by Trish Morey
Beth shuddered. ‘Ugh, don’t think about that. Stupid owner. Make sure you report her to the council. Aggressive dogs like that shouldn’t be out without being muzzled.’ She looked up as the door swung open. ‘Oh hi, Nick. I might go grab myself a coffee while you guys catch up.’ She gave Sophie a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘Back soon!’
Nick didn’t kiss her. He didn’t hug her. He didn’t make a move to come anywhere near her. Sophie noticed that as he stood at the foot of her bed, looking like a storm cloud that had rolled overhead, big, dark and threatening, and just waiting to drop, and totally at odds with the chirpy little beep of the machine alongside her.
‘I heard you were awake,’ he said, his voice sounding like it was coming from far away, like there was an ocean separating them rather than just a few short feet.
‘I am,’ she said, and tried to smile, but he looked so damned disapproving, and so very, very distant, and she realised it was control he was exercising that made his voice so flat. So emotionless.
‘The doctor says the babies are all right.’
‘I know,’ she said, and found a smile. Surely he’d have to be happy about that. ‘A huge relief. Apparently, they’re tough little critters. Lucky, eh?’
‘Lucky?’ He flung an arm around at the room. ‘You call all this lucky?’ And whatever control he’d overlaid on his voice fractured.
She swallowed. ‘Okay, maybe lucky was the wrong choice of word, but I meant fortunate or it’s a relief. But I’m trying to hold a reasonable conversation here. I don’t think you want conversation, though. I think you want some kind of argument.’
‘I’m not looking for an argument. Right now, I’ll settle for an explanation. Because I just can’t help wondering what the hell you thought you were doing.’
She screwed up her nose. ‘Well, I thought I was helping out Amy Jennings by walking her dog when she’d hurt her ankle.’
‘And why would you do that, when you know you’re supposed to be resting? What the hell were you thinking?’
‘Okay, I was thinking that after a couple of days of being locked inside with the weather, that I’d get a little bit of fresh air and gentle exercise. I am allowed that. Walking is on the permitted list.’
‘And being attacked by two savage German shepherds? That’s gentle exercise? That’s on the permitted list, too?’
‘I didn’t ask to be attacked. I was trying to avoid them!’
‘Well, you didn’t do a very good job of it, did you?’
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. ‘Why are you attacking me?’
‘Christ almighty, Sophie,’ he said, clawing one hand through his hair. ‘Don’t you see? You’re the one who’s supposed to be taking care of those two,’ he said, pointing at her bump. ‘And you could have gone into labour then and there. You could have haemorrhaged. You put our babies’ lives at risk.’
‘The babies are fine, the doctor sa—’
‘No thanks to you,’ he said, cutting her off. He shook his head, hands on hips, as he huffed out a long breath. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like getting a phone call like that, saying you’d been attacked and were being carted off to emergency? I really thought that stunt you pulled climbing a ladder couldn’t be topped, but this one, this one really takes the cake.’
The sheer injustice of his words slammed into her. Okay, so she’d decided to take the dog for a walk, but she hadn’t invited the attack. She’d done her best to avoid it, and sure, it turned out she hadn’t. But what was the point of arguing her case, when he was worried about the babies she was carrying. The babies and only the babies. It was obvious he didn’t care about her. This was cold, hard truth and it hit her exactly the same way the hard road had.
And didn’t that make it crystal clear what she had to do next?
She pressed her red call bell. ‘Thanks for coming, Nick,’ she said, ‘it’s lovely of you to drop by and see how I was going.’
A nurse bustled into the room. ‘Something I can get for you,’ she said, checking the monitor before plumping Sophie’s pillows behind her.
‘Yes, you can see this man out. He’s just leaving.’
‘Sophie—’
‘Just go!’
