The Trouble With Choices

by Trish Morey

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you really shouldn’t be living alone.’

  ‘I’m fine, really, I am.’ She stood to leave.

  ‘Hear me out, Sophie, please?’

  She sat down again, sure she wasn’t going to like it, whatever it was.

  He exhaled, the knuckles on his clasped hands turning white. ‘What about if you moved into my place.’

  ‘What? Why on earth would I do that?’

  ‘Because I’ve got the space.’

  ‘Oh good grief, you mean you looking over my shoulder making sure I’m behaving myself? No thanks, I don’t need to be micromanaged.’

  ‘It’s not about micromanaging anyone,’ he argued, ‘it’s about ensuring you’ve got the support you need and that I’ve got access to the babies. They are half mine, remember.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘So, think it over and you’ll see I’m right. We can share the parenting responsibilities and the expenses, and Min will help, I know she will. She’ll fuss all over them.’

  ‘Right. And what happens to my mum’s unit while I’m shacked up with you?’

  ‘You’ll be in the spare room. It’s not like we’re shacking up together. And let the unit out. Make yourself some money while you can’t teach.’

  ‘This is crazy talk, Nick. What will your family make of it?’

  ‘My sister lives an hour away, so it’s not like she’s going to be sticking her nose in every other day, and my folks retired to Melbourne a few years back to be closer to my other two siblings, but it wouldn’t matter if they hadn’t. They’re Italian. They love big families. They’ll be thrilled for me.’

  ‘And what about Min? What are you going to tell your daughter when her teacher moves into the spare room?’

  He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Yeah, well, I never said it was going to be easy, but there’s no point underestimating Min. She’s going to know sooner or later that she’s got two new siblings on the way, and I reckon she’ll be okay with it. Kids these days don’t come with the same preconceived notions we did. Given every second kid seems to come from a broken or blended or collided family, they can’t afford to, I guess.’

  She nodded at that because it all made so much perfect sense. If you wanted to be railroaded into something you didn’t want to do. ‘I can’t believe you ever imagined that was a good idea.’

  ‘Sophie, think about it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean, no?’

  ‘I mean, thanks for the kind offer, but I won’t think about it because there’s nothing to think about. I’m not moving in with you, Nick. I’m perfectly happy by myself. I’m sure the babies and I will be fine.’ She picked up the photo and her bag as she stood. ‘And now, I really have to go.’

  ‘Think about it, Sophie and you’ll see I’m right. You can’t do this by yourself.’

  ‘I have thought about it, Nick, and the answer’s still no. Thanks for the tea.’

  47

  Nick

  Min barrelled out of her first day in her Year One class full of excitement, colliding full force into Nick with a whump. ‘Year One is so cool!’ she said, holding up the picture she’d done for his approval and praise. ‘Look!’

  ‘You did this?’ he said, only half paying attention, because he was keeping an eye on the corridor outside the reception room hoping to get a glimpse of Sophie. He was also hoping to get a word in, because the way they’d parted company after last week’s scan was all wrong and he needed to mend some bridges big time, something he couldn’t do over the phone.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know what it is?’

  Now, she had his full attention. He studied the various blobs on the picture, all swirls of grey and white. ‘That’s easy,’ he said, sure he was right. ‘Clouds. It’s a picture of a cloudy sky.’

  ‘No! It’s Fat Cat with all her kittens, before we had to give them all away.’

  He nodded. Because now that he looked at it closer, he could just make out the odd eye or two and it could very well be a basketful of cats. And it definitely didn’t look like a giraffe. ‘Very good,’ he said.

  ‘Come on,’ said Min, grabbing his hand, ‘let’s go show Fat Cat.’

  ‘Sure.’ Nick gave a wistful glance down the corridor, but there was no sight or sound of Sophie, and what was he going to say anyway with Min around?

  They were halfway home in the car when Min said, ‘Oh, Ms Faraday is having a baby.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Nick, trying not to sound too interested. Trying harder not to spill the beans that he knew she was having two. ‘Did she tell you?’

