Alex stared at the basket of washing in front of her, hoping that if she looked at it for long enough, it might actually fold itself. Wasn’t that the theory of visualisation that she’d learnt about during a break-out session from a two-day corporate law conference last year? That if you imagined something hard enough, it would come to fruition?
The facilitator had made them use the technique during trust falls, visualising themselves landing safely in the arms of their colleagues before they actually went ahead and did so. True, no one was dropped, though there were a few wobbles when it came to catching the pompous barrister with the personal hygiene issue, and perhaps, as corporate lawyers, they might have been better served imagining piles and piles of money. After all, that was the core business. Falling successfully into the arms of colleagues and opponents wasn’t exactly a key performance indicator at Macauley Partners, where Alex had worked for twelve years.
She closed her eyes and imagined the twenty pairs of underpants, four school shirts, three business shirts, umpteen socks and two pairs of school shorts all neatly ironed, folded and put away. She squeezed her lids and clenched her fists. In her mind she saw razor-sharp folds and starched collars. She squeezed more tightly, then opened.
Nothing. The clothes hadn’t moved.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled through emails. Nothing urgent from work. A bit of spam from travel and clothing websites that Alex couldn’t remember using. A new one from The Primal Guy. She opened it and read through. Another slightly unhinged rant about life and black swans. Actually, this one wasn’t quite as bad as the others. He had a point about life throwing up the unexpected, like a baby for instance.
Alex yawned and visualised herself falling successfully into bed. She ached for sleep. At least the boys were out cold and the house was quiet. James had a couple of late clients but he’d be home soon and she would need to talk to him about the baby. Or at least the potential baby.
Would he be happy? Only yesterday he’d commented on how nice it was to be working again, properly, with the boys now in their second year of school. Only one thing was certain. He’d be surprised about the (possible) pregnancy.
Alex picked up the first pair of underpants, and her stomach sank. Another certain thing about a baby was that the washing load would at least double when it came along. Babies, or at least Alex’s babies, puked enthusiastically after every meal, which was possibly testament to the calibre of her cooking but certainly made for an endless round of changing and washing. At one point, she remembered dressing the twins in nothing but singlets and nappies for weeks on end because she simply didn’t have time to wash the puked-on clothing, and they never left the house anyway, so what was the harm.
Alex sat at the dining table, fished out a couple of the boys’ shirts from the basket, and laid her head on them. Just for a minute, she told herself. How she longed for a glass of sauv blanc. Anything to ease the knot of worry at the pit of her stomach. But that second pink line made alcohol out of the question. She could stomach the anxiety better than the guilt. Just a short, short rest. Until the desire for wine passes. Next thing she knew, James was gently squeezing her shoulder.
‘Alex, Alex,’ he said softly. ‘You fell asleep.’
She lifted her head quickly and swallowed hard. Her mouth was like sand. James got down on his haunches and used his thumb to wipe her chin. Drool, she realised, which would explain the dry mouth.
‘Shit, what time is it?’ Alex groggily checked the clock on the oven.
‘It’s just after nine.’ James stroked a piece of hair off her forehead. ‘You were out like a light.’
She yawned. ‘The boys were asleep, and I felt so exhausted I thought I’d put my head down for a minute and then get to the washing and—’
‘You don’t need to explain to me.’ James rose and wandered towards the fridge.
‘There’s one of Beth’s lasagnes in the fridge, if you want to throw that in the microwave. I ate with the twins.’
James opened the fridge door. ‘How were they this arvo?’
‘Oh, fine.’ Alex resumed folding the washing. ‘Henrietta died.’
James turned quickly. ‘Who died?’
‘Henny … the guinea pig.’
‘Oh, shit. Already? She was only a few months old, wasn’t she?’ James covered the lasagne with cling wrap and set it in the microwave.
‘The boys didn’t put her back in the hutch this morning and when we went looking this afternoon we found her at the Devines’. Their cat killed her.’ She thought back to Henny’s taut little body, Talia’s dismay and Charlie’s ambivalence. ‘You know, Charlie Devine didn’t even apologise.’
‘Well, it’s not her fault that Henny wandered off. She really should have been in her hutch. It’s our fault more than hers.’
