Nadia woke to the sound of Harry calling from his bedroom. ‘Mummy,’ he wailed. ‘Mummy!’ She sighed and picked up her phone from her bedside table: it wasn’t even six yet. She propped herself up on one elbow and lifted the blind above the headboard. The sun was already up and the summer heat was beginning to build. She let the blind clatter down and lay on her back in her knickers and an old, soft singlet. She had kicked off the sheet during the night. Turning her head to the right, she looked at Eddie, his puffy jowls, his doughy belly, the thick dark hair creeping down his neck towards his shoulders. He was lying on his back, head turned away from her, pretending he hadn’t heard Harry. God, she used to think he was so sexy. But he had thought the same of her once, and look at her now. She tried: she went to the gym, had her hair cut at nice salons, dressed well, but Nadia knew she looked like a mother of three, not the young woman she was when they had met. She saw the mothers of the kids’ schoolmates at the gym, the hair salon, the shopping centre, and was always shocked to see how middle-aged they looked, as she knew she looked just like them. In a way, she cared more about impressing them than Eddie.
She closed her eyes, hoping Harry would drop off to sleep, but he called out again. She sighed loudly. Eddie rolled away from her, onto his side; clearly he had no intention of getting up. At least he wasn’t hungover; they hadn’t stayed at the party much longer after Zoe and Lachlan had left. Nadia had tried to pretend that everything was OK, for her dad’s sake, but she couldn’t just switch off after being told such awful news. She’d told her parents what Zoe had said, of course; they’d seen all the commotion. Nadia’s eyes filled with tears. Poor Zoe. It wasn’t fair: she’d been through enough. But the world didn’t work like that, did it? There was no one up there distributing good and bad luck, deciding when one person had had enough to bear. Zoe would have made a great mother. And Lachlan would have been a brilliant dad.
Zoe had been right last night: Nadia had been insensitive to carry on about her own problems when she didn’t have any, not really. Perhaps her life was getting stale, boring even, but she wasn’t unhappy. Life couldn’t be everything you dreamed of, could it? She glanced at Eddie again. He was just a man, a person – like her – with his own faults, but so many wonderful qualities too. He loved the kids, and her, and he provided for them. What more did she expect?
‘Eddie?’ She touched him lightly on the shoulder.
‘Hmm?’
‘Are you awake?’
‘Yes,’ he mumbled, without moving.
‘What would you have done, if it had been me?’
He sighed and rolled towards her. ‘What? If what had been you?’
‘If it had been me who couldn’t have children. What would you have done?’
He reluctantly opened his eyes and blinked hard. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.’
Nadia’s voice wavered. ‘Would you have stayed with me?’
He draped his arm over her. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course I would have.’
Nadia nodded, then inched closer to Eddie until her head was touching his shoulder. What if he had been infertile? She couldn’t imagine her life without the children. She remembered how it had felt when the desire to be pregnant flooded her, when she envied every expectant woman she saw, when she thought about nothing else but having a baby. Would she have made an excuse to leave Eddie, acted terribly so she could pretend that it was the relationship that was flawed rather than him? Or secretly found another man who could give her children? She and Eddie had been married for ten years now, and all they seemed to talk about was Charlotte, Violet and Harry. What happened when the edges of a relationship frayed and there were no children to stitch it back together? What would her life be like now if it was just her and Eddie?
Empty.
Harry cried out again from his bedroom. Feeling a flush of guilt, Nadia forced back her irritation and sat up. At least he could call for her. Yes, she was sleep-deprived, but she was also incredibly lucky. She jumped out of bed and hurried towards Harry’s room.
Zoe woke to the screeching of rainbow lorikeets from the grevillea tree in the front yard. The noise scraped through her head as if the birds themselves were clawing at her brain and pecking the back of her eyes. It was too hot; her skin was clammy, her heart was beating too fast, and each pulse brought with it a wave of pressure. Her stomach churned and her mouth filled with saliva. Beneath the nausea, her abdomen was painfully empty. She considered getting up for some paracetamol and fresh water, but the thought of standing and walking to the bathroom was unfathomable. She hated her body for failing her, for being so frail. Trying not to move her head too quickly, she reached slowly for the glass on her bedside table. She brought it towards her lips: it was empty. She could have wept.
