The Chance of a Lifetime

by kendra Smith

  Then a thought suddenly struck her.

  Tell him Andy saw him kissing someone… She stopped for a moment, reflected on how that would sound. Yes, your honour, my four-year-old witnessed them snogging.

  ‘Anyway, bet Naomi wouldn’t know how to puree carrots and do a spelling test at the same time, now would she?’ Katie retorted, flinging a tea towel over her shoulder.

  ‘Katie… Naomi? What are you talking about? Listen, darling, you need to do more for yourself.’ He reached out to touch her shoulders. ‘Having kids doesn’t mean you have to sign your life away to them.’ He held on to her shoulders and smiled at her.

  ‘Of course I’ve signed my life away – because I’m the one who’s here. I’m the one they talk to. I’m a mum, Tom. A stay-at-home mum.’ She shrugged her shoulders, looked down and smoothed her shirt. She noticed it had jam stains on it, then turned around and walked off and sat at the dining table. She stared at the plastic tablecloth, started to count the creamy pink petals on its flowery design.

  Tom came up behind her, put his hand on the back of her neck and slid into the seat next to her.

  ‘I thought this would be the start of a new adventure for both of us. What’s happened to “us”?’ he said gently.

  She looked at him and could see his eyes were dewy.

  ‘I thought coming out here, it might bring back that fire in your belly…’ he said.

  ‘Fire?’ she said. The only thing in my belly right now is too many chocolate rolls after the kids’ tea. She attempted to tense her stomach muscles.

  ‘Listen,’ he continued, his voice softer still, ‘the reason I’m working so hard is to pay for all of this, for our new life.’ His eyes swept around the room, taking in the scene. Crayons, pens, pencils and bits of Lego covered the table. Andy was in front of the Teletubbies, blanky in his hand. Laundry baskets were overflowing; breast pads littered the lounge like little coasters, as if they were having a cocktail party. Only we aren’t entertaining at the moment, thought Katie, in fact won’t be entertaining again until early 2020. She had never anticipated how hard it would all be without the help of a nanny, without any family around, no old mates…

  Suddenly, she pulled her chair back, grabbed her handbag. ‘Actually, I’m going out. Ann’s invited me to a book club.’

  She stared at herself in the hall mirror. Her round face was ruddy from crying, her eyes pink. Her hair was tied up in a loose ponytail cascading down her back. Her blue cropped trousers were straining a little at the top, pulled in by a white belt. Pink flip-flops and a white shirt with a raspberry jam stain completed the look. She pulled her cardigan around her. Nobody will notice, she thought, closing the door behind her.

  20

  Ann leaned across the table and whispered to Katie. ‘Mr Bounce and Mr Clever have survived!’

  Katie frowned at her, then suddenly realised she was talking about human embryos, embryos that had been growing in a petri dish in a North Sydney lab. Katie smiled. ‘Brilliant.’ She reached over for another spring roll – how many had she had? Five or six? They were delicious.

  ‘Katie, I can’t quite believe it. It will change our life – I’m going in the day after tomorrow and they put them in!’ She patted her stomach protectively.

  Katie squeezed Ann’s knee under the table, but she couldn’t help remembering Paul at Christmas. How angry he was. She frowned with the memory.

  ‘Paul’s really taking this whole thing worse than me, the stress of it all. He’s happy at the moment, well… but—’ she cleared her throat, smiled ‘—I’ve never seen him like this before. Desperate – wants a girl.’

  Katie flinched. ‘But you can’t choose that.’ She sighed. ‘You know, I can’t imagine what you’re going through, Ann.’ She stared at her blonde-haired friend, at her freckles and sparkly earrings, and wondered just what was going through her mind.

  ‘No.’ She looked at Katie for a moment and held her gaze. ‘You can’t.’ She looked away and absent-mindedly rubbed her forearm. ‘Please, God, let me get pregnant…’ Katie looked down and noticed a mark.

  ‘IVF needles,’ muttered Ann, ‘they’re horrid.’

  Ann forced a smile. Katie squeezed her shoulder. She listened as Ann chatted to the woman next to her and was amazed at her courage, at her determination in the face of nature trying to thwart her.

