by Trish Morey
Hannah leaned on the kitchen cupboards, chewing the inside of her lip while the kettle boiled. There was no need to panic, she’d probably just gone to the post office to collect the mail. Still, she might have said something to Pop.
She was just pulling the tea bag from the mug when the front screen door slammed and her nan appeared, still wearing her dressing gown and slippers although it was almost one.
‘Hello, Hannah. What brings you here?’
‘Where’ve you been in your pyjamas?’ Hannah demanded. Surely she didn’t go to the post office like that? ‘I couldn’t find you anywhere. Pop said he didn’t know.’
‘Well, no need to call in Inspector Barnaby.’ She chuckled. ‘I took half a dozen eggs to dear old Maggie Jones across the road.’ She plonked herself down on a dining chair and looked at the cup of tea steaming on the bench. ‘Is that for me, you darling girl? I’m gasping for a cuppa.’
‘Sure,’ Hannah said, relieved, passing over the cup and reaching for another mug to make one for Pop.
‘Ooh,’ said Nan, when Hannah came in from outside. ‘We got a postcard from your mother. Where is it now?’ She used her hands to push herself up from the table, and her knobbly fingers scanned the cards stuck by magnets to the fridge until she found one of some ancient ruins with a mountain rising behind. ‘This one.’ She prised it from under the magnets. ‘Wendy and Dirk had a lovely weekend in Rome and they spent a day visiting Pompeii, imagine that.’ She clucked her tongue as she handed the card over for Hannah to read. ‘The plaster’s off and she said her leg’s holding up very well. She even managed to hobble nearly all the way around by herself.’
‘That’s good,’ Hannah said, thinking it was about time she skyped her mother again. She’d been a bit distracted lately. And then she thought about why and remembered the eggs. ‘Oh, I brought you back some egg cartons. Do you have any spare I could take?’
‘Dozens. The girls have been busy lately.’ But when she pulled open the fridge, she looked confused. ‘Well that’s odd,’ the older woman said, rummaging around the contents of the fridge.
‘What is?’
‘I thought I had dozens, but all I could find were these.’ She stood up, a stack of empty cartons in her hand. ‘I was looking for some cartons, though, I was running short.’
‘Don’t worry, Nan, I have to go to the shops anyway.’ She swiped up the empty cartons she’d brought together with the ones from the fridge. ‘I’ll put these in the cupboard, then I’d better get going.’
Nan was still standing by the fridge, looking confused. ‘Are you all right, Nan?’ Hannah asked, feeling the flutters of concern again.
‘Oh, right as rain,’ she said, going to fill up the kettle. ‘Now, I promised to make Clarry a cup of tea.’
Hannah rolled her eyes and headed for the laundry. There was a basket of dirty washing on the floor by the cupboard and another basket of what looked like clean washing on the bench. She shook her head as she tipped the dirty washing into the machine. It was getting time her grandparents got some help in. She pulled open the cupboard only to be confronted by a wall of egg cartons. And there, in the midst of it all, were perched half a dozen closed cartons full of eggs.
‘I found your eggs,’ she said, as she carried them back to the kitchen. ‘They were in the cupboard.’
Nan just shook her head and gave a little-girl laugh. ‘Well, how on earth did they get there?’
‘So you think she’s okay?’ Hannah asked Beth, while the scent of baking chocolate filled the air in her tiny flat. She’d recounted her visit to their grandparents’ house, and the niggling concerns she had about Nan.
‘She’s eighty-one,’ said Beth, sounding tired. ‘She’s getting forgetful, that’s all. They all do. God, I forget half of what I’m supposed to do all the time.’
‘But wandering around the neighbourhood in her dressing gown?’
‘I’d give my eye teeth to waft around in my pyjamas all day. Wouldn’t you?’
Hannah had to admit, the idea had some appeal. ‘Sophie hasn’t said anything to you?’
There was a pause at the end of the line. ‘About what?’
