I Give My Marriage a Year

by Holly Wainwright

  She left more to Josh this time, more confident that, really, he couldn’t break the baby, even if he never remembered to repack the nappy bag or to take a spare onesie with him. Josh seemed happier, like he was visibly growing with the responsibility of getting Rita to sleep, giving her a night feed, taking the girls out for a walk early on weekend mornings so Lou could ‘sleep in’. Rita pleasingly ticked the clichéd box of the ‘easy’ second baby, a better sleeper, a good eater, a chubby, glowing, gurgling delight.

  Josh had seemed to stop sulking about the house – perhaps even to enjoy it, as he slowly began to take over the room that was going to be Stella’s one day with his guitars and his stereo and his band paraphernalia. He’d played a few acoustic gigs with some of his old friends at a new brewery bar down the road, and he was getting more interesting jobs and plenty of them since he’d started specialising in heritage renovations. He seemed happier than he’d been in the first year at Botany, when Lou was sure he was just going to walk out one day and return, like a homing pigeon, to a dingy room in a house in the inner west, where he would never complain about bad coffee again.

  There was a day – a single afternoon, perhaps – that Lou remembered as being almost perfect. It was deep spring. Rita was six months old, sitting in her bouncer, chewing on a rubber giraffe. Stella was in her knickers, running through a sprinkler on the turf they’d rolled out in the tiny backyard space, shrieking with laughter. And Lou and Josh were sitting on dining chairs on the deck that Josh had built with his own hands, sharing a cold beer and laughing at themselves – together.

  ‘Look at us,’ Josh had said, pushing some hair out of Lou’s eyes and smiling. ‘Just look at us.’

  And Lou had felt deep-down happy. In her bones. In her stomach.

  Her funny, kind, handsome husband. Her healthy, happy girls. Her lovely home. The job she loved that she would be going back to in just a few weeks.

  This was enough. This was everything.

  How long was it after the perfect afternoon that Lou saw the two lines on the pregnancy test in the downstairs bathroom on a Saturday morning? Maybe a whole year, she thought.

  She was back at work and enjoying it. When she’d first returned after Stella it had been hard; she was job-sharing with another teacher and she could never shake the feeling she wasn’t doing enough for either the kids in class, who would have to remind her all the time of where they were up to, or Stella at home, who was adjusting to day care.

  But this time, things felt different. She’d started back in a new role as a learning-support teacher, moving between classes – and although she missed having a class of her own, it suited her right now because it was only designed to be four days, and the marking and lesson-planning was minimal. She could go in and do her job, and then by the time she got home Josh had picked up the girls and was often making dinner. It felt as if they had struck a better balance. Like maybe, just maybe, they’d cracked the code. On a good day, at least.

  She wasn’t ready for the two lines on the pregnancy test. It wasn’t in the plan. But at that moment, she was ready to go with it. Three beautiful kids instead of two? It seemed ridiculous to object to abundance, when many friends around her were struggling to have just one baby.

  So Josh’s first reaction had surprised her. She had expected shock. She had expected him to need a minute. She had expected him to grab his hair with his hands and get that panicked look he got when things seemed overwhelming. But then she expected him to return from a sulk and pull her into a hug and tell her they’d work it out. That they always did.

  He didn’t. He just looked stricken, and said, ‘Do we really want to do this?’

  ‘Do what?’ she asked, perhaps stupidly. ‘It’s done.’

  ‘It’s not done, Lou,’ Josh said. ‘You know that.’

  Of course she did. Lou had had a termination when she was seventeen. No-one knew, except for her high school boyfriend, his dad (who’d put up the money) and Josh, because in the early days of their relationship they’d told each other everything. It was also the reason she knew that he and his ex, Sinead, had done the same thing at some point in their messy history.

  Lou had felt almost nothing about her own teenage experience. At the time, the idea that she might have a child with this boy she barely knew, that she might tie herself to him and to the responsibility of a baby, was almost laughable. Ridiculous. The procedure itself, the clinic and the professionals and the bleeding and the aftermath, well, it had been frightening, and keeping the secret from her family had been difficult, if necessary. But she never for a moment doubted how right it was.

