Are you on medication? Yes. Lots. See following page for a list.
And then… Have you any children? Yes, one.
What are their ages? Max would have been one.
Eloise gives me a shaky look as she scans the form and flips over the page.
‘I’m not going to die in the middle of your class, I promise,’ I tell her.
‘I can vouch for that. The new season of The Crown comes out tonight and there’s no way she’s missing it,’ Hope says, taking hold of my wrist and leading me to the mats.
The workout is hard, and Eloise keeps pointing out all the things I’m doing wrong. ‘Watch your posture, Paige. Strong through the centre. Draw those shoulder blades down your back. No slouching.’
Once we’re done, Eloise strides over and congratulates me on my effort. ‘Did Hope tell you about our current promotion? If you sign up for twelve months, you get three months free.’
Under normal circumstances this would be a fantastic deal. Under normal circumstances I’d pull out my credit card and sign on the dotted line. But not today. This information makes my stomach lurch. It’s possibly the first time I’m registering the fact that my decision equates to disruption when it comes to planning my life.
‘Um,’ I say, ‘let me give it some thought.’
‘Sure. Promo ends next week.’ Eloise goes to push a flyer into my hand, which Hope is quick to grab. She folds it in half and tosses it into her bag. ‘Thanks, Eloise.’ She grabs me by the hand.
‘Come on, let’s go.’
‘Hope—’
‘Don’t think about it,’ she says firmly.
‘But—’
‘Don’t think about it,’ she repeats.
We have tickets to see Ed Sheeran in late February. Grandstand tickets for the Grand Prix in March. I’m supposed to take Ella and Ethan to see Disney on Ice in early July. And Mum is turning sixty in the spring. We’re buying her and Dad tickets to the United States since she’s always dreamed of going cruising in Alaska. Caitlin has already booked the venue for her surprise party. I’m in charge of the table centrepieces. What if I’m not there for it? What if I can’t be there for any of it?
If I don’t make it, what will our baby have to hold onto? How will people, generations from now, remember Paige Hutton, wife of Nick Bellbrae? I’ve quietly sailed through my thirty-four years without ambition or footprint. And it suddenly bothers me. Much more than I ever thought it would. How will my son or daughter remember me if he or she doesn’t have the chance to know me?
I think about the storage boxes in my garage, which is pretty much empty aside from a camping tent we used circa 2010, a set of Nick’s dusty golf clubs, a pair of old roller skates (no idea how they got there) and my old violin (I played for six years). Most of our photographs are digital. It dawns on me that Paige Hutton, wife of Nick, daughter of David and Evelyn, sister of Ryan and Caitlin, aunty of Ella and Ethan, has no heirlooms or significant things to pass on to a child apart from some lumpy, misshapen toys. You can hardly count my recipe books, of which I have many – but of course they mean very little. I can’t blind bake pastry properly or pull off a pavlova and probably never will. Maybe that’s what they’ll remember about me. Terrible cook. Loved recipe books. Worked at an oldies’ home. Excellent Snap player.
What else?
‘Hey, are you okay?’ says Hope in the locker room, startling me from my thoughts. I’ve showered and dressed, and am now just sitting, staring into space.
‘What if I actually don’t make it?’
Hope tries to laugh it off, like it’s an overreaction, some ridiculous notion for her to entertain. ‘Look at you. You just did an hour of Pilates.’
More like forty-five minutes, and what she doesn’t know is that I feel like I could sleep for three days.
‘It’s not a guarantee that you won’t make it, Paige, so stop acting like it is.’
‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ I say, scooping up my gym bag and mat.
She follows me out the door. ‘Get back in there,’ I tell her. ‘You’re practically naked.’ That doesn’t stop her. She waltzes out in her underwear like she’s walking around in her bedroom.
‘Well, I’m not going to let you walk away like that. Did you hear me?’
‘My ears are working fine.’
‘I mean, did you really hear me, Paige, because this is important.’
‘Yes. I heard you.’
‘Good. Now maybe you need to work on Nick.’
Fifty
Nick
A couple of weeks later, my phone rings while I’m in the middle of surgery.
‘My right pocket,’ I say.
Allison, one of the nurses, slips her hand into my pocket.
‘It’s your wife,’ she says.
‘Go ahead and answer,’ I tell her.
Allison puts the call on speaker while I prepare to suture up a patient – Hannah, who is going to be fine after her hernia operation. ‘Hi, Paige, it’s Allison, answering on behalf of Nick.’
‘Oh, hi, how are you? Is he around by any chance?’
‘He’s got his hands in a patient but let me see if he can talk.’
‘I’m fine to talk, thanks, Allison.’ Allison moves the phone closer to me, holding it up so I can continue working.
‘Paige, hi.’
‘Oh, hey, sorry to interrupt. I’m in possession of doughnuts from Mrs Betty Baker’s. Do you have time for a break at all today?’
‘If he doesn’t, I do,’ pipes in Allison with a melodic chuckle. ‘God, how I love those doughnuts.’
‘So good. You know they’re opening a new shop downstairs next month,’ comes another voice, this one from Christian.
I almost forget Paige is still on the phone. ‘Did you hear me, Nick?’
‘Yeah, sure. Can you swing by at around twelve? I’ll meet you outside. The usual spot.’
We sit together on the grassed area outside the hospital. Most of the lunch crowd has thinned out but there are still groups of people spotted over the lawn and under some of the trees.
‘Bet you’re wondering why I’m here,’ she says, wrestling our drinks from a cardboard tray. Flat white (for me) and a berry smoothie (for her).
‘Does it have anything to do with the dozen lemon curd doughnuts that are in there?’ I say, pointing to one of two boxes beside me. Being out here, on the lawn on a lunch break, reminds me of the early days of our relationship. Paige used to visit all the time. All the cafeteria staff knew her name.
‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘Or maybe it has to do with the fact that you have been calling me twice a day for the past five days and I figured we need to get to the bottom of it.’
This is something I hoped she wouldn’t notice. I’ll admit, it is unusual for me to call her more than once a day.
‘Don’t worry,’ she says, lifting her hands up. ‘I know it’s your way of dealing with this. And it’s fine, really it is. I love talking to you. But if Paige Hutton is going to have an expiry date that comes sooner in life than later, then I am hereby making it my mission to make sure that I come visit more regularly.’