothing serious had happened between her and Rob. I turned my phone over a few times in my hands and then decided to text her about it. “Hey, are you okay? I just saw you leave.”
It didn’t take her long to reply. “If by okay you mean definitely about to vomit out all internal organs, then yeah, totally okay! ;) Just couldn’t sleep and figured it was better to be up doing something productive than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.”
Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling? I tapped the phone on my chin for a second and then opted to be more direct. “You and Rob are okay, right?”
“I guess? He wants to keep it, I don’t, and it’s my body, so yeah. He respects my decision which is the main thing. Tell Schoolgirl I’m sorry I didn’t get around to her Chem stuff and we might need to push it back in the timeline a bit. Should be home by 7 :)”
Well… I supposed that didn’t sound too bad. She seemed fine, didn’t she? I supposed the urge to ‘vomit out all internal organs’ might have a role to play in her not sleeping. Comfortable with that, and having no desire to vomit out all of my own internal organs, I disabled my alarm and went back to sleep for an hour or so. Sunlight streaming through my window later woke me up and sent me in search of caffeine.
Sarah’s house was notoriously cold because she didn’t have central heating, so even though the sun was up, the floorboards in my room were like ice, and when I exhaled, it was in a cloud of steam. Even with thick socks and a big hoodie, I had to stand directly in the thin thread of sunlight coming through the kitchen window while I waited for the jug to boil so I didn’t freeze to death. Living in a climate-controlled hotel for four years and working in climate-controlled offices had apparently rendered me incapable of controlling my own internal climate.
I was busy curling my hands around the plastic jug and reflecting on the fact I really needed some warmer clothes when Rob appeared through the doorway. I glanced up, about to make a dry comment about the refrigerator of a house we were all living in, when I saw his face. The words caught in my throat.
He looked like he hadn’t slept a wink. There was no cheerful whistling this morning. None of his usual loud, booming singing that had started off as a shower solo and was now filling up the house. He was silent, and I don’t even think he’d had a shower. He nodded mutely in greeting instead, and took a mug out of the cupboard to wait quietly for the jug. He wasn’t looking at me.
Poor Rob, I thought, remembering Sarah’s text. I had a feeling that ‘he wants me to keep it’ might have been a serious understatement. There wasn’t a single thing he could do about it either, except respect that it was her decision because it was her body. That must have been rough.
I held my hand out in a ‘gimme’ motion. “How do you take your coffee? I’ll make you one.”
“White and one,” he said, and then glanced up at me, pausing for a second. “Ta.”
I nodded at him as he passed his mug to me and left.
I made our coffees, filling the whole kitchen with hot steam from the jug, and then carefully ferried them out into the living room. Rob had slid the back door all the way open and was sitting in the morning sunlight on the decking, in shorts and apparently unaffected by the cold. I went out there and slowly transferred his coffee to him, and I was heading back inside again when he said, “It’s warmer out here in the sun,” and nudged the chair alongside him with the tip of his boot.
I sat in it, careful not to spill my coffee, taking a big lungful of crisp morning air and tiny sips from the mug. I liked Sarah’s backyard; it was on a slope and was clearly the garden of someone who was never at home. It wasn’t landscaped – it just had two large gum trees that freely littered the patchy lawn and rusted trampoline underneath them with gumnuts and leaves. Because of the trees, it felt more rural than it was. It could have been out in the Blue Mountains and not in the middle of Sydney’s North Shore. Rob, a country boy at heart, was clearly right at home here, even if he looked pretty far from home this morning.
I’d nearly finished my coffee by the time he finally spoke. “I’m being bloody ridiculous, aren’t I? It’s a bunch of cells inside her.” From his expression, his question was mostly rhetorical. He looked deep in thought.
Nevertheless, I turned my head to watch him so he knew I was listening.
