by Fiona Lowe
* * *
Five hours later, standing in the cottage’s bathroom, Lauren re-read the instructions on the pregnancy test, despite knowing them off by heart. They recommended an early morning urine sample for accuracy, but stuff that—the last five hours had been enough of an endurance test and she wasn’t waiting another twelve. Charlie had called five minutes ago, suggesting he come over.
‘What about Anna?’ she’d said, trying to fob him off without appearing to be doing exactly that. ‘It’s been a huge couple of days for her. Don’t you think you should spend tonight at Bide-a-While?’
‘I suppose.’ The disappointment in his voice rode down the phone, snagging at her heart, and she’d almost relented. But she was far too distracted to see him before she’d taken the test. He’d definitely twig that something was up.
Feeling guilty, she tore open the foil wrapper, telling herself that if the test was negative, she’d go straight to Bide-a-While and watch the sunset with him. She didn’t think about the alternative. She couldn’t. ‘Okay, here goes.’
Counting out loud, she performed the test and then, dry-mouthed and with her heart hammering, she left the bathroom and set a timer. As she paced up and down the hall, glancing at the vanity each time she passed the doorway, part of her insisted that one pink line was the required result—the optimum outcome. The necessary one. But despite a very long list of reasons why being pregnant now would be back to front, she yearned for two pink lines.
The time on her phone beeped. Her sweaty hand gripped the architrave before she propelled herself forward and picked up the stick.
Pregnant.
She stared at the indicator window and felt... She didn’t exactly know how to describe it, except it was tangled and complex. Lost yet found. Sheer relief and panic. Awe and dread. All those things. And happy. Illogically happy, because she wasn’t fool enough to know that a baby meant Charlie loved her. Biology and lust were so often very separate beasts from love.
How would Charlie take the news?
Her mind rolled back twelve years and once again she was caught on the horns of a dilemma, only this time for very different reasons.
Should she even tell him?
* * *
Charlie stood close to the outcrop of rocks that created what the locals called ‘far point’, watching the hypnotic, graceful swell of the sea rise to a peak before breaking and hurling creamy, salty foam across the jet basalt. Just like the pounding waves, agitation crashed inside Charlie, jagged and spiky, making him restless. Horseshoe Bay no longer offered the sanctuary it once had—his parents were in town. They had been for days and, worse still, they’d befriended Lauren.
Harry’s death had changed everything and nothing. He’d spent the work week shuttling back and forth to Melbourne for different events and appointments. His parents had made the decision not to have a funeral for Harry but instead hold a private cremation. He’d been surprised they’d sought his opinion but even more stunned that the three of them were simpatico regarding the decision. The last twelve hours of Harry’s life had been the tribute they’d all needed.
On another visit to Melbourne, he’d seen the counsellor and visited the Australia Aid office. On that day, with his mind full, he’d driven back to the Bay and gone directly to Lauren’s cottage. His plans had been straightforward—surprise her and tumble her into bed. They had not included his parents sitting around her kitchen table, drinking wine and looking unusually relaxed.
‘Lauren’s kindly invited us for dinner but as she’s working and we’re not, we’ve ordered from Julien’s,’ his father had said formally. ‘Do you wish to join us?’
Charlie didn’t know which had rankled more—the fact his father had invited him to dinner at his lover’s house or the fact his parents were staying for dinner.
‘Are you okay?’ Lauren had asked him when they’d been alone in the kitchen, grabbing cutlery and crockery. ‘It’s just you look a bit pouty. Almost like a teenager who didn’t get his own way.’
‘I have every right to be pouty. I’m not good at sharing.’ He’d wrapped his arms around her then and kissed her. ‘I wanted you all to myself this evening.’
He’d expected her to laugh, flash him her sexy, flirty smile and suggest a very fast meal, but instead she’d stilled and studied him carefully. Too carefully—as if she had the ability to see beyond what he chose to show the world. He’d closed his eyes and kissed her, only coming up for air when his father had called, ‘The food’s here.’
