The Trouble With Choices

by Trish Morey

  ‘I could issue a caution and leave it at that,’ said the older officer, ‘and we often do in these cases where we have a little discretion, but your grandfather was being uncooperative and so we’ve decided to issue him with a fine.’

  ‘Uncooperative?’ Hannah said, staring at her grandfather, who was looking more sheepish by the minute. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He accused the neighbours behind of “sneaking it in when he wasn’t looking”.’

  Sophie looked at her grandfather, aghast. ‘Pop! That’s the church!’

  ‘Exactly. So we’re charging him. What happens now is the plant will be removed and a sample taken in case the matter is disputed and needs to be sent for forensic testing. This sample will be deposited into police property, where it will be kept until twenty-eight days after the fine is paid or until such time as the matter is settled in court. The rest of the plant will be destroyed.’ He shrugged and gave the briefest nod in Nan’s direction. ‘I’m sorry, I understand what you’re going through, but if Clarence pays the fine within twenty-eight days, the matter won’t have to proceed to court and there’ll be no conviction recorded. I have to tell you, it would be a much more serious matter again if there was more than one plant or we thought the plant was being cultivated for sale; the penalties are much higher. But, as Clarence has assured us it was intended for personal use, and we’ve found no evidence of bags or scales, it’s classified as a simple cannabis offence under the legislation. If he pays the fine, that’s the end of the matter.’

  ‘He’ll pay the fine,’ said Sophie, watching her grandfather sitting innocently at the table while he chomped into a scone laden with jam and cream.

  ‘We’ll make sure he does,’ agreed Hannah.

  ‘He always was a silly old fool,’ Nan said with a sniff, clearly not impressed that her impromptu party had taken such a serious turn and that Pop was getting all the attention. ‘Now, perhaps I could offer you nice officers some fresh eggs?’

  The police car departed, the distinctive plant bagged up and taken away, leaving the family shell-shocked in their wake.

  ‘Well, that’s that, then,’ said Pop, slapping his hands on his legs. ‘I’m off to the shed.’

  ‘No, you’re damned well not,’ said Hannah, using an imperious tone in her voice Sophie had only ever heard her use against Beth and her. ‘You sit right down and answer a few damned questions.’

  Pop clutched his shirt over his heart. ‘Don’t upset me, I’ve got a dicky ticker. You know I have to worry about my blood pressure.’

  ‘How about our blood pressure?’ Hannah bit back. ‘How do you think we all feel? What were you thinking planting marijuana in your backyard?’

  ‘The copper said it was for personal use, didn’t he? That’s what it was for.’

  ‘Since when have you used marijuana?’ demanded Dan.

  ‘He doesn’t, does he?’ said Nan with a sniff. ‘He’s talking codswallop.’

  Pop snorted. ‘Thank you very much, my dearly beloved, for sticking up for me.’ He turned to his family. ‘You all think it’s so easy living on the pension, you try it.’

  ‘What?’ Dan said.

  ‘You’ve never mentioned money problems,’ said Sophie.

  ‘We manage fine,’ protested Nan.

  ‘Well, all right, it’s just there was this bloke in a pub—’

  ‘You are kidding me,’ said Hannah.

  ‘A bloke in a pub?’ squeaked Sophie.

  Dan just groaned and put his hand to his head.

  ‘—and I was thinking it might be a good little earner, that’s what. He said it was failsafe and it was only one plant and the police won’t charge you for one plant, and so I thought I’d give it a shot. So, he gave me this seedling and it looked harmless enough, and I stuck it behind the shed so it wouldn’t bother anyone, and it didn’t bother anyone, until Joanie decided to get herself lost and you lot called out the national guard.’

  ‘I wasn’t lost,’ protested Nan.

  ‘It was a beauty, too,’ said Pop, ignoring her. ‘Grew like billyo. It started getting all sticky and I thought it was ready, but I never heard again from the bloke.’

  ‘Probably in jail,’ said Sophie, and Hannah nodded.

