The Greatest Gift

by Rachael Johns

  He’d learnt that lesson the hard way all too recently.

  And what would happen to Anaya if he—like Claire—died in such an incident? He wasn’t foolish enough to think he could coat himself in bubble wrap and prevent anything ever happening to him, but was going up in a balloon four or five times a week tempting fate? When Claire was alive, they’d made an agreement that only one of them would ever fly at the same time, so if something tragic did happen, their baby wouldn’t be left an orphan.

  But now Claire was gone and he hadn’t given a second’s thought to that agreement, or to flying these last few weeks.

  He followed his parents and Luke into the shed as their passengers started to arrive. Usually he could feel the nervous excitement of the passengers pre-flight, but there was a different kind of buzz among the group gathering this morning. The ones who hadn’t heard the news already were quickly informed by those who had, and feelings were divided.

  Some people still wanted to go up. ‘What are the chances of another accident happening so close to this one? Statistics would tell us we’re probably safer ballooning today than on any other day.’

  Others weren’t so certain. ‘I thought ballooning was safe?’

  And while his father tried to reassure the passengers that yes, ballooning was one of the safest forms of travel in the world but very rarely accidents did occur, Jasper stood by without saying a word. A cold sweat spread across his skin at the thought of climbing into the basket. Fear had never been part of his vocabulary, but suddenly it lodged itself in his throat, making him unsure if he could go up in the air even if that’s what they decided.

  ‘Will we get our money back if we don’t want to fly today?’ a lady with orange frizzy hair wanted to know.

  ‘Of course,’ Wendy rushed to placate her. ‘We’ll either give you a full refund or you can choose to reschedule for another time.’

  ‘No, I want my money back,’ demanded the woman. ‘No way I’m going up in a hot air balloon after this.’ She gestured to the chubby man standing beside her. ‘It was all Eric’s stupid idea anyway.’

  ‘If you’ll come with me to the office now, I can arrange the refund,’ Wendy said, indicating the lady should follow her.

  Others who’d also been turned off hot air ballooning for life hurried after her, leaving about ten people standing around looking uncertain. After more discussions among themselves and with Paul, the remaining group agreed that it didn’t feel right to fly today anyway. It was decided they’d go home and phone in a few days to either re-book or request a refund, depending on how they were feeling by then.

  Although ballooning accidents anywhere were bad for business, Jasper breathed a sigh of relief as the shed emptied of people. Without a word to either of his parents, he snuck out the door and hurried to his car. The thought of all those people dying brought the memories of that awful day only nine weeks ago rushing back. A fresh wave of grief washed over him as he imagined American cops approaching the families of the deceased to give them the bad news. Then he thought of Anaya being on the receiving end of such a message and he decided he would do everything in his power not to let that ever happen.

  Less than ten minutes later, he parked haphazardly on his driveway and rushed inside, desperate to see her, to hold her close. He opened the front door to find Harper putting Anaya into her pram.

  ‘Hi,’ she said looking up. Her smile quickly transformed into a frown. ‘What are you doing home so early? Is everything okay?’

  ‘You haven’t heard the news?’

  She shook her head. ‘I haven’t had the TV on this morning and Anaya and I have been too busy to check my phone, haven’t we, sweet pea? Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘There was a hot air balloon accident in Nebraska. At least eleven people are dead.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Her hand rushed to cover her mouth. ‘That’s awful. I’m so sorry. Did you know anyone involved?’

  ‘No. We don’t think so.’ He crossed to the pram, unclicked the strap Harper had just done up and lifted Anaya to his chest. He cradled her close, breathing in her fresh baby scent, never wanting to let her go again.

  ‘Oh, well I guess that’s something,’ Harper said. ‘But still, what a tragic accident.’

  He looked her in the eye. ‘I’ve decided I’m giving up ballooning.’

  ‘What?’ She screwed up her face. ‘No, you can’t! Is that why you’re home early?’