‘About Nan,’ said Hannah, wishing her sister would keep up. ‘What else?’
‘Oh, no. Nothing.’
The timer on the oven beeped. ‘Okay, then,’ Hannah said, checking the cake through the oven door and reaching for a skewer and her oven mitts. ‘But if you do notice anything, it might be worthwhile someone taking her to the doctor to get her properly checked out.’
Another pause. ‘You mean I should, I take it.’
‘I just meant somebody should. And you work shifts so …’
‘No, if you think there’s a problem and you want Nan checked out, you organise it. I’ve taken on two extra shifts and I’m slammed next week. I haven’t got time to fart.’
Hannah sniffed. ‘You can do two things at once, you know.’
‘Try doing five or six. Let me know what you decide,’ and Beth was gone.
‘I was only asking,’ Hannah muttered, as she pulled the cake from the oven to test it before letting it rest for ten minutes. She took herself off to get changed, still cranky with her sister’s tone when all she was doing was looking out for their nan. But grumping over her sister could wait. Right now, there was a cake to deliver to a man with a very big bed.
21
Sophie
‘I liked her,’ Beth said, as she walked Sophie from the counselling session outside and into the late October afternoon, heading for her car.
‘Me too.’ Sophie had spent the last few days panicking, and gone into the Friday-afternoon session with her sister a bundle of nerves, her brain still a tangle looking for a resolution, but right away the counsellor had put her at ease. She’d been warm and non-judgemental, and she hadn’t tried to influence her or Beth. ‘At least it’s clarified what my options are and how to go about the two difficult ones. All I have to do now is work out which way I want to go.’ She shrugged. ‘Piece of cake, really.’
Beth threw a soft smile her way. ‘Nobody said it was going to be easy.’ The car beeped as she hit the remote. ‘Do you have a feel yet for which way you want to go?’
Her hand on the passenger-door handle, Sophie said across the car roof, ‘I’m still trying to process it all. If I have the baby and keep it, it’s going to turn my world upside down. I’ll have to tell the father of course, and everyone else is going to find out about a one-night stand that went wrong. But if I go that way, I’ll just have to pull up my big-girl panties and deal with it.’ She opened the car door and climbed inside.
‘Sounds like a fair assessment of option number one,’ said Beth, sliding in behind the steering wheel.
‘And then, if I have the baby with the intention of putting it up for adoption, I’m still going to have to tell the father, and everyone else is going to know anyway, and when it all comes down to it, I don’t know that I could go through an entire pregnancy only to give the baby away. It would be too real then, too hard.’ She put her hands low over her belly. Already, this pregnancy was becoming more real. Talking with the counsellor, acknowledging the fact that she was pregnant, discussing the possibility that inside eight months she could have a baby, that she would be a mother—how could it be any more real, unless it was when her waistline disappeared under a bump? ‘It would be better—well, it would be easier not to get that far if I’m going to give the baby up.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘Which is where the abortion option comes in, I guess. Nobody need ever know. Nobody but me and you. And it neatly takes care of the problem, except …’
‘Except what?’
‘Except it’s the timing that’s the problem, not the actual baby,’ Sophie said. ‘Along with the whole order of things, I mean. It’s not how I planned it to happen.’
‘Yes,’ Beth said, taking advantage of a break in the traffic to pull out of the car park. ‘I get that.’
Sophie realised what she’d said. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,
Beth. It’s just, you never think this stuff is going to happen to you, and when it does, it blindsides you.’
Her older sister nodded with the wisdom of one who’d been there before. ‘That’s definitely one word for it.’
Sophie looked out at the passing parade of industrial buildings along the busy road before she turned misty eyes to her sister. ‘And it’s tempting to think I can make it go away, but I don’t know if I can justify it, Beth. I mean, an unplanned pregnancy is inconvenient and life-changing, sure, but it’s not like it’s life-threatening. And I’ve got a good job and I can take leave and go back to work. And I get what you said about supporting a child, but it’s not like I can’t afford to have a baby. And then I can’t help thinking it’s not the baby’s fault. It didn’t ask to be conceived.’