  ‘Where Pop could have been if the police had got wind of all this,’ said Dan. ‘Though come to think of it, that’s not such a bad idea. Maybe we should lock you both up.’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Pop, ‘you’re all making a mountain out of a molehill.’

  Sophie heard a noise like a gasp and turned to see Lucy pushing herself to her feet. ‘Speaking of mountains,’ said Lucy, a puddle pooling on the floor below her. ‘You might want to start timing contractions, Dan, because I think this one’s about to blow.’

  And Sophie saw Dan’s face turn white.

  63

  Sophie

  It was a boy. A beautiful bouncing baby boy that weighed in at three-point-eight kilos, or eight pounds four ounces on the old scale.

  ‘He looks like his father,’ said Nan, cuddling the infant child in a chair, when the family came to visit at the birthing suite.

  ‘How can you bloody tell?’ said Pop, ‘it just looks like a baby to me.’

  ‘Have you decided on a name yet?’ Sophie asked, thoroughly captivated by the baby, more impatient than ever to hold her two in her arms. Two months seemed an eternity, right now.

  Lucy was sitting up in the hospital bed, glowing. She looked at Dan, who was holding her hand. ‘We have decided. We wanted to call him after both Nan and Pop, but we couldn’t work out how, so we’re going to call him J.C.’

  Dan added, ‘He’ll probably get called Jace, for short.’

  Pop puffed up his chest. ‘You know, the boy does look like his dad, doesn’t he? A chip off the old block, all right.’

  Nan rolled her eyes at her husband before smiling at the pair on the bed. ‘I’m tickled pink you thought of me. Who else would like to give little Jace here a cuddle?’

  ‘Me,’ said Sophie, before anyone else had a chance to respond, and the swaddled baby was duly passed to her. There wasn’t a lot of room on her lap so Sophie cradled the baby above her bump, breathing deeply of his sweet baby smell and marvelling at the dark eyelashes and perfect lips and the tiny fingers that peeped out of his bunny rug. ‘He’s gorgeous,’ she said with tears in her eyes at this miracle of life, and pressed her lips to his brow, knowing that two months would never pass quickly enough.

  Visiting time finished and they farewelled the new family member and made their way to the car park. Nick waited at his car as Sophie said goodbye to Nan and Pop, giving them a kiss on the cheek before they clambered slowly into Hannah’s car. When Hannah closed the door on Nan she said, ‘So what’s happened to you, then?’

  Sophie started. ‘Nothing,’ she said, trying not to sound too defensive. ‘Why?’

  Her sister’s eyes narrowed. ‘Only you look different, lately. Happier.’

  ‘So I’m blooming,’ she said, tucking stray hair behind her ears. ‘That’s what pregnant women do, isn’t it? Bloom?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Hannah, her eyes suspiciously on Nick. ‘You said you had no secrets, but I’m beginning to wonder.’

  It wasn’t that it was a secret exactly, Sophie thought as they journeyed home. It was just that it was so new and she didn’t know what it meant. And though she felt his passion and desire, Nick had said nothing of his feelings for her. He wasn’t looking for a wife, she knew that much, but was she a convenient bed warmer? Would he expect her to stay after the babies arrived?

  How did you tell your sister that you were sleeping with the father of your unborn babies, but you had no idea where it might lead? No, better to say nothing and not have to admit to this tangle of feelings that had no end.

  She chewed her lip as the car left the flat land and climbed the windy road up the escarpment to Norton Summit, the wind sending a scatter of yellow leaves raining down from the autumn trees.

  ‘You seem deep
in thought,’ Nick said beside her.

  ‘Just tired,’ she lied.

  ‘Too tired?’

  He sounded so disappointed she couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Never too tired for that.’

  He picked up her hand and pressed it to his lips. ‘I was hoping you might say that.’

  Later, when they’d made slow, languorous love and she lay with her head on his shoulder, her babies too active for her to sleep, she wondered if she should tell him how she felt, and if he was waiting for her because she’d already turned him down once before.

  Because they couldn’t just drift on this way forever. Sooner or later they were going to have to come clean with each other. Sooner or later she’d find out if she’d been building straw castles in the air again.