  ‘We decided to postpone today’s flight out of respect for those who’d lost their lives. As you might guess, the passengers who were supposed to go up today were a little uncertain after they heard the news. And it made me realise I’ve been an irresponsible parent to put myself in such danger every day.’

  ‘But you and Claire … You told me that hot air ballooning was one of the safest ways to travel. Sure, accidents happen—but they can happen anywhere, anytime. Hot air ballooning is what you love. It’s your life.’ She shook her head. ‘You can’t give it up. What will you do if you don’t fly?’

  He shrugged. ‘No idea, but I’ll work something out. Anaya’s my life now and she’s more important than anything else. I need to do what’s best for her and she can’t afford to lose another parent. Who would look after her if I died too?’

  Harper’s head snapped back as if he’d slapped her. ‘Me of course. I’m her mother.’

  Jasper flinched at her words. No matter how good and present she’d been with Anaya these last few weeks, he would never get used to the fact he had a baby with a woman other than Claire.

  ‘You’re having fun now, but this isn’t your real life. If Claire hadn’t died, you wouldn’t even be here.’ He saw the hurt in her eyes as he spoke, but he couldn’t hold his tongue. ‘What happens when the shine of new baby wears off and you remember that you don’t even want children? And I know how much you miss your work—you listen to the show every afternoon. Don’t tell me you’d be prepared to give all that up?’

  Harper narrowed her eyes and spoke in a tone he’d never heard from her before. ‘I’m not playing a game, Jasper, so don’t presume you know what I think or feel. Whatever you think, I love Anaya just as much as you do and I want everything for her as well. There are plenty of career mums out there who manage to hold down a job and a family. But if I ever had to choose between work and Anaya, she’d always come first. So far I haven’t pushed you to make our parental agreement formal because I know you’ve got enough on your plate right now. But maybe it’s time we spoke to lawyers because I promise, if the unthinkable happens and you can no longer be there for Anaya, I will be. End of story.’

  ‘Really?’ he scoffed. She sounded genuine and maybe she truly believed this to be the case, but she was forgetting one key player in their situation. ‘Does that go for Samuel as well? Would he move heaven and earth for Anaya if the need arose? Because quite frankly, I don’t think he even likes her.’

  Harper blinked then opened her mouth, but before she could say a word, he continued.

  ‘I think you’re fooling yourself that Samuel’s okay with this situation. If he really cared about Anaya—hell, if he really cared about you—don’t you think he’d make more of an effort? He’s visited only once in almost a month and didn’t even hold her while he was here. He barely even looked at her.’

  When Anaya started to cry, he realised how loudly he’d been speaking. Silently cursing himself for scaring her, he rocked her closely against him.

  ‘Please, Jasper,’ Harper pleaded, taking a step towards them. ‘You’re upsetting her. Let’s sit down and talk this through sensibly. Claire wouldn’t want you to do this.’

  ‘Claire,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘would have wanted me to do what is best for our baby. There’s nothing to talk about.’

  Then, without another word he turned and hurried out into the garden.

  Chapter Forty

  Harper jumped as the front door slammed shut behind Jasper and Anaya. She was too shocked to cry. Not only her morning, but suddenly
her whole life, had been turned upside down. Again. Jasper’s words of a few moments earlier echoed loud and clear in her head: If he really cared about you, don’t you think he’d make more of an effort?

  She’d been so preoccupied the last few weeks—so lost in the wonderfulness of her newborn daughter—that she’d pushed aside her niggling thoughts about Samuel and his relationship with Anaya. This baby thing had been thrown on him out of nowhere and she’d expected him to take a little time to get used to the idea. Yet although his apparent acceptance of the situation had surprised her, she’d taken him at his word that he wanted to make it work.

  Was that foolish? Was his declaration of support too good to be true?

