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Gill sat on the edge of his bed beside his packed bag. He held his copy of the divorce papers in his hand. He was staring so hard that the words irreconcilable differences duplicated
themselves before his tired eyes. Harriet’s bitter don’t bother echoed through his head.
He’d had a good hard think about his life since Harriet had
asked him to go. He didn’t want this. He’d never wanted it, had only signed the damn papers because she’d wanted it. But the events of the last twenty-four hours had made him reassess
their supposed differences.
So much had happened in such a short space of time. It was like each thing that had happened had been part of some grand plan, bigger than him, to make him see the error of his ways. Unbeknownst to him, each wake-up call had given him a piece of a
puzzle. A puzzle that he hadn’t been able to figure out until all the pieces were in place.
His first wake-up call had been the divorce papers. After two months when he had thought they’d been reconciling, the paper had come as a surprise. They’d made him really look hard at the things Harriet had been asking of him over the last two years. And had made him question the strength of his beliefs.
Were they really worth losing Harry over?
Next had been his grandfather falling ill. The news that his fit and healthy grandfather had succumbed to a massive heart attack had been a shock. He’d always seemed larger than life, like he’d live for another eighty years. But...he was old and Gill realised that he’d neglected his family over the last decade.
Sure, his grandfather didn’t mind in the least, was proud
of his humanitarian-minded grandson and encouraged him to continue the aid work. But family was important, too, and it had taken this one last day to make him realise that.
Next had been Nimuk. The baby’s death had affected them all but particularly Harriet. Her distress had reached inside and clawed at his gut. But more surprisingly had been the way he’d identified with the mother. Looking at her, mute with grief, had scared the hell out of him.
The emotional vulnerability of parents was frightening. A fact that he’d confronted a mere two hours ago when he’d been unable to protect his unborn baby.
And then a really startling wake-up call. The death of Peter Hanley and the aid team, shot out of the sky by the very people they were here to help. It was easy to forget his job was dangerous. Potentially, anyway. He’d never felt unsafe, or rarely anyway, but a tragedy like that brought the safety issue into the spotlight and Harriet’s worry about him continuing his work in such areas had made him think more seriously about the dangers.
After that, there had been Gillian.
Wake-up call number five. Puzzle piece number five. His reaction to seeing Harriet holding the newborn had been unexpected. Suddenly, out of the blue, he’d been able to see her holding their child. A child he’d been fighting with her about for two years. A child he’d had no interest in.
But he had passed Gillian to her and he had seen the whole fairy-tale. He’d seen what happened after happily ever after. And it hadn’t been awful.
In fact, it had looked kind of nice.
And then the biggest wake-up call of all. Harriet. Even thinking back now to how much blood there had been and how another ten or fifteen minutes down the track and she could have been dead was unbearable. And knowing that somewhere in all the blood had been the fragile cells of new life that he and Harry had made together.
A child he hadn’t even known about, but its embryonic death and having to excise it from her body had left him with a deep, deep sadness. And worse, a gut-wrenching helplessness. The sort he had seen on the face of Nimuk’s mother.
And afterwards, when Harriet had been so distressed and angry, lashing out at him because he had done his job, no matter how much he wished it hadn’t been his to do. Her angry since when have you cared had really hit home.
Since the divorce papers and his grandfather and Peter and Nimuk and Gillian. Since being inside her, her blood everywhere, scared that she could die and feeling so helpless that he hadn’t been able to keep his baby safe.
He cared. It’d just taken an extraordinary amount of wake-up calls.
But he was fully awake now - despite being up all night. More awake than he’d ever been. The puzzle pieces had fallen into place. He wanted a baby with Harriet. He wanted to watch her flat belly burgeon as their child grew inside her. He wanted to deliver it. He wanted to watch her breast-feed. He wanted to bath and play and rock their baby to sleep.
He wanted it all.
And he knew it would be more difficult for them to conceive now. But it didn’t matter. Whatever it took. Fertility treatments. IVF. Hell, they’d adopt if conception wasn’t possible.
But he wanted it all. The whole fairy-tale. The bit that came after the happily ever after.
Hang the 2 a.m. feeds and the botched social life and the absent sex life. They’d slept enough hours and they’d gone to enough restaurants and they’d had more sex in seven years than most people had in a lifetime. There was a time for those things and there was a time to settle down and reproduce, and he felt the urge grow stronger with each passing minute.
Harriet had told him to leave her alone. Don’t touch me ever again. But he knew he just wasn’t capable of that. Even if they never conceived and were never blessed with a baby, he didn’t want to be apart from her ever again.
Ever!
They had spent one year apart and it had been hell. He wanted to live with her and their children and grow old together. Nothing had ever been clearer.