She smoothed the sheet on her bed after he’d gone. The room was quiet apart from her beeping companion, and she swallowed back a hot-air-balloon-sized bubble of disenchantment and despair. But there was resolve mixed in with it, too, and a hard-edged realism that her way ahead was clear. Because at least now she finally knew where she stood. And in the depths of her disappointment, she found strength from a place she didn’t know she had. Strength that Beth had bestowed upon her when she’d told her she’d get through this, strength from her nan, who’d told her things could be different these days. Strength from her amazing sisters, who did amazing things and who didn’t need a man—and then she thought about Beth and her unexpected Galahad—well, who mostly didn’t need a man.
Things were different these days. She didn’t need Nick. She didn’t need a man who wanted to control her, or who wanted to keep her close simply because she was carrying his babies.
She deserved to be loved and she’d never stop believing that, but in the absence of love, she was better off alone.
‘Are you sure about this?’ said Dan, carting a box from his ute that was full of Sophie’s belongings plus all the bassinets, prams and baby gear that he’d picked up from Nick’s place. ‘Before I unload the lot, I mean.’
Sophie was holding the back door open for him so it wouldn’t slam, the autumn wind sending golden leaves scuttling along the path. ‘Sorry, guys, but where else can I go now that the flat’s let out?’
‘No, are you sure about leaving Nick’s?’
‘Never more sure of anything in my life. It was a mistake all along. I should never have moved in.’
Lucy was sitting at the dining table, nursing a growing Jace. ‘What happened? I thought it had been working out really well.’
‘It was okay, so long as I didn’t do anything wrong. And according to Nick, there was a long list of possible transgressions.’
‘Maybe he’s just worried about you,’ said Dan. ‘You’ve got his two babies on board and he wants to take care of you.’
‘He wants to control me, more like it. He thinks he’s in charge and he doesn’t trust me to look after the babies. He practically blamed me for those dogs attacking Boo and being caught up in the middle of it.’
Lucy and Dan exchanged glances. ‘No way.’
‘Go ahead and ask him if you don’t believe me, and then think about whether you’d want to live with him if he did the same to you.’
Dan scratched his head as Lucy lifted Jace to her towel-covered shoulder for a burp. ‘It’s a shame. We were all kind of hoping …’
Sophie didn’t want to hear the answer, but still she couldn’t prevent herself from asking. ‘Hoping what exactly?’
‘That things might work out between you guys and it might even be the start of something permanent.’
Sophie snorted, because she’d been stupid enough to believe that once-upon-a-time happy-ever-after shit, too. ‘Sorry to burst that little bubble, but apple trees will be sprouting bananas before that happens.’
64
Hannah
Hannah stepped through the door that separated her flat from the surgery with a sigh of relief. It had been a long day punctuated by the panic of Boo’s emergency and the news that Sophie had also been on the receiving end of the attack.
But Beth had messaged and assured her that Sophie and the babies were okay, so that was one thing less to stress about. She threw her bag on the kitchen bench and picked up her mail, and only then did she notice the huge vase of flowers sitting on the dining table. The huge vase of flowers that certainly hadn’t been there when she’d stepped out of the flat this morning.
She approached it warily, the sunny yellow and blue of the lilies and irises looking altogether too happy for her mood. Who would be sending her
flowers? Unless it was the woman whose dog she’d saved from a bowel blockage with emergency surgery last week?
She found the card, opened the envelope and slid it out, her eyes turning misty when she read the words.
H
I don’t care. I want you, and only you (and Seans Eile, but let’s not go there).
So marry me already and put me out of the misery of trying to live without you.
I love you.
Dx
And Hannah burst into tears.
65
Nick
Min loved Nick’s spaghetti bolognaise.
Usually.
Tonight, she seemed happy to lean her head against her fist while she stabbed at her pasta with her fork.
‘Are you missing having fresh pasta?’
‘I’m missing Sophie.’ She looked up at him with plaintive eyes. ‘It’s so lonely here, lately.’
‘I’m here.’
Min huffed and looked back into her bowl. ‘But you’re always grumpy.’