‘Mother guilt,’ Beth said, as she deftly changed lanes around a parked bus. ‘I did warn you.’
‘I know you did, but it’s more than that. Because I look at Siena and I see a child who was unplanned but who is all kinds of wonderful, and I think maybe, just maybe, she might never have been given a chance. And what a tragedy that would have been.’
Beth swiped a tissue from the box in the car, blinking rapidly. ‘Jeepers, Soph, you’ll have me started next. I told you abortion was never an option for me. This is your decision. You have to choose what’s right for you.’
‘I know, but it’s so hard to choose. I can’t do nothing and I can’t go back. I can’t just undo being pregnant. Even if I did have an abortion, I don’t think I’d be able to forget. I don’t think I could pretend it never happened.’ Sophie shook her head. ‘It just seems that no matter what I decide, it’s not straightforward.’
Beth nodded. ‘That’s the trouble with choices. They come with consequences.’
Sophie blinked. Wasn’t that the truth?
She sat back in her seat as Beth weaved her way through the busy city traffic and towards the foothills fringing the suburbs, where her unit was. The hills were starting to brown off, losing their green winter coat under the dry sunny skies. Soon it would be summer and baking hot, followed by the colours of autumn. Her hands rested on her tummy. Hers would be a winter baby if she went ahead with the pregnancy. The days would be cold, the hills shrouded in fog.
Her baby.
Would it have Nick’s olive skin and dark hair, or would the baby be fairer, more a mix of the two of them?
If she decided to have a termination, she would never know. Would she ever stop wondering then? Would she ever stop asking, what if?
She turned to her sister. ‘What would you do?’
‘You know what I did. But my circumstances were different.’
‘But if you were me?’
‘I honestly don’t know, Sophie. I can’t answer that because I’m not you.’
‘But you coped. You’re a single mother—a good one.’
Beth shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t wish single motherhood on anyone. It’s hard, Sophie. It’s hard and exhausting and there’s nobody else to lean on when you get tired, nobody else to get up for a crying baby two or three times a night or to help pay the mortgage or buy the groceries.’
‘But you’ve got Siena. She’s worth it, right?’
Beth pulled up at a red light and looked over at her. ‘Yeah. Of course she’s worth it. But it’s not easy, and if you’re thinking about going ahead with this pregnancy as a single mum, you need to know that it’s going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.’
Sophie took a deep breath, the advice the counsellor had given her slotting into place around her own needs and thoughts, finding a fit she never thought would be there. ‘Yeah. I kind of figured that.’
‘Good.’
‘I’m going to have it, Beth.’
Her sister’s head snapped around. ‘What?’
‘I’m keeping the baby.’
‘What? Are you sure? Look, you don’t have to decide today.’
‘No. I’ve decided. Let’s face it, I’m hopeless at finding a man who’s going to hang around long term, so why am I waiting for the impossible? I’m keeping the baby.’
A horn tooted behind them, and then another. ‘Bugger,’ said Beth, taking off when she realised the lights were green. ‘Sorry,’ she said, with a wave to the cars behind, before she pulled over on the side of the road and turned towards Sophie, her expression disbelieving. ‘Are you sure about this? I mean, really sure?’
For the first time Sophie felt light, the decision made removing a smothering weight from her shoulders. She nodded. ‘I am. I’ve decided to have this baby, Beth. I hope you don’t mind.’
Her sister pulled her into her arms and hugged her.
‘How could I mind, you daft woman? It’s a huge decision, but you’ve done it. Wait till everyone finds out there’s going to be another Faraday baby!’
‘Don’t tell anyone yet, please, Beth, not even Han. I want to do what the counsellor suggested if I decided to go ahead with the pregnancy—I’m going to have my seven-week scan next week and make sure everything’s okay before I break the news to anyone else.’ Her heart was tripping over itself at the prospect, but she knew there was somebody else who deserved to be told. ‘And I want to tell the father first. I think that’s only fair.’