Lachlan wasn’t in bed. Zoe heard the faint sounds of music videos coming from the television in the living room. He was always up early when he came back from the mines, still conditioned to the rigid shifts that controlled when he slept, ate, worked. She wanted to call out to him, ask him to bring her some water, to lie next to her, to cry with her, instead of carrying on as though this was just another Saturday, but didn’t want to ask for his help. He should know that she needed him. She was sick of this life, of being on her own all the time. What kind of relationship was it when her husband was six hundred kilometres away from her for half the year? Yes, when he was away, they talked every day on the phone, but over time the calls had become briefer, more practical, less emotional. She would open his mail, and ask him what bills he wanted her to pay. She’d tell him what she was having for dinner, or that the washing machine was leaking, and he’d tell her to call a repairman. But so much of a relationship was about the things unsaid – the looks, the gestures, the sensing of a mood. The little things: bringing your husband a cup of tea; interrupting each other on a Saturday morning to read out pieces from the weekend papers. When all that was reduced to a five-minute phone call each day, in snatched moments between Lachlan’s shifts and her work at the hospital, what kind of marriage was it?
She moved her head slowly and propped herself up on her elbows. She hadn’t drunk that much last night, had she? But then she hadn’t eaten. Or slept. Her face burned as she remembered blurting everything out to Nadia, smashing a glass, crying. She had made an idiot of herself. A hot, clammy sweat came over her. She nodded her chin to her chest and closed her eyes, and let the tears fall as she lay back down on the pillow.
She must have dozed off. Some time later, she woke to the sound of one of the wooden drawers grating as Lachlan pulled it open. ‘What are you doing?’ she croaked.
‘Sorry,’ Lachlan whispered. ‘I thought I’d go for a run.’
‘A run. Now?’
‘Yeah, I won’t be long.’
Zoe sat up, ignoring the pounding in her head. Lachlan pulled his running top over his head then put his phone into his armband. She didn’t want him to leave. ‘But it’s too hot to run.’
Lachlan sat on the end of the bed and pulled on his socks. ‘I’ll be OK. I thought you could do with a sleep-in.’
‘I’m awake now. Don’t go.’
He stood up and ground one foot into a running shoe. ‘I won’t be long, then we’ll go out to breakfast.’
‘Aren’t you going to say anything? About last night?’
He sighed, then looked at her. His shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Was it that bad?’ she whispered.
He walked over and sat next to her on the edge of the bed, then gently swept her hair off her forehead. ‘It wasn’t bad at all.’
‘Do you think everyone’s talking about me?’
‘No, of course not. No one even noticed – the music was so loud you could barely hear people when they yelled in your ear!’ He smiled, then leaned down and kissed her forehead. ‘Don’t worry about last night. You did nothing wrong. The only person who heard what you said was Nadia. She’ll understand. Anyway, who gives a shit what people think? We’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.’
She couldn’t help but smile. Dear Lachlan. He always knew how to make her feel better. It wasn’t his fault he had to go away so much. ‘OK. Go for your run. But could you do one thing for me before you go?’
He frowned. ‘Of course.’
‘Can you get me some water and painkillers?’
He smiled again, hugged her tight and murmured into her ear, ‘Of course. I love you. Everything will be fine, I promise.’
They went to a local cafe in the back streets of Fremantle, away from the tourists. Zoe wasn’t hungry, but managed to stomach some toast and two flat whites. She tried, during breakfast, to be pleasant. Lachlan talked the whole time, about anything and everything: property prices, the other people in the cafe, the weather. She knew he was trying to make her feel better, to make jokes and laugh and smile, but she didn’t want to pretend this wasn’t happening to them. She wanted to talk about it, to dissect every detail, to make him open up and tell her exactly how he felt about it, about her.
