by Amy Andrews
‘I’m not getting into something with the two of us when all this other...stuff, this really big, really important stuff, is going on around the edges. It would be too...fraught.’
Patrick reached for her hand. ‘It doesn’t have to be.’
Miranda pulled her hand away with a supreme effort. ‘It’s going to be nigh on impossible to solidify our relationship as a couple when you’re trying to establish a relationship—’
Patrick slammed down his coffee cup. ‘I am not interested in a relationship with Katie,’ he snapped.
‘Oh, don’t be naïve,’ Miranda hissed. ‘You’re going to have one whether you like it or not. For crying out loud, you already have one. This isn’t about what you and I want any more. You have to make this as easy for Ruby as possible.’
Patrick put his elbows on the table and ruffled his hair. He knew she was right but, for crying out loud, when would he get a chance to be happy? ‘And when do we get our turn?’
His eyes were bleak as he asked the question and they twisted through Miranda’s gut. ‘We’re parents. We put our kids’ needs first. That’s what we do. You and I have spent five years making Ruby and Lola our priorities and you can’t duck out of it now. Especially now. Ruby’s world’s going to change, she’s going to suddenly have a mother again, and she’s going to be looking at you for her cues, for reassurance.’
‘And you don’t think you could help ease that transition too?’
Of course she could, but the real question was whether she could bear to live through Ruby’s inevitable anxiety. Because there would be anxiety—that was just Ruby’s personality. And it would strike just a little too close to home for her.
‘I think it’s going to be confusing enough without having two mothers around.’
Patrick could feel himself getting more and more desperate. He needed Miranda now more than ever. ‘We’d have had to deal with it if this had happened two years down the track.’
‘Yes. But it’s not two years down the track, is it? So we have a choice now. One that we can make carefully with wisdom and by putting Ruby first. And being thankful that it happened now, before we got in too deep.’
Thankful? Patrick saw red again.
Maybe at some stage in the future, if everything ran smoothly, he’d be thankful that Ruby knew her mother, but he would never be happy about the torpedo that had blasted their relationship apart.
And he didn’t believe for a moment that Miranda did either. She may not have ever told him she loved him, but he didn’t doubt for a minute that she did. He understood that her past had made her wary but he was sick of her hiding behind it.
‘Before we got in too deep?’ He stood, his pulse roaring in his ears, his chair scraping on the wooden deck and then toppling backwards with the force. ‘That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Not about Ruby and her needs but about you and protecting yourself before you get in too deep!’
Miranda shot a quick glance at the girls, who had looked up when the chair had banged and were both looking at them curiously.
‘It’s like you had this perfect fairy-tale in your head of how family life should be. But no family is perfect, Miranda. They all go through their ups and downs. You want what doesn’t exist.’
Miranda’s temper flared at his accusation and she forgot the girls were there. She didn’t want perfection but she wanted as close as she could get to it. For her but especially for Lola. She wanted Lola to have what she hadn’t had growing up—not more of the same.
‘You’re wrong,’ she snarled. ‘It’s out there and I’m prepared to wait for it!’
Patrick could feel it all slipping away and he wanted to reach across the table and shake her. Instead, he slammed his fist down with a thunk. The coffee cup rattled and tipped on its side with a harsh clatter.
‘It’s not!’ he yelled. ‘Face it, nothing will ever live up to your expectations.’
Miranda opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell but a plaintive little voice broke into their argument.
‘Daddy?’
They both turned, facing their audience. The girls had moved closer. Ruby was nibbling on her lip and twisting her fingers in her T-shirt. Lola had her arms around Ruby’s neck, a frown marring her forehead.
‘Stop yelling at my mummy,’ Lola ordered in her little sergeant-major voice as she glared at Patrick.
A wave of nausea accompanied the sense of déjà vu that slammed into Miranda and she was pleased she was sitting. The tension was starting already. The choosing of sides. Patrick seemed to be temporarily speechless and she forced herself to her feet and plastered a smile on her face.
‘It’s fine, Lols,’ she said, nodding reassuringly at her daughter and forcing herself to extend the smile to Patrick for the girls’ sake. ‘We’re just having a bit of a disagreement but we’re fine, aren’t we, Patrick?’
Patrick followed Miranda’s cue, although he was still poleaxed by the situation. Ruby looked more worried than he’d seen her in a long time. Her anxiety had settled dramatically over the last six months. And fiery little Lola, sweeping in to defend her mother and comfort Ruby, was a sight to behold.
‘Of course,’ he assured her, also smiling but going one further, joining Miranda round the other side of the table, putting his arm around her shoulder and pulling her into his side. ‘We’re fine.’
The smile hurt Miranda’s face but she kept it up as she spoke to the girls. Even with everything all wrong, just being close to him somehow seemed right and it was an effort to keep her head held high instead of burying it in his shoulder, like she wanted to. ‘Okey-dokey, Lols, time to go. Grab your stuff.’
‘Oh, but, Mum—’ Lola started to protest.