Beth smiled approvingly as she squeezed Sophie. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
22
Beth
Beth pulled up in her driveway to find Harry there before her, busy converting another mound of branches into a neat stack of kindling ready for next winter’s fires. Arriving home to find Harry had been tackling the fallen tree remains was starting to become a habit, and Beth wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or annoyed. What was the man playing at? Nobody could be that nice.
‘You should ask him in for dinner,’ said Siena unhelpfully from the back seat. ‘I bet he loves chicken and chips.’
Harry looked up then and gave them a wave and a smile, before putting his head down again, the chainsaw reducing the branches into neat, thirty-centimetre lengths. Okay, so maybe Harry was actually that nice.
‘I’m going to have to start putting you on the payroll,’ she told him as she climbed out of the car.
He grinned at that. ‘Just being neighbourly,’ he said. ‘Nice to have a bit of time to help people out.’
‘I appreciate it,’ she said, the beguiling scent from the bag of chicken and chips in her hand reminding her of Siena’s idea. ‘Hey, I picked up a chook on the way up the hill. How about you stay for dinner—unless you’ve got plans, I mean?’
Harry’s eyes twinkled in appreciation. ‘That’s very hospitable of you.’
‘No trouble. Siena and I are just going to rustle up a quick salad. Come in and wash up when you’re ready.’
Which is how the three of them came to be sitting around Beth’s small dining table ten minutes later, feasting on chicken and chips. And even though Beth could see from the way Harry demolished what was left of the chicken that her plans for leftover chicken sandwiches the next day would have to change, she didn’t mind a bit. Not after the work the man had done for her. He’d saved her hours of time that she’d much rather spend out in her studio than cutting up a fallen tree.
When Siena turned on the television to watch a rerun of MasterChef and Harry surprised them both by saying it was his favourite program, it would have been rude to expect him to leave right then. So, they all ended up watching an hour of television together. Even Beth sat down for the program, rather than take herself out to do an hour’s work in her studio—because even though Harry seemed a nice bloke, she’d hardly be a responsible parent leaving any man with her child. And despite Beth not understanding the details of how the show actually worked, it turned out being enormous fun listening to Harry and Siena encouraging their favourite contestants through the challenges.
She’d rarely seen her daughter more animated. It made Siena’s night to have someone to watch her favourite program with, and Beth felt a sudden stab of guilt that she’d had
to grow up an only child with a parent who liked to hole herself up in her studio to think. Mother guilt again, she recognised; it had a lot to answer for, because no single parent could be expected to spend every waking moment devoted to their child. Her mosaics were her outlet and her sanity. But still, it was so unfair for Siena that she had nobody else to share things with.
And so, when the final credits of the show rolled, Beth found herself asking Harry to drop in next week for dinner and another episode. Because if he could be neighbourly, she could too.
23
Sophie
If there was one advantage of being a school teacher, Sophie figured, it was knowing when kids doing fifty-fifty shared parental arrangements were with one parent so you had a decent chance of catching the other one alone.
Not that it stopped your palms sweating on the steering wheel any. Nick’s simple stone cottage looked welcoming enough as she slowed, with its central door, a window either side and a verandah wrapping around the old place. Probably the only kind of welcome she was going to get today, given the bombshell she was about to drop. But she’d put it off long enough and it was time. Last week’s seven-week scan had confirmed it. A viable pregnancy. She’d actually felt relief when they’d told her. That was a turn-up after wishing it away. She’d been glad of a couple of days to absorb it.
But now, Min was spending the week at Penelope’s and there were no excuses not to tell Nick.
She sucked in a breath. Eight weeks. More than halfway through her first trimester and her body was doing all the things the online pregnancy advice forums said it should be doing. Her breasts were undeniably tender and the smell of her morning coffee left her feeling queasy. Sophie had a feeling this baby had taken control of her body and wasn’t budging anytime soon.