She didn’t want to go straight back home afterwards. Lachlan drove north along the coast road, along stretches of white beach fringed by the Indian Ocean. Zoe stared out of the passenger window at the towering dunes covered with ugly plants with tentative footholds in the shifting sand. Across the road, in front of the showy houses, were parched verges, with shrivelled grass, crisp from weeks without rain. She hated the Western Australian summers, the relentless heat and the hot wind that whipped bare legs with stinging sand. Sweat dripped down her thighs beneath her baggy shorts; she turned up the air-conditioning and slumped down in her seat so that the cold air blew on her.
‘You OK?’ Lachlan said.
‘I’m so bloody hot.’
‘Is the vent open properly?’ Lachlan leaned towards her and began to fiddle with the air-conditioning.
‘Yes!’ Zoe said, swatting his hand out of the way. ‘I’m not stupid, I know how to work it!’
Lachlan put his hand back on the steering wheel. Zoe looked at him and saw him raise his eyebrows.
‘What, Lachlan?’
‘Nothing.’ He looked straight ahead.
‘Just say it!’
‘Say what? I’m fine!’ He shook his head.
‘I don’t need you to be angry with me!’ Zoe’s eyes filled with tears.
‘I’m not the one who’s angry.’ Lachlan indicated right and slowed down as the traffic lights turned red. He looked over to her, then groaned. ‘Oh, Zoe, don’t cry …’
She shook her head and turned away from him, feeling pathetic. ‘I just feel like … like it’s all my fault.’
Lachlan put his hand on her leg. ‘Babe, don’t be silly.’ The lights turned green; he put his hand back on the steering wheel.
‘You don’t sound very convincing.’
‘Jesus, Zoe, what do you want me to say? I’m upset too!’
‘Well, why don’t you say anything, why are you just driving the car like nothing’s happened? You never talk about anything important, then you disappear back to work. It’s all right for you: you can go up there and forget about me for two weeks. I’ve been through hell, all on my own!’
‘You’re not on your own —’
‘Yes I am! You’re not here for me, who else is there?’ Zoe was sitting upright now, spitting the words at Lachlan. She knew she was hurting him, she knew she was being hysterical, but she wanted him to feel as bad as she did. A part of her wanted to push him until he stopped being so nice and admitted that he blamed her.
‘You have so many people who love you. Your friends, your parents, Nadia…’
‘She can’t understand. No one can.’ Zoe slumped back in her seat, exhausted. Tears fell down her face; she didn’t bother to wipe them away. She could see Lachlan reflected in her passenger-side window. He was staring straight ahead, but his eyes flicked towards her every few seconds.
‘We’ll be OK, Zoe,’ he said softly. ‘It’s not the end of the world. We’ll get through this.’
She spoke quietly. ‘How? How can we get through this? I’ve pictured it for so long: our baby, us as a family. Haven’t you? All our friends have kids. How can I look at them without hating them for what they have? Everything has changed now, every single plan I had for us, for the future.’
‘We’ve still got each other, Zoe! It’s you I love. Let’s just give it some time, then see how we feel. As Dr Patel said, there are other options. There’s adoption —’
‘I want my own baby. Our baby.’ She turned away again. Lachlan just didn’t get it. He hadn’t felt the thrill of knowing there was a tiny life starting to grow inside him. He couldn’t understand her despair at knowing she’d never give birth, never go to mothers’ groups and swimming lessons and school coffee mornings. He said it wasn’t the end of the world, but he didn’t understand: it was.
They drove in silence for the next half hour, then turned around and drove south again. Lachlan parked the car in the street outside their house. He was silent for a moment, then he turned off the engine, sighed and opened the door gently. Zoe swallowed and climbed out too, then walked towards their home.
She had loved this place when she’d first seen it: an old dockworker’s weatherboard cottage, the cladding whitewashed except for the chequered exposed brick around the sash windows and the dark green door. But today it looked tired, faded in the harsh midday sun. Zoe looked up at the blue sky, squinting despite her sunglasses. She longed to hear the clatter of rain on the tin roof again. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and pushed her sunglasses back up her nose.