‘That’s not true.’ Though maybe he’d been a bit grouchy lately. Who wouldn’t be after the week he’d had, having to box up all Sophie’s stuff plus the baby gear that she’d be needing once the babies arrived.
The house seemed empty and cheerless without her and all the promise of the babies coming soon. Min had been devastated to come home from Penelope’s and find Sophie gone. Even Fat Cat and the grown-up kittens failed to cheer her up.
Min sighed. ‘Don’t you miss Sophie, Dad?’
God, she might as well stick her fork right into his eyes; he had to blink hard enough as it was. When didn’t he miss her would be more to the point. Her scent was on his sheets and his pillow, and he wasn’t planning on washing the linen anytime soon. ‘Yes, I miss Sophie, too. Now eat your spaghetti.’
Min stabbed some more at her pasta, eating nothing. ‘Why did she have to go?’
‘I don’t know,’ he lied. ‘She wanted to be independent, I guess. The babies will be here soon. She didn’t need looking after.’ Not that he’d looked after her, exactly.
‘So, why didn’t she stay when we had everything ready here?’ Min asked. ‘Is she mad at me? Did I do something wrong?’
‘No. Don’t think that. Of course she’s not mad at you.’ He stabbed at his own pasta a few times for good measure. But he knew that merely telling Min not to think it was her fault wouldn’t be enough. There was only one way she’d believe it hadn’t been because of her and that was him coming clean. ‘If she’s mad at anyone, it’s me.’
Min slammed down her fork and bits of tomato sauce splattered in all directions. ‘What did you do this time?’ She glared accusingly at him, a pint-sized warrior princess taking him to task. ‘Were you mean to Sophie again?’
Nick thought about denying it, but realised he’d be lying, and what he’d really been grumpy about was how stupid he’d been. How he’d been so terrified when he’d heard Sophie had been attacked that he’d charged into that hospital and gone apeshit, when he should have been so grateful she was all right. He should have taken her in his arms and comforted her. He should have told her how mad he was at himself because he hadn’t been able to protect her.
‘I messed up,’ he admitted, pushing away his unfinished plate because he wasn’t hungry anymore. ‘Big time.’
‘Penelope said she’d leave,’ Min said, before she burst into tears. ‘But I didn’t want her to. Please tell her you’re sorry and get her back,’ she cried. ‘Please, Daddy, get her back.’
And Nick had tears in his own eyes and gravel filling his throat, and not the faintest idea how he might possibly achieve that, but he knew Min was right. ‘I’ll try.’
Dan answered the door. He had bags under his eyes and the baby was crying in the background. Nick could hear Lucy trying to soothe it, and he was reminded of Min as a baby and the witching hour. ‘Is this a bad time?’
‘We’ve had better. Baby’s got colic. Fun times.’
‘Oh. Anything I can do to help?’
Dan rubbed his brow. ‘Let’s cut to the chase here, Nick, because you definitely didn’t come around to offer baby advice. So what do you want?’
He swallowed. ‘I came hoping to talk to Sophie.’
‘Look, Nick,’ Dan said, leaning up against the door, ‘don’t think I don’t empathise, because I do. I know how hard it is to get a woman to listen to you when you’ve majorly fucked up. But would it surprise you to learn that Sophie doesn’t want to see you? She was pretty clear on that point when she saw your car roll up and took off into her bedroom.’
Nick let the accusation of majorly screwing up roll on by, not that he didn’t think it was wrong, he just didn’t need everyone else knowing what an arse he’d been. Though it sounded a bit late for that. Great. ‘But I need to talk to her. It’s important.’
Dan sighed, and rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. ‘All right. I’ll give it a shot. Stay here.’
It was the white-knuckle ride of his life, waiting there outside that door while Dan disappeared to talk to Sophie and the rest of Nick’s future hung in the balance. It took an entire lifetime, or maybe it really was just the three minutes his watch told him it was, before Sophie appeared. He could do nothing to stop his heart giving a little leap when he saw her, only to be followed by a massive slide when he realised what he’d lost. Maybe forever. Please God, not forever.
