‘Congratulations,’ I manage, resting my body against the bench, my lungs searching for air. I need space to breathe, to not think about babies. ‘I know you wanted another baby. You’ve always said you wanted three.’ I choke on the word three, the unfairness of it leaving a burning taste in the back of my throat.
Caitlin’s shoulders sag. ‘Paige… I’m sorry.’ Her voice is small and I feel sick thinking about the fact that she’s apologising for something so special.
‘I’m happy for you. I really am.’ I throw my hands in the air. ‘It’s not like you can put your life on hold because of what happened to me.’
‘It isn’t fair, though,’ she says. ‘I know that.’
No matter how hard I try, I can’t keep the sadness bubbling away inside of me from surfacing up, up, up. Caitlin’s eyes glisten with wetness, meet mine, and I start sobbing. Her arms wrap themselves around me and I nuzzle my face into her chest while she holds me. It reminds me of when we were small, of the time we got lost at Wilson’s Prom on a camping trip. We’d been foraging for fairy house items: bits of paperbark and gumnuts, moss and the odd twig. We’d ventured too far into the national park and had no idea how to get back to where we were. I started crying and Caitlin held me, telling me we needed to wait it out. We did, and Dad and Ryan showed up thirty minutes later.
‘I wish this never happened to you. I wish you didn’t have to go through this. And I wish the timing could be better.’
So do I.
In a little over seven months, when Caitlin’s perfect body gives birth to a healthy baby, knowing my luck I’ll still be here, with my broken, defective heart, still on meds, waiting for my turn to possibly come around again.
Sixteen
Nick
Date night is not going well. Paige hates the supposedly ‘safe’ flick I chose as evidenced by the fact she’s gotten up twice – first for popcorn she hasn’t touched, and now for the bathroom.
When she doesn’t return after fifteen minutes, I get up to look for her. She’s standing beside the snack bar, on her phone, talking to someone. Though it looks more like she’s having a heated discussion with someone, and it doesn’t take much for me to guess who it is she’s talking to. By the time I reach her, she hangs up and slips the phone into her bag. ‘Sorry, I’m coming back in.’
I nod, my impatience turning to slight annoyance. ‘Really? Cause it looks like you hate the movie.’ Never mind that I’m not loving the movie either, but I’m not the one getting up out of my seat in the middle of what’s supposed to be date night.
‘You’re mad at me. Sorry.’
‘I’m not mad,’ I tell her. But I sort of am. It’s clear Paige doesn’t even want to be here. For one night it would have been nice to just enjoy each other’s company.
‘So, who were you talking to?’
‘Caitlin. She wants me to babysit for her on Saturday night.’
‘Okay, well, I’m home this weekend – I’ll come too. I’ll make tacos. The kids love them.’
‘I told her I can’t do it.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because I can’t.’
‘You have plans?’
She wanders towards the snack bar, unfazed by the fact the movie is playing inside Cinema 2. She pulls her wallet out of her handbag and joins the long queue. ‘Choc Top?’ she asks.
I give her a look that says, Are you kidding me? ‘We’re almost halfway through the movie.’ I can’t help it. Something’s off with Paige, and I wish she’d just let it out instead of making me guess what’s wrong. ‘Why can’t you babysit for Caitlin?’
She groans. ‘Do we have to talk about Caitlin? Can we just get through one night without bringing up my sister?’
‘Hey, you’re the one who walked out of the movie to take a call from her.’
‘I didn’t walk out to take a call from her. I walked out to go to the bathroom and then she called.’
‘And you answered.’
‘And now she’s ruining date night.’
‘No,’ I tell her. ‘I think you’re the one doing that.’ We stare at each other. ‘You don’t even like Choc Tops, so why are we even standing here?’
‘I’m allowed to change my mind.’ She crosses her arms around her chest, and just when I think this is going to escalate into a petty tiff, I notice her eyes – still fixed on the board advertising the current popcorn combo – are watering.
‘It’s okay,’ I say, immediately regretting my harshness. ‘You’re allowed to change your mind about Choc Tops.’
She breaks into silent laughter, but the smile disappears as quickly as it appeared, and now she looks so sad I can barely stand it. I want to pull her into my arms and transport her back to a time and place where she knew nothing of heartache and loss. Sometimes I don’t know what’s worse – losing Max or not being able to make things better for Paige.
‘Caitlin’s having another baby.’
For a second I think I haven’t heard her properly. Caitlin wants to have another baby. We know this. This isn’t something we haven’t heard before. Caitlin wants four kids. A girl, a boy, a girl, a boy. In that order. She even has their names picked.
‘You mean now?’
‘Jesus, Nick, no, in about six months.’ She rubs her forehead. ‘Excuse me,’ she says to the people in the queue as we squeeze past them to the foyer. ‘Everywhere I look. Pregnant women. Prams. Crying babies. They’re everywhere.’
Caitlin’s pregnant. I know what this means. Paige is going to have to endure her sister’s third pregnancy. As much as I love Caitlin and want to be happy for her, I know that in Paige’s eyes her timing for this could not be worse.
‘I’m happy, but I’m not, you know?’ she continues. We are now walking out of the foyer and through the cinema doors onto the street. So much for the movie. I’m still clutching a half-eaten box of popcorn.
‘It’s not that bad,’ I offer, mostly because I don’t know what else to say, and also because I don’t have a consolation prize. The fact is we don’t know if Paige is going to be healthy enough to ever carry another baby.
‘Really? Why?’
‘Because eventually, we’re going to get our turn again.’ I don’t know why I say this to her when it’s a matter of if not when.
‘We don’t know that.’
‘True.’
Paige stops in front of a bookshop on a corner. ‘I used to be able to read books without worrying about whether or not they had a happy ending,’ she muses before pushing the door open.
I follow her past the fiction new releases and towards the cookbook section, which is her favourite even if she never can follow a recipe. ‘There are alternatives, Paige. We can look at different ways to become a family.’ Truthfully, this is the first time I have ever thought about this.
She picks a book up – some guide to a healthy gut – and mindlessly flicks through it.