‘Look at it this way,’ said Alex. ‘If one of the boys ran out onto the road and got run over, you’d blame the driver, not the child.’
‘I’d blame the parent for not supervising the child.’
Alex groaned. ‘Why do you have to be so reasonable all the time? It’s annoying. Charlie Devine should have said sorry. That’s what neighbours do.’
‘How’d the boys take it?’
‘They were fine … A bit too fine. They sort of seemed to enjoy it.’
The microwave pinged and James brought a steaming plate of lasagne to the kitchen table. ‘Good lesson in life and death for them, I guess.’
Life and death. Perfect segue. Tell him about the baby, Alex told herself. But she couldn’t. Her mouth was watering so badly, the words couldn’t make their way past the saliva. Beth’s lasagnes were the perfect balance of rich tomato ragu and creamy, cheesy sauce. Even Alex’s fussy boys loved them. The first time Beth turned up on the doorstep with a casserole, Alex barely knew her at all but kissed her right on the spot. Having moved into Cuthbert Close just one week before her due date, she was still surrounded by packing boxes and the only room that had been properly sorted was the twins’ nursery. Neither she, nor James, had eaten a proper meal in weeks. Beth was a godsend, though she claimed to simply be doing the neighbourly thing and welcoming them to Cuthbert Close.
As James tucked into the lasagne, Alex found her mouth moving in time with his. Nearly six years after that first casserole, Beth was still supplying the family with meals – two every week, for which Alex insisted on paying $30 to at least cover the ingredients. She had to put the money into Beth’s letterbox, as her neighbour found it too embarrassing to accept it in person.
‘Would you like a bit?’ James pushed the plate towards her.
Alex took the outstretched fork. ‘I’m famished,’ she admitted.
Tell him why you’re famished. Tell him.
‘But, actually,’ she held the fork in the air, ‘I need to tell you something first.’ She slid the plate back towards James, who quickly resumed eating, perhaps worried Alex would change her mind and want more. Beth’s meals were too good to share.
‘I … I think I’m pregnant.’
James started coughing. The fork clattered out of his hand and he clutched his throat.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Alex leapt out of her chair and thumped her husband on the back as he struggled for breath.
‘Is this helping?’ She struck a few more blows between his shoulder blades. ‘More?’
‘Please,’ James croaked. ‘Stop hitting me.’ He cleared his throat a couple of times and took a large gulp of water. ‘What did you say?’ His eyes narrowed.
‘What? Before you started choking?’
‘I wasn’t choking. It just went down the wrong way, I think.’
‘Yes, probably, I mean, I’ve never heard of anyone choking on pasta, it’s so soft …’
‘Alex,’ James interrupted, his cheeks flushed and his hair now a little skew-whiff after the near-choking. ‘What did you just tell me?’
She sat down again and clasped her hands in her lap. ‘Well, as you know, we got home this afternoon and found poor Henny, dead, and then I felt like I was going to throw up and—’
James put his hand over his wife’s. ‘Are you pregnant?’
She nodded slowly and whispered, ‘I think so.’
He pushed himself away from the table. ‘But how? I don’t get it. I mean, the doctors told us it would never be possible, except with IVF again.’ He sat back and ran a hand through his hair. ‘It’s a miracle. I can’t believe it. Another baby,’ he said in wonder.
‘Possibly another baby,’ said Alex.
‘What do you mean possibly?’ His eyes zeroed in on her.
‘The pregnancy test I used was out of date, so it might be a dodgy result.’ She stood and emptied the contents of the washing basket onto the bench.
James drummed the table. ‘Not possible,’ he said confidently. ‘You can get false negatives from these things but false positives are pretty unheard of.’
Alex blinked. She wasn’t surprised at his knowledge. Throughout the IVF process and the pregnancy, he’d read obsessively about anything related to conception and birth. Once, she’d caught him commenting on a post for InVitro-Mums, the go-to website for IVF mothers.
‘It’s meant for women, you know,’ Alex had pointed out.
‘It doesn’t say that anywhere,’ said James peering at the screen.