  Actions speak louder than words—Laura had taught her that—and Jasper was right; Samuel hadn’t done anything to show he wanted to nurture a relationship with Anaya. During their phone calls, he changed the subject or ended the call whenever she tried to talk to him about Anaya. Since that first, almost disastrous, Sunday visit, he’d found excuses not to return.

  She shuddered now as she finally allowed herself to remember that day.

  She’d been so excited about introducing him to Anaya, but from the moment he’d climbed out of his car Samuel had made it clear he wasn’t there to see anyone but her. Claire’s parents had also been up for the weekend, and along with Jasper’s parents, they’d bent over backwards to include Samuel in conversation and make him feel welcome, but his responses had verged on rudeness.

  And when she’d asked him if he wanted to hold Anaya, he’d said something about having a bit of a cold and not wanting to pass on his germs.

  Hah! What a load of codswallop! She’d stupidly been grateful for his thoughtfulness, but in all their years together she couldn’t recall Samuel ever once getting ill. He was the only person she knew who had never taken a sick day in his whole working life.

  The back of her throat grew tight as she recalled his words from the day she’d told him she wanted to be Anaya’s mother: You might have changed, but I haven’t. You’re still the only woman I want in my life and I want us to work through this.

  The only woman.

  Did that also preclude Anaya? By work through it, had he actually meant he’d stand by her while she came to her senses? Perhaps Samuel—like Jasper—believed that in time she’d tire of motherhood and then they could forget this whole thing ever happened and go back to how things were.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Her words echoed in the empty house and she reached out to steady herself on the pram as realisation hit hard. He’d told her outright he hadn’t changed and that he only wanted her in his life but she’d heard what she wanted to hear, believed what she wanted to believe. Now she could see that Samuel had no more interest in Anaya or being a stepdad than her own mother had in parenting herself and Willow. They’d grown up feeling like they weren’t good enough, like they were a burden, and Harper would rather die than subject her child to that kind of life.

  Jasper might be right about Samuel, but he couldn’t be more wrong about her. Her love for Anaya might have come as a surprise—to no one more than herself—but now nothing mattered more than her daughter and she would prove it to him.

  Not bothering to change out of her walking clothes, she snatched her car keys from the hook by the front door and headed outside. Jasper and Anaya were nowhere to be seen, but she couldn’t put this task off a moment longer.

  As she drove towards Sydney, she rehearsed in her head exactly what she’d say to Samuel. He might be good at convincing judges and juries of his way of thinking, but she wouldn’t let him pull the wool over her eyes again. She’d ask him to prove his commitment to her and Anaya by coming back with her tonight and making a damn effort and if he didn’t …

  Well, would that really be the end of the world?

  She thought about what she’d be missing if she and Samuel parted ways and came up with an embarrassingly small list—sex and the fresh croissants he sometimes brought her in bed of a weekend morning. The shocking truth was she’d barely missed him these last few weeks. Phone calls had been exchanged because she’d made the effort, but they were usually over quickly. They weren’t like Jasper and Claire who had lived and worked together. They weren’t like Jasper’s parents who sometimes sat for hours in the garden just talking to each other. Or Joanne and Mike who spent all day every day working together in their bookshop and loved it. They weren’t like Willow and Miriam, or Renee and Juliet with their husbands. All those couples spent time together—doing both mundane things like watching TV or grocery shopping and also exciting things like going on holidays or seeing concerts—because they wanted to.

  Harper tried to remember the last time she and Samuel had gone out anywhere together that wasn’t something to do with his work. There was the hot air ballooning and Christmas at his parents’ place. Only two occasions in almost a year, and yet neither of them had thought that weird. The only thing Samuel ever seemed to want to do with her was have sex and when she thought about it, that was pretty much the only thing she wanted to do with him.

  Had she seen something in Samuel all those years ago that told her he’d be a safe bet? Had he given off a vibe even from their very first meeting that he didn’t want children? And had she stayed with him all these years because it made keeping her resolve not to have a family easy? What did it say that she’d taken so long to tell him about her abortion? Surely if they were that close, she’d have opened up earlier?