  ‘No. Someone thought she had a fat tummy from eating too much Christmas pudding, but Erin Thomas—she’s one of the Year Seven girls this year—she told her sister Caitlin in Year Four that she’s having a baby and Caitlin told Holly Hunter and she told Emily Hunter, who’s in my class.’

  Wow, he thought, the grapevine certainly started early these days. And that was the problem because it wasn’t just the kids. Soon, it would be the entire community talking as kids went home from school and started telling their parents. Jesus, couldn’t Sophie see what was in store? It would have made it so much easier if she’d agreed to move in when he’d suggested it. At least it would have put a full stop on the conjecture and the gossip.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Min asked.

  ‘Sorry, about what?’

  ‘About Ms Faraday having a baby. Babies are so cool, just like kittens. Isn’t it great?’

  Nick found a smile to toss in his daughter’s direction before he had to pay attention to the road to take a right. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘babies are cool. Exactly like kittens.’ Except he still had to explain to this girl that she was expecting two extra kittens in her own family. How was that going to go?

  48

  Beth

  ‘You can’t come by anymore.’

  Harry blinked, the smile that had lit up his creased face when Beth had found him in the groundsman’s shed sliding clean away, leaving a tangle of surprise and confusion in its wake.

  ‘Beth, you can’t mean that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry. That’s the way it has to be.’

  He frowned. ‘Because I kissed you? Because, if that’s the reason—’

  She kicked up her chin, her lips tight. ‘It doesn’t matter why. It just doesn’t make sense you coming around all the time. Not when I have a ten-year-old daughter who might get the wrong idea—and when other people might get the wrong idea.’

  He shook his head, setting his shaggy hair moving like a rolling tide around his face. ‘You think … You think I got the wrong idea.’

  ‘I didn’t mean you,’ she said, although clearly something had him barking up the wrong tree. Somewhere along the line, he’d got the impression that having him over to share a meal and a program on the telly with Siena meant a whole lot more.

  ‘I like you,’ he said. ‘I like you a lot.’

  ‘I like you, too. But I’m sorry, it’s best for everyone if you don’t come over anymore.’ She tried not to notice how crestfallen he looked, putting it down to the fact that he’d be missing a few hot meals. ‘Siena’s my priority,’ she said tightly. ‘I have to think about her.’

  She left him standing there and went to pick up Siena from after-hours care, telling herself it was for the best, that she didn’t want anyone thinking that she was leading him on or that there was something between them when there wasn’t and when there could never be.

  Siena chattered on all the way home about something; Beth didn’t have the headspace or the will to pay attention. It was only when she pulled up the driveway next to the house and Siena shouted, ‘Look!’ that she saw it. The big bunch of flowers sitting up in a bucket of water. There was no mistaking who they were from, because they were right next to the Tupperware containers in which she’d sent the leftovers home with Harry.

  ‘I told you he liked you,’ said
Siena, picking up the bouquet and sticking her nose into the blooms.

  Beth walked past her daughter and unlocked the front door, turfing her bag on the bed before heading numbly straight out to her studio, and telling herself over and over that she’d been right to do what she had done and stop it, now.

  It was for the best.

  She knew it was for the best.

  She just wished it didn’t hurt so much.

  49

  Sophie

  The first day back at school wrangling a new bunch of kids all still high on holiday spirit into a functioning obedient class unit was always an impossible task and always tiring, but Sophie felt exhausted by the end of this one. Her feet hurt, her back ached and there was a headache banging around her temples that she could really do without. It didn’t help that summer had decided to kick in with a vengeance and the temperature outside was nudging forty degrees in the shade. Likewise, it didn’t help that she had the equivalent of an internal combustion engine on board or that she’d had to pee what felt like every ten minutes. The end of school siren hadn’t come soon enough.