‘No buts,’ Miranda interrupted, probably a little more sharply than she should have if Lola’s puzzled expression was anything to go by. ‘We’re busy, busy today so hop to it! Make sure you brush the sand off your feet before you go in the house.’
For a moment Lola looked like she was going to protest some more but she thought better of it and the girls headed inside. As soon as they’d skipped by, Miranda stepped out of the circle of Patrick’s arms.
She looked up into his face and waited until his gaze was locked with hers before she said a word. ‘This is what I don’t want,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to live with tension and friction and I don’t want Lola to be dragged into it either. That’s how I grew up and I do not want it for my life now or the life of my daughter.’
Patrick shook his head. ‘So let’s make a promise to not do it that way.’
Miranda shut out the reasoned note in his voice. He didn’t know how hard it was to blend families. She did. ‘Easier said than done.’
Patrick dug his fingers into his waist as the urge to shake her grew. ‘Let’s just give it a try,’ he pleaded.
Miranda picked up her mug. ‘It’s not a risk I’m prepared to take with my kid. And you shouldn’t be prepared to either.’
He snorted. ‘Isn’t loving someone worth the risk? Isn’t it better to have loved and lost?’
Miranda shook her head as she looked into the cold leftovers of her coffee. Her mother would say yes but as a casualty of her love Miranda begged to differ. She glanced at him. ‘Not when there’s children involved.’
And then she pulled away, walked into the house and called for Lola, and when she drove away five minutes later she felt awful but Lola’s smile in the rear-view mirror warmed her heart.
* * *
The next weeks were difficult. Miranda and Patrick saw each other at work constantly and worked side by side often. Adjusting to their new status in such an enclosed environment wasn’t easy. They’d just got used to all the gossip and speculation about them and now they were back to denying their relationship again.
Still, one well-timed conversation with Lilly
ensured that the entire theatre staff were up to speed, which helped to ease the transition.
Other than enquiring each day how things were going ‘at home’ and Patrick replying with a terse ‘Fine’, they kept their conversations strictly about work. About what size ETT he wanted or which fluid to hang or which drug to draw up. About allergies and difficult airways and hard-to-place IVs.
Trying to carry on as normal in front of the girls was the most difficult. Luckily Miranda had insisted that they not be openly affectionate or demonstrative over the previous months so they were able to carry on as they always had with each other without the girls figuring something was up. They just did fewer things together as a foursome.
She often still picked Ruby up from school for Patrick and the girls still had play dates but the focus was on Ruby and Lola getting together, not all of them getting together as a unit. Miranda and Patrick dropped and picked up but never stayed or lingered.
And Miranda was pretty sure they hadn’t noticed. Certainly not Lola anyway, who was as oblivious as usual to anything outside her own existence.
A month after their separation Miranda was allocated to Patrick’s morning theatre list and the butterflies she always felt when she had to work with him and pretend that he wasn’t the best lover she’d ever known turned to pterodactyls clawing at the inside of her stomach as Patrick’s thunderous mood grabbed hold and shook everyone who came close. Even his famous ease with the patients was a little worn around the edges.
He looked like he hadn’t slept all night and not even his sexy pink scrubs were endearing him to anyone.
‘Okay, Patrick,’ she said as she stormed into the anaesthetic room between patients. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
Patrick turned as her anger practically reached out and yanked him round. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to stay out of his business but her big green eyes stroked something inside him and what he really wanted to do was to grab hold of her and never let her go.
But she’d made it clear that wasn’t an option.
He sagged against the bench, the fight draining out of him. ‘Nothing,’ he sighed, lifting his hand to his forehead and massaging his temples briefly. ‘Katie is coming for tea tonight... Ruby’s going to be meeting her for the first time and I feel so sick about it I’m taking it out on everyone else.’
Miranda nodded. Lola had casually announced last night that Ruby’s real mummy was coming to tea. She’d tried to gently probe Lola for more information but Lola was her usual egocentric self and it just felt wrong to dig.
‘This is a big first step,’ she said. ‘It’s a taken a while to get there.’
Patrick nodded. ‘I told Katie she had to be settled here first, get a job, prove to me that she was going to stick around and then we’d talk about her being involved with Ruby.’ He grimaced. ‘She had a market stall gig and Helen helped her rent a small flat four suburbs away within three weeks.’
‘Ah.’ Miranda understood. ‘You thought you’d have longer.’
‘Yep.’
‘Well...that’s good, right?’ she enquired gently. ‘She’s trying to prove to you that she’s serious.’
‘Yep.’
‘Have you guys come up with some kind of plan?’
Patrick shifted against the bench behind him. ‘Weekly visits for a while, tea at my place, until Ruby gets to know Katie better. Then a Saturday outing together, Katie and Ruby and Helen.’
‘Oh, it’s good that Helen will be there.’
‘Yes. I feel better about that. And then...’ he shrugged ‘...we’ll see. Katie’s being very amenable.’
Miranda heard the grudging respect and tried not to read any more into it. ‘Has she...has Katie talked about what happened? Why she took off?’ Miranda asked.