  ‘This is different,’ Lou said to Josh. ‘This . . . inside me, it’s going to be a Stella or a Rita one day.’

  ‘But it’s not that yet, Lou,’ Josh said. ‘It’s not our baby yet.’

  ‘So you’re sure two is the right number for us?’ We never discussed this, thought Lou. We’ve never actually discussed this.

  ‘Two is enough for me.’ Josh’s voice was quiet as he said it. ‘We’ve replaced ourselves. It should be enough.’

  ‘Yes, but sometimes life throws you a surprise.’ Lou grabbed Josh’s arm, trying to sound upbeat. ‘This is our adventure, after all. And there’s something about a big family . . .’

  ‘Not for me, Lou.’ There was a pause, then he swallowed. ‘I’m serious.’

  Lou looked at him in surprise. ‘So, hang on a moment,’ she said. ‘You’re saying . . .’

  ‘Let’s think about this,’ Josh jumped in. ‘We don’t have to be passengers in our own lives, Lou. We don’t have to just roll with it.’

  It had been their first conversation on the subject, and Lou decided to cut it short. ‘Let it sink in,’ she told him. ‘It’s a big shock to both of us. Let’s just let it all settle.’

  But Josh had surprised her again. ‘Lou,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I can do it again.’ And his face was absolutely serious.

  *

  ‘I had no idea,’ Lou said to Gretchen two days later, ‘how fucking miserable he’s been.’

  ‘Really?’ Gretchen raised an eyebrow at her friend. ‘I think we’ve covered off a few of Josh’s dark moods in recent conversation.’

  ‘No, Gretch, I mean really. We were in this fog there, for a while, with the babies, and the house, and his work, and money . . .’

  ‘Oh, nothing big, then,’ Gretchen smirked. ‘Just the small stuff.’ They were driving. Gretchen had picked Lou up from school and they were going for an early dinner at this Japanese-y place that one of Gretchen’s friends had opened. The guy she was seeing, Barton, was meeting them there. Lou had never felt less like making small talk with Gretchen’s obnoxious boyfriend, so she was willing the car journey to go on and on.

  ‘What I’m saying is that things have been better.’ She looked out of the window at the chintzy shops of Woollahra. ‘They say having a baby is like throwing a grenade into a relationship. I feel like the smoke has cleared.’

  ‘And you want to chuck another grenade in?’

  ‘I would.’ Lou nodded. ‘Because there’s something gorgeous about all the chaos it creates.’

  ‘Maybe not for Josh.’ Gretchen was scanning for a park. Bugger, thought Lou, we must be nearly there. ‘But it’s up to you, Lou. It’s your body.’

  ‘Josh says he wants a say, some control over his life.’ Lou was going to cry. ‘He thinks I railroad him. On the house, on having Rita so soon after Stella . . .’

  ‘And do you railroad him?’

  Lou’s throat was burning and she gulped through the tears that were threatening to come. ‘Women are the ones who make things happen,’ she gasped. ‘Aren’t we?’

  ‘But are they the things you both want to happen?’ Gretchen looked back over her shoulder as she prepared to reverse-park. She must have caught a look at Lou’s face, because she put her hand on Lou’s. ‘Whatever you do, I’ll help,’ said Gretchen. ‘As much as I can.’

  ‘Do we have to go to dinner?’ Lou cried.
‘Can we cancel?’

  ‘No, Lou-Lou, we can’t,’ her friend said. ‘As much as I am always here for you, my love, not everything is about you. And you need to spend some time with Barton. He needs to get to know you better.’

  ‘Like this?’ Lou gestured to her red and tear-streaked face.

  ‘Well, we’ll give that a minute,’ said Gretchen, and she reached around for her bag and a tissue.

