by Amy Andrews
‘Madeline Harrington. She’s a GP in the practice next door.’
‘It didn’t take you long,’ she said pleasantly.
‘I love her, Tabitha.’
She smiled, unperturbed. ‘You used to love me.’
‘Oh, Tab, that was forever ago.’
She nodded. ‘There is some kind of weird déjà vu, though, isn’t there? And now we have this second chance.’
He sat back, ignoring the statement. ‘Are you sure, Tab?’
She nodded. ‘I promise. I did a test. I’m ten weeks.’
Marcus did a quick calculation in his head. That would most certainly fit the time frame. The next question was indelicate to say the least and he hesitated, but it had to be asked.
‘How can you be sure it’s mine?’
She looked at him sharply. ‘Is my word not good enough, Marcus?’ she asked quietly.
‘Tabitha, please.’
She sighed. ‘Because I’d had a period about two weeks before we slept together. And haven’t had one since. You were the only person I’d done it with in those two weeks.’
Pretty compelling evidence. ‘Have you been to a doctor?’
‘I have an appointment with an obstetrician in a month. I was hoping you’d come with me.’
‘In Melbourne?’
She nodded and he could see all his hopes and dreams with Maddy and his new practice come crashing down around him.
‘I can’t move here, Marcus. It’s too hot. Too far away from my family and friends.’
So if he wanted a relationship with his baby he was going to have to go back. ‘I’m just starting out here,’ he said.
‘I know but I can’t leave Melbourne, Marcus. Please, don’t ask me to.’
He nodded, not bothering to disguise the annoyed curl to his lip. But she could ask him to leave everything here? His practice. Maddy. Would Maddy go to Melbourne with him? ‘I don’t love you.’ He didn’t mean it to be harsh but everything was so screwed up.
She nodded at him. ‘We could make it work this time. For the sake of the baby. This child deserves two parents, Marcus.’
‘Yes, thank you, Tabitha. I think I understand that better than anyone.’
‘I’ve booked you a flight home,’ she said.
Marcus blinked. ‘You what?’ he asked quietly.
‘You know you’ll come.’ She shrugged. ‘I thought this might make it easier for you.’
There were a lot of things about this situation that he couldn’t control but he was damn sure he was going to control the things he could. ‘Listen to me very carefully, Tabitha,’ he said, his eyes glittering. ‘There is plenty of time yet to move, and when and if I do, it will be of my own accord. There are things that need settling here. I can’t just take off.’
‘You mean you won’t,’ she said testily.
‘I need time.’
‘So you can make up with your girlfriend?’ she sneered.
‘Oh I think you’ve killed any chance of that.’
‘You know I was right. This is just like before. You didn’t want a baby then either,’ she said bitterly, her voice raising an octave.
‘I was twenty-two,’ he sighed.
‘Well, no need to worry,’ she said standing. ‘Maybe I’ll conveniently miscarry this time again.’
They glared at each other across the desk before Tabitha turned on her heel, storming out of his office. He heard the glass door slide shut with a loud slam.
Two hours later Marcus was seeing a client out when his mobile rang. Again he got his hopes up but again it was just Tabitha’s number that was flashing. He almost didn’t answer it, not wishing to get into a slanging match on the phone. But this was as much his fault as hers.
‘Hello,’ he said tersely.
He couldn’t make out a word she said initially she was crying so much. ‘Slow down, Tab,’ he said, ‘I can’t understand a word you’re saying.’
‘I said,’ she said hiccuping as she drew in a couple of deep breaths, ‘you got your wish, you slimeball. I’m bleeding. I hope you’re happy.’
Tabitha dissolved into more tears and Marcus took a few seconds to fully comprehend what she’d said. Oh, no! Not again. Tab had been devastated the first time around, depressed for months after.
‘What am I going to do, Marcus?’ she wailed. ‘I can’t go through this again.’
His heart went out to her and his medical training came to the fore. ‘What do you mean, bleeding? Fresh blood or more like spotting?’ he asked.
‘Spotting.’ She sniffled.
‘Any cramping?’
