Birthright

by Fiona Lowe

  No! She discarded the horrifying thought, reminding herself he’d telephoned her on the afternoon of his death, insisting she lunch with him and Cameron the following day. He wanted to see her, not leave her. For months after that call, she’d replayed the very normal conversation over and over in her head, but the only difference she could pinpoint from other catch-up phone calls was his insistence Cameron join them. Sarah remembered being pissy about that. It was enough that Cameron had Margaret’s undivided attention; she hated sharing her father with him too. Why had Kevin insisted on seeing them together? And why had he left Mingunyah at ten o’clock at night in the middle of a thunderstorm instead of his usual early-morning departure?

  Her family was a black hole of secrets and lies. Was there anyone who could help? The historical society? The footy club archives? Perhaps she could talk to someone at the hospital or the police station about the possibility of finding and reading her father’s autopsy report. Was there more to the car accident than she’d been told? She wanted details—hell, she wanted anything that might paint a picture of the truth, because she no longer believed anything her mother had told her.

  Her thoughts drifted to Mary Horton, still spry and very much alert. Did she know about her husband’s long affair with Margaret? Did she know about Ellie? Did Sarah have the right to ask?

  ‘Earth to Sarah?’ Edmund, now dressed, appeared by the bed holding a mug of tea.

  She sat up. ‘Sorry. I was thinking about … Mum.’

  ‘Today is supposed to be a day off from all that. Why don’t you book yourself a massage, or we can ski some runs? I’ve got two hours before I have to be at the restaurant to check everything’s ready for the investors’ dinner.’ His eyes lit up. ‘You should come to dinner and stay the night.’ He nuzzled her neck. ‘We haven’t spent a night together since our first time and waking up with you is wonderful.’

  She made herself smile. ‘As lovely as that sounds, I need to get back to Mingunyah—’

  ‘The doctor said your mother is in a vegetative state.’

  She sighed. ‘It’s not Mum, it’s Gus. I live in hope he’ll amble into the flat one day after school.’

  ‘This situation with him has gone on too long, Sarah. Let me talk to him.’

  Alex will have a pink fit. ‘You’re lovely, but it’s not a good idea.’

  Affronted, he sucked in his cheeks. ‘Gus and I have a bond.’

  ‘I know you do, but …’ She licked her lips. ‘He’s heard rumours about us and he asked me if we’re together. It was just after the first time we’d … I denied it but even so, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to talk to him.’

  ‘You denied it?’

  He sounded hurt and bewildered and her own remorse and shame sat like a medicine ball in her chest. She slid her hand into his. ‘Edmund, this isn’t about you or me or even us. He’s my son. I wasn’t about to discuss my sex life with him.’

  He gave her a rueful smile. ‘I understand. When things are more settled and you and Alex are legally separated, we will tell him together. We will tell all the children.’

  Shit! Finn and Emma hadn’t even been told about the separation and Edmund was talking about their future? The thousand-count thread sheets suddenly seemed impossibly heavy on her skin. ‘I— that’s—Thank you,’ she said lamely.

  ‘Sarah.’ His accent was suddenly more pronounced and tinged with disapproval. ‘You must tell Finn. You have waited too long already.’

  Her scalp tingled. ‘I’ve waited until he’s home and in the same room so I can answer his questions. He’s bringing friends to Riverbend this week.’

  ‘And Emma?’

  ‘Jesus, Edmund.’ She threw back the sheet, fished her discarded undies off the floor with her toes and pulled them on. ‘My daughter’s across the other side of the world. I’m not telling her until I can face her and hold her in my arms. If you don’t agree with this decision, then tough. They’re my kids.’

  ‘I know they are.’

  His quiet words slashed her. Oh God. How could she have said that to him? She fell to her knees beside him on the bed. He’d always been so loving with her kids both before and after one wet night ended his life as a husband and father and left him totally alone.