Not even the moment he’d realised he’d fallen in love with her and wanted to marry her. That had been natural, something where no thought had been required — just human love and lust and emotion. But deciding to stay together, have a baby
together, was clear thinking at its best.
Gill rose from the bed empowered by his decision. He wouldn’t leave without her. The chopper would be landing soon, signalling the end of their time here so he had less than thirty minutes to convince her the child he’d always rejected was now something he couldn’t live without.
The divorce papers burnt a hole in his hand as he swiftly navigated the corridors, his big strides purposeful and determined. She was mad but he would make her see reason. He had to because he didn’t know what he’d do without her.
Megan looked startled as he strode into the room but he
ignored her. He had eyes only for Harriet’s slight form in the
bed, her back to him. She was post-op and he should let her rest and recover her strength – he knew that. But there was no time for being delicate or gentle.
There was too much at stake.
He noisily plonked himself in the chair beside her bed and was gratified when she fluttered her eyes open. His gaze caught the specimen jar on the nearby table. Her excised tube lying limply at the bottom in all its garishness.
He picked it up and said, ‘So, you know.’
‘Yes.’ Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, wincing as she swallowed.
Gill almost sagged in relief. He knew the rational, experienced theatre nurse in Harriet couldn’t look at the specimen and still blame him but that was not who was lying in the bed right now.
‘I’m sorry, Gill,’ she said in a hoarse whisper. ‘I was angry. It’s obvious nothing could be done.’
Sudden and unexpected tears pricked the backs of Gill’s eyes and he blinked. She sounded so sad and defeated. The righteousness he felt at her admission tempered by her frank sadness. Her eyes were red-rimmed accentuated by her pallor, as if she’d cried herself to sleep, and she looked as if there was no puff left in her sails.
So different to the live, vibrant Harry he’d met and married seven years ago. Or even the one he had made wild, noisy love to the previous morning.
He shrugged. ‘You were angry,’ he said gently as he took her hand.
She shook her head. ‘I should have known. I know you. I
know you would have tried your best. You are a brilliant surgeon, Guillaume Remy. Don’t let anyone ever tell you anything different.’
Gill’s heart swelled with love and pride at the humility of the woman he loved. But the finality of her words were worrying.
He stared at her beautiful face for a few moments. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.
‘Oh, yeah.’ She smiled lightly. ‘The last time someone said that they handed me a grotesque specimen jar.’
He held the divorce papers up, grasped them by the top edge in the middle and slowly ripped them in two. Then in four. Then in eight. And continued until they were almost confetti-sized. Then he threw them in the air and they fluttered down around their heads and on the bed and to the floor.
‘No, Gill,’ she said in horror, as she watched the
pieces fall. ‘No.’
‘Yes, Harry. Yes.’
––––––––
Harriet blinked. Great! Now she was going to have to get new ones drawn up! She glared at him as the last bit fell in his hair. ‘That was a legal document.’
‘I don’t care,’ he said.
Harriet was lost for words. She couldn’t move on with her life until she and Gill were divorced. His little trick just delayed the process a little more. ‘Gill —’
‘Shh!’ he interrupted noisily. ‘Be quiet. I have things to
say.’
Harriet blinked at his forcefulness, her foggy brain slow to object before he was off again.
‘This last day has been hell. My grandfather...Nimuk... Peter...Gillian...you.’
Yes. As far as last days went, this one had really sucked.
‘But when I was inside you and there was so much blood and
I thought I was going to lose you...’ His voice broke for a moment and he cleared it to continue. ‘That was the absolute rock bottom for me. I knew in amongst all the blood was my baby. Our baby. And this paternal instinct came out of nowhere and I was so sad. I saw you with Nimuk and with Gillian and I knew. I just knew that my destiny was to have a baby with you.’
Harriet stared at him, grappling to assimilate this new information.
‘All the years of denial,’ he continued, ‘and arguing just paled into insignificance. Losing our baby was the one thing that made me realise that I wanted to have a baby more than anything. And not any baby, Harry. Your baby. Our baby.’
What? No... It was too much to take in. Harriet felt suddenly like he was speaking to her in a foreign language and yet still, her heart jumped at his words despite everything that had gone before.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘You told me yesterday that I had to want a baby so badly that it hurt to breathe. That my arms ached at the thought of not having one. You said I had to want one with every fibre of my being. Every cell. And I do, Harry. With every cell in my body I want a baby.’
Harriet blinked back tears at the passionate words. But still she rejected them. ‘No, Gill. Even if I believe what you just said, what about your job? Your career? I won’t subject my child to a part-time father.’
‘I don’t want to be a part-time father, Harry. I want to be a hands-on, completely doting father.’
Harriet brutally clamped down on the part of her that was foolishly rejoicing. ‘No. You don’t.’
He gave a half laugh. ‘Yes. I do.’
‘Gill...’
