The Aftermath

by Gail Schimmel

  Dr Malcolm can fit me in immediately because she’s just had a cancellation, so it seems like it was meant to be. At the same time as Daniel is probably starting to talk to Claire, I walk into the doctor’s office.

  ‘I think I’m pregnant,’ I tell her when she asks what the problem is today.

  ‘Have you done a test?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘But I actually know I’m pregnant. I don’t need a test. And I hate them. Pee everywhere.’

  Dr Malcolm smiles. It’s a warm smile, but I know she thinks I’m crazy.

  ‘Let’s start with this,’ she says. ‘Do you want to be pregnant?’

  I open my mouth to answer, and I find that I don’t know what to say. I certainly didn’t plan this. And it has complicated everything. But I also don’t want to not be pregnant because it’s Daniel’s baby and because I’ve felt a bit different since I admitted to myself that I’m pregnant. I’ve felt excited. ‘I won’t terminate it,’ I say to Dr Malcolm.

  She laughs. ‘That’s not exactly what I meant, but I guess it’ll do as an answer. Okay, let’s test.’

  ‘I don’t really need a test.’ I can hear that I sound a bit petulant. ‘I know that I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Okay, well, humour me,’ she says.

  She takes some blood and puts it on a little test stick. I’m fascinated.

  ‘Do you have to kill a rabbit now?’ I ask, remembering something I once read about pregnancy tests.

  ‘Thankfully not,’ says Dr Malcolm. ‘I wouldn’t fancy that at all.’

  She explains that we must wait three minutes for the test to show a result, and for the first time it occurs to me that I might not be pregnant. The test might be negative and it will turn out that in fact I am dying of a rare form of cancer. Daniel will be so cross – he’s telling Claire right now. And when she finds out that I’m not pregnant but dying, she’ll be triumphant. I can’t believe this. What if I’ve set everything in motion too soon? Why do I always make such a mess of things?

  I start to cry, and Dr Malcolm is unfazed. She just hands me a box of tissues.

  ‘We’ll know soon,’ she says in her quiet voice.

  But suddenly I’m pretty sure that I’m not pregnant. And I’m pretty sure I’ve ruined everything.

  Claire

  I see Daniel sitting at the table, staring at his coffee with that look on his face that tells me he’s far away. The sight is at once so familiar and so foreign that I feel a lump in my throat. I can’t walk into this crying – I have to be strong and ready to heal our relationship. I take a deep breath and straighten my shoulders before I approach him.

  ‘Claire,’ he says, pushing his chair back to stand up. One of the things I like about Daniel is his old-fashioned manners. He stands up when a woman enters the room, and he walks on the outside of the pavement.

  Oh yes, and he sleeps with my friend.

  I swallow again. This is not the time for bitterness.

  Daniel looks at me intensely. ‘Do you think they actually send men in white coats, or is that just something they say?’ he asks in lieu of greeting. ‘Like, do you think there’s an actual team on stand-by? Maybe at the fire station?’

  From anybody else, this might surprise me. But this is so Daniel. So exactly why I fell in love with him in the first place.

  ‘I think it’s just something they say,’ I tell him, sitting down. ‘But maybe historically it was true.’

  Daniel pulls out the notebook he always carries and makes a note. I know that somewhere in the future, some creative execution of Daniel’s will involve men in white coats. I love his brain, with its convoluted passageways so different from my own.

  Once the note is made, Daniel comes back to me. ‘So,’ he says, sitting down. ‘So, how are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ I lie to my husband of ten years. ‘Busy. You know how it goes.’

  The words are so weightless, so superficial, that I feel them float away over the sugar bowl, out the window.

  But Daniel nods eagerly, like I’ve said something profound. ‘Good, good,’ he says. ‘Busy is good.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, although I don’t really know what I’m agreeing with. ‘And you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Fine. Busy. Weird.’

  ‘Weird?’ At last something true has been said.

  Daniel rubs his forehead with both hands. ‘So weird, Claire. It’s like I went to bed and I’ve woken up in a different life.’