The atmosphere between him and his parents lurched with strain as it had done for years. The only difference that had filtered in since Harry’s death was the excessive politeness that barely papered over the scar tissue laid down over the years. The dinner conversation had stayed centred on safe topics. His mother and father had discussed the food, the weather and the cockatoo raid on the lemon tree at Bide-a-While. His father had quizzed Lauren on the challenges of running a country practice and then chatted easily and enthusiastically about the latest advancements in cardiology. Apart from offering an opinion on the satay sauce, Charlie had stayed silent, drinking too much red wine and eventually falling asleep on the couch.
Now cloaked in salt spray mist, Charlie checked his watch. It was time to head back to the Bide-a-While steps. He picked his way carefully along rock ledges, dodging the rock pools and an unwanted encounter with a deadly blue ring octopus, until he reached the white sand. In the distance, he saw a flash of pink—his grandmother’s favourite colour—moving down the stairs. He could also make out the shape of his parents and one other person.
Lauren. His heart squeezed in his chest and he rubbed his sternum. Had Gran invited her? His parents? It wasn’t that he objected to her presence, it was just he hadn’t expected to see her until later. He had the evening all planned—champagne at the cottage, followed by a surprise dinner at Tide.
His agitation did a jig. His parents didn’t know anything about his plans but Gran did. Surely she’d stayed quiet and not given the game away? He gulped in a breath, blew it out and tried again, slower this time. He made his way over to the group. Lauren indicated subtly with her finger that his parents had invited her.
‘At least it’s not windy,’ he said, eyeing the timber box containing Harry’s ashes in his father’s hands.
His mother flinched and his father frowned. Charlie smothered a sigh. It didn’t matter what he did or said, it was never going to be the right thing. The saddest part was he’d given up caring.
‘It’s a glorious day,’ Lauren said, throwing him an understanding smile.
He wanted to hug her but that would only highlight the gaping chasm between him and his parents. All public displays of affection between the three of them had ceased long ago and greetings were always fraught with tension that could be sliced, diced and packaged up as ice.
‘Remember the Christmas Harry got that stunt kite?’ Anna said, and then turned to Lauren by way of explanation. ‘We had a week of calm weather and as each day passed, Harry trudged back from the beach increasingly dejected. New Year’s Day dawned grey and miserable with a raging southerly. While everyone sat inside, self-indulgently morose and arguing over a game of Monopoly, Harry tore up and down the beach flying that kite, making it duck and weave and loop the loop.’
‘It was freezing, but he didn’t care,’ Patrice added. ‘He was having the time of his life.’
‘We all ended up down here,’ Randall said, looking at Charlie. ‘Do you remember that complicated series of sand dams you and I built?’
Charlie did. He’d been fifteen and if it had been a sunny day, he’d have been off surfing with his mates and his father would have been sailing. Once that day had been a memory he treasured. Now it highlighted everything they’d lost. ‘We stayed until the tide came in so we could watch what happened. See whose engineering held the longest.’
‘If I recall c
orrectly...’ Randall cleared his throat ‘...we both had losses and wins.’
And didn’t that just sum up their relationship, except these days the losses far exceeded the wins.
Shucking their shoes, all of them waded into the shallows and stood in a line—Randall, Patrice, Anna, Charlie and Lauren. Wordlessly, she slid her hand into his—the scratchy feel of her cast on his palm in stark contrast to her soothing support. With the sound of the surf as a backdrop, each Ainsworth said a few quiet words and gently scattered Harry’s ashes in a bay that had once given him so much joy.
* * *
Lauren watched Charlie link Anna’s arm through his as they walked up the stairs back to Bide-A-While. His love for his grandmother was evident in so many caring actions, just as his big-heartedness shone through in his relationships with other people. His generosity towards Shaylee, his easygoing banter with her parents, the way he’d cared for her after the café incident and the thoughtful things he did for her each day—it was just his relationship with his own parents that he struggled with. She was convinced it clouded his soul.