Her body language was plain, her arms crossed high over her belly, her lips pressed tightly together, and there were bags under her eyes, too. He had matching ones, but he knew he was kidding himself and he had no right to even hope that she might have missed him half as much as he’d missed her. But even with the bags and the scowl she was wearing, she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and the sheer dimensions of his stupidity rammed home.
‘Hi,’ he said, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, and he realised he hadn’t been this nervous around a female since he’d asked Millie Anderson to dance with him at the Year Seven school social, but that memory was hardly a good omen. She’d told him to piss off and it had been a whole five years before he’d been game enough to approach a girl again.
‘Dan said I probably should listen to what you have to say,’ she said. Not coming outside, staying inside, leaving a screen door closed between them, though that was nothing compared to the walls he saw in her eyes. ‘Even though I didn’t want to. So this better be good.’
Bloody hell. No pressure there. He took a deep breath and began. ‘Once upon a time, Min told me I needed to apologise to you. As so often is the case, she was right. And now I find myself needing to apologise to you again, only this time I screwed up so badly, I don’t think words alone are going to cut it. But I need to tell you how bad I feel about the way I acted in hospital, Sophie.’
She blinked, her face emotionless, a blank mask. ‘You should feel bad.’
He nodded. He deserved that. He deserved all she might dish out and more for the way he’d treated her. ‘If it’s any consolation, I feel like crap. I was wrong, and way out of line, and there are no excuses, but I need to talk to you, to explain. Only,’ he looked around, ‘not here. I came to ask if you’d let me show you something, to show you how sorry I am.’
‘Show me what?’
‘Not here. Somewhere it might mean something.’ Somewhere there was a chance she might even believe it.
He could see the conflict in her eyes. See her wrestle with the possibilities, and he was even grateful for that, when she could so easily slam the door in his face and he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. ‘Why should I?’
‘Give me this,’ he pleaded. ‘At least give me this opportunity to show you how sorry I am. To try to explain.’
With troubled eyes and her teeth chewing her bottom lip, she agreed, and Nick felt a flicker of hope.
It was something.
66
Sophie
They drove in silence along the winding hills roads, the evening sun slanting red through
the trees and the clouds. A light shower of rain sprayed down on the car, a scatter of leaves sticking to the windscreen until the wipers swished them away.
Soon the leaves would all be gone and the trees would stand bare-boned to the sky, and the air would crisp and her babies would be born. Their babies. She glanced over at him, taking in his grim expression, his shadowed jaw and his big hands on the steering wheel, before she looked away. What was he playing at?
She’d expected Nick would turn up at some stage, of course. He’d be sure to realise he’d overplayed his hand and want to negotiate access to their babies, once they arrived; to stake an ambit claim now to ensure he didn’t miss out once they put in an appearance. And that might be a reasonable thing for a father to ask, but after his hospital visit and her departure, she’d expected him not to be reasonable about any of it. She’d expected him to be making demands and claiming his due as the father. Expected him to come out all guns blazing and tell her how it was going to be. Expected all of that and she’d been ready to argue back and tell him he could shove his demands.
What she hadn’t expected was to see him looking so utterly devoid of fight. So defeated. So shattered.
And she knew she shouldn’t care and she shouldn’t give a damn, but her heart had gone out to him for just one moment, and it was one moment long enough to acquiesce with his request. Because it had been a request and not a demand and he’d looked so damned pathetic, and like it or not, he was still the father of these babies and she still cared, just a bit …
But when he turned up the road heading towards Mount Lofty House, she was suspicious and broke her silence. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Soon,’ he said. ‘You’ll see soon enough.’
And soon enough she did, because he pulled up in the sunset-lit car park of the swish hotel, and everything but nothing made sense. ‘Why have you brought me here?’