He was still gazing out at the yard. “Daz has kids. Well, his ex-missus has them, but he sees them all the time and they’re always staying with him.” He smiled indulgently for a moment. “One of them is the cutest little thing, she’s two now. She’s into everything she can get her tiny hands on, you can’t even keep up with her. She’s always asking heaps of questions, and she follows Daz everywhere with her yellow plastic hammer, pretending to bang on walls, and doors, and furniture going, ‘I fix this! Look, Daddy, I fix this!’, and I—” His voice caught in his throat. “You know, it’s just a bunch of cells, but...”
Ouch. I leant over to him and put a hand on his shoulder for a second. He smiled faintly in acknowledgement, and it was a few minutes before he spoke again. “Well, I have to go help Daz with the gutters on this house he’s doing, so I’d better head off.” He held the mug up for a second. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“I’ll wash the mug for you,” I said, and accepted it from him.
He stood, but he loitered tensely around the doorway for a moment. “Sares doesn’t think we can afford it,” he told me. “And we can’t while I’m on standby rates. But I’m a tradie, I can make serious money if I need to, I’d do any job that pays. And I’d take care of her, Min. I’d take care of them both. That kid wouldn’t want for anything, and neither would Sares.” He took a breath. “Can you tell her that for me?”
Rob... “I’ll tell her,” I said, choosing not to add that I didn’t like his chances of changing her mind. She’d been pretty certain last night.
He understood anyway. “…But it might not make a difference,” he finished, nodding. “I just want her to know that. I want her to know.”
He went back inside, and I followed him in with our mugs and went to wash them in the sink. Before he left, he came into the kitchen to edge past me and grab a couple of pieces of fruit out of the bowl to take with him. I watched him select a spotty banana and try to decide if it was too far gone to eat. “What do you reckon about this one?” he asked, showing it to me.
I shook my head. “Not worth the risk.” I stepped on the pedal of the bin so the lid opened. “Put it out of its misery.”
He glanced at the bin and made a snap decision to toss the decrepit fruit in his bag anyway. At my expression, he said, “I like to live on the edge.”
I had to laugh at that—we both did— and I clapped him on the back as he squeezed past me again. He paused by the door as he hoisted his rucksack over his big shoulders, suddenly giving me a really puzzled look. “Sometimes I forget you weren’t always a bloke,” he told me, and then continued up the hallway. The door fell shut behind him, screaming on its hinges.
I was pretty sure he’d meant that as a fumbling compliment, so I chuckled a bit and then got back to washing our mugs and planning my day.
There was a small shopping centre reasonably close to Sarah’s, so I figured I’d head there and use it to plug the holes in my winter wardrobe. I couldn’t buy too much—the bank had withdrawn another payment for my stupidly expensive car and my balance was under $2k now—but it would probably be safe to buy a coat and a couple more long-sleeve tops and have enough left to live on until my severance pay came through.
I was wandering through menswear with an armful of potential jackets when my phone we
nt off. Awkwardly, I tried to fish it out of my pocket so I could read it, thinking it was probably Henry finally getting back to me after last night.
It wasn’t, it was from Sarah. “Okay, this might be kind of redundant because I get the sense you’re a vault when it comes to the stuff people tell you, but can you not tell anyone what’s going on with me? Even Bree. Thanks xx.”
My eyebrows went up, and I dumped my armful of clothes on top of the nearest rack so I could reply. “You’re not going to tell anyone?”
“I will. Just after it’s over. People will act like an abortion is this big deal and I don’t want a hundred people trying to talk me out of it.”
I leant against the clothes rack, frowning. “I don’t think they will? As long as you’re comfortable you’re making the right decision, people will respect that and support you.”
“Lol, if their ‘respect my decision’ is like Rob’s was, they’ll all beg me not to do it for three hours before finally giving in and acting like I’m some heartless baby murderer. I can’t deal with that. I do want kids, I just can’t have them right now.”