Leaning over the iron gate, she lifted the latch and pushed it open. Lachlan followed close behind her. The gate creaked as it swung closed, then shut with a clang. She walked up the steps to the wooden verandah and waited for Lachlan to unlock the door. When they had bought this house, she had imagined herself sitting out here, with a drink, at the white wrought-iron table on warm summer evenings, but the whining mosquitoes and the acrid stench of sheep urine from the animals packed on the ships in the harbour had driven her inside. The grevillea tree screened them a little from the people who walked along the pavement to the cappuccino strip, but it also littered the ground with old red flowers that gave her a rash when she touched them.
Zoe swatted away a blowfly that buzzed around her face, and followed Lachlan inside. She closed the door quickly behind her and immediately switched on the air conditioning.
As she walked along the dull, scratched jarrah floorboards of the hallway, past the two bedrooms and the tiny bathroom towards the small living room and kitchen at the back of the house, she reminded herself that they didn’t have room for a child anyway. The spare room was full of clothes, surfboards, junk that they had nowhere else to store. She put her handbag down on the beige laminate benchtop of the kitchen, a previous owner’s ugly renovation from the eighties. When she and Lachlan bought the house, they had laughed at the decor and vowed to do it up. But three years later, they had done nothing. There had always been something more important to worry about. And now she was used to it. You can get used to anything, she knew that. You habituate, no longer notice the things that were once so important.
She collapsed into a chair at the small wooden table squeezed into the centre of the kitchen where she’d imagined making pancakes with her son or daughter one day. Despair welled up in her chest. She clutched her head in her hands.
Lachlan put his hand gently on her shoulder. ‘Do you want some lunch?’
‘We just ate.’
‘Oh. Yes.’
She knew that he was trying to do something, anything, to make her feel better. ‘I’d love some tea,’ she said, trying to smile at him.
Lachlan sighed. ‘Zoe. I’m so sorry.’
She looked down. ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.’
‘I’m sorry that I haven’t been here, that you’ve had to deal with so much of this on your own.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘I’ll look for a different job. One that’s based here.’
‘No. Don’t be silly. We need the money.’
‘We can manage.’
Zoe shook her head. They both knew there weren’t many jobs for mining engineers in the city. Although now they wouldn’t be having a baby, now she didn’t have to give up nursing, maybe they could survive without the extra money he got from working fly in, fly out.
Lachlan walked over to the bench and stood near the fridge, staring at the kettle as if he didn’t know what it was, his arms hanging by his side. His face was red, but as he looked down from the kettle to the floor, Zoe could see the pale skin on the back of his neck where the desert sun didn’t reach. She walked over to him, stretched her arms around him and they held each other.
After a few moments, Zoe helped him make the tea, then they went through to the living room together and sat on the couch, staring at a chat show on the television, a story about a woman addicted to plastic surgery, who had spent thousands fixing her non-existent problems. If only it was that easy to go into hospital and come out with what you really wanted.
Lachlan put his mug on the coffee table, then leaned back and put his feet up. Would they be doing this exact same thing, sitting here – just the two of them – with cups of tea in front of the television for the rest of their lives? Zoe picked up her own cup, walked back along the hallway to their bedroom, and closed the door.
The bed hadn’t been made, as usual, but today she couldn’t stand it. The quilt lay in a lumpy heap at the end of the bed, and the sheet that they had slept under was tangled and knotted, probably still damp from the sweaty night. She started to straighten the sheet, then pulled it off, bundled it up and threw it into the corner of the room. Every single drawer of the chest was pulled open, like a skewed staircase. She slammed them closed.
She sat down on the bare mattress, then, keeping her feet on the floor, lay back and covered her face with her hands. All that she could remember from her teens was being the sick girl who was treated differently by everyone. Over the years, she’d learned to live with it, but now to know that it had also taken any chance that she had of being a mother …
Zoe sighed. What could she do, except get used to this too?