Almost Mine Page 7

  ‘I never doubt you,’ I told him with assured confidence as I sleepily rolled into him and moulded to his body.

  ‘So why not be happy?’

  ‘Do you know what would make me the happiest woman in the world?’ I kissed the soft hair that covered his chest; my lingering lips, roaming like his fingers, answered the question for him.

  ‘Show me,’ he murmured before kissing me deeply as he lifted my leg and fit it to the shape of his waist. He entered me, giving me no need make any move of my own.

  It was Test Day; the day that I would find out whether or not Nick and I had in fact made a baby on that wistful afternoon two weeks ago, and, as always on Test Day, I allowed myself to feel the excitement that I couldn’t deny if I tried.

  In the few minutes before the result came to light I was always drawn into the fantasy that I was pregnant, and I’d allow myself to feel love for the child growing inside me, just as I did two years ago when I was actually having a baby. I pictured myself bringing the baby home from hospital and placing him gently into his bed, and feeding him on the balcony as the warm sun shone and the birds sang and butterflies fluttered in the garden. I imagined birthdays and the excitedly frantic ripping of wrapping paper on Christmas morning. I imagined reading a bedtime story to my child, and just as he drifted and I tucked him in, he would sleepily say, ‘I love you, Mummy’ and I would weep because they are the sweetest words to hear from such a sweet boy. I’d never voice these thoughts aloud, to anyone, not even to Nick. I knew I was being cruel to myself, but, nonetheless, they were there. So, why not indulge in them; that is, after all, the point of a fantasy isn’t it?

  ‘You know, my clairvoyant told me that a baby was in the near future, so I just know that it will be positive,’ Lucy’s voice rabbited on from the other side of the ensuite door. I stood at the antique timber vanity as I stared at myself in the mirror because I couldn’t bring myself to peek down at yet another pregnancy test.

  ‘Well, she had better be right this time. You never did meet that tall handsome soldier that she assured you would be the man of your dreams, though, so forgive my hesitation to rely on the opinion of the old swindler.’

  ‘Pessimist.’

  I laughed once. ‘Correction. Realist. I’m yet to see the soldier, or the new baby that she told you about for that matter. So, when I see it, I’ll be willing to be a little less sceptical about your dodgy fortune teller friend who gets paid to tell people what they want to hear.’ I dared a peek at the test. No result yet. ‘I may even be willing to see her myself.’

  ‘Really?’ Lucy said with animated excitement. ‘That would be so cool, Catey.’

  ‘Don’t get all crazy. It’s a promise that I’m sure I won’t have to honour.’

  Lucy laughed. ‘Pessimist.’

  ‘Realist.’

  I impatiently waited for the five minutes to be up, praying that, just this one time, please, let there be a friend for that lonely pink line that I had despairingly seen every month for the past twenty four months. I squeezed my eyes closed before I peered down, and whispered good luck, allowing myself to finally see the inevitable. Negative.

  Not again.

  ‘Catey?’ Lucy whined.

  I wiped the silent, disappointed tears from my face and did my best to compose myself. Taking a deep breath, I reached for the door handle and opened it, shaking my head to answer Lucy’s impatient expression.

  ‘I just don’t under — understand,’ I hiccupped as disappointment released and I was pulled into Lucy’s arms, hushing me with reassuring words that honestly made no difference. It was utter despair to try this hard for a baby that you thought you deserved, only to have been told no, over and over again. ‘We really thought that this time…’ I cried hopelessly.

  Of course, when life gets all too hard, Lucy’s remedy for heartbreak was a packet of Tim Tams — double choc and not the original because she just couldn’t go back once she’d discovered them — and a bottle of the winery’s finest and oldest red. She pressed “play” on the iPod dock that sat at the ready on the side table, and allowed Missy Higgins to lullaby the story of my life as the anaesthetising wine slipped down the back of my throat.