  What Lou couldn’t find the words to explain to her friend was the weight of this decision. It could be everything, or it could be barely anything at all. She hadn’t considered for a moment that the pregnancy she’d terminated at seventeen was a ‘baby’, not really. The morning sickness was an inconvenience, the heavy, sore boobs an irritation. And then later, with Stella, it was so different. She’d felt so connected to this person inside her, every little symptom and sign was treasured, recorded, analysed. What she wanted to say to Gretchen was that the difference between Life and Not Life, really, was the mother’s feelings on the matter. She couldn’t say that out loud; it felt traitorous, somehow. But she knew it was the case, down to her bones. She could lean out of the car window right now and shout that she was seven weeks pregnant and strangers would congratulate her. But, equally, it was entirely possible and acceptable to wipe this away, pretend it never existed. No matter what any doctrine thought about where it all began, Lou still knew that if this baby was one hundred per cent wanted, she would consider that their entwined story had already begun.

  ‘I just don’t know what to do, Gretch.’

  ‘I think,’ Gretchen said, holding Lou’s hand, ‘you should do what you want to do. It will be you who lives with the consequences either way. Women always bear the brunt. And that’s why,’ she squeezed Lou’s hand tight, ‘no matter how lovely your girls are – and they are – I am never, ever having any bloody babies.’

  ‘But you really like Barton’s daughter.’ Lou sniffed, wiping angrily at the smudged mascara under her eyes. ‘JoJo.’

  ‘Other people’s children are plenty enough,’ Gretchen said. ‘I can love them to bits and then get on with my life.’

  *

  When Lou walked out of the recovery room, Josh was sitting in the clinic’s reception, waiting to take her home. He didn’t see her straight away and Lou stood and watched him for few moments. He looked pale, serious, and was staring intently at something straight ahead. Lou followed his eye line to the waiting room’s fish tank, where goldfish chased each other around, memories allegedly wiped on every turn.

  ‘Hello,’ Lou said.

  Josh turned to look at her and smiled a tight line of support as their eyes met. He stood up, came over. ‘Hello. Are you okay?’

  There was another couple in the waiting room, and two other women on their own. No-one was making eye contact. The receptionist motioned for Lou to come and sign a form and Josh held her elbow as she turned to the counter.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Are you?’ he asked. ‘Are you really?’

  Fuck you, Lou thought. Fuck you, Josh. She remembered the conversation they’d had last night. When he’d said, ‘Are you going to hate me for this? Because we can’t do it if you’re going to hate me for it. It has to be our choice. Your choice.’

  And Lou had thought, What choice? If I don’t do it, you’ll resent me. And we’ll both resent a baby who hasn’t asked for any of this. What choice, Josh? You’ve told me that you’ll be miserable and trapped and your fragile mental health will suffer. You’ve told me all of that yet you want this to be my choice? A choice between my husband, the father of my children, and a not-yet-baby I haven’t even met?

  Fuck you.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Let’s just go home.’

  ‘The girls will be pleased to see you,’ Josh said. ‘Gretch is with them.’

  Lou signed the paperwork and they turned to leave.

  ‘They should really clear out that fish tank,’ Josh said to her, as they walked past. And he pointed to something bobbing white in the water. ‘There’s a dead fish in there.’

  And of course Lou had to look. And then that was all she could see, riding home in the passenger side of Josh’s ute. A bloated, dead fish floating just below the surface, as its tank-mates flashed gold all around it.

  Josh

  A few months later

  ‘Snooping only leads to finding out things that you don’t want to know,’ Emma was shouting after Josh as he carried a box from her Surry Hills apartment.

  ‘Is that right, Mum?’ He put the box down next to the others on the balcony walkway and stepped back through the open door. His mother’s home already had the strangely stale smell of an empty house, even though she hadn’t quite moved out yet. ‘Better to be blissfully ignorant, you reckon?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes,’ Emma said. ‘I could have saved myself a lot of pain that way. It did me no good to torture myself with details.’

  Josh looked around his mum’s flat. It was almost done, a lot of life all tucked away now in neatly labelled flat-pack boxes.

  ‘I wasn’t snooping,’ Josh said, irritated. ‘I told you: I just happened to see Lou’s diary.’

  ‘And why were you looking in her diary?’

  ‘I was looking for Lou, Mum. I didn’t know where she was.’

  ‘A woman’s diary is sacred, Josh,’ Emma insisted, hands on hips in the doorway to her bedroom, now just an empty space with faded carpet and striped wallpaper. ‘I thought I’d taught you better than that.’