She knew she didn’t have any right to ask and he had every right to tell her to mind her own business, but she couldn’t contain her curiosity.
‘She said she had a bit of breakdown. Postnatal depression. That when she walked out that day she was in a total fugue state. She doesn’t even remember that she rang one of her old party friends who picked her up and they camped out on a beach near Byron Bay for two weeks. When she discovered that people thought she was missing, possibly murdered, she made that phone call.’
Miranda blinked. It was a hard situation to comprehend. Katie had obviously needed medical help. ‘And then what?’
‘She reckons she went into a state of denial, convinced herself that because she didn’t have any feelings for her baby that Ruby was better off without her.’
‘So she just...dropped out?’
‘Pretty much. She reverted to her maiden name, blocked me, our marriage and Ruby out, and she and a few other hippy types just travelled around, getting jobs where they could. Fruit picking. Busking. Living hand to mouth. It’s where she rediscovered her artistic side and got into portrait sketching.’
‘So...did she have some kind of epiphany recently?’
Patrick folded his arms and crossed one ankle over the other. ‘One of her friends got pregnant and she started having flashbacks. They were in Darwin and she started seeing a shrink and had therapy for almost a year. She’s on medication now and has already hooked up with a local psychologist the Darwin guy recommended.’
Miranda felt strangely teary. She was happy that Katie seemed to have got her life together. Happy for her and for Ruby. ‘Well, I’m sure tonight’s going to go okay. Katie’s obviously keen to make a good impression.’
Patrick knew that but he knew after tonight things would never be the same and frankly it scared him senseless. For so long he’d only known one way to parent and now he had to embrace another. ‘I’m sure it will,’ he murmured, as much for his own benefit as hers.
And then the phone rang to let Miranda know the next patient was at the entrance and they both went back to their corners.
* * *
A month later Miranda knocked on Patrick’s door one Friday afternoon to drop Lola off for a sleepover. She was expecting Helen so it was a shock when Katie answered the door.
‘Oh...hi,’ Miranda said as Lola gave her a quick hug around her waist then raced inside with Ruby.
Miranda was struck by how much Ruby looked like her mother. It was uncanny.
‘Hi.’ Katie smiled. ‘I’m sorry, we haven’t met officially yet.’ She held out her hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Miranda. Mum’s told me a lot about you.’
Miranda’s heart raced, not entirely sure that was good news. She and Helen had always got along but she’d known Helen had found Patrick’s burgeoning relationship with her difficult.
‘I’m just here for tea,’ Katie said hastily. ‘Why don’t you come in? Patrick should be home soon. Actually, why don’t you stay for tea?’
Miranda shook her head, knowing that it would be too difficult to watch the Patrick and Katie show. ‘Oh, no, I don’t want to...intrude. I’ll be back in the morning to pick up Lola.’
‘No, wait, please,’ Katie said, putting her hand on Miranda’s arm. ‘Stay. You should stay.’ Katie hesitated for a moment. ‘It was never my intention to create trouble for you and Patrick. Blind Freddy can see that he loves you. And he deserves to be happy. I’m sure we could sit down and work it all out if we really tried.’
Miranda believed her. But this wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want to be in a relationship that was complicated and messy and weighed down by baggage. She’d escaped that and she wasn’t going back again.
She pulled away. ‘No...I’m sorry...I’m very happy for you...and for Ruby but...’
Katie gave her a gentle smile. ‘You love him too. I can see it in your eyes.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No.’ She didn’t. She hadn’t let herself go there. ‘I...have to go... Tell Lola I’ll pick her up at ten.’<
br />
She didn’t wait for a reply. She just turned away and headed for the car and home, far away from Katie’s ridiculous notion.
* * *
By the time Monday came around Miranda felt like she was holding back a tidal wave inside her. Her head pounded, her stomach was screwed in a knot so tight she doubted even the most experienced sailor would be able to undo it, and her heart felt like a boulder in her chest.
Katie’s words had reverberated round and round her head all weekend. You love him too.
No.
No, no, no.
She couldn’t love him. She just wouldn’t allow it.
She was grateful Patrick had a day off today because running into him would have been too, too much. He’d been in her head solidly for the last forty-eight hours and she’d had enough.
She refused to think about him any more.
She refused to love him.
And she refused to cry about it.
She was going to spend eight blissful hours absorbed with important things like life and death. Things she had control over. Things she could do something about.
And Patrick Costello be damned.
That worked really well until the last case, an emergency Caesarean section.
Miranda loved these cases best. There was a hum of expectation in the air that infected everyone. Even more so if the mother was having an epidural and had her partner in tow.
There was nothing better than that moment when the baby first cried and everyone in the operating theatre who’d been holding their breaths finally smiled. You couldn’t see them beneath the masks, but they were the types of smiles that went all the way to the eyes.
Witnessing a new life coming into the world was always magical.
It was true goose-bump material.
Miranda sat at the head of the operating table with the couple as the surgeons draped and prepped. In this situation it was her job to talk the couple through each stage of the operation, keep them calm and focussed while the anaesthetist managed the epidural.