  So we lay comfortably on the king size timber bed in the master bedroom, and after an hour or two, as Missy sung about scars and lovers who knew that they belonged together even though it pained them to hold on, finally I was satisfied that I was suitably sedated. Lucy distracted me from my misgivings and shared her own. I appreciated the effort to relate to the heartbreak and frustration, but, I also knew that deep down, Lucy had no real idea of what I felt.

  It was no secret that Lucy had no desire to have her own family, that was for sure. Even from a young age, as we lay back dreaming of our perfect futures, Lucy had always emphasised her strong dislike of children: stinky and irritating creatures.

  She continued with her latest drama.

  ‘He told me that I was his reason for living and that without me he would be nothing, just another “lost soul suspended above the world in interludes of aimlessness.”’ She snickered at the belated recognition of how ridiculous it sounded before drinking down the last of the wine. Then a mischievous grin spread across her mouth. ‘But fuck me, the things he could do with his tongue. And he told me that he loved me in four languages…anyway,’ she shook herself out of her own thoughts, ‘then I found him in my bed with another of his reasons for living and I told him to take his shit and piss off!’ Lucy shrugged as she lay down with me, face to face on the fluffy pillows. ‘He was a dickhead anyway, and I was only upset for a millisecond. Why on earth do I attract these men? Why can’t I have my own Nick Mathieson?’

  To be honest, I didn’t even know why Lucy was here. I never intended to ever have her present during Test Day, but she always seemed to wheedle an invitation out of me. Why did she care if I was pregnant? Maybe she didn’t; maybe what she cared about was me permanently stealing Nick away from her.

  ‘There is no other Nick Mathieson,’ I said before I cried again. ‘I have him. He is mine. I just want to be more for him.’

  ‘Such nonsense from such an intelligent woman,’ Nick’s warm voice filled the room. I sat up to see him moving toward me, pulling me up to sit with him on our bed. ‘Please don’t cry,’ he murmured as he lifted my face to him. He always kissed me so beautifully.

  ‘She’s been like this all afternoon,’ Lucy explained as she scooted to perch next to him, sobering a touch. ‘This one’s been rough.’

  Without answering her he held my gaze as he read my mind, connecting as if we were one. Even with another person present, we were alone, acknowledging only what mattered.

  ‘Should I go?’ she asked only Nick as she leaned closer to him.

  ‘I think you should. Thanks, Lucy, I can take it from here.’ He held my face between his palms so as to get a long look at my swollen face. He wiped my tears with his thumbs.

  ‘You’ll be ok, Catey. I’ll call you tomorrow.’ Lucy rubbed my knee, but all I could do was cry. ‘Call me later, Nick.’

  Once Lucy had stepped foot outside of our bedroom, Nick lifted me onto the middle of our bed and wrapped his guarding arms around me. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll go to the doctor and we’ll sort this out once and for all,’ he murmured into my hair a while later, just before I had almost cried myself to sleep.

  I shuddered with sadness. ‘I don’t think that will help. I’m being punished.’

  ‘Again with such nonsense,’ he chuckled, but his reaction made me cry again. ‘I’m sorry, angel. Tell me why you’re being punished,’ he said in earnest, but lending no weight to such absurdity. He wanted to allow me the chance to give him reason to, though. I lifted my wet, swollen eyes to him in the darkening room.

  ‘It’s because I was cruel to you for all of those years, because I knew that you wanted me and I pushed you aside. I had Roy and rubbed him in your face,’ I sobbed ashamedly.

  ‘You did that intentionally?’ He was taken aback.

&n
bsp; ‘No, but still, I knew what it did to you and I didn’t do a thing to protect your feelings. We were friends and I just disregarded you because with Roy I thought that I had a life and I didn’t want to be boring and…and sad anymore.’

  Nick sat up and pulled me with him. We sat face to face, but Nick had to lift my chin with an index finger so that he could see into my eyes.

  ‘Don’t ever think for one minute that you did anything wrong by me, ok? You lived, Cate. You tried to move on from the life that was suffocating you, the life that was impacted with things that you couldn’t control, or were any of your own doing. You did your best to heal.’ He lifted my chin once more as it slowly dropped to my chest. ‘Me, on the other hand, I spent my time pining for someone who I knew was too good for me. Maybe my cowardice is taking us down this path.’ He smiled briefly as he gladly took the blame.

