He could have a glass of wine.
So why was he hesitating?
He wasn’t. It’d be dumb.
So he organised his meal, then settled in the armchair by the fire. Addie handed him a glass of wine and settled again, lying by the fire with her puppy.
‘Thank you for today.’
‘I don’t need thanks,’ he said brusquely. ‘It was a privilege.’
There was silence while he ate, while he took his plate back to the kitchen, while he thought about whether he should leave her to her fire and her puppy and go to bed.
He came back to the fire, looked at the armchair and looked at the cushions on the rug, and then, as if he was someone he hardly knew, he slipped down onto the floor beside her.
Dumb? Of course it was but the scene was like a siren’s song, infinitely enticing.
This woman was a colleague. He had no wish to get close. He had no wish to get close to any woman, but this evening there’d been grief and there’d been courage, and it seemed wrong to end it with a curt goodnight and leave her to her thoughts.
To her loneliness or his?
Whatever, he slipped down beside her, settled, refilled his wine glass, and stroked a puppy ear himself. Sleeping puppies were excellent for soothing all sorts of things. Daisy had obviously had a wild time with Heidi and Heidi’s dogs. Right now, in sleep, she was giving Addie comfort.
She was curled on Addie’s knee. He stroked her soft ear and it almost seemed like...
Um, not. If he couldn’t get his mind away from that, then he needed to back away fast.
He stopped stroking Daisy and pushed himself back a little. He should retreat to the armchair, but he’d only just sat down and she might think...
What he was thinking?
What he had no business thinking.
There was silence for a while, broken only by the crackle of the flames. Things seemed to settle. Deepen? Become...something he didn’t understand?
‘Will you try for another baby?’ he heard himself say, and then thought, Whoa, you have no business asking that. But she was gazing at the flames, fondling the ears of her sleeping puppy with one hand, holding her wine glass with the other, and it was almost as if the question was an extension of the night. A night where boundaries had been set aside?
Grief did that.
He thought of her face as she’d let the ashes drift into the water and he thought of his daughter. She hadn’t been wanted but she was wanted now. Sophie.
She was not his.
And suddenly she wasn’t looking at the flames.
‘Noah? What’s wrong?’
‘I...’ He shook himself. ‘Nothing. I asked...’
‘You did ask.’ But she was still watching him, her attention deflected from the flames. From her own circumstances. She hesitated and he knew there were other questions.
Questions he didn’t want to face himself.
‘I don’t know about trying again,’ she told him at last, but she was still watchful. ‘With my endometritis and after the IVF thing... It took so many trips to Sydney, so many failed attempts. I wanted it so much but then what happened...’
‘It shouldn’t happen again.’
‘You don’t know that, and the endometritis is still there. My chances of conceiving again... It took over two years. I’m not sure if I could bear it.’
‘You’re a strong woman, Addie Blair.’
‘Strength only carries you so far. And honestly? I think strength is an illusion. People say you’re strong because you don’t crumble, but sometimes that feels almost dishonest. Because you crumble inside.’
‘Is that how you feel now?’
‘Like my insides are filled with something that’s shattered? It’s how I felt two months ago. I’ve hauled it together, glued it back in place but it’s like broken china. What do they say? “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?” I don’t think so. It just makes us better at gluing up the cracks. The damage is still there.’
‘And it hurts.’
‘It hurts,’ she said softly. ‘So, no, I doubt I have the courage to try again.’ She stooped and buried her face briefly in her puppy’s soft fur. ‘Daisy’s it. Me and Daisy and the world.’
And then she raised her face and met his gaze full on. And something changed.
This was no longer about her, her gaze said. Her gaze locked to his, firm, kind yet inexorable.