Her heart flip-flopped in her chest. It had been doing that a lot this week—for Charlie and for his parents. For herself. For the baby. She blocked that thought. The pregnancy was in its infancy and so much was uncertain. There was, however, nothing uncertain about the Ainsworths. She got a pang of sorrow whenever she thought about them and not just because of the trauma they’d endured but because they didn’t seem to know how to take that first step towards reconciliation with Charlie. Her suspicions had been confirmed when Randall had come to see her at the practice that morning.
‘We’re scattering Harry’s ashes this afternoon at Bide-a-While cove. I think it would help Charles if you were there.’
At the difficult dinner two nights ago with Charlie, Patrice and Randall, she’d felt like she was the interconnecting circle in a Venn diagram. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly how she felt about that, so she got straight to the point. ‘Help Charlie or help you?’
One side of his mouth had lifted wryly. ‘Both, I hope. He listens to you.’
Does he? ‘I appreciate your faith but—’
‘I want to find a way to rebuild my relationship with him.’
Saying sorry to Charlie would be a start. The words had sounded so vicious in her head, they had frightened her. There were always two sides to every story but, despite that, she knew her allegiances lay with the man she loved and, as such, it was impossible to be impartial. She’d put on her professional hat. ‘There’s a lot of hurt on both sides, but I’m not a trained therapist. Would you consider family therapy?’
The expression on Randall’s face—shock and abhorrence—had been Charlie to a T. Lauren had taken it as a very clear no. ‘Please come,’ Randall had asked again.
It had been the pleading in his voice mixed with soul-sucking sadness that had brought her to the beach. And to Charlie. Always Charlie.
‘Don’t rush off,’ Anna said to her as they reached Bide-a-While’s wraparound veranda. Her thin, long-fingered hand closed over Lauren’s cast. ‘Stay for an aperitif. I have a pitcher of Pimm’s.’
Charlie, who was standing behind Anna but facing Lauren, shook his head and tapped his wrist as if to remind her of the time. It confused her, because she’d invited him to the cottage at seven and that was two hours away. ‘I’m on call, Anna, so it’s a no to the Pimm’s, but a tonic water with lemon would be lovely. Can I just wash up first?’ Early pregnancy had her running to the bathroom a lot.
‘Of course, dear. Straight down the hall to the left.’
A few minutes later, as she exited the bathroom, she noticed a black travel bag in the bedroom opposite. It wasn’t a designer bag or even part of a matching luggage set destined for the hands of a porter at an exclusive resort. Fully packed and with a faded fluoro-green combination strap around it, its battered exterior said well travelled. A folder sat on top, decorated in the distinctive colours of Australia Aid.
She stared at it as if her gaze had the power to change the image. It didn’t. Her chest tightened and her stomach lurched. Charlie was leaving already?
‘There you are.’ A smiling Charlie walked towards her. ‘I was starting to think you’d got lost.’ He leaned in close, sliding his hand along her cheek, and she instinctively pressed against his palm. ‘Listen, can we bolt this drink and get out of here? I’ve got special plans and they only involve you and me, preferably naked.’
Her body betrayed her with a surge of tingling need and she wanted nothing more than to melt against him and kiss him until the world retreated, but that wasn’t possible. The real world surrounded them, anchoring them firmly in time and place and making painful demands. She tilted her head towards the partially open bedroom door. ‘Your room?’
He grinned. ‘As tempting as that offer is, the presence of my family does dampen my desire somewhat.’
She ducked out of his embrace, pushed open the door and walked in. A neatly made bed and no traces of any personal items anywhere to hint that he’d slept here for weeks said it all. Unable to totally school her face to hide her feelings, she turned slowly and faced him.
He swore softly. Stepping into the room, he closed the door behind him and reached for her, his voice entreating. ‘Lauren.’
She sidestepped him as memories of the last time he’d left her surfaced. He’d built her a fire at the entrance to the cave and they’d made love on a picnic rug. ‘Did you plan on telling me?’