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  Nick let out a deep, resigned sigh. ‘I place no legitimacy in using the universe to explain what we can’t explain, you know that, but you do seem to think that our karma has played a hand in deciding the outcome of our lives. For the sake of easing your pain, I will indulge you this time. I’m just saying that maybe it’s not your karma that’s haunting us,’ he shook his head. ‘I was too blasé about you back then. I loved you with everything that I had, but I just shrugged and walked away. Maybe I’m being punished for not having the guts to fight for you.’

  I sat up on my knees in the middle of our bed and wiped my face, clearing my head as I awaited his perspective.

  ‘What do you really think?’ I asked. ‘Honestly?’

  ‘That you think that you’re being punished for another reason.’

  ‘Why is that?’ I carefully asked.

  ‘Because I’ve never known you be so trivial. You think that you’re being punished for trying to find your way? I think it’s more than karma, Cate.’

  My guilty heart pummelled.

  ‘Tell me if you want to. Don’t if you’re not ready. But know that you’re in a safe place with me. No matter the reason, I’m never going anywhere.’

  I swallowed hard. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘It’s ok, angel. Nothing is insurmountable to us. We are a team. We can beat anything.’ He pulled me back to him, and kissed my hair. ‘It will all turn out ok, you’ll see.’

  I cuddled into his embrace as my exhausted, swollen eyes drooped closed. ‘I hope you’re right, Nick.’

  Chapter 7

  Aside from the drone of an old, reluctant tractor in the mid distance as it trailered lucerne to hungry horses, peace prevailed. So sitting on the second level veranda with the morning sun shining on my face was a refreshing, peaceable way to start my day, especially while eating a breakfast prepared by my devoted husband, and after a good, long kiss goodbye, also courtesy of my devoted husband.

  Nick had left for work, leaving me to rethink my approach to this whole baby-making issue with fresh, well rested eyes. Perhaps he was right; the problem was that we’d placed too much pressure on ourselves in our overeager efforts to begin our family. We’d been working hard at it for two years; maybe he was right about being worn out. Perhaps before we made this trip to the doctor — that I had been avoiding because there would be no way on this earth that I would survive hearing what I intuitively believed to be true — we should just take a break, have a change of scenery. Maybe that would encourage our bodies to give us what we wanted and not continually prove that I didn’t deserve anything worthy in my life. I’d lost the privilege years ago, I thought.

  After showering, I set off for the winery to meet Nick with a flask of chicken and vegetable soup, intent on distracting myself. It was bitterly cold, so I wrapped my wool jacket around my body as I found him in the vineyard.

  I watched him with pride while he worked, and, from my unseen position, I wondered again what was holding me back from this man. My brows furrowed and my teeth ground with frustration as Nick stacked and sorted barrels of over-ripened grapes. I could make out his flexing muscles even under the heavy shirt he was wearing.

  Since building the homestead and working hard to bring the winery into its own, Nick’s body had also built up. His broad shoulders carried so much weight, so, of course, they had hardened, along with his arms, his stomach and his back that I trailed my fingers along almost daily…nightly…whenever I wanted to try and create a baby. Love him I willed myself, begging my stubborn heart as I closed my eyes.

  Love this extraordinary man who would give me the moon and every tiny star surrounding it.

  My eyes still lay dreamily closed as I remembered things about Nick that were not at all unlovable. He’d whisper to me. Just when he thought that I was asleep, he’d whisper everything that he wasn’t brave enough to say while I was awake. Things about how much he loved me, about how he was breathless at the thought of being blessed just to have this one chance at a life with me, and it would break my heart as I would lay in our bed attempting to keep my breath steady while he’d tell my how he knew that eventually I’d come to my senses about my rash decision to marry him back then.

  Stop holding back, I whispered to myself, why won’t you just let go and love this man who would give you the moon… I sucked in a sudden sharp breath as my eyes flung open to the startling sound of a snapping twig and I saw who was standing in front of me. Nick smiled as he came to stand with me.