I winced at the image of Rob begging Sarah to keep it. I doubted he was treating her like she was a ‘heartless baby murderer’ now, though. He’d just been sad. Sad, and determined they could make it work. “If money’s the problem, Rob’s a tradie and would definitely sort something out so you two can stay in the house.”
“It’s not up for discussion, Min. If I have a kid now, I have to give up my job, my lifestyle, my body, my sex life, my freedom, my financial independence, and my awesome plan re: paying off the house and visiting Dad’s village in Italy. I basically have to give up my whole future, I am so not ready for that.” There was a pause, and then another one came through. “And not to be a bitch or anything, but what if I do give up all that and I still fuck up majorly because I’m not ready and my kid ends up hating me as much as you hate your mum?”
Wow. I stared at the phone, smarting a bit. She probably wasn’t wrong about Mum making some mistakes, but that was… I shook my head and typed. “I don’t hate her, Sarah.”
“Yeah, but you won’t even answer her vmails and your worst nightmare is her visiting, so what’s the difference? I couldn’t deal with it if I did that to my kid. Better not to risk it.”
This conversation was getting way off track. “Okay, okay, I get your point. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thanks, Toyboy. You’re the best xxxxx P.S. I laminated one of your old business cards and stuck it under your painting in the atrium. Wanna place bets on how long it's up before someone mysteriously takes it down?”
I laughed at that, but sobered as I continued shopping. It was difficult to concentrate after that conversation; Sarah’s comments about Mum kind of dug in and only served to remind me that my worst nightmare would actually come true if I hadn’t sorted something out with Henry by July 19.
Bree arriving in the late afternoon was a welcome distraction from my impending doom and the fact Henry wouldn’t answer his fucking phone. She dumped her bag inside the door and came rushing over to me on the couch, and I barely had enough time to move my laptop out the way before she hopped into my lap and kissed me soundly.
“It’s so good to see you!” she said between kisses, wrapping her arms all the way around my neck. “Last night was crap, I hate sleeping by myself. Plus it was, like, freezing but Dad yells at me if I turn the heater on.”
“There’s no heater here, either,” I reminded her.
She smiled coyly. “Yeah, but I don’t get cold when I share with you,” she told me. “And you let me wear your big hoodies around the house, so…” She kissed my nose. “Anyway! How was your day?”
I grimaced. “Um.”
She wasn’t done with that coy smile yet, apparently. It deepened. “Can I make it better?” she wondered aloud.
I could feel her body pressed against me. “Maybe,” I told her with a half-grin, snaking my arms around her waist and opening my mouth to her as she kissed me again.
I had my hand up her top and she was sighing against my lips when the back door slid open suddenly. She leapt off me, grabbing instinctively at her shirt. Fortunately, I hadn’t unbuttoned it yet, but her cheeks were pink and our lips were red and it was pretty fucking obvious what we’d been doing.
I twisted in the couch; Rob had come in through the back door and looked just as shocked as we were. “Er, sorry about that, guys,” he said awkwardly, presenting himself. “I’m home. I just thought I’d make the effort to get back on time today, that’s all.” He continued up the hallway and disappeared into his closet-sized man cave.
Bree and I stared after him for a second, and then she started to giggle. She wouldn't stop, either, and in the end we gave up on messing around because it was too weird with Rob knowing what we were up to.
“I should probably do some homework anyway,” Bree said, making a face and smoothing down her skirt. “If I start those Chem exercises I’m supposed to do with Sarah now, I can probably have them ready for her to look at by the time she gets home.”
I winced, remembering the text message Sarah had sent about not being able to help tonight. I read that part out to Bree.
Her smile faltered. “But I have a Chem test tomorrow,” she said, and then looked hopefully at me. “Can you help instead, maybe?”
I winced and shook my head. “I didn’t take Chem. I don’t think Gemma did, either: we both did Physics instead.”