He looked taken aback. ‘Of course,’ he said emphatically. ‘That’s what tonight’s all about. I’ve got us reservations at Tide.’ His hand ploughed through his hair. ‘I’m sorry, Lauren. I didn’t mean to spring it on you like this. I wanted to tell you the other night but my parents invaded dinner and the rest of the week’s been crazy with getting organised.’
Her mind dissolved into mud-sucking sludge, unable to compute anything, and then panic rose. Fighting it, she asked as calmly as she could, ‘Where and when are you going?’
‘Java and tomorrow.’
Tomorrow? Sharp pain jabbed her under her ribs. ‘How long will you be gone?’
He shrugged. ‘For as long as it takes. It’s hard to tell.’
The casually spoken words punched her but somehow she managed to silence the agonising gasp that choked her. As she struggled for composure, a prickling feeling raised every hair on her body. ‘Hang on. How come you’ve been assigned to a project before your last counselling session?’
His gaze suddenly moved beyond her shoulder, as if he could see someone at the window. ‘After the second visit, she had no concerns so I got the rubber stamp on Wednesday.’
An insidious chill invaded her. ‘You didn’t tell the counsellor or Australia Aid about Harry, did you?’
His face hardened blanking his cheeks to clean slates. ‘For all intents and purposes, Harry died years ago.’
‘In some ways, yes, but in so many other ways, no. You and your family have been in limbo for years and no one comes away from that sort of trauma unscathed. Remember the state you were in when you first arrived in Horseshoe Bay?’
His hands flew up in the air as if she was missing the point. ‘I’d just come out of a cyclone.’
‘I know, but Cyclone Samuel was nothing compared to the emotional cyclone that blew through your family thirteen years ago. For all intents and purposes, you lost your entire family that year.’
‘You’re exaggerating.’
‘I’m not.’ A wave of fatigue hit her and she sat on the bed. ‘Your mother hinted at what happened between all of you and your father visited me today. They’re looking for ways to reconnect with you. I suggested counselling.’ Charlie laughed but it wasn’t the full bodied, fun-infused laugh that she loved. It was hard and harsh. ‘I think I’m starting to understand why you and your father have struggled. You’re both too alike.’
&nb
sp; ‘We’re nothing alike,’ he growled. A sigh followed and he sat down next to her, picking up her hand. ‘Can we please not talk about my parents? Let’s concentrate on enjoying our last evening together.’
A wave of pain hit her, but before she could say anything he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘I was going say all this at dinner, but somehow now seems appropriate.’ He dropped a sweet and tender kiss on her forehead. ‘Lauren, you’re the most generous person I know. The last few weeks with you have been incredible and I don’t even want to think about how I would have got through last Friday without you.’
His sea-blue eyes twinkled at her, affection warm in their depths, and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small jewellery box. The knot of worry that had been part of her for almost a week unravelled, spinning joyous relief into every part of her. Charlie loved her. He was committing to her. She loved him. They would both love the baby. Their jobs, his family, the baby—all the complicated stuff—they’d work it all out together.
‘I’ve been racking my brains how to thank you and then I saw this.’ He opened the box and nestled inside was an intricate silver sea star necklace with tiny diamonds filling all five arms. ‘I thought it would remind you of our rock-pool rambles.’
‘But we haven’t been rock-pooling,’ she said inanely, as her mind fought to comprehend that the necklace wasn’t an engagement ring. That he wasn’t proposing. That, despite everything, she’d foolishly allowed herself to fall in love with him for a second time. Once again, he was planning to walk away from her without looking back.
She always chose the wrong man. She always got it wrong.
Tell him about the baby.
But for her the equation was simple. If Charlie loved her, then telling him would be a joy. But he didn’t love her so telling him risked guilting him into staying, and that would diminish her in ways she wasn’t prepared to countenance. After Jeremy, she was never accepting second best again. With devastating clarity she realised that the only thing she and Charlie needed to work out was his role in their child’s life.