  As she looked up she zoned in on Naomi talking to the woman next to her. ‘Don’t you just feel, sort of, bored with everything?’

  ‘With what? Life, sweetie?’

  When were they going to talk about books?

  Katie couldn’t help but listen. Naomi was explaining an affair a friend of hers was having. Was saying the man was fed up with his wife, that she bored him, bored him intellectually and in bed, that he wanted some excitement back. She blushed then, as she explained that her friend told her they’d found plenty of that! Said her ‘mate’ did feel guilty, but was having too much fun. Katie stared at her. No, it couldn’t be, could it?

  Katie cast her eyes over Naomi again. She clearly spent a fortune on her looks. No wonder Tom couldn’t stop gawping at her. Word in the playground was that she’d had a boob job, plus her face was so youthful. Hair the colour of dark golden syrup, cropped into an elfin bob. Her glasses boasted the intertwining C’s of Chanel in diamante, perched on top of her head. Finger and toenails painted a matching milky coffee colour. Successful husband: yes. Beautiful boy, Billy: yes. Stunning house: yes. She really does have it all, thought Katie, carefully dipping a chicken satay stick into the rich, golden peanut sauce.

  Suddenly, Naomi excused herself from the table to go to the bathroom. As she walked past, she glanced down at Katie and gave her a thin smile. On closer inspection, Katie noticed murky circles under her eyes; must be partying too hard, she thought.

  *

  As Katie pulled into the driveway, she noticed the lights were still on.

  ‘How was your evening? What did you chat about?’ Tom yawned, stretched his hand above his head.

  ‘We chatted about the school, shoe shops, Matthew McConaughey’s pecs, girls’ stuff – no books…’ She laughed, perching on the edge of the sofa. She looked over at him, saw his serious face.

  ‘Hey, Katie, sorry about earlier. I’d had it, long day. We should chat. There’s something I need to talk over with you. Our accountants contacted us today – about the London house.’

  Katie’s heart sank. ‘Before you say anything, I think I know what you’re going to suggest. I know how much we still owe, Tom; I saw the figures – I nearly threw up. It was much worse than I thought… still twenty-six thousand…’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I thought with your new job and us cutting back we’d have made more progress… You want to sell the house, don’t you?’ she said, looking up. She felt as though someone had a knife and was twisting it around in her abdomen.

  ‘Perhaps, Katie. I’ve just been looking at house prices in London – they’re set to fall even more; our mortgage is interest only – and you know the share options have dwindled – we should get out now. Sorry sweetheart…’ His voice trailed off.

  She closed her eyes and conjured up images of her beautiful kitchen, the family photos on the walls… When she opened them again, she was staring at the same photos – only on a different wall, a burnt-orange wall. My last hold on the UK, she thought. Tom took her hand in his and they sat in silence. She realised that if the house was sold, they owned nothing in England any more. It would leave a huge hole in her heart.

  ‘Listen, Katie, I’ve been thinking while you were out – you should do something for yourself, you know, outside the house. Sorry about what I said earlier.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she sat up stiffly, felt the folds of her belly settle around her middle and hauled her shoulders back.

  ‘Remember our honeymoon in Egypt, the Try Dive in the Red Sea?’ Tom said, his eyes shining. He was smiling at her. She sank back down on the sofa next to him.

  ‘You know I’m terrified of
deep water.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ he sighed. ‘Look, I suppose it’s too much, with the kids and everything.’

  She suddenly felt teary as he put his arms around her. Do I disappoint him so much?

  21

  ‘Katie? Can you look after Ed?’ Paul was on the phone; he was talking really fast. Katie had hardly spoken to him in the last few months. Their exchanges were mainly pleasantries in the playground about the weather if he’d managed to get off the boats early and come to pick up Ed. She didn’t really want to look him in the eye. Usually muttered something about being late and dashed off.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Ann, ambulance just now… I… There was blood everywhere, Katie; they said something about a coma – God—’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Ectopic pregnancy—’

  ‘Ann was pregnant after all? OHMYGOD, I’ll be there right away, Paul, hold on.’

  ‘My mum’s in Melbourne, Katie, she can’t…’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Katie said, grabbing her keys and bag. ‘I’ll be there in a moment.’