Harriet sighed, letting out the breath she had been
holding, one that had expanded as her crazy mind had run off with the possibilities Gill had filled it with.
‘Look...you lost a child tonight.’ Her voice was strong because despite how much her throat hurt, she knew what she said next would be vitally important. ‘You had a big scare. But you’re a brilliant surgeon and sooner or later you’ll get itchy feet and want to be amongst it all. And you should be. This is what you do best. You’d end up hating me, Gill. I don’t want to be married to a man who resents me.’
He shook his head. ‘Harriet...no. Sure, I love my work. But not to the exclusion of everything else. I’ve been neglecting my family. Henri’s heart attack made me realise that while I’ve been gallivanting around the world, I’ve barely had time for family. My parents, my grandfather, they’re not young any more. I can go into administration. Vic has been trying to lure me into MedSurg management for years.’
Victoria Johnston, the Australasian director of MedSurg, had
been wooing Gill for a long time. She had seen him as the perfect candidate to manage the different surgical programmes. She’d wanted someone with grass-roots experience, who could troubleshoot and see the bigger picture prior to sending teams in at ground level.
Harriet was horrified. ‘A desk job? No, Gill. No. You’d hate it!’
‘Actually, I wouldn’t,’ he said with conviction, like he’d already thought about the possibilities. ‘It’d be a challenge.’
Harriet shook her head, a rush of tears threatening again. She wanted him to want a baby, but not like this. ‘What about surgery, Gill?’
‘What about it?’
‘Won’t you miss it?’
‘Probably. After a while. But there are plenty of aid programmes in Australia for the disadvantaged, where I can work if I feel the pressing need to have a scalpel in my hand
again.’
Yeah. Right. ‘Come on, Gill. How long will it be? Realistically? Before you feel the need to be in the thick of things again? I wouldn’t want you to ever go to another war zone. Ever. There are plenty of ways you can die in a safe place like Australia. I couldn’t bear being at home with our child, waiting for you away in some hot-spot, praying that no one shoots your helicopter down or holds a gun to your head, demanding you treat them first.’
He kissed the back of her hand and smiled at her gently. ‘You’re not listening, Harry. My days of hot-spots are over. I’ve given ten years and as exciting as it’s been I’m ready for the next chapter of my life. I want to go home. I want to be a father.’
Harriet regarded him seriously for the first time. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She could hear the sincerity in his voice and see it on his face. But it just didn’t seem possible after two years of persuasion, arguing and tears.
Her vision blurred and a single tear tracked down her face. ‘This would be a really bad time to screw with my head, Gill. Don’t say stuff like this if you don’t mean it. Like really mean it, deep down. Or even if there’s a single skerrick of a doubt tucked away anywhere in your body.’
He smiled at her, wiping away the tear with his index finger and trailing it down to brush lightly against her lips. ‘I love you, Harriet Remy and I want this. I have never felt more sure of anything.’
Another tear spilled over and followed the first one. The irony of the situation was breath taking. After two years of resistance Gill was ready to have a family, just when her ability to have one was in doubt.
‘What if I can’t have a baby? What if I can never have a baby?’ she croaked, the thought of it so devastating her voice cracked.
‘We’ll adopt or foster or...get a surrogate or...I don’t know. I don’t care. But we’ll do it, Harry. I promise you, we will have a baby.’
‘What about the sleepless nights?’ She sniffled.
‘Bring them on.’
‘And the non-existent social life?’
‘Can’t wait.’
‘And feeling too wrung out to have sex?’
Gill paused as if to consider then grinned. ‘Don’t care,’ he dismissed.
‘Oh, Gill.’ Harriet’s face crumpled as her heart leapt with joy. ‘Please, tell me this isn’t the post-op drugs talking and I’m not hallucinating.’
He laughed and kissed her, tasting the salt of her tears. ‘I’m not a mirage,’ he said, kissing gently on the mouth again. ‘You are not hallucinating. My name is Guillaume Remy. I love you and I want your baby.’
She held out her arms and he very gently leaned in towards her, laying his head against her chest and Harriet felt like things were actually going to be okay. The noise of a distant helicopter’s rotors approached and he looked up into her face.
‘That’s our relief team. Come back to Australia with me?’
Harriet nodded through another wave of tears. ‘I love you,
Gill. I’m never leaving your side ever again.’
‘Good. It was hell without you.’
She laughed and hugged him close to her again. He was right, it had been hell. And the last twenty-four hours had been a roller-coaster of emotions that she never wanted to experience again.
But - they were staying married.
And they were going to have a baby. And if it had taken losing a baby and losing her ability to have any more for them to get their priorities right then that had, at least, been one bright spot in this whole terrible, terrible ordeal.
And today, they started a new chapter...
THE END
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Read on for the first Chapter of Ben and Katya’s story...