  ‘Edmund, I’m sorry.’ She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘With everything that’s happening … I’m floundering. It’s no excuse. Please. Forgive me.’

  ‘You’re forgiven.’ He kissed her and as she leaned away, her naked breasts brushed his chest and he kissed them. Her body shivered involuntarily and he smiled. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing to the window with its view across the back country. ‘It’s snowing. As you’re not dressed yet, I’m taking that as a sign.’

  Guilt drove her to acquiesce. She owed this generous man more than lying on her back and letting him pleasure her.

  She unbuttoned his shirt and was trailing kisses down his chest when Alex’s ringtone blared from her phone. Her head snapped up so fast, she almost took out Edmund’s jaw. Alex never called her anymore, he only sent curt texts.

  ‘Sorry, it might be Gus,’ she lied, rolling away and grabbing her phone from her bag. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Sarah, we’ve got a problem.’

  She tried not to snort her derision. ‘Just one?’

  ‘It’s Gus,’ he said, ignoring her quip. ‘He’s been arrested.’

  ‘What?’ She frantically picked up her clothes. ‘Why?’

  ‘The school said he punched some kid. Look, I’m leaving Riverbend now. I’ll be at the police station in half an hour. Don’t talk to anyone before I get there.’ The line went dead.

  Stunned, she turned to face Edmund. ‘I have to go. Gus is in custody at Mingunyah Police Station.’

  Edmund bounded to his feet. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  If she walked into the police station with Edmund it would be like throwing a lit match into a box of fireworks. Alex would go apeshit and they were still suffering the fallout from the last time Gus heard them hurling insults at each other. As much as she didn’t want to upset Edmund, Gus was her priority.

  ‘In this weather, it’s over an hour down the mountain let alone how long we’ll have to wait. You need to be at Hibiscus for the investors’ dinner.’ She kissed him. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You’ll need chains. Call me when you’re safely off the mountain.’

  ‘Of course.’ But her mind was already moving away from Edmund to her gentle son, who’d never struck anyone in his life, not even playing footy.

  * * *

  ‘You took your sweet time,’ Alex said grimly as the constable ushered Sarah into a private waiting area.

  Once you would have hugged and kissed me hello. ‘I wasn’t in Mingunyah when you called,’ she said, stating the obvious. ‘I’d have told you if you hadn’t hung up on me so fast.’

  His eyes raked her body, taking in her puffer jacket and her black après-ski pants. ‘No, I can see that. How is life on the mountain with Edmund?’

  ‘I could ask you how life is with Kelly, but can we please not do this right now?’ She glanced around. ‘Where’s Gus? Surely we should be with him?’

  Alex filled a plastic cup with water from the dispenser and handed it to her before pouring one for himself. ‘That’s what I said, but Graeme suggested he sit in a cell for a while and reflect before we rush in.’

  ‘What? So we just wait here?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What about the other boy? Is he here too? His parents? God, who are they? Do we know them?’ All the questions that had been racing around her head on the drive down the mountain spilled out.

  ‘Ever heard of Mason Raith?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, me neither. The family’s new to the valley but our son has put their son in hospital with a broken nose. Christ, Sarah.’ Alex paced. ‘First Gus throws his chance at the firsts and now this. What the hell’s going on with that kid? Thank God we didn’t have a fo
urth child.’

  His words scratched the scab on a wound that had never fully healed. ‘Yes, well, you took that decision out of our hands.’

  ‘Really?’ He stared at her, flabbergasted. ‘You’re bringing that up again? Now? For Christ’s sake, it’s been fifteen years. Let it go.’

  ‘That’s right, blame me. Add, “I had a vasectomy without telling my wife and she won’t let it go” to your list of Reasons Why Sarah Makes Me Unhappy.’

  His jaw stiffened. ‘It was the right thing to do.’

