And that’s how I end up in the corner booth of a packed bar on a Tuesday night with Miranda Summers.
Twenty-Eight
Paige
Mum is potting flowers on the back deck when I let myself in through the side gate the next day. There are packets of flower and herb seedlings sprawled on the steps beside a small speaker that’s playing some easy-listening music she’s quietly humming to.
‘Hey, Mum.’
She pulls her hands out of the dirt and stands up. ‘Honey,’ she says, her voice thick with relief.
Honey.
One word is all it takes for a lump the size of a ping pong ball to lodge itself in my throat.
‘Oh, Paige.’ She flings her arms around me. ‘I’ve been calling you. Why wouldn’t you answer? I came by three times. Didn’t you get my notes?’
I got her notes, but I haven’t had the heart to read them. I know they’ll be written in Mum’s sentimental style and that isn’t what I need right now.
Mum pulls off her gloves and leads me inside, where she sits me down at the kitchen table. She switches the coffee machine on and takes two wonky hand-thrown pottery mugs from the overhead cupboards. She made them last summer when she went through her ceramics phase and gifted us all entire dining sets for Christmas. ‘I spoke to Ryan last night. He says he tried to call you, too.’
‘I know. I saw.’
‘He’s going to try again later tonight,’ she says, as if to say I better pick up.
‘You told him.’
‘Caitlin did. And then he called me.’ This isn’t a surprise. News travels fast in the Hutton family, and it’s near impossible to keep a secret for long. ‘It’s hard for him, being so far away,’ she adds, like an afterthought. ‘In times like these I miss him so much more than usual.’
‘Is he still planning on visiting for Christmas?’
‘Well, that all depends on Susannah,’ says Mum as she opens the milk carton. She stiffens momentarily, seemingly annoyed with herself when she realises what she’s said.
It seems that no matter where I look lately, there is someone having a baby, trying to have a baby, trying to keep a baby…
‘Shouldn’t you be at Windsor Lakes?’ Mum asks, quick to change the subject.
‘Yes. And no coffee for me,’ I say. I get up and open the pantry, helping myself to a peppermint teabag and her secret stash of Iced VoVo biscuits – the ones she keeps in the limited edition Twinings tin.
Mum narrows her gaze as I wrestle it open. ‘You know about the tin?’
‘We all know about the tin, Mum. We have known about the tin for years since Ryan found it stashed there circa 2001.’
‘Oh,’ she says, blinking slowly.
I hand her a biscuit and take one for myself.
‘So, how are things with Nick?’
‘He’s pretty much made his opinion on things clear.’ I start licking the icing off the biscuit. VoVo-therapy is the term Caitlin and I used for these biscuits when we used to live at home. I faintly smile at the recollection of the two of us sitting in the fork of the oak tree in the back garden, biscuit tin in hand, discussing boy problems and girl problems and world problems. How different our conversations would be if we climbed up that tree today.
Mum is gripping her mug. Her face has lost some of the colour it previously held.
‘Oh, Mum, don’t look at me like that. Please.’
She gives a small shake of her head. ‘Sorry. What are the doctors saying?’
‘Not much yet. We’ll know more next week when I see my cardiologist again.’ Victoria told me that’s when we would talk about ‘the situation’ in depth. In the meantime she needs to consult with some of her colleagues. I set my biscuit down. Thinking about Victoria and our next appointment has a disarming effect on my appetite.
‘Right, so let me understand. You need to find out what you’re dealing with and what the risk is so you can decide whether to…’ She waves her arm vaguely, encouraging me to finish the sentence for her.
‘You’re assuming there’s a decision to make.’
‘What does Nick think?’ she asks in a tone that gives her away.
‘You’ve spoken to him, haven’t you?’
Mum dips her head and gazes into her lap before finally looking up at me. ‘Yes, I called him,’ she admits.
‘Mum!’
She shrugs helplessly. ‘I was worried about you, sweetheart. We all are. Your father just tore up the veggie patch and replanted it. He’s gone to Bunnings again. Fourth trip in two days. Caitlin’s been messaging me every day. Your brother keeps calling.’ Wisps of hair have dislodged themselves from behind her ear. She looks completely frazzled.
‘You all need to calm down! And you shouldn’t have called him. Please don’t take this the wrong way, Mum, but this isn’t your business.’
She crosses her arms. ‘You’re my daughter. So, like it or not, this is, to a certain point, my business.’
‘No, Mum. It’s not. So do not call him about this again, okay? Please. Not until we’ve had a chance to…’ Sort it out. Like laundry. Mismatched socks. A billing error. Taxes. A hole in the roof. A leaky tap. Those are the kinds of things you sort out. Not a baby. Not when you are what is supposed to be one half of a supposedly happily married couple who have quite frankly, in my opinion, suffered enough and worked really hard to get back to where things are good again. I remember the words Mum told me on the morning of my wedding: ‘A long-lasting marriage takes hard work.’ Dad echoed the same in his wedding speech. ‘And a bit of distance,’ he joked, referring to his career as a pilot.
Mum stares at me thoughtfully for a few seconds as if she’s trying to decide on whether she can agree to my request. ‘I’ll try,’ she says finally.
I nod, satisfied.
‘Darling,’ she says, after a beat. Yes, this is typical of Mum. She can never let things go.
‘Mmm,’ I say, waiting for her to continue.
‘Have you thought that maybe Nick does have some valid feelings about this? That maybe he’s feeling a little more emotional about something other than the… baby?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He loves you very much, Paige.’
‘I know that.’
‘Well, he’s probably feeling scared right now.’
Mum’s words hang in the air. I haven’t wanted to think about why Nick might be scared, because a decision needs to be made according to what is best, not what scares us. Best for whom, I wonder. I bat the question away.
‘Fear isn’t a reason to suggest terminating a pregnancy. And the doctors don’t know for sure how my body is going to respond to the pregnancy.’ I pause. ‘You know, you were always the one who told me that your children came first – that mothers would starve rather than let their children go hungry. Grandma Catherine told you that and now…’
‘Oh, honey, but this is different. This is so, so different.’
‘How is it different, Mum? This is still my baby. Even though the baby’s not born, aren’t I still its mother? Isn’t it my responsibility to protect it, to keep it safe, to give it the best possible chance at life? Especially after everything that happened with Max?’