‘And now,’ she said softly, but her tone said there was to be no quarter given. ‘What about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘You get it,’ she said softly. ‘You get my grief over my baby in a way no one else does. Maybe that was why I asked you to come with me this afternoon. Yes, I knew you wouldn’t break down on me or give me platitudes, but right from the moment of the ectopic diagnosis, I saw my grief reflected in you. And this afternoon... I watched my baby’s ashes drifting away and I turned and saw you, and what I saw...’ She shook her head. ‘Noah, maybe it’s not for me to ask but if you want to tell me...’
Did he want to tell her?
He hadn’t told anyone. No one, apart from an explosion in his lawyer’s office when grief and anger had built to eruption when the lawyer had read the last of Rebecca’s demands. And her ultimatum.
He’d decided to stick it out, to fight, but his lawyers were telling him fighting had every chance of failing.
He had no choice. Useless or not, he had to try.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Addie said. ‘Only if you want to.’ And then she reached over and took his wine glass, setting it and hers carefully on the hearth. As if clearing the path for whatever lay before them. ‘Only if you can.’
‘I don’t talk about it.’
‘Because you’re a guy,’ she said, wisely. ‘Of course. It’s so much more manly to keep that stuff to yourself.’
‘Like you telling everyone you were having IVF...’
She conceded, giving a rueful smile. ‘Touché.’ She hesitated again. ‘But I have told you now,’ she said. ‘And it helped. It...helps.’
Yeah, but he didn’t talk. Since when had talking solved anything? And Rebecca’s threats still hung over his head. But she was watching him, waiting. She was...trusting?
The firelight was flickering on her face. The warmth, the wine...
This woman...
The barriers of years slipped a little and he didn’t reach for them and shore them up.
Could he trust, too?
‘Rebecca and I...we weren’t a great match,’ he said, and for a while he didn’t say anything else. And neither did she. She simply sat. Just letting the night—and the trust?—settle.
The urge to talk was almost overwhelming.
Why? In five long years he’d never spoken but tonight...things had changed.
He talked.
* * *
‘Rebecca was...well, you’ve met her,’ he said. ‘When she’s at her best she’s almost irresistible.’
‘Yeah?’
He flashed her a look, saw the hint of laughter and smiled back. ‘Okay, that was man-speak,’ he said. ‘But, believe me, she was, and I was ripe for irresistible. From the time I started med school I had my head in my work. I took big student loans, I worked nights to cover costs. I had a couple of relationships but they fell by the wayside fast. Even after I qualified as a general surgeon, I didn’t stop driving myself. I was so damned ambitious. I headed to the UK for further training and then applied for the job at Sydney Central. That involved responsibility as well as skill and I was stressed. The first day on the job I met Beck.’
‘I’ve seen Rebecca at her most charming,’ Addie said, and he caught the note of dryness. Rebecca would never have bothered to be charming to Addie.
So he had to explain. He sought for the right words, words he barely un
derstood himself. ‘She can be lovely,’ he said. ‘But lovely’s all on the outside. I was still caught up in the sheer effort of work, relieved that I was home and settled, but stressed by the responsibility of my new job. Beck was bubbly, effervescent, fun, and very, very beautiful, and I’d had my head in my work for so long it was like emerging into another world.
‘I was too dumb to see it was financial security and the prestige of my job that she wanted. Given time, surely I would have realised, but I never had time. We were only a few weeks into dating when she was injured.’
He paused. He should stop now, he thought.
‘So...do you want to tell me what happened?’ she asked, and stopping wasn’t an option.
‘I crashed the car.’ He closed his eyes, remembering the nightmare. ‘We’d gone out to dinner with a couple of my new colleagues. She’d behaved beautifully but as soon as we were in the car she changed. The night had been boring, she said, so now it was her turn. She wanted to go on to a nightclub. It was one in the morning and I was on duty at eight. I refused and she kicked up a fuss. A real fuss. Beck having a tantrum... I thought it was just the wine—she was certainly tipsy—but it was the real Rebecca showing through. It was quite a show and in the end she tried to slap me.’
‘Story of your life, women trying to hit you,’ Addie murmured.