  ‘Do you realise that no matter how many times you say that, it doesn’t make me believe it? That it doesn’t change the fact that you made a life-altering decision without discussing it with me?’ The urge to hit something made her scrunch her plastic cup. The cracking sound reverberated around the small room and Alex flinched. ‘And as for “let it go”, I saw a counsellor for months to try to do just that.’

  His head dropped. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘No. Well, you wouldn’t, would you? I was the one with the problem, wasn’t I? I was the one who needed help to understand why my otherwise loving husband did something so drastic and so deceitful.’ She sat on the edge of the plastic chair. ‘I got as far as forgiving you, Alex, but as much as I’ve tried, and as much as I’ve wanted to, I can never fully forget. Sometimes it comes back and hurts me all over again.’

  The words tumbled out, driven by his absolute breach of faith and his cavalier treatment of her heart. ‘Do you want to know why I saw a counsellor? Because I loved you. You’d summarily taken a sledgehammer to our marriage and I wanted to save it. And I truly believed that we’d found our way through that dangerous and difficult time. That we’d come out intact and you were never going to hurt me that badly again. Boy, did I get that wrong. Guess the joke’s on me.’

  Emma had been four months old when she discovered Alex had gone in for a vasectomy. Sleep deprived and struggling to care for a baby, a toddler and a pre-schooler, as well as being sentient for Alex, his confession had blindsided her so badly she hadn’t been able to talk to him about it. That he had done something so significant without consulting her and savagely destroyed their long-time plans for a fourth child had encased her in a black fog of despair for weeks. By the time she’d come out of it, he’d taken her silence on the subject as acceptance. After that, whenever she tried to raise the topic, he became defensive. Now, seeing his taut and unsmiling face, she knew nothing had changed.

  Alex sat down hard and huffed out a breath. ‘I didn’t do it to hurt you.’

  But you left me bleeding just the same. It was pointless responding to his statement. They’d been over this ground so many times before there was nothing left to pick over. If she asked him why he’d done it, he’d just trot out the same answer he’d always used: three children were enough. She’d get angry and remind him that he was the one who’d always wanted four kids. And he’d yell, ‘I changed my mind, okay? People are allowed to do that.’

  She was sick and tired of arguing with him. In the weeks since she’d moved out of Riverbend, all their conversations had deteriorated into a slanging match at some point. Knowing they could both hurt each other so cruelly devastated her. How did two people who’d loved each other so well and for so long find themselves here?

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  He pulled at his ear and grimaced. ‘That depends. I’m not arguing with you here. They’re just as likely to throw us into the cells.’

  And just like that, the version of the man she loved, the man she’d glimpsed so infrequently lately—her Alex—was in the room.

  ‘You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.’ A flicker of surprise registered in his eyes but his face remained stony. She pushed on. ‘Do you have any regrets at all about the vasectomy?’

  He was silent, his gaze drifting to the ‘Dob in a Dealer’ poster on the wall.

  She waited, working hard on staying silent and not jumping in early—she knew he hated it when she did that, but it was a struggle. When a good minute had passed and he still hadn’t said anything, she rose and walked to the water cooler. It had nothing to do with thirst and everything to do with moving, doing something, anything, to temper her disappointment. But what had she really expected of him? Alex could talk about the goats, cheese, the global marketplace, and their machinery ad infinitum but his feelings almost never.

  ‘I thought you were going to die.’ His voice cracked on words that sounded as if they’d been wrung out of him.

  ‘What?’ Icy water cascaded over her fingers and she fumbled with the tap. ‘When?’

  ‘When Emma was born.’ He rubbed his hands back and forth on his thighs and shuddered. ‘There was so much blood. I can still hear the alarms screaming on those bloody machines. You were whiter than the sheets, you could barely talk and the midwife looked terrified. I watched them running. Yelling. Pushing you on the trolley into theatre and I had no idea if you were going to live or die.’