  Speeding down her road, she retraced the last few months in her head. Remembered Ann complaining of stomach ache a few weeks ago, but pregnant? The embryos must have survived, and yet she had been told it was a slim chance…

  Paul met her on the doorstep with a subdued Ed holding his hand. Paul’s eyes were puffy, with circles underneath the colour of dark lavender. He wouldn’t look Katie properly in the eye. He handed Ed over and walked away. She took him silently, grabbed his bags and herded him into her car with the others.

  When Paul finally came back from the hospital that evening it was past the kids’ bedtime. He looked worse than when he left. But Katie had let the boys stay up – Ed was sitting cuddled next to the others on the sofa – a handsome young lad, dressed as Spider-Man. Floppy dark hair and big, innocent blue eyes with eyelashes that looked as though they curled right up to his eyebrows when he stared at you. With a mum who wouldn’t know him if he crawled up onto her lap and lay there all night. All three of them were staring at the TV, watching Ice Age 4 on DVD, with blankies and rescued teddies.

  Paul handed Katie a bunch of stargazer lilies. ‘Meant for Ann,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders and shoving the mass of flowers towards her. ‘But she can’t remember who I am, never mind appreciate the flowers; darl, you might as well have them.’

  She took the mass of magenta and white blooms from him, inhaling the sweet smell of vanilla.

  ‘She can’t talk,’ said Paul collapsing onto the sofa. ‘Doctors say that it’s really touch and go…’ His voice faltered. ‘The doctor I spoke to—’ he coughed ‘—says that it can, can… be fatal… I feel so—’ He looked down at his watch, then stood up, ready to go, a man ready to fight. ‘He says that it sounds like her tubes ruptured, and that she collapsed because her body was in shock due to the internal bleeding…’ He frowned and then looked away sharply.

  ‘Paul, if there’s anything we can do…’ said Tom.

  We can’t really help unless it’s cups of tea with a slice of moral support on the side, reflected Katie, which I suppose is better than nothing. Ann, his effervescent wife had turned into a sleeping stranger who might never wake up or when she did, might be told she could never have any more children. Katie closed her eyes at the thought.

  ‘You know, Ann and I were looking at baby name books when the pain started – Lily for a girl and Josh for a boy.’ He shrugged, sat down heavily on a nearby chair. ‘Been trying for four years. Didn’t know she was pregnant,’ he said, looking up and shaking his head. ‘But then she got the cramps…’ His voice trailed off and Katie looked over at her best friend’s husband, watched as the All Male True Blue Armour fell away, noticed how his eyes welled up.

  Suddenly, as if he remembered where he was, he sniffed, checked his erupting emotions and became very factual. He told them the surgeon did all he could, that Ann had to have a blood transfusion, that they’d know in the morning how it had gone, told them the percentage of people who have complications with ectopic pregnancies.

  ‘Anyway, thanks,’ he said, standing up abruptly. ‘I just feel so bad.’

  ‘But it’s not your fault, Paul,’ Katie reassured.

  ‘Time for a beer – something stronger?’ asked Tom, clearly not quite knowing what to do. Paul declined. Said something about taking Ed home. She could imagine that he didn’t want to be alone that night. That he would probably take Ed into his bed later when he went to sleep, hold him, sob quietly, stroke the little boy’s hair and weep into his soft cheek.

  Tom squeezed her hand as they waved Paul off under the jacaranda tree in the driveway, watched as the pickup truck headed towards an unknown future.

  She stood on the driveway and thought about the night before, about how she and Tom had slept in the same bed, yet there could have been an invisible sheet of steel between them. Katie remembered what he’d said the day before, how pleased he’d seemed that she might ‘do something for herself’; she closed her eyes, thought of Ann, of life and death – saw the ball of sun etched into her eyelids. How would I feel if I lost Tom?

  ‘You really never know what’s ahead of you in the lottery of life, do you?’ Katie looked up at Tom.

  He stared down at her, gave a wry smile. ‘No, you’re right.’ For a moment there was the glimmer of the man she married. She saw the young carefree twenty-something with blond hair who used to take her dancing on Saturdays, before the push-up bras were necessary, before the mortgage, before the kids – before all the stresses of their ‘new life’ Down Under. But then he was gone. He had walked back to into the house.