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Please God, not that. She couldn’t be so wrong this time, surely? Beside her Nick slumbered, his breath slow in and out, his heartbeat a steady drum beat under her head.

  She pressed her lips to his shoulder and tested the words in the soft night air. ‘I love you.’

  The weather turned unseasonably wintry, the nights so cold Nick put the combustion heater on in the living room to warm the house, and even Sophie, who’d been running hot the whole summer, had to pull out her ugg boots. They were tighter than she remembered, her ankles swollen with her advancing pregnancy and being stuck inside the last couple of days.

  But at least the wet days had been a good excuse to prepare her room for the babies. The baby furniture had been delivered and she’d had fun unpacking the sheets and soft bunny rugs, and finding places for everything. Min had been beside herself, looking at the tiny clothes. So tiny, for her twins when they arrived would be much smaller than Jace had been when he was born.

  But she’d had enough of being cooped up.

  She’d woken this morning to a misty valley, but the mist had burned off and it was the most perfect autumn day, the sun blissfully warm as she sat outside enjoying a cup of tea. She remembered she’d been meaning to take a bottle of pears over to Amy Jennings across the road. With the weather better, it was the perfect time.

  Ten minutes later Amy hobbled to answer the door. ‘Oh, bless you,’ she said, letting her in. ‘What a lovely surprise.’

  ‘What have you done?’ Sophie asked, looking at the moon boot adorning one of Amy’s feet.

  ‘Such a silly thing to do. I slipped on some wet leaves in the garden and twisted my ankle. The worst of it is I can’t take poor Boo out for her walk. She’s missing it so.’

  ‘My ankles could do with a walk, if you’d like me to take her. I’ve been getting cabin fever myself the last couple of days, and it’s such a gorgeous day.’

  ‘Would you? Oh, that would be wonderful. I’ll just get her coat.’

  It wasn’t that cold a day that a dog would need a Driza-Bone, Sophie thought, but Boo was old and maybe she felt the cold in her aged joints, so a few minutes later, she set off with Boo in her smart coat on her pink diamante leash. Boo might be old and almost blind with cataracts, but she was still the cutest little white Maltese cross, her fluffy tail waving like a happy flag as she trotted along. She sure did love her walks.

  So did Sophie. There was so much happening in the valley, the red apples on the trees in the orchards hanging like Christmas decorations, the russet-coloured pears ripening elsewhere, and old gardens filled with deciduous trees putting on a colourful show.

  And it occurred to Sophie that she didn’t miss her unit down in the suburbs at all, because there was something always going on up here with the change of seasons. She’d taken it for granted as a child growing up, but now that she’d lived elsewhere, it was like she was discovering how beautiful it was all over again.

  She rounded a bend and saw a woman coming the other way walking two fierce-looking German shepherds, which began straining at their leashes from the moment they saw Boo. Sophie pulled Boo closer and uttered a nervous hello to the woman, but the woman didn’t notice, all her attention focused on keeping her snarling dogs under control.

  Good thing, too, Sophie thought, as the dogs kept growling long after they’d passed. She would never have walked this way if she’d known. The only positive was that Boo was too blind to have noticed, her white flag of a tail still wagging jauntily.

  A flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos flew overhead, screeching in the mild air before descending into a pine tree, splashes of white and yellow amongst the green. God, it was gorgeous. Overnight rain had washed away any dust and turned the tiny creek to running, and she breathed in the clean fresh air and thought, there were worse places to bring up children. They’d grow up here with koalas and parrots as their neighbours, and knowing that apples and pears came from trees and not supermarket bins. They’d go to the local primary school where she’d gone with her sisters and where Dan had preceded them and Pop had gone decades before, a school where there was never more than one hundred kids and you knew every teacher and every kid in the school from Reception to Year Seven. A school where it was impossible to get lost in the cracks.

  A kid could do a hell of a lot worse. A couple of kids, for that matter.

  If she was still here.

  Because Nick had yet to say anything and she had no idea how this would all pan out. All she knew was that she didn’t want to leave.