He paused and he even found himself smiling. The pressure eased still further. He could tell her—but the smile disappeared.
‘So I got distracted. It was raining, with sleet over the road. I cornered too fast, clipped the kerb and the car tipped. Beck hadn’t fastened her seat belt and was thrown out.’
‘Oh, Noah...’
The crackle of the fire helped as well, he thought. It was like a background of peace. This woman, this place, it seemed an oasis, as if the outside world was blocked out. It didn’t seem as if he was exposing himself, his regrets, his anger. This was just... Addie.
‘Paraplegia?’ she queried. ‘I don’t know how complete. No one ever said...’
‘And Rebecca never said either,’ he said, remembering the shock, the diagnosis, the struggle to get her to attend rehab. ‘She broke her spine at S4 but it was an incomplete break. When the swelling went down, feeling returned. Not completely but enough to make walking possible. By then. though, she’d cast herself firmly in the role of victim and she wasn’t letting go. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true.
‘Rehab was hard. The physios were asking her to do things that hurt and if there’s one thing Rebecca won’t do it’s push herself anywhere it doesn’t suit her. A month after the accident she’d remodelled herself. Doctor’s girlfriend, damaged by stupid, careless doctor. Wheelchair bound. A woman who could spend her life being beautiful and making her man feel guilty. A woman who could make her man do exactly what she wanted.’
‘Oh, Noah...’
‘And she could walk,’ he said, almost savagely. ‘She can. If there’s anything she wants badly enough she’ll get it. Put a designer handbag just out of reach and she’ll be on her feet and grasping. But no one’s to know that.’
He shrugged, his face bleak. ‘It doesn’t matter, though. The truth is that she has suffered damage. The chances of her walking without a limp are remote and a woman with a limp doesn’t suit Beck’s desired image. Not enough sympathy. She loves her part-time job at Reception at Sydney Central, being the beautiful one in a wheelchair, three half-days of collecting gossip, vitriol, stuff she can use about anyone. The rest of the time...it’s massages, beauticians, long lunches, making Rebecca beautiful for ever. And then...there’s Sophie. Her little girl.’
He stopped, hearing the anger and bleakness in his voice, trying as he’d tried for so many years to hold it back.
‘Sophie?’ Addie said, obviously confused. ‘Rebecca’s child? I didn’t know she had a child.’
‘No one did,’ he said flatly. ‘But when Rebecca was in hospital, I was suddenly the one in charge.’ He was talking to the flames now, caught in horror from years ago. He wanted to block it out, but for some reason he couldn’t stop talking. ‘Beck’s alienated her family. They live in Canada but she moved on from them years ago. She has no one, so the hospital ended up putting me down as next of kin. Referring to me. While Beck was out of it with painkillers, they gave me her phone. I was using her contacts, trying to locate any friends or family who might care, when there was a call from Child Welfare. They needed to talk to her. They told me she had a twelve-month-old daughter. Sophie.’
‘But there’s never been any talk of a child.’
‘That’s because Beck simply cut her out of her existence,’ he told her. ‘From what I found out, two years before she met me she was going out with a guy with lots of money but no scruples. She thought pregnancy would force him to marry her, or at least give her whopping financial support. She got pregnant. She didn’t bother with any of the tests because, well, why would she? This baby was simply a means to an end. But Sophie’s father has even fewer morals than Rebecca. He disappeared overseas. It was too late to terminate the pregnancy and Sophie was born with Down’s syndrome.’
‘Oh, no!’
‘And don’t bother feeling sorry for Rebecca,’ he said, roughly now. ‘The Rebeccas of this world move on and move on fast. She wanted to get rid of it any way she could. Adoption was hard because she’d named the father on the birth certificate and no one could contact him. It involved hassle and Beck was never one to bother with hassle. So Sophie was placed in foster care. That’s where I came in. The call was from Social Welfare saying Sophie’s foster parents had a family drama and couldn’t keep her. Rebecca was in and out of a drugged stupor and I felt responsible. So Rebecca emerged at last to have me by her bedside holding a beautiful, cherubic little girl, Sophie, a baby who twisted her way into my heart without even trying.’