  22

  Katie pulled into the hospital car park. It was weird being back at the hospital, post baby. Fewer flowers, fewer helium balloons with teddies, more drips, more drugs. Ann was finally out of a coma, but had ruptured one of her fallopian tubes very badly, making successful IVF even more like a EuroMillions lottery win.

  Walking into the ward, Katie spotted her huddled under a baby-blue mohair shawl, with a drip attached to her arm and a monitor on her chest. A shadow of the bubbly blonde who normally sat opposite her in the park, with wind in her hair, sunnies restraining the wayward wisps around her forehead.

  ‘How you doing?’

  She smiled at Katie and rolled her eyes silently. Katie sat down in the chair next to her and held her hand. No wonder Ann couldn’t talk. How could she express what she was feeling? That her body had let her down. That she could have had a baby, that she could have been holding a tiny newborn in a few months, that she might have been saying they were a family of four.

  After half an hour, Ann moved her pillows. Katie caught a glimpse of a purple bruise on her wrist.

  Then Ann turned to her and smiled. ‘Katie, you go, I’m exhausted – thanks for coming,’ she sighed, then rolled over away from Katie, who squeezed her hand one final time before she left. How does someone get over something like this? What will Ann do?

  *

  Flies were landing in the gooey bit of snot that lay just beneath Rory’s nostrils. Katie swatted them away. It was a month after Ann had been discharged from hospital. Greeting her, Katie noticed the cheery smile – as well as mauve-coloured circles beneath her eyes.

  ‘Bloody flies are everywhere,’ said Katie, swinging her arm uselessly, through the air. ‘I thought it was just in the outback.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you.’ Ann touched Katie’s arm as they both sat down on a wooden bench. ‘The doctors say that one of my fallopian tubes has been badly damaged with the, um, ectopic pregnancy, that we’ll be lucky to conceive any more, so we’ve pushed the fast forward button – found a doctor who will implant several embryos at once.’

  Katie was shocked. She watched as Ann gazed at a little girl in the playground, hair neatly plaited at the back, two shiny clips holding her curls in place at the front. She was dressed in a white smock covered in ruby-red poppies, with two small pockets at the
front. Bending over, she very carefully poured sand into one of the pockets with a blue plastic spade.

  ‘Great decision.’ Katie leant over and hugged her friend.

  ‘Paul’s really, really keen to carry on, has read about how you can implant two or three embryos at once; depends on which consultant you use – you know, up your chances.’ Bet he is, she thought.

  Katie frowned, then turned to her friend and smiled. ‘You, more than anyone, deserve a bigger family, but are you sure? Isn’t it dangerous?’

  ‘No more than what’s just happened…’ she snapped. ‘Anyway, Paul’s looked into it and he’s certain that’s what he, um, we should do. If… if, that fails…’

  ‘It won’t,’ Katie said quickly, bending over and picking Rory up from the buggy.

  ‘Well, if it does, it could mean adopting and that takes years. Paul says he can’t wait…’

  Katie couldn’t help remembering Paul at their house: how much he wanted a baby. Part of her understood. Becoming a parent is like a light switch going on. The switch was there all along, but it was covered in a layer of dust; once you have kids, the dust is blown away, the switch exposed in full view for you to snap on, reveal a full beam of love. All those two really want, she thought, is a sibling for Ed, who wears his underpants the wrong way round, for a baby to bring up his breakfast all over their shoulders.

  Katie smiled at Ann as they both took in the scene of the boys playing in the sand pit, running around with bare feet and bush hats. Hopping effortlessly on and off their scooters, screaming with joy at being released from the confines of the four walls at school.

  ‘Anyway just so you know, I’ve already been injecting myself every day for a week. I feel dreadful,’ said Ann quietly.

  Katie moved Rory to the other side and handed him a baby rusk.

  ‘I was at the clinic at 7 a.m. today for blood tests to see if my levels are OK to start with the next round of hormones, which stimulate the follicles, but I’m not there yet. They say it’s not quite right. Oh God, Katie, here we go again,’ she said, sighing loudly.