  ‘Well, basically you have,’ I say, exasperated by his confusion. ‘That would be because when you went to bed, there was a different woman in it.’

  Daniel looks like I’ve slapped him for no reason. ‘You’re very angry, Claire,’ he says, like he can’t think of a single reason why this would be so.

  ‘Yes.’ But I’m not feeling angry; I’m feeling icy calm and my tone is matter-of-fact. ‘I’m very angry. You slept with my friend and left me. That’s kind of up there in shitty behaviour. Even my mother thinks you’re a wanker.’ My mother loves Daniel. She cannot believe this has happened.

  ‘Well, that’s telling me,’ says Daniel.

  At that point a waiter comes over and I order coffee. Daniel looks bleakly at the coffee in front of him and declines.

  ‘So,’ I say when the waiter has left, ‘is there anything special you wanted to say, or are we just shooting the breeze?’

  Daniel looks at me and then around the room, like he’s looking for an escape route between the freelancers tapping at their laptops, and the mum-crowd who’ve met up after drop-off, and the breakfast meetings.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he says.

  ‘Okay. Is it about Mackenzie?’ Obviously I know it’s not about Mackenzie. I’m waiting for him to tell me that he’s made a mistake and he wants me back. That’s the only thing he can be going to say, though I’m less sure now.

  ‘I don’t really know how to say this . . .’ he says.

  ‘Well, I can’t help you there. Maybe just close your eyes and spit it out?’

  He looks at me like this is the wisest thing he’s ever heard. ‘You always know, Claire. You always have this great advice and know how to make things easier. I miss that.’

  ‘Oka-ay,’ I say. ‘Is that what you wanted to tell me?’

  He’s quiet for a moment and then he actually closes his eyes, and awkwardly places his hands flat on the table. ‘Julia’s pregnant.’

  I can’t take it in.

  I sit there like I’m in one of those cartoons where they hit the character over the head with a frying pan, and they stay frozen before they fall. Only, I’m stuck in the frozen part. It’s like my whole body switches over into panic mode, like a rabbit, frozen still in the hope that the problem will go away. I stare at Daniel’s mouth.

  ‘Claire, say something.’

  But I can’t. I can’t speak.

  Daniel cannot be having a baby with someone else. This is not happening. I shake my head, and for some inexplicable reason Daniel thinks this is some sort of signal to carry on talking.

  ‘It wasn’t planned,’ he says. ‘I’m as shocked as you. So is Julia. She’s quite upset, actually. But it’s happened now. So there it is. A sister or brother for Mackenzie, eh?’

  I shake my head again, trying to make this end.

  ‘She’s told her mum. I’m going to meet her this weekend. And her dad. We’re going to tell him.’

  This extraordinary statement manages to rouse me. ‘Her dad who’s a vegetable?’

  And then the strangest thing happens. Daniel meets my eyes and we both start giggling. Because one of the things we’ve talked about in the past is Julia’s tragic story and her dad, who she maintains is not a vegetable. And I know my laughter is actually hysteria: a defence mechanism against the unhearable thing Daniel has just said.

  ‘I’m not sure what I’m expected to do,’ says Daniel. ‘Do I shake his hand?’

  We start giggling again, and for a moment it’s Daniel-and-Claire against the world, Dani
el-and-Claire who laugh at things that other people don’t find funny. For a moment the connection is so strong it glows. And then somewhere in my laughter, reality sinks in.

  Julia is pregnant. With Daniel’s baby.

  My husband is worrying about meeting another woman’s parents.

  I push back my chair, my coffee as untouched as Daniel’s.

  ‘I need to go,’ I say. ‘I can’t do this.’ I stand up and turn, then turn back. ‘I guess you’d better get your lawyer to call mine.’ I almost enjoy the look of panic that crosses Daniel’s face. ‘And if it’s all the same, I’ll keep Mackenzie with me this weekend. I know it’s your turn, but I don’t want her to have to meet Julia’s weird family just yet.’

