A Life Worth Living

by Amanda Canham

  ‘I never knew you could feel so much love for one being. It didn’t take long for him to grow, though. Over those first few months he put on weight rapidly. And he started to smile, and gurgle, and I know he recognised me. His eyes would light up when I’d get home. He loved his bouncer. Amber would put him in it during the day, and he would stay there for hours and hours. The nights were a killer, though. He’d only sleep for a couple of hours at a time. For five months we were continually getting up during the night with him. That kind of sleep deprivation does funny things to the brain. I craved sleep. All I could think about was sleeping, each night hoping that this one would be the night where he slept through, but it never happened.

  I stopped setting an alarm for work, because Tyler was always up by four. Then one night he actually did it—he slept through. At the time I didn’t even realise that my wish had been granted—I just slept, and slept, and slept. I woke up feeling groggy and disoriented. We both did. There was sunlight streaming through the window. I reached over and grabbed the alarm clock. It was ten. We jumped out of bed and ran into Tyler’s room, but it was too late.’

  ‘Oh, Cam,’ Stacey whispered against his chest.

  Cameron looked down at her then, as though remembering she was there for the first time.

  ‘Yeah. . .’ Cameron exhaled the word out. ‘We called an ambulance and they brought him in to the hospital, but there was nothing they could do. Too much time had passed.’

  Her heart went out to him. To the pain he must have felt. The pain he was still feeling.

  ‘I still. I just think, if only I’d set an alarm. If only I’d gotten up and checked on him. He might still be alive. If I’d caught him sooner. If I’d realised he had breathing problems, that that’s what had probably been waking him up. . .’

  ‘Oh, Cam. You can’t do that to yourself. It was a terrible, horrible, tragedy, but it wasn’t your fault. Even if you’d done all of those things you still may not have saved him.’

  ‘I know. I know in my head that you’re right. But here,’ he smashed a fist into his chest, over his heart. ‘In here, I wish I’d done more. Somehow there must have been some way I could have saved him.’

  Stacey laid her head against his chest, silent tears coursing down her cheeks. She stared out at nothing, imagining a young Cameron finding his baby like that. Trying to deal with the grief and move on with his life. How could he move on, though? How could anyone ever get past something like that?

  ‘I wish I could take away your pain, somehow, Cam. I wish you’d never had to go through that,’ Stacey said, rubbing her hand in circles around his chest.

  ‘But that’s the thing,’ he said, abstractly smoothing the hair away from her face. ‘If that’s all the time I could ever have with Tyler, I’d do it all over again, in a heartbeat. Those five months mean more to me than anything else in this world.’

  ‘But if you had another child, you’d have that time again, and maybe longer. You could watch this child grow up and experience the joy you felt in those five months for years.’

  ‘That’s what Amber thought. She wanted to start trying for another baby almost straight away. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to Tyler because what would that do to the memories of Tyler? How does five months compare to fifteen, twenty, forty years? It doesn’t. If I had another child, would I just forget about Tyler? Forget how precious my time with him was?’

  ‘You wouldn’t forget,’ Stacey said, pushing herself up on his chest so she could look him in the eye. ‘Your heart would just expand. You have a massive heart inside here, Cameron,’ she continued, running a finger over his chest. ‘You have so much love to give. I can see it at work, how dedicated you are to those children. But now I realise it’s more than that. Tyler has a special place in here that would never be taken, but you would have room for others.’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that. No-one can be sure. And I can’t take that risk.’ ‘It would be different with me, though. You wouldn’t have to have a relationship with my child. There would be no risk of my child taking Tyler’s place in your heart, because they wouldn’t have a place there.’

  ‘How could a child, any child of mine not have a place in my heart? Even if we stopped seeing each other out of work, I would still hear about the child, see photos, and watch it grow up—even if it was from a distance. I’d either resent the child for having the life Tyler never did, or I wouldn’t be able to stay away and then my time with Tyler would fade from my memory, replaced by this child.’

  ‘But, Cam—’

  ‘No, Stacey. I can’t. If there was some other way I could make this happen for you, I would. But I just, I can’t. I promised Tyler that I’d never replace him. That’s a promise I have to keep.’

  He was wrong. She knew he was wrong. How could someone as kind, as caring, as loving as Cam not have room in his heart for more than one child?

  But she could tell he’d made his mind up and it was so frustrating that there was nothing she could do to change it. He’d been crippled by the loss of his son, and had no intention of trying to recover from it.

  All she could do was accept that this idea she’d had, which had seemed so perfect, would never come to fruition. Cameron would never give her a child.

  The pain of this loss was so intense. Too intense. She hadn’t realised how much she’d been banking on his agreement. It had only been for a day or two, a week at the most that she’d been thinking about it. But she knew, now that the option had been taken away from her, that it was what she wanted more than anything.

  She couldn’t have it, though, and there was nothing she could do to change that.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Stacey. I want you to be happy. I want you to have a child, to experience the joys of parenthood. But I can’t give you that child.’

