‘Hey there,’ says Nick as I slide my phone back into my bag. He pecks me on the cheek. ‘Sorry I’m late. I got side-tracked with a colleague. Miranda. She invited us to her son’s birthday actually. If you want, I can pick you up on the way home from work tomorrow and we can go together.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ I say, without really thinking. I just want to get down to business.
He slips his jacket off before sitting down. ‘So, uh, how was your day?’ he asks.
‘The usual.’
Moments of silence pass, and when I can’t think of anything else to say, I slide the ultrasound images across the table.
Nick sucks in a breath and flicks through them before finally looking up at me.
‘Can I get you any wine?’ asks the waiter.
‘Uh, a glass of house red will be fine,’ says Nick, shifting in his seat. ‘How about you?’
‘I’ll stick with water, thanks,’ I tell the waiter.
‘So, your day…’ says Nick, dismissing the photos completely. This is so unlike him and I hate the way it makes me feel.
He helps himself to a grissini, but he doesn’t bite into it straight away.
‘I… uh… I got to hear the heartbeat. One hundred and sixteen beats per minute,’ I declare, as if I’m relaying news that our kid has won a sports game, or achieved something particularly noteworthy in life. ‘The sonographer told me, “Baby has a nice strong heartbeat,”’ I say, mimicking Jack’s tone of voice.
Nick remains silent, his eyes flicking to the grissini between his fingers before snapping it in half.
‘I wish you could have been there. Because maybe seeing it would help you bond or at least see that this is our child – a baby we made together.’
‘Paige,’ he says softly, his eyes closing briefly.
‘What?’
‘No,’ he whispers.
‘No means what?’ I take a deep breath, bracing myself for his response.
‘I… the photos… the fact that there’s a heartbeat. It’s not going to change my mind.’
‘But—’
‘Why don’t you hear me out?’ he suggests.
‘Oh, I have to hear you out, but you’re apparently unwilling to negotiate. How is that fair?’
Nick’s eyes dart around the room. He lowers his voice. ‘It’s not. None of this is fair. This isn’t about being fair. It’s about looking at the facts and—’
‘Making an informed decision.’ My jaw tightens. God, how I hate that expression. ‘What if I told you I definitely don’t want to go ahead with a termination?’
‘I’d tell you that the woman I love more than anything in the world would be making a mistake.’
My eyes sting with tears but I manage to hold them back as the words settle on us. Every muscle in my body tightens. A mistake. A risk. No matter how I look at it, all I can see is a miracle, just like Max was.
My gaze settles on the aquarium positioned in the far-right corner of the restaurant while I contemplate how I should explain it to him. ‘I feel attached to the baby. I feel like a… like a mother.’
Nick leans back in his chair. ‘We lost our son. Your maternal instincts, that attachment – these are all normal feelings. But this isn’t Max.’
‘This isn’t about Max. It’s about this baby,’ I plead.
‘You keep talking about the baby, but you’re completely avoiding any kind of discussion around the fact that a decision like this could cost you your life. It’s not a game. It’s serious. And I don’t know what easier way to say it, but it could also cost us the baby’s life. Have you thought about that? Or have you considered, at all, the fact that I could lose you both?’
I swallow uncomfortably.
Nick nods. ‘That’s right. Who is going to be left to pick up the pieces?’
‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘It’s not only about hurting me. It’s an unnecessary risk.’
‘If I can get to term – or as close to it as possible – this child would have his or her whole life ahead. I’ve already lived mine.’
‘You’re thirty-four years old! Don’t you think you’re being selfish? Think about what you’re asking of me. Think about what you’d do if you were in my shoes.’
I try not to take offence. ‘I’m not trying to be selfish here. I’m not trying to hurt anyone. I am simply putting the life of our child ahead of my own.’
Nick shakes his head. ‘Sometimes matters of the heart don’t necessarily always lead to the best decisions. And I’m telling you now, this is not a good decision.’
‘You don’t get to take out the emotion on this one, Nick!’ I say, raising my voice a notch. ‘This is your baby this time. It’s your life, not someone else’s. You don’t get to distance yourself from things.’
‘No emotion? Really, Paige? No emotion?’
I rub my temples. Mum’s right. Nick is emotional.
The waiter arrives at the table carrying our drinks. He slides a glass of wine in front of Nick.
‘Ready to order or—’
‘Another five minutes, please,’ says Nick, keeping his eyes on mine. He takes a long sip of wine before he continues.
‘When I married you – in fact, the moment we started dating – I knew that I would do everything in my power to be the best damn husband I could be. And that didn’t only include loving you, it also meant protecting you. How do you expect me to agree to this when I know the risks? What kind of man would that make me, Paige? You tell me, because it seems you have this all figured out.’ He lifts his hands in defeat.
‘I don’t have any of this figured out. All I know is that I don’t think I can have an abortion. There’s no guarantee that things are going to work out for the worst. There is a chance this is going to turn out fine. I’m feeling great so far.’
‘You have another thirty-three weeks to go. Probably less since you most likely won’t make it to term.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I do understand. I can’t meet you in the middle on this one if you don’t make any space for me.’
This is the problem. How can I make room for Nick when there is no middle ground here?
‘But there is no meeting in the middle, is there? We either keep the pregnancy or we don’t. What other choice is there? It’s black and white. What could we possibly do to meet in the middle? Toss a coin? Draw straws?’
‘No,’ says Nick, unflinching.
‘Then there’s nothing more to say for now, is there?’
‘Unless you want to hear the stats, I guess not.’
I sigh. ‘Okay, tell me the stats.’
Nick starts citing some research papers he’s been reading over the past several days. ‘“… what they found with a group of women in Haiti was that … and with an ejection fraction of less than fifty-five per cent … maternal risk was too great…”’
I’m always so proud of Nick, so in awe of the way his work allows him to perform everyday miracles on human beings. How his hands, his commitment to healing others, can make the difference between someone living or dying. He doesn’t often talk about the ones who slip away. I remember the time early in Nick’s career when he couldn’t find a way to express the pain involved in losing his first patient in a neurological emergency, a ten-year-old boy who’d suffered a haemorrhagic stroke. Nick lost him on the table. He came home that night, dishevelled, with the saddest look in his eyes. ‘I didn’t sign up for this,’ he said as he dropped his keys on the kitchen table.