  I can see from the look of confusion chased quickly by relief that Daniel had completely forgotten he was even supposed to have Mackenzie. And that’s the thing that makes me start to cry. Daniel is so deeply enmeshed in his new life that he’s already left Mackenzie and me behind.

  I turn before he can see the tears, and I walk out. I hear Daniel call my name once, but he doesn’t follow me, and he doesn’t call again.

  Julia is pregnant, and my marriage is over.

  Julia

  The test is positive. I’m eight weeks pregnant.

  I don’t know whether I’m relieved, happy, or desperately afraid.

  I thank Dr Malcolm, and take the pamphlets and prescription for vitamins she offers me. I promise to make an appointment with the gynae, which she promises I will get immediately if I tell them I’m pregnant.

  This is real. I’m pregnant.

  Daniel and I are going to have a baby.

  PART 2

  MAY

  MONDAY

  Helen

  I’m visiting Mike, even though it’s not my usual day. I swapped with the temp, because I really wanted to see him today and tell him the latest about the baby.

  So now I tell him the exciting news Julia told me yesterday – that at the twenty-week scan they had on Friday, the baby was finally lying in a way that they could see its sex, and it’s a boy. When Julia told me that, I nearly started crying. I don’t know if it was joy or shock or simply all the emotions of the last few months catching up with me. I felt my eyes filling with tears and so I quickly turned away, not wanting Julia to see how her news had affected me. It’s not something I can explain to her. There is too much water under the bridge.

  But after I’ve told Mike that the baby is a boy, I seem to have nothing else to say and I sit back holding his limp hand in mine. I allow my mind to drift over all the things I am worrying about. First among them is the fact that I still haven’t reassured Mike that when the baby is born, we can die. For so long that has been my aim, and Mike must know this somewhere inside him. He must be waiting in that prison of his body to hear me say the words, but I haven’t. I haven’t changed my mind. I’ve even checked that we have the right drugs in the fridge at work, so I can steal them when the time comes. I wasn’t convinced that the dose we have in stock was enough – and it’s not something I could ask someone – so I ordered more. Nobody questions what I do there. But everything is playing out so differently from how I thought it would that it has somehow derailed my thinking and I can’t tell Mike. Julia’s life isn’t following the script I always expected.

  It’s not like I don’t like Daniel. I’ve got to know him a bit over the last few months, and I like him – he’s clever and funny and charming and I can see why Julia is attracted to him. When he met me, and then Mike, he handled it so well. I had expected him to be awkward, meeting a man in a coma. It’s the first time that Julia and I have introduced someone new to Mike, and I had a moment of thinking maybe it would shock Mike out of the coma, but of course that didn’t happen, and afterwards I realised that Mike meets new nurses and doctors and physiotherapists the whole time.

  But Daniel was respectful, and he spoke to Mike without any sign of how strange the situation was. I like him for that. But liking him doesn’t change some basic facts. He had an affair and left his wife. He has another child. As far as I can make out, he’s not doing anything about a divorce. And while I can see that Julia loves him – or feels something she thinks is love for him – it’s not quite right, and I can’t put my finger on it. I spend a lot of time thinking about them. And when I am with them, I watch Julia carefully.

  I absent-mindedly stroke Mike’s hand, my mind back on the baby. The baby boy.

  When we were young, you couldn’t see what sex the baby would be. It was a surprise when the baby came. Maybe for some people this way is better, but for Mike and me it never mattered. With this baby, with Julia’s baby, I suddenly understand. I’m glad I know now, that I have time to form a mental picture before this baby is born.

  Usually, I would talk my thoughts through with Mike, but it’s different somehow, since Julia got pregnant. There’s what I haven’t yet told him about what will happen after the baby is born, and there’s what I haven’t talked about except that one time just after The Accident. For the first time since I met Mike, the air between us is full of things I can’t say. I can’t speak. Which is awkward what with Mike not being able to speak either.

  To my enormous surprise, I snort with laughter at that thought, and once the snort breaks the surface, a full laugh follows. I stifle it, and look at my watch.