‘It’s not called InVitroDads.’ But James had continued to comment as LuvBubs007, in honour of his James Bond obsession.
Alex picked up a random sock from the washing pile. ‘I guess I’m pregnant then.’
‘Shit. I mean, wow. I can’t believe it.’ James came around the table to take Alex in his arms. ‘Another baby.’
The amazement in his voice made Alex drop the sock. She turned to hug him properly and buried her head in his shoulder.
‘I’m scared,’ she said quietly.
‘What? That you’ll miscarry? That’s normal, babe. You can’t do anything about that.’
‘It’s not that. I’m scared I won’t be able to cope.’
James pulled back. ‘You’ve never not coped with anything in your life. We’ll cope together like we always do.’ He took her hands in his. ‘You said this about the twins, remember? That you didn’t know how you’d do it.’
‘Yes, but that was because I didn’t know what was coming. But now I do know what’s coming, and I’m even more frightened. I mean, look at me, still folding washing that’s been sitting at the bottom of the stairs for five days. I barely ever cook a meal and I can’t even remember the last time I read a book.’
‘Read a book?’ James raised an eyebrow.
‘It’s something I used to do all the time before we had the twins. Now, I’m lucky if I read a page before falling asleep.’
‘Book reading isn’t exactly essential though, is it?’
Alex started flinging folded socks back into the basket. ‘It is to me,’ she said huffily. ‘You could barely get a book out of my hands as a kid and now the only time I really get to read is when I’m doing it to the kids and I’m sorry, but stories about dorks and farts and treehouses aren’t exactly my literary cup of tea.’
James stood by her side and quietly started re-coupling the socks that Alex had been flinging. ‘You could quit your job, you know. Take a break for a year or two.’
‘And do what?’
‘Have the baby. Spend more time with the boys.’ He nudged her and smiled. ‘Read books.’
‘It’s a lovely idea.’ Alex sighed. ‘But there’s this thing called a mortgage and ours has a scary number of zeros in it.’
‘We could live on my wage for a while.’
‘How? By treating food and electricity as desirables rather than essentials?’ James looked hurt, and Alex patted his arm. ‘I appreciate the sentiment, babe, but given our debts, I just don’t see how it could work.’
‘It could if we moved out of the city. Maybe up north? It’d be closer to Mum and Dad.’
Alex snorted. ‘I’d rather die than move up there. Actually, I probably would die … of boredom.’
Every year, James, Alex and the boys made their annual pilgrimage four hours north, to visit James’s parents in their seaside retirement village. While it was fun to play half-court tennis and lawn bowls for the week, Alex was always more than pleased to see the gabled roofs of Cuthbert Close coming back into view. The perfect thing about where they lived was that it gave them the best of both worlds. If they wanted peace and tranquillity, they could stay home and laze about the backyard, but if they wanted a little culture or excitement, the citywas only twenty minutes away, and you could barely set foot outside the street without falling over a cute new restaurant or boutique.
Or at least, that was the theory.
The reality was that ever since the twins could walk, the backyard had been a war zone, and because of work, Alex never had the energy to attend a concert or even a dinner.
Had they lost their reasons for being there? She paused and fingered a hole in one of Noah’s school shirts. Why exactly were they running themselves so ragged? Slaves to a mortgage that never seemed to get any smaller?
Maybe the pregnancy was a sign that something had to change?
James had said nothing, and from the hunch of his shoulders, Alex could tell he was hurt by her disparaging comments about his parents’ hometown.
She squeezed his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, babe. It’s not the worst idea.’
‘I know it’s not. The kids love Porpoise Point. They never want to come home.’
But their idea of a good time is doing forty-five burps in a row. Alex resisted the urge to remind him.
‘I’m just not sure what we’d actually do there?’
‘I could set up a practice,’ said James. ‘The coast is crying out for health professionals.’
Mostly because everyone who lives there is nearly dead.
‘I’m just not sure what I’d do there? I know I could spend more time with the kids, which would be fantastic. But I also know I’d need more.’
‘More than a new baby?’
Alex nodded sadly. ‘I know myself. I’d go crazy. Even though our lives here aren’t exactly exciting, I think I’d feel trapped if we lived in such a small town.’