  His left leg bounced and the plastic chair creaked. ‘Later, they told me I was only waiting twenty minutes before the paediatrician came and found me and told me we had a daughter. But to me, those twenty minutes were eternity. It was a lifetime lived without you and raising the boys alone. I was in the nursery cuddling Emma when the obstetrician came in. Unlike the paediatrician, he looked like shit. He said it had been touch and go. You’d needed two blood transfusions and it was going to take you a while to get your energy back, but you’d be okay.

  ‘For weeks, my breathing sped up whenever I thought about how close I came to losing you. All I could think about was that I never wanted to live through anything like that again.’

  Her memories of that time were hazy. After the birth she’d been chronically anaemic, battling exhaustion and trying to breastfeed Emma while recovering from a caesarean section. No one at the hospital or at her post-natal check-up had ever mentioned she’d almost died. But they’d told Alex? Dear God, what a burden to carry alone.

  ‘I almost died? No one ever said.’

  ‘No. You had enough to deal with.’

  Her mind slipped and slid, trying to process this new information. ‘Are you telling me that you had a vasectomy so I couldn’t get pregnant again and die?’

  Humiliation hovered in the creases around his mouth. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Oh, Alex.’ Compassion and sadness rolled in, moderated by frustration as the same old question raised its head again. ‘Why didn’t you talk to me about it?’

  ‘Because you’d have tried to stop me. You’d have told me I was being ridiculous, that I was worrying unnecessarily and that everything would be fine. But you weren’t there, Sarah. You didn’t have to watch everything unravel so fast you questioned if it was even happening. I’ve never felt so powerless in my life as I did that day. I don’t regret having the vasectomy then and I don’t regret it now.’

  He suddenly slumped as if all the fight had drained out of him and, for the first time in his life, he looked as old as his years. ‘But I do regret what it did to us.’

  She recognised the softly spoken words as the apology she hadn’t known she was still waiting for after all these years. Up until the last few awful weeks, that year had been their most difficult. Devastated and grieving, she’d thrown herself into mothering, myopically focusing on the children as she struggled to come to terms with what Alex had done. The house at Riverbend became her domain and motherhood her mission. Alex retreated into the business, working harder than ever, frequently coming home late just as she’d got the boys settled. His arrival would hype them up again. She accused him of being an absent father. He accused her of sidelining him from the children’s lives.

  Emma’s first birthday had brought the turning point. As she surveyed the jumping castle, the open bar for parents and the cake with more fondant icing than an entry in the Royal Melbourne Show, she’d compared it to the small family gatherings she’d thrown for the boys. ‘Alex, I’ve gone completely overboard with
this party, haven’t I?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I think I need to come back to work.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’

  He’d leaned over and kissed her, relief bright in his eyes, and her world—off-kilter for so many months—found its axis. They gradually rediscovered their rhythm at work and quickly became the team they’d always been—equal partners—but at home she never completely forgot the child she’d hoped to have. She mothered everyone within her orbit and was the domestic controller of all their lives.

  Now, in the harsh white LED light of the police station, she studied Alex’s face. The lines around his eyes, the sooty stubble that appeared every day by three in the afternoon, the small white scar under his nose from a hockey injury and his dark caramel eyes were all so very familiar to her. Yet these last weeks proved they were a façade that stood in front of hidden depths.

  At home you treat me like one of the kids.

  He’d hurled that accusation at her the day she’d left Riverbend and she’d hotly denied it. But now she wondered if there was some truth to it. She could confidently say she didn’t treat him like a child at work, but at home … Her gut cramped. Up until this year, before Finn left for university and Emma went on exchange, home life was frantic. Just the sheer logistics of coordinating the kids’ diverse activities so one of them was in attendance was sometimes more complicated and strategic than dealing with DFAT to get a shipment of cheese to China. She’d once read that families with structure were happier, so with that in mind, and to minimise chaos, she’d organised. She’d shouted commands. She’d told Alex what they were doing, when they were doing it and the times and places he was required—then she’d plugged it all into his electronic calendar. She’d thought she was helping.