  I promised I would meet Edward at the coffee shop down the road after we’ve both finished our visits. I’m not sure how it’s happened really, but I’ve allowed myself to become friends with the crying man I found in the corridor at the beginning of the year. At first I’d just sit with him for a bit whenever I found him crying in the passage – which I did most times I visited. Eventually I suggested we grab a coffee, because I was tired and thirsty, so now that is what we do. Mostly Edward tells me about how much he misses his wife, Miriam. And I nod and tell him it’s perfectly normal not to feel better, and that he might never feel better. Which, ironically I guess, makes us both feel a bit better.

  Edward even took me to meet Miriam once.

  ‘Miri,’ he said, ‘this is Helen, who I told you about.’

  Then we both looked at Miriam for a while, and I said, ‘Nice to meet you, Miriam’, even though the poor woman is quite clearly completely brain dead. She’s on a ventilator and everything. Not like Mike. Edward says he can’t bring himself to authorise them to disconnect her. He says he knows she’s going to wake up one day and then everyone will know he did the right thing, not giving up hope.

  I think about how I wish now that I had helped Mike when I could – because being stuck in a body that can’t move or speak must be the greatest hell on earth. But I don’t say anything to Edward because it’s different. Miriam can’t even breathe on her own, she’s not feeling or thinking anything in there, so if keeping her alive makes Edward feel better and he can afford the treatment, well, I say why the hell not. So I don’t tell him that I wish Mike could leave the prison that is his life. Instead, I pat Edward’s hand and say I understand. And I do.

  And I like Edward. When he manages to come out from under his sorrow, I can see the kind, funny man he used to be. Sometimes we talk about what it would be like in a parallel universe, where Helen-and-Mike met Edward-and-Miriam, and they are all friends, and have dinner at each other’s houses and maybe even go on holiday together, never knowing the tragedy they have missed.

  I really enjoy my time with Edward, even though he’s so sad and I’m so sad. It’s just a relief to be with someone who doesn’t think it’s weird that I haven’t moved on. Edward is incredulous that people tell him to move on. ‘To where?’ he asks me, and I shrug, because I’ve never known the answer to that question.

  But I can’t sit with Edward all afternoon because I’m having supper with Ewan Marigold and his boyfriend, Okkie. I don’t know how it’s happened that I’ve become a person who has two social engagements – three if you count visiting Mike – in one day. It’s almost like I’m a person with a life.

  I d
on’t know what I think about that.

  Julia

  I badly wanted the baby to be a boy, because then it would be something new for Daniel, not a rerun of Mackenzie. Something Daniel and I can do together for the first time. If I had a boy, I reasoned, I won’t be competing so directly with Claire.

  Because, of course, halfway into this pregnancy I have lost to Claire on every level. Daniel’s favourite thing if I mention any pregnancy symptom is to raise his eyebrows and say, ‘Strange, that didn’t happen to Claire.’ Apparently Claire had no morning sickness, no swelling, no heartburn, no exhaustion, no skin problems, no cravings, and no food aversions. It would seem she simply sailed through pregnancy, working up until the last minute, looking immaculate. And, of course, because I know Claire, I can believe it.

  Alice says it’s not Daniel who’s comparing me to Claire, but me comparing myself to her. Alice says that I’ve fixated on Claire as a symbol of everything perfect, and that this is understandable given my guilt about her. Alice also says she doesn’t think Daniel realises what he’s saying. She asked me to bring Daniel to a therapy session so we can talk to him together about it, and I thought that was a great idea. But when it came to the crunch, I couldn’t suggest that to Daniel because Claire would never have needed so much therapy and even if she did, she’d never drag him into it. Alice pointed out that if my theory is that Daniel needs me to need him, then asking him to help me should trigger his kindness. I can see the logic, but I still can’t ask him. When I mentioned therapy the other day, just in passing, he pulled the same face he pulls when he’s telling me what Claire never does, so I knew what he was thinking. I said, ‘Anyway, I’m stopping all that because now I have you, and that’s enough.’

  He really liked that, and we ended up having sex on the kitchen floor, but now I have to lie about going to therapy.