  ‘It’s okay, Cam. I understand. I really do. I didn’t know, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked.’

  And I wouldn’t have pinned all my hopes on it.

  But she didn’t say those last words out loud, because that would be too cruel. It wasn’t Cam’s fault she’d made assumptions she shouldn’t have. They’d set down the guidelines of their relationship from the outset, and it hadn’t involved children.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Stacey answered despondently. ‘Maybe I should keep going with the anonymous donor.’ It wasn’t ideal, but if it was her only option. . .

  ‘You can’t do that. Well, you can, but maybe you should wait. You’re still young. You have plenty of time left to fall in love, and have children with the man of your dreams.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  What were the chances of falling in love a third time, anyway?

  Wait!

  She’d only been in love once, right? With Brian.

  But even as she thought the words, she knew they weren’t true.

  Had she really been that stupid? How could she have gone and fallen in love with Cameron?

  She couldn’t have. They were only having a casual fling. She’d sworn to herself that she would never, ever, be so stupid as to fall in love again.

  She looked up at his chiselled face, looked deep into the blue eyes that were engraved in her heart and knew the truth.

  She loved him.

  Somehow, over the last few months she had fallen head over heels in love. And now, instead of being content to have a child through an anonymous donor as she’d planned, all she could think about was having his baby.

  How pathetic!

  ‘What is it? You’ve worked it out, haven’t you?’

  ‘What? Worked what out?’

  Surely he couldn’t have read her mind?

  ‘How to have your child.’

  ‘No. I. . .I realised I need to get that roast out of the oven before it burns,’ Stacey said, jumping up from his lap and racing into the kitchen. She had to get away from those perceptive eyes before she gave too much away. The worst possible thing that could happen would be for C
am to find out she loved him before she wanted him to. She needed a plan. She needed to know what she was going to do with her future, with her baby, with her. . .Cam.

  She yanked open the oven door and pulled the lamb out. It was a little crispy on top, and she hoped it would still be edible on the inside.

  A bit like her heart.

  She’d thought it was done and dusted after Brian. But somewhere, deep inside, there’d still been a part of her that was capable of falling in love.

  This time, though, it wasn’t the soft, gentle glow of first love. It wasn’t rolled in with affection for his family, joy at acceptance, at finding a place that felt like home.

  This time it was deep and strong, woven into every fibre of her being. This wasn’t a love to be trifled with, a heartbreak she could recover from.

  It almost felt like Brian had been a trial run, preparing her for the real deal with Cameron.

  How could she continue to keep things casual now that she knew she was in love with him? Maybe she should end things now. Send him away before her love for him made her do something stupid, like give up on her desire for a child.

  She started slicing into the lamb.

  She’d never give up on her dream for a child. The very thought was anathema to her. No. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

  But if she didn’t, she would lose Cam.

  Her heart broke at the thought. Maybe Cameron might fall in love with her and change his mind about having a child.

  No! She couldn’t think like that. It was clear that his pain, his grief at losing Tyler was so deeply ingrained that he would never change his mind. And to think otherwise would just be giving herself false hope.

  It would have to be her. If she wanted this to work, if she wanted to spend her life with Cam—which she did, she could see that now—she would have to give up on having a child. On having a family of her own.

  Pain ripped through her at the thought. She didn’t know if she could do that. She didn’t know if she should.

  But neither did she know if she could face the consequences of not giving up on the child. Of losing Cam.

  The lamb took a battering as she fought with the thoughts in her mind.

  ‘And we’re supposed to be eating that?’ Cameron asked with a laugh, startling her from her reverie.

  Stacey looked down at the lamb and realised there were no nice, juicy edible slices. The meat had just flaked away under her knife.

  She looked up at Cam, his eyes alight with amusement, a smile upon his face.

  Oh, God, how she loved him.

  She was never going to have a family!

  She felt the tears well up in her eyes.

  ‘Hey, hey, it’s alright. We’ll just get some take-out,’ Cam said, pulling her into his arms and cradling her against his chest.

  ‘It’s not the lamb. It’s, it’s—’

  ‘I know. I know. And I wish things were different and I could do this for you.’

  Stacey looked up at him, confused for a moment. Was he talking about her love?

  No. He wasn’t.

  He was talking about the child he couldn’t give her.

  She felt as though she was finely balanced upon a precipice. She could go one of two ways. She could give in to the tears and cry out all her pain right here and now, in front of him. Or she could push them back, deep inside her, and enjoy the night with Cam. She knew, without a doubt, that if he knew how much it cost her to give up her dreams, she would lose all chance of a future with him. And then she really would have no one.

  So she pushed the tears down, deep inside and pasted a watery smile on her face.

  ‘Take-out sounds good.’

  Chapter 9

  Twenty minutes later they were sitting at her dinner table, chopsticks in hand, sharing some honey prawns and satay chicken.

  ‘How about Matt?’ Cam asked, looking up from his dish.

  ‘What about Matt?’

  ‘As the donor. You’re friends with him, right? Maybe he would do it for you.’