Bree visibly deflated a little, but then attempted to puff herself back up again. “Well, maybe Sarah can still remember some of it and she won’t have to revise to help me,” she said optimistically. “I should probably do the exercises now, just in case.” With that, she got her tablet from my room and her exercise books from her bag, and then sat herself down at the table and began chipping away at the questions.
Even if she had very little idea what she was doing, I was pretty damn proud of her for trying to do her homework anyway. One of Bree’s contagious smiles on my face, I sat across the room from her with my tablet, making some quick sketches of all the strange positions she was trying to study in and laughing quietly to myself about them.
When Sarah got home, she powered through the doorway like she wasn’t as white as a sheet and put her handbag on the table near Bree. “Hey, kids,” she greeted us casually, and then her face fell as soon as she’d realised what she’d said. She didn’t pursue it. I didn’t either, I just gave her a silent wave from behind my laptop.
“Hey!” Bree said cheerfully, turning in the chair towards her. “I know you said you didn’t get around to looking at your Chem books, but I have a…” She trailed off, frowning. “Oh my god, Sarah, you look really sick, like really. And it’s been days. Maybe you should go to the doctor.”
“I went last night,” she told Bree. “And I’m fine.” She leant over the table to take a look at the exercises Bree was working on. “What kind of formulas are you doing? Maybe I can figure them out anyway.”
Bree wasn’t buying it. “No way, Sarah. You are so totally not fine. What did the doctor say? What do you have, is it bad?”
Sarah glanced at me. “I’m waiting on the results of some blood tests, but I promise you I’m going to be fine,” she told Bree and then gave her a critical look. “You’re disturbingly persistent, by the way.”
Bree still looked worried. “I know,” she said miserably. “Everyone says so. But if you care about something, you can’t just suddenly not care about it.”
Sarah laughed at that and pulled up a chair next to her. “So, show me what you’re doing?”
Bree did not look convinced that Sarah was okay and I certainly didn’t think that was the last of it, but her concern about tomorrow’s test apparently trumped her need to find out about Sarah’s mystery illness right at this second. Pretty soon they had their heads together over the table, trying to work out the exercises. I drew a few sketches of that, too.
I was in the middle of ad
ding some light colour to the sketch, when Rob emerged from his man cave with a piece of paper in his hands. He walked all the way up to Sarah and presented it to her. She accepted it from him, looking hesitant. “What’s this?” Her eyes skimmed over the text.
Rob stuck out his big barrel chest. “My letter of resignation from Frost Energy. Is it any good? I’m shit at this sort of stuff.”
Sarah immediately stopped reading and let it fall to the table before just handing it unceremoniously back to him. “You’re not resigning. We’ll talk about this later.”
He looked determined. “Yes, I am,” he told her. “I’ll get a job around here. Daz reckons there’s plenty of stuff for fitters and turners on the wharves, so that’s where I’ll go. It’s good money, too.”
“I know what you’re doing,” she told him shortly, “we can talk about this later.”
He ignored that. “I want to be here, Sares. I want to take care of you.”
As soon as Rob said that, Bree’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. She looked at me in panic and then exploded with, “I have to go to the toilet!” before standing up and running off into the bathroom.
It was pretty clear to everyone that Bree leaving had nothing to do with the toilet, and Sarah glanced in warning towards me.
I was already beginning to feel like I was intruding on a deeply personal conversation, and that glance hammered the point home. “Um,” I said, standing and jerking my thumb towards the hallway. “I’m just going to go check on Bree.”
As I fled out of the living room, I heard Sarah saying to Rob, “This isn’t fair. I’ve told you how I feel. That’s it, that’s final.”
“Then why were you tossing and turning all bloody night, Sares?” he was saying. “If you have any doubts, like any tiny niggling doubts that maybe us two could make it work if we—”
I drowned out the sound of them arguing by knocking on the bathroom door. “Bree?” She didn’t come out, and I didn’t want to stand in the hallway listening to them, so I retreated into my room to wait for her there. At least inside my room I couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other.
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