  ‘I would, you know,’ he smiled wider. I cleared my throat, straightening myself.

  ‘You’d what?’ My voice croaked anyway. Nick watched me and his amusement faded slightly when he recognised the glaze, the thin layer of protection that covered the truth within me. He didn’t answer, but watched for any sign of weakening, a chink in my armour.

  My lips pursed together.

  His smile faded altogether. ‘We’ve been married a while now, Cate. Why do you still do that?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Edit yourself with me.’

  ‘I was just having a private moment. Anyway, I don’t edit.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘Of course you do. Don’t hide from me. I’m your husband, your best friend, not somebody to conceal yourself from. If you want to love me so much, why don’t you get out of your own head and do something about it? But, just out of curiosity, what is holding you back?’

  I glared at him as if I’d just caught him reading my private journal. He raised his eyebrows daringly at me and glared back.

  ‘Or do I already know?’

  I hesitated and scrambled for a different excuse, but I understood that he did already know.

  ‘I hate myself for it,’ I said in a small voice.

  ‘The heart wants what the heart wants, Cate, or more to the point, who the heart wants.’

  ‘I hate myself for it,’ I repeated as my head suddenly felt like lead and it hung with guilt.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll work it all out.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Hey, I didn’t mean to...’ He lifted my chin with his finger, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t get impatient with you. I knew what I was getting myself into.’

  ‘I’m the one who should be sorry. I just thought that I was all grown up and knew all about love and that I knew exactly how it should feel. But I’ve only known one kind of love, and I’m sorry beyond belief if this hurts, but I just don’t know if I’m capable of giving you the love that you give me. It all seems too much; to give everything to someone. What if they take it all and…and…’ I faltered.

  He pulled me into his arms, holding me as tight as he could without squeezing my breath out of me. ‘I’m not your mother. I can understand that it must be easier to love someone like Roy; he doesn’t expect anything from you and you don’t really expect anything real from him. It’s the broken promises that you’re terrified of, isn’t it?’

  I nodded against his chest.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, Cate. And I’ll tell you that as many times as you need to hear it.’ He pulled back and held my wet face in my
hands. ‘I love you, and I’m just as scared as you are.’ He kissed me. ‘I love you, so much.’

  ‘We are our own worst enemy.’

  He kissed my once more and then gestured for us to sit. ‘Come on, let’s take a load off. Drag in a breath of fresh air and start this lovely impromptu visit over.’

  Eucalypt filled our nostrils and calmed us.

  ‘Is that for me?’ Nick gestured toward the flask. I handed it to him and he took a couple of short, tentative sips. ‘Deliciously hot, thank you.’

  We sat for a few moments in the quiet of our shady surroundings and looked out at our sprawling livelihood. Nick sipped his soup and I cleared my mind of my inappropriate thoughts of another man. There was a more pressing job at hand.

  ‘I think we should go on a holiday. Maybe to somewhere warmer than here,’ I proffered as I leaned back on the worn post and rail fence. Nick seemed to ponder this idea, taking another sip as he relaxed next to me. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think that’s a great idea, but we’re about to start replanting so it’s not the most ideal time for us to be away.’

  ‘I know, but when would be a good time? Because I think it would benefit us to relax our bodies, you know, rejuvenate.’

  ‘I agree, but I can’t get away for a while. I’m run off my feet. It’s getting to the point that I may need to hire a few more hands.’ We were quiet as I searched for a solution. Now that I’d set my mind to this I’d decided that I wouldn’t be defeated. ‘Maybe you should take a break with Lucy,’ Nick suggested.

  ‘With Lucy? I’m not sure she’d be up for that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ve not noticed? And here I was thinking that I was the only stunted one when it came to matters of the heart.’

  He was either dumbfounded or very good at disregarding the increasingly palpable attraction that his friend felt for him. One expression that was decipherable on his face was his astute refusal to never allow anything to get in the way of my happiness. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me.