  These were the questions that played in her head the rest of the drive to Sydney.

  It was just ten o’clock when she hit the city, and the traffic wasn’t too bad. She parked her car in a fifteen minute space right out the front of Samuel’s office building and hurried inside, making a beeline for the elevators that would take her to his firm’s level.

  Samuel’s office was close to the elevators, but as she emerged and started in that direction, one of the receptionists called out to her. ‘Excuse me. Can I help you?’

  Harper paused a moment, infuriated that the receptionist didn’t recognise her, although she shouldn’t be too offended as she couldn’t recall the woman’s name either. ‘I’m Samuel’s wife,’ was all the explanation she gave as she continued on her way.

  ‘Oh, right.’ The receptionist shot to her feet and hurried round the desk after her. As her heels click-clacked on the polished concrete floors, she said, ‘You shouldn’t go in there, he’s in an important meeting.’

  ‘Well, this is important too,’ Harper said, not glancing back at the receptionist as she came to his office door and flung it open.

  It took less than a second for the sight before her to register in her head.

  Important meeting, her arse. Or perhaps that should be Annika’s arse?

  Of course, there were no tan lines on the CrossFit junkie’s perfectly taut, brown butt, yet, as Samuel glanced up and registered Harper standing there, he dropped his arms, leaving two white imprints where his hands had just been gripping her tightly.

  ‘Harper!’ he exclaimed, shoving Annika away and rushing to pull up his trousers from where they lay bunched around his ankles.

  Annika yanked down her tiny skirt, her cheeks reddening as she fled from the room, not daring to meet Harper’s gaze. Harper shut the door behind her and calmly stepped closer to his desk. She couldn’t help but notice the red, lace g-string that Annika had abandoned in her haste lying atop a pile of files, a torn condom wrapper just beside it.

  ‘How clichéd,’ she said as she looked from it right into Samuel’s eyes. ‘How sad. But at least you were playing it safe.’

  The compromising position in which she found him with Annika only cemented Harper’s decision.

  ‘I’m leaving you, Samuel. Our marriage, for what it was worth, is over.’

  ‘No!’ He shook his head, fumbling to do up his belt buckle as he spoke. ‘That was not what it looked like.’

  She raised an eyebrow, wondering if it was uncomfortable standing there with a condom
wrapped around his unsatisfied dick. ‘What kind of fool do you take me for?’

  ‘It only happened once. It hadn’t even happened yet. You interrupted before it could happen. But what do you expect? You’ve been so damn preoccupied with the baby. We haven’t shared a bed in almost a month. And when I came to the Hunter Valley to see you, you wouldn’t let me touch you.’

  Argh—there was so much in those few sentences that made Harper want to scream, but instead, she held up her finger and spoke calmly. ‘For one, my baby has a name. She’s called Anaya. For two—’ another finger, ‘—you’ve inconvenienced yourself only once in almost four weeks to come visit me and even then you only stayed for a few hours. You were supposed to be coming to see me and Anaya, but your only concern was getting me alone for five minutes to have your wicked way. I wasn’t about to sneak off and have sex with you in the middle of Sunday lunch with Jasper and Claire’s family.’

  He opened his mouth as if he had something to say about this but she shot up a third finger and rode right over the top of him.

  ‘And three, whatever sordid scene I walked into right now, doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not leaving you because you’re a lying, cheating prick, although this certainly makes my decision easier. I was coming today to ask you to be honest with me about Anaya. Did you ever really mean it when you said you’d accepted my decision to be her mother? That you were happy to have her in our lives?’

  She watched his Adam’s apple move slowly up and down as he deliberated how to reply. ‘I don’t think I ever said I was happy about it,’ he confessed.

  ‘So what were you hoping? That the shine would wear off after a while, that I’d just abandon my little girl and come back to you?’

  He didn’t have to say anything; his expression said it all. That’s exactly what he’d believed would happen.