‘Don’t you feel trapped here? In your job?’
Alex opened her mouth but no words came out. She sat down, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion.
Living in Cuthbert Close was supposedly about giving themselves freedom and options. But the mortgage made it a type of imprisonment, albeit one that came with charming federation houses and hundred-year-old fig trees.
‘Well, what if we asked your parents to come over from Perth for a while to help us out?’ James folded one of her bras, the elastic completely gone. It looked almost as tired and saggy as Alex felt.
‘Have you forgotten last time?’
Alex’s own memories of the period were hazy. The twins had only been a few weeks old, after all. But she did remember her mum and dad, skulking about the house like cats around water. Her mum, too nervous to touch the convection stove, despite Alex’s repeated assurances that it would not burn her, and her dad, who, after inspecting James’s fridge full of craft beer, confessed that all he wanted was a VB.
‘You’ve got to get over this chip on your shoulder.’ James placed her bra on the pile.
Alex stiffened. ‘You have no idea what it’s like.’
If James’s and Alex’s childhoods were cuts of meat, hers was mince, and his was rump. She wasn’t ashamed, far from it. Who didn’t love a meatloaf? No, happiness hadn’t been the problem. Growing up, her parents had sacrificed everything for her education, and it had worked. They were the little rockets that could – propelling her into a privileged planet of university and a high-paying job, everything they’d all worked for, except now they lived on different sides of the universe and it was awkward. She’d offered to help, financially, to get them out of working in their corner store and into retirement – a little closer to Alex’s own privileged planet – but they wouldn’t hear of it. Just give those little boys everything you never had. That’s all we want.
James kissed her head. ‘I know, I know. You’re scotch fillet, and they’re mince, and my parents are rump, and our kids are junior burgers.’ He smiled. ‘But we’re all cut from the same cow, aren’t we?’
‘You’re an idiot,’ said Alex affectionately.
‘Well, I’m a piece of meat, after all. But seriously, whatever we decide about this new little beef pattie, it doesn’t change the fact that I am absolutely over the moon and one hundred per cent there for you. Even if it turns out to not be a pregnancy at all.’ He whispered in her ear, ‘But I secretly think you’re a better miracle worker than you realise, and we’ll work something out … together.’ He rose, his arms full of neatly folded washing. ‘Now, I’m going to put this lot away. You just relax.’
He closed the door softly and Alex felt tears beginning to pool in her eyes. Oh hell, she must be pregnant, crying at the drop of a hat over everything. But James! What a lovely, lovely man. She had absolutely won the lottery of husbands when she married him, to the point where she sometimes felt that the union was perhaps an unequal exchange. He always referred to her as the brains of the marriage, and proudly declared his status as a ‘kept man’ to anyone who’d listen.
But Alex knew the truth.
It was James who was the glue of the whole shebang. He was the one who got the boys off to school, and mostly picked them up from after-school care. Whatever he did it was seamless – no guinea pig funerals required. He made the lunches and kept across the school admin and was generally more patient with the boys than Alex could ever hope to be. In fact, he was so capable that she occasionally felt redundant in her own family. She was the main breadwinner, yes. But apart from the money, what did she actually contribute, apart from an extra layer of guilt?
She wiped her eyes using a pair of Noah’s Spider-Man underpants that had gone unnoticed in James’ collection of the clean washing, and went into the kitchen to switch on the dishwasher. At the sink, she paused. The light in Cara’s shed was still on. She must be out there, working, which she often did after Poppy had gone to bed.
Wiping her eyes, Alex suddenly felt very wide awake. Crying always did that to her. Maybe Cara would be up for a chat? Despite being younger than Alex by quite some years, she was always a source of calm and wisdom, probably because of everything she’d been through with her own husband. Grief had a habit of making people grow up very quickly.
She checked her watch. Nearly 9:30 pm. Normally at this time, she’d be getting into her pyjamas and removing her make-up. But not now. Now she felt wired and in need of conversation. She needed to talk this through and find a solution. Cara would be a perfect sounding board.
She scribbled out a note to James and left it where he would see.
Popped over to Cara’s for a bit. Back by 10. Xx