‘Not yet.’ Her voice wobbled.
‘It’s probably nothing, Tab,’ he said reassuringly.
‘This was how it started last time,’ she sobbed.
‘Come down here immediately,’ he said. ‘They have a basic ultrasound unit next door, we’ll do a scan and see what’s happening.’
Marcus made some phone calls. Three to cancel all his remaining afternoon clients and one more to Maddy, who thankfully picked it up without looking at her caller ID.
‘I know this is asking a lot but Tabitha is spotting. She’s hysterical. Can I bring her in for a quick scan?’
Madeline couldn’t quite believe what he was asking of her. She wanted to scream into the phone and hang up loudly in his ear. But despite everything, Madeline felt for Tabitha. Many of her patients had suffered from the devastating loss of a pregnancy. It was only natural for Marcus to turn to the most readily available source of medical equipment.
‘Of course,’ she said politely. ‘Is she cramping?’
‘No.’
‘How far is she along? It’s probably nothing,’ she said to him unnecessarily.
‘I know, that’s what I told her, but she’s been through this once before. She’s ten weeks. She’s really upset, Maddy.’
She heard the apology and the strain in his voice and hardened herself against it. ‘Bring her straight in,’ she said briskly, and hung up.
Once her hands had stopped shaking and she could think rationally, she hoped for Tabitha’s sake everything was OK. And she was glad that Marcus had asked her. This way she got to see the baby, too, and it would seem much more real to her than it did at the moment. Everything from last night onward seemed surreal. Seeing Marcus’s baby on the screen, while devastating, would also help to make it real. Confirm that it was actually happening—that he had responsibilities and she wouldn’t stand in his way.
Madeline maintained her professional veneer as she ushered the man that she loved and the woman he had impregnated into the examination room where the small, rather old ultrasound machine lived.
Tabitha, her eyes red-rimmed, got up on the couch and pulled her skirt down a little to reveal her still flat stomach. Madeline ignored Marcus, who looked miserable, not wanting to feel any kind of empathy for him at the moment.
She switched the machine on and noticed how Tabitha reached for his hand and he automatically took it. ‘You’ve been spotting?’ Madeline asked. She needed to say something to stop the roar of blood in her head. Watching their easy familiarity was torture.
‘It started an hour ago.’
‘And what were you doing at the time?’ she asked, pretending that this was just another client as she palpated Tabitha’s abdomen. She could easily feel the bulge of the burgeoning uterus and frowned slightly. At ten weeks she shouldn’t be able to feel the uterine fundus yet. It didn’t grow up from behind the pelvic rim until about twelve weeks.
‘Marcus and I had had an argument. I was crying,’ she said.
Madeline looked at Marcus and she saw the guilt on his face. Her heart swelled with love. Damn it. And damn him. Here she was, caught up in a bizarre triangle with the absolute right to feel like the most injured party, and all she wanted to do was take him in her arms and comfort him.
‘And have you been taking care of yourself?’ she asked. ‘Eating well, sleeping well?’
‘I had my best night’s sleep in
a long time,’ Tabitha sniffled. ‘I’ve always slept best in Marcus’s bed.’
Marcus gaped at Tabitha as he watched Maddy’s reaction. She covered it swiftly but he could see his ex-wife’s barb had hit hard. It was unlike Tabitha to be so cruel. There was something going on that she wasn’t telling him.
He clenched his fists. ‘I slept on the couch,’ he said tersely, looking at Maddy, relieved to see her shoulders relax.
Madeline squeezed some gel onto Tabitha’s abdomen and felt a guilty pleasure in the woman’s swift intake of breath as the cold goo hit her skin. Normally she would warn the patient first. It wasn’t very professional of her but Tabitha’s last dig had hit its mark and it had stung.
The screen was quite small, about ten centimetres square, but as Madeline ran the transducer through the gel the image of a very healthy-looking foetus flickered on the screen. The heart beat strongly and nothing appeared irregular or out of place. If Tabitha had been in the early stages of miscarrying, Madeline would have expected to find an abnormality with the foetus itself—an irregularity in the sac or more probably no heartbeat.