  She turned for home, thinking she’d walked far enough. The block was something like three kilometres around and so too far for her to walk all the way these days. She smiled, enjoying the mild autumn sun on her face, thinking she and Boo made the perfect couple, right now. But when she rounded the bend, there was the woman with the dogs again, stopped to talk to someone passing in a car, the dogs by her side.

  Crap, she thought, thinking she’d have to turn around and wait it out until the dogs were gone. She had no wish to go anywhere near them. Except the dogs had already spotted Boo and her jaunty tail, and together they lunged for her, catching the owner unawares and yanking free of her hold.

  Sophie’s heart was in her mouth as the dogs came at Boo, their fangs bared, snarling, evil in their eyes, and there was no time for flight. There was nowhere to go even if there was. All she could do was pick up the unsuspecting Boo and hope the owner could get to the dogs and pull them off.

  Sophie stooped down, but she was way too slow and Boo’s little legs scrabbled the air awkwardly as the first dog sprang, cannoning into them and knocking the tiny dog from her hands. Boo screamed in pain and terror as it hit the ground, somehow managing to stay upright, darting this way and that on its short legs around Sophie’s, frantically trying to get away while the big dogs snapped and growled either side of it. One of them grabbed her neck in its large jaws and Boo squealed in terror while Sophie screamed at them to let her go, trying to kick the dogs away. But she was caught in the leads and she and the dogs and Boo circled and spun on the road. The dogs wouldn’t stop, they wouldn’t let go, and Sophie knew they wouldn’t stop until they killed poor Boo and there was nothing she could do, lost as she was in a spinning wheel of vicious, screeching dogs.

  When suddenly, the ground was tugged out from under her feet and she fell to the road.

  Hard.

  Sophie opened her eyes in the sterile hospital room and instinctively she put her hands to her belly, reliving the panic she’d felt in the ambulance as the paramedics had checked the babies’ vitals. But she and her bump were still intact, though she had an annoying belt around her tummy that was attached to some kind of monitor that kept beeping, along with a pain in her hip every time she tried to move.

  ‘I hesitate to say this,’ Beth said, ‘but between work and this family I’m really getting over visiting this place.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Sophie said, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers. And then suddenly she remembered. ‘How’s Boo?’

  ‘Lucky to be alive, according to Han. That Driza-Bone coat she had on protected her or it would have been a whole lot worse. She still got a couple of deep puncture wounds
to her neck and legs. She’s had shots and a stitch or two and she’s pretty shaken up, like you’d expect, but she’s getting lots of treats. Han thinks she’ll come good.’

  ‘Oh, poor Boo, it’s a wonder she didn’t have a heart attack. And poor Mrs Jennings. She didn’t need a shock like that.’

  ‘Poor you,’ Beth said, sitting down on the bed next to her as a cleaning trolley clattered down the hallway. ‘What a terrifying experience. You’re lucky you weren’t bitten yourself—or worse.’

  Sophie shivered as she thought back. ‘They wanted Boo.’ She remembered finding herself on the ground, and someone calling for an ambulance—a man who’d managed to pull the dogs off. She remembered a panicked Boo whimpering, curled up and shaking next to her. She remembered the shock that had seen her throwing up on the ground where she lay and not giving a damn who saw her. ‘It’s lucky there was someone there to drag the dogs away.’

  ‘Oh, that must have been the guy who spoke to the ambos. Thank God he was there.’

  Sophie shivered. Yeah, thank God. ‘Who was the owner of the German shepherds, did anyone find out?’ Sophie said. ‘I’ve never seen her or those dogs around before.’

  ‘She’s some woman from the city who likes to walk her dogs where it’s quiet, apparently.’ Beth rolled her eyes. ‘And I can’t imagine why she’d need to do that. Oh, and she complained about you screaming, by the way. Said you excited the dogs and caused a frenzy.’

  Sophie put a hand to her face and almost cried in disbelief. ‘I caused a frenzy? Those dogs were out to kill. Boo was screaming too—it was awful, Beth, just awful, she didn’t have a chance. And I thought,’ she cradled her bump, ‘I thought, imagine what they could do to a child.’