  Emma was moving out of the city. It was the end of something, he knew. Ever since they’d moved from down the coast, she’d lived in apartments around Surry Hills and Waterloo, always finding a way to make a dingy few rooms into something homey and distinctly her. Cheap prints of paintings she loved in frames from the two-dollar shop; pretty fabric throws over tatty, second-hand couches; Art Deco lamps found in trash and treasure stores. She’d been in this apartment, on the border of Redfern, for almost ten years. She knew all the neighbours, even the ones no-one else wanted to know. Turned a blind eye to the badness that bloomed in the corridors at night. Clucked her tongue at messes no-one wanted to clean up.

  ‘Not everyone’s as lucky as you,’ she used to say to Josh every time he expressed concern about his ageing mum living in a crumbling inner-city block. ‘There’s community here. That’s why I like it.’

  And that part was true. All day, neighbours had been coming by to lend a hand with heavy boxes and to say goodbye to Aunty Emma, who’d minded a lot of their kids when no-one else could, who’d occasionally slipped a tenner to a mum who needed to get to payday, who was always the first to write an angry letter about a broken window that hadn’t been fixed or a lift that never seemed to be in working order or a playground whose gate had been pulled off its hinges.

  ‘I don’t know how you’ve lived here so long, Mum,’ Josh said, looking around the empty living room. ‘I really don’t.’

  Emma laughed. ‘Says you, over there in your suburban pile, wishing you were back here.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Josh. ‘Not anymore. I can see Lou was right about that now. The girls are so happy.’

  ‘It’s not a house that makes you happy,’ Emma said quickly. ‘It’s a home.’

  Josh snorted. ‘You should get that embroidered on a cushion.’

  ‘Shut up and check the kitchen for me, you.’ Emma batted him on the bum.

  ‘I think you’ll be bored up the coast, Mum,’ he said, as he opened and closed cupboards that she’d long since emptied and scrubbed. ‘Not really sure why you’re going back there.’ His mum was almost seventy now, but there was nothing old about her; not yet.

  ‘No reason not to anymore,’ Emma said. ‘It’s time for me to have a bit of peace.’ She made a face. ‘Far away from all you lot.’

  ‘Very nice,’ Josh said sarcastically. ‘Anika and I appreciate your grandmotherly support.’

  There was nothing more to do. The place really was
empty. ‘I think we’re done here, Mum,’ he said. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘In a minute,’ Emma said, disappearing into the bathroom. ‘Got to check the cabinet.’

  For the fourteenth time, thought Josh.

  ‘Anyway,’ Emma called out to him, her voice echoing in the tiled room, ‘where was she?’

  ‘Where was who?’

  ‘Lou! When you snooped. Where was she?’

  *

  It was about three months after the termination that Lou stopped coming home in the evenings.

  Sometimes, he’d get a text: Staying back for staff meeting. Please do bedtime.

  Often not.

  Are you home for dinner? he’d text.

  Silence.

  The girls didn’t seem troubled by it, at first. They were used to Mummy in the mornings and Daddy in the evenings; most of their neighbours had a similar kind of tag-team arrangement. And Rita was still so little, anyway.

  Lou would come home eventually – either just in time to kiss Stella goodnight, or hours later, when Josh was almost asleep. She would shower and come to bed, and he’d put an arm out to pull her close, as he had for years and years, but she would shrug it off. She wouldn’t be mean about it, she wouldn’t say anything, she’d just shudder a little.

  He knew she wasn’t sleeping much, because sometimes he would wake in the night and he could sense her alertness, her conscious breathing, her eyes to the window.

  ‘You okay?’ he’d ask, and she’d say yes, and that would be that.

  He didn’t blame her for being angry with him about the baby.

  Not the baby, he’d correct himself. It wasn’t a baby.

  He was angry with himself, too. Fucking furious, in fact. Angry for letting it happen in the first place. Angry for not being man enough to lift his wife into his arms at some unexpected news and tell her that it was all fine, it didn’t matter how many little mouths there were to feed, that he would always have enough love for their family. Angry at himself for being a man with limitations, with fears.