  ‘Oh, gross,’ Stacey said, wrinkling her nose. ‘I would never sleep with Matt.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have to sleep with him. You could just use the IVF procedure.’

  ‘Oh, well, in that case,’ Stacey tapped the chopsticks against her forehead, as though she was giving the matter some deep thought. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ Cameron thought it was a good option. He was trying his hardest to think of a way for Stacey to still have this child, but she was rejecting all his ideas.

  ‘It would be too weird. What, am I just supposed to walk up to a colleague and say, “Can I have your child?”?’

  ‘But you’re friends,’ Cameron protested.

  ‘Not that close. Not, “I want us to have some form of link between us for the rest of our lives” close.’

  ‘You said yourself that there didn’t have to be any contact between donor and child.’ ‘I guess. But it would still be weird. Five years from now I’d look down at my child and see Matt’s eyes shining up at me. I don’t want that.’

  ‘So looking into your child’s eyes and wondering where they came from is preferable to knowing they came from a friend?’

  ‘I see your point. But, Matt? Is that the best there is?’

  ‘You could always ask Ed,’ Cameron answered with an impish grin.

  Stacey choked and bits of fried rice flew all over the table.

  ‘Alright, so maybe not Ed, but there has to be someone.’

  ‘There’s not. This is why I dismissed the option initially. There is no one else in my life that I would ask.’

  Cameron fell quiet for a moment as another person occurred to him.

  ‘What about your ex?’

  ‘Brian?’

  ‘Yes, him.’

  A maelstrom of emotions flickered across Stacey’s face. It shouldn’t, but it pained Cam to see how much of a hold this Brian still had over her. She was still hung up on him. That’s why she didn’t want to face the thought of making a family with another man. She was still in love with Brian.

  ‘No. No chance.’

  ‘He promised you a child. Surely he owes you that, at the very least.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But if you did that, you could have a child born from a man you loved.’

  ‘Geez, Cam, stop pressing the issue. I will not now, nor ever, have a child born of Brian’s seed. He is a waste of space, a man I was a fool to fall in love with and I wish I hadn’t wasted ten years of my life with him. I don’t want to be reminded of that every time I look at my child. Now can we stop talking about this? I just want to enjoy what’s left of tonight.’

  ‘Alright, I’ll stop. I was just trying to—’

  ‘I know what you were trying to do. And it’s sweet, but I don’t need it. This is my problem and I can figure it out on my own.’

  ‘Fine,’ Cam answered, trying not to be hurt as she swiftly cut him down to size. She was right. If he wasn’t going to contribute what she really wanted, then he shouldn’t be contributing at all.

  He just wanted her to be happy.

  He wanted to make her happy.

  But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t do that one thing for her.

  ‘Are you going to eat that last prawn there? Or can I steal it?’ Stacey asked, pointing her chopsticks towards the dish in front of him.

  ‘You have it,’ he said, pushing the container towards her.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Cam,’ Stacey said, as she picked up the last prawn.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘All sulky. I’m going to be fine. I’m a big girl, and I had these plans in place well before you came along. I’ll figure something out.’

  ‘I know, I just—’

  ‘Nope. No more seriousness tonight. I want to have some fun.’

  ‘Alright,’ Cam said, though he wasn’t feeling the same vibe. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  She didn’t answer him, just smiled a deliciously saucy smile that kicked
a shot of desire straight through him. Then he felt it, softly, hesitantly at first, her toe brushing against his foot. When he didn’t push it away she became bolder, sliding the foot up his calf and over his knee. He felt himself tingle in anticipation as her toes crept up his thigh, until there she was, her foot pressed against his manhood. She rubbed against his pants and he grew, pulsing to life, straining at the fabric containing him.

  And all the while she kept the saucy smile on her face, an eyebrow raised in query.

  He felt himself sinking into the chair, his hips drawn towards her foot.

  But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to see her, to touch her, the way he had so many times before.

  Now, tonight of all nights, he needed her.

  Cameron blinked his eyes open. Something had woken him. Weak sunlight streamed through the blinds, so it must be morning, but very early. Stacey was sprawled out across the bed, an arm and leg pinning him beneath her.

  Bzzz-bzzz.

  There it was again, the noise that woke him. It was his pager.

  He carefully slid out from underneath Stacey and hurried into the living room, picking the pager up off the kitchen bench where he’d left it last night. He quickly read the message, before phoning the hospital.

  Toby, his patient with muscular dystrophy, had been re-admitted through emergency. He gave instructions to the overnight registrar before hanging up the phone and slipping back to the bedroom to get dressed.

  Cam looked over at Stacey as he buttoned up his shirt, his breath catching. She looked so peaceful, sleeping there, her dark hair curling around her creamy shoulders. He wouldn’t wake her. They must have only had a few hours sleep before his pager rang.

  There had been something different about Stacey last night. They’d made love for hours, which was not unusual in itself. But Stacey had been insatiable, with an almost desperate need to lose herself in him. And he’d responded with equal force. Cam shivered at the memory.