  It will get better, she told herself as she stashed the last of her things in her bag and retrieved her water bottle, while waiting for the noisy battleground that was the corridor outside to calm a little. Maybe not the peeing, but the first day had to be the worst. It would get easier, surely, or she’d never make it all the way to May, when her maternity leave would kick in.

  The corridor was emptying fast by the time Sophie figured it safe enough to leave. Wearily, she slung her bag strap over her shoulder and headed towards the staffroom to fill up her water bottle. She couldn’t wait to get home to Whiskers and collapse on the sofa under the air conditioner and put her feet up.

  ‘Hello, Sophie,’ she heard behind her in the corridor. ‘Happy new year.’

  She turned to greet the woman, who was looking cool and effortlessly stylish in a white linen shift dress and wedged sandals, and nothing at all like the limp rag Sophie must look in her stretch skirt and layered cami. ‘Penelope, happy new year to you, too. Are you looking for Min … Mignon? She’s probably already left.’

  The woman shook her head and Sophie got a whiff of her perfume as they headed towards the office together. She smelled as fresh as she looked, and Sophie envied the way she could stay looking so cool when it was like an oven outside. ‘I’ve just come in to talk to the principal. I want Mignon to start violin and piano lessons this year and they’ve told me she can only do recorder in Year One. Ridiculous! And I’m so sorry she’s not in your class this year. She loved having you as a teacher.’ Her eyes looked sideways up and down as she spoke, and Sophie knew her big shoulder bag and her floaty top were going to disguise nothing to a keen pair of eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but unless I’m mistaken, are you …?’

  ‘Pregnant? Yes.’ To your ex-husband, as it happens. Sophie looked straight ahead and licked her lips. Because wasn’t that awkward?

  ‘Oh,’ Penelope said, blinking. Then a moment later, ‘Sorry, I should have said congratulations. It’s just I didn’t realise … I always had in mind you were single.’

  Despite her aching head, back and feet, Sophie dragged out a smile. Maybe Nick was right about things not changing that much. ‘I am.’

  ‘Wow. And you’re still going ahead with it on your own?’

  Sophie placed a protective hand over her belly. ‘That’s the plan.’

  The other woman nodded as they slowed near the reception area, the principal’s office to the left, the staffroom to the right. ‘Then at least see if you can get the father to share custody. I do love my weeks when Mignon’s with her father.’

  ‘Um, thanks for that,’ Sophie said, more than a little discombobulated. ‘I’ll see what I can arrange.’

  The weather conditions worsened that week instead of improving as Sophie had hoped, and the first week back at school was a nightmare. The heatwave locked itself in just shy of the conditions where the fire danger was declared catastrophic, so the school remained open for business despite the blistering heat. By the end of the week Sophie felt limp and wrung out and like she needed another six-week break to recover.

  Whiskers climbed onto a space on her ever-diminishing lap and promptly flopped into his ragdoll self. He was three times the size he’d been at Christmas when Nick and Min had dropped him off, and he was utterly adorable. Happy to see her when she came home from work, happy to laze on the sofa when she was incapable of doing anything more. And in a few months, there’d be a couple of new babies in the place.

  Sophie looked critically around at the space. The open-plan kitchen, dining and living area had been a nice space for her and her mum, when Wendy had been here, though she’d spent most of her time at Dirk’s, even before their marriage. And it was fine for her and Whiskers.

  Yeah, it was going to be a squeeze in here, and she might have to move out a lounge chair or two.

  But this was a first-world problem, surely? Other cultures managed family groups in much smaller spaces and got on fine. And at least here she could be independent. She wasn’t about to be subsumed into anyone else’s life, just because of one night with consequences. And maybe this place did look small right now, but once she’d shed some excess furniture and redecorated, it would be perfect.

  It had to be.

  She glanced over at the pile of nursery designer magazines stacked up on the coffee table, and pulled the first one off the top. It was time to start planning.