‘Oh, wow...’
‘So then I copped a sob story,’ he told her. ‘How this guy, the baby’s father, had fleeced Rebecca for everything she had. How she couldn’t afford to keep her beautiful Sophie. And how much she was depending on me. And when Social Welfare moved in, asking questions, she simply clung to me and said, we’ll be okay, we’re a family, Noah’s marrying me.’
‘You didn’t even propose?’
‘I didn’t have to. Come on, Addie, you know the rules. Successful doctor smashes car, leaves his girlfriend in a wheelchair, a woman with a baby, a woman totally dependent. The car crash was my fault, Addie, and I accepted the consequences. And besides...’ he gave a rueful smile ‘...I had fallen head over heels in love. But it was with Sophie.’
‘Your little girl.’
‘Except she wasn’t.’ The bleakness slammed back. ‘The moment Beck came home from hospital she demanded Sophie go back into foster care. And to be honest I had to concede it was...almost sensible. Beck was struggling with rehab and the bills were mounting. I’d put myself through med school, then spent a fortune on further training overseas. I had debts up to my ears. I had to go back to work and I had to find somewhere suitable for Rebecca to live. I couldn’t afford to pay for a carer for Beck, plus a carer for Sophie.
‘So we agreed—temporarily—to use foster care. With access. But pretty soon I realised I was the only one caring about access. I brought Sophie home again and again, but Beck would have nothing to do with her. Once she’d used her to wedge me into marriage, she didn’t want to know about her. She never talked about her. I wasn’t permitted to talk about her. It was like she didn’t exist.’
‘Hell, Noah...’
‘It was, and I should have walked long before I did. But I still felt responsible and there was now the overriding complication that if I walked I’d have no access to Sophie. Beck soon realised it, and held the threat over my head. And sometimes... The days when I collected Sophie, held her, played with her in the park...’ He stopped and smiled, remembering. A hand tucked into his. A little face lighting up as
she held up her arms to be picked up when he arrived to collect her.
‘I couldn’t leave,’ he said, and it was all he could say.
‘So what happened next?’ she asked, slowly, cautiously.
‘We lived like that until last year. A marriage that wasn’t a marriage. Beck played her poor-little-me role to the outside world and I did what I needed to do to get by. Sophie’s new foster parents turned out to be lovely. I was seeing her when I could, but burying everything else in my work. But then we were notified that Harold and Beth—her foster parents—had decided they were too old to continue. They were reluctantly relinquishing her at the end of the year, and Sophie would have to change foster parents—again. I was appalled, but Beck said, “So what?”’
He shook his head, trying to block the remembrance of that night, holding the letter, seeing Sophie being discarded yet again.
‘I saw red,’ he admitted. ‘I told Beck that Sophie was coming home, like it or not. I wouldn’t stay in the sham of a marriage if I couldn’t care for her. And, as Beck’s husband, as Sophie’s stepfather, I was applying for legal adoption.’
‘Good...good for you,’ Addie said, a trifle unsteadily. ‘I think.’
‘Yeah, holding a gun to someone’s head is such a good idea,’ he said bleakly. ‘Or not. We had the worst row but finally she agreed. Or I thought she’d agreed. She gave me details of Sophie’s biological father and signed forms allowing the authorities to contact him. He signed the waivers. Everything looked like it was going ahead. When the adoption went through we’d bring her home. I told her if Beck wanted, we’d tell people she was my daughter, not Beck’s. Or I’d say she had no former connection to either of us. Whatever Beck wanted. But obviously Beck didn’t like it. Her agreement was just playing for time.’
Silence. Addie didn’t comment. Her expression was carefully neutral. Too neutral. Was she feeling his pain?
The Baby They Longed For Page 7