Madeline’s suspicions were confirmed, however. No way was this a ten-week pregnancy. She’d guess it to be closer to fourteen weeks, definitely second trimester. She knew that the machine would give her an actual gestation at the end but wondered if Marcus had picked it up.
‘The baby looks fine. It has a very strong heartbeat,’ Madeline said to Tabitha.
She sneaked a peak at Marcus and wished she hadn’t. The look of wonder on his face made her feel physically ill. She could see the usual reactions when people saw their babies for the first time and she knew it was all over between them.
She felt irrational tears spring to her eyes and a rising surge of jealousy. How would it feel to have Marcus’s baby inside her? To have him look at their baby like that? Like it was the most precious thing he had ever seen. The yearning was intense and she almost wished she was pregnant herself. At least she would be able to take a little of Marcus away from this mess and she’d never be alone again.
Marcus was totally caught up in the image on the screen. He remembered seeing the twelve-week ultrasound pictures of the baby Tabitha had miscarried years ago and clearly remembered not feeling anything other than a sinking sense of dread.
He hadn’t seen the fuzzy images as the wonder and awe of new life but a representation of the end of his life as he’d known it. But right now he felt a weird connection with the strong yet fragile new life. His baby’s heartbeat blinked rapidly at him and he felt a primal urge to protect it from anything that could harm it.
Since when had he felt like this about a baby? He certainly hadn’t felt it all those years ago. He looked up and saw Maddy staring at him with glassy eyes. Since falling in love and wanting it all with her. There was only one thing wrong with this picture—the baby was in the wrong womb.
If only he had that magic wand Maddy had accused him of having at their first acquaintance. Looking at the baby and feeling his love for it rising in his chest, he realised everything would have been perfect had it only been inside Maddy—the woman he loved.
He knew in that instant if this mess was ever sorted out and he could convince Maddy to take him back, having their own baby was a must. He wanted to see their baby on a screen. And growing inside her and coming into the world and being cuddled into her breast. He wanted it so badly it hurt.
And then he realised that there was something else wrong with the picture. He’d been so caught up in the image and the unexpected rush of love that he hadn’t seen the most obvious thing. He looked at Madeline and he knew that she had spotted it, too.
‘What’s the gestation?’ he asked her.
Madeline’s hand shook as she pressed the button, fully aware that Marcus had seen the discrepancy. ‘Fifteen weeks one day,’ she read off the screen.
Marcus felt a virtual storm of emotions. ‘It’s not mine?’ he muttered to her.
Madeline shook, overwhelming relief temporarily overriding her hurt and anger.
‘What? No, that’s impossible,’ said Tabitha, rising up onto her elbows.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ said Madeline.
And Tabitha lay back and burst into tears.
CHAPTER TEN
MADELINE made a huge show of unplugging the machine and cleaning up as Marcus stood beside Tabitha, comforting her.
‘I’m…so…sorry,’ Tabitha faltered out between huge body-racking sobs. ‘Please don’t…hate me…I’m so…sorry.’
‘Come on, Tab. Stop crying.’ He wiped the goo off her tummy gently and pulled her shirt down. There was obviously more to this story. ‘Sit up, dry your face and tell me.’
Tabitha did as he asked and Madeline handed him a box of tissues as she pushed the machine towards the door. They obviously needed to talk and they didn’t need her hanging around in the background. She had been watching their interaction, their casual intimacy with a sick fascination. She had wanted to run from the room but her body was reacting sluggishly, almost in slow motion, to the frantic get-out signals from her brain.
‘I have a patient to get back to. I’ll let Marcus see you out,’ she said as she opened the door.
‘Wait, Maddy,’ Marcus said.
Madeline shook her head at him and looked at him through watery eyes. ‘I have to get back,’she said, and turned on her heel and fled.
Marcus wanted to go to her. She looked miserable and he knew that performing the ultrasound must have been very difficult for her. But whether he liked it or not, his ex-wife took precedence.