  That weekend Dan stood with his hands on his hips looking at both Sophie’s bedroom and the spare room she was planning to move into so the twins could share her bigger room. Sophie had stripped the spare bed and cleaned out the contents of the cupboards in preparation for the move. ‘Are you sure about this, Sophie? You reckon you’re going to have enough room in here to set up two babies with cots and change table and all the other rubbish they need?’

  ‘Hey, it’s all vitally important equipment,’ Lucy chimed in. ‘You just wait.’

  Dan grinned at his wife. ‘Yeah? Well, be that as it may, you should see how much stuff Lucy’s already accumulated, and we’re only expecting one.’

  ‘Watch out, big brother, you’re starting to sound a lot like Nick.’

  ‘So maybe he’s got a point. Maybe you don’t have enough room in this place for all three of you.’

  Whiskers chose that moment to curl around Sophie’s ankles and protest about not being fed. ‘Make that four,’ Dan amended.

  Sophie picked up the growing kitten. ‘I’ve got it all worked out. There’ll be heaps of space, you’ll see.’

  Dan sighed. ‘Well, okay. Have it your way. But don’t be surprised if you don’t have room to swing a cat when it’s done.’ He looked at Whiskers and gave him an apologetic tickle behind the ears. ‘Lucky for you, eh?’

  He tasked her and Lucy with making tea while he set about clearing a path through the living area to take everything out to the trailer he’d parked in the driveway. Sophie put the kettle on while Lucy found mugs for everyone. ‘So how are you feeling?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Tired,’ Sophie replied, ‘most of the time, lately. Work is killing me, not to mention the heat. If I ever have another baby, I’m definitely going to be pregnant through winter so I can make use of all this added heat.’ And that was a joke when she was clearly so good at planning. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Okay. A bit unwieldy at times, but not too bad overall.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re eight weeks further on and we’re the same size,’ said Sophie, rummaging around in the pantry for a packet of Tim Tams. ‘That’s so unfair.’

  Lucy grinned as she carried their tea to the table. ‘Well, you will go buying in bulk. Now, show me this nursery decor you’ve decided on.’

  ‘You girls carry on,’ Dan said, puffing as he lugged the double mattress past them. ‘Don’t mind me.’

  Lucy grinned. ‘You want for us to help? Sophie and I could manage the bed bet
ween us.’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ he called as he headed through the door.

  Sophie turned to Lucy. ‘Do you think he means it?’

  ‘Yes, I bloody well mean it!’ he yelled.

  ‘Yep.’ Lucy laughed. ‘I think he does.’

  Her bedroom furniture was gone, the room empty but for a carpet in need of a shampoo, and the dust motes playing in the light slanting through the window. Sophie rubbed her tummy, feeling her babies flutter and tumble. ‘This is it, kiddos, the makings of your new bedroom. It’s going to be gorgeous.’

  She’d decided on a misty-blue wall colour up to an animal frieze, above which the colour changed from blue to creamy clouds. It would look soft and pretty and it left plenty of scope to add splashes of pink or blue, or pink and blue, for that matter, after the babies arrived.

  But before then, there was work to be done. She’d organised a carpet cleaner for Saturday morning, which meant she needed to get the walls dusted and cleaned beforehand and she’d have the non-toxic paint she’d found out about all ready to go by the time the carpet dried. She looked up at the light, switched it on and frowned. The inside of that could do with a good clean out as well. But that was one thing she could do right now.

  The ladder weighed twice as much as she remembered, but it wasn’t so much the weight but how awkward it was to carry. It clattered as she walked, waking Whiskers with a shock. He took one look at the silver monster tucked under her arm and darted under the sofa.

  ‘Sorry, puss,’ she said, a little breathless when she got the ladder into the spare room and opened it up under the light. She looked up at the light again and went off in search of a cleaning cloth, surprised to find herself puffing from the exertion. This was bad. She must be getting really unfit, she could even hear the drum of her heartbeat in her ears.

  Armed with a cloth, she stood at the base of the ladder, giving thanks for low ceilings. About halfway up, she wagered, and she’d be able to reach the light shade. A quick dust-off and it would be done. Too easy.