He thrust a glass of water at Tabitha. ‘Talk,’ he said to her when her sobs had slowly dried up to the odd hiccup.
‘It’s Tony’s,’ she said, staring into the glass of water. ‘That’s why he left me. I told him I was pregnant and he freaked.’
‘Why?’ Marcus could understand a twenty-two-year-old freaking but a mid-thirties white-collar worker?
‘Something about not having a clue about kids. I think he just panicked, it wasn’t like we’d planned it or anything. And then you came along that night and I thought maybe if I got back with you then Tony would be jealous and realise that he couldn’t live without me. Or the baby.’
Marcus couldn’t believe it. ‘Hell, Tab. What the hell were you thinking? This isn’t like you.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, I was desperate. I know how you feel about fatherless kids and, well…you’d married me once before for the sake of a baby.’
‘How long did you plan on keeping this charade up for? Would you really have let me marry you?’
‘Would you have?’ she asked.
He looked at her for a moment. ‘I don’t know, Tab. Maybe.’
‘I wouldn’t have let you marry me.’
Well, thanks heaven for small mercies. ‘You were just going to manipulate me for a little while longer?’
‘Oh, God, it sounds so callous, I know. I love him, Marcus. I just wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry. I had no right to involve you.’
‘Damn right!’ Marcus paced around the room. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put you over my knee and tan your backside? Hell, Tab, have you any idea what you’ve done?’
‘Maddy.’ Tabitha nodded. ‘I’ve ruined it for you, haven’t I?’ ‘I sincerely hope not,’ he said, running a hand through his hair. ‘But you sure as hell have muddied the waters.’
‘She seems nice,’ said Tabitha.
‘She is, Tab. She’s the best thing that’s happened to me in years.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve interfered in your life. It’s unforgivable.’
‘You know you just could have asked me to talk to Tony or something. Since when have I ever knocked you back?’
‘I know. I just felt so foolish, being in the same tight spot all over again. Maybe it’s hormones. It seemed like a really good plan at the time. I just hadn’t factored in Maddy or your feelings for her.’ The tears started again. ‘What can I do to fix it?’
Marcus stopped pacing, alarmed. ‘Oh, God, Tab. I think you’ve done more than enough! Just go back to Melbourne and stay the hell out of it.’
‘OK, OK.’ She held her hands up.
There was silence in the room for a few minutes while Marcus paced and Tabitha watched him, feeling wretched.
‘Madeline’s the one, isn’t she?’
He stopped pacing. ‘Yes, she is.’
‘Well, what are you waiting for? Tell her your ex-wife is a manipulative, conniving bitch. Tell her I’m unbalanced. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her whatever it takes but just go and get her back.’
Marcus knocked gently on Madeline’s office door and then opened it slowly. He knew she was alone because a very cautious Veronica had told him so.
‘Something’s wrong, Marcus,’she’d said, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘I don’t know what it is.’
He’d patted her hand. ‘It’s OK. I think I do.’
‘Have you two had your first tiff?’
Now, there was an understatement. ‘Something like that,’ he’d said.
Veronica had stood, leaned across the desk pulled him down by the scruff of his shirt until they had been eye to eye. ‘You hurt her and I’ll kill you.’ He’d believed her.
Madeline looked up at the knock to see Marcus standing in her doorway. She’d been having a good cry and knew she must look a mess. She sat up straight, pulled a tissue out of the box on her desk and blew her nose.
She looked so distant and he felt completely lost. He could see he was losing her. ‘Please, Maddy. Tell me what to say to make it better. I don’t know what to say,’ he said, his arms aching to hold her.
‘Well, that makes two of us,’ she said.
‘For God’s sake,’ he said, desperation making him angry, ‘the baby’s not even mine.’
‘No, but you wanted it to be. You wanted that baby—I saw it in your face.’
A denial rose to his lips but he thought better of it. Seeing the baby on the screen had definitely switched on his paternal instinct. For a second, blocking out all the convoluted mess of the last twelve hours, he had wanted the baby. But he’d wanted it to be theirs. His and Maddy’s. Not his and Tabitha’s.
