Almost Mine (22 page)

‘I feel awful that you did, too. But as misguided as it was, I know that you were trying to protect me.’

‘I was, but a lot of good that did.’

This situation reminded me of when he rescued me from my wet lawn all of those years ago. Could I ever do without his protection? ‘Don’t ever lie to me again, though. I’m a big girl and as long as I have you on my side, I can handle anything.’

‘I promise you that I won’t. I’ve been feeling so sick since I found out. I thought I was going to suffocate every time I opened my mouth to you. It took all I had not to say anything.’

‘I think I understand why you did, though. I love you, Nick.’

He lifted my chin with his finger so that he could kiss me. ‘Do you want to see Lucy?’

‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’

‘Ok. Should I?’ he asked cautiously.

As I thought about it something belatedly occurred to me.

‘Why were you wet when you came home this afternoon?’

I felt him tense.

‘She wasn’t well afterwards.’

‘Of course not.’ I waited for him to continue. ‘And…’

‘She fell in the shower.’

Instantly my entire body inflamed with jealousy. ‘Oh.’

‘I couldn’t just leave her there.’

I looked up at him and managed a smile. ‘I know. She needed help and you helped her.’

‘Nothing happened. I would never cheat on you, Cate.’

‘I never thought that you would.’ What I didn’t say was that someday the choice may not be his. But while Lucy was at such a low point in her life, I decided not to kick her while she was down.

‘But she doesn’t have any support at the moment. She shouldn’t be alone,’ he ventured, again cautiously.

‘Well, where does Tom fit in to all of this? That is, of course, if he is, was, the father.’

‘He was, and he doesn’t know.’

Like a lump of rancid meat wedged in my throat, I choked on my anger. How low Lucy was capable of stooping would never surprise me.

‘But she’s happy to drag you through all of this?’ It was a rhetorical question, so when Nick made some sort of effort to defend Lucy, that I was in no way patient enough to hear, I continued as if he hadn’t attempted to open his mouth to speak. ‘I guess if you don’t check on her, no one will.’

Nick pulled me tighter into his embrace.

‘You amaze me,’ he murmured into my hair.

‘I expect you to remember that while you’re spending time with another woman.’

‘Give me a lobotomy and I still will never forget what you do to me.’

Steaming hot water cascaded onto my shoulders the following morning as I squeezed the last of the shampoo with an emptying squirt into the palm of my hand, and then I lathered my hair until I’d washed away the accumulated grot from the night before.

Countless tears fell and countless words were spoken into the early hours of the morning, but the effort Nick had made to gain reprieve from his guilt could do nothing to stem the tears that left tracks on my face, or the nauseated ache that was building in my stomach. I’d felt, well, I didn’t really know what I felt, distinctly, and the closest way that I could explain it to Nick was that I was just so deeply sad; as if losing the baby was my pain to bear.

My stomach swirled like the shampoo as it gurgled down the drain, and before I could take a breath to swallow it down, I vomited bile at my feet.

Nick swung open the bathroom door. He was half dressed; wearing only a pair of navy blue King Gees. He was holding his white singlet in his hand; as if he’d been about to put it on but was suddenly distracted instead. ‘Are you ok? I thought that I heard you being sick.’

‘I’m ok,’ I told him.

I cleaned up, rinsed my hair properly and then turn the shower off. When I opened the glass screen door, Nick had put on his singlet and he wrapped me in an oversized towel. He rubbed my arms to help me dry off.

‘I don’t know what’s come over me,’ I said as I dried my face.

‘No food and very little sleep I would suspect. Here.’ He handed my white fluffy robe to me as I handed him the wet towel. ‘When was the last time you ate?’

I thought about it as I loosely wrapped the robe around myself; I was too hot from the shower to tie the belt, so it remained open at the front. Nick gently turned my shoulders
so that my back was to him. He dried my dripping hair. ‘I guess it was at lunch yesterday,’ I said.

He guided me to the bath and sat me on the edge of it. ‘Wait here.’

I watched him as he moved to the vanity, but shook my head at him when he reached into a drawer and pulled out a pregnancy test.

‘I’m not doing it.’ I sat on my hands when he tried to hand it to me.

He retracted it. ‘Why not?’

‘I don’t want to know.’

His expression was one of anticipation and of something else; desperation perhaps. ‘
I
need to know. I thought you’d be as eager as I am.’

He handed it to me again and this time I took it. I held it loosely in my lap as if I were holding a ticking time bomb; as if at any moment it would reveal the truth and explode in my face. ‘I just want to enjoy the idea of it before we know for sure.’

‘Oh.’ His face fell. He sat on the bath next to me. ‘You really believe that it will never happen, don’t you?’

‘We have to get used to the idea.’

‘I told you that I’d give you everything beautiful. I intend on holding true to my promise.’

I reached for his hand and held it tight. It hurt me so deeply to see him suffer over something so uncontrollable. ‘We’re not going to stop trying, but you have to know that I’m not going anywhere if it doesn’t happen. We have to be realistic, though. I think I’m slowly starting to accept that whatever will be, will be. And as much as we want it, we can’t just make it happen.’

‘I will make it happen,’ he said vehemently.

I turned to face him. ‘Don’t do this to yourself.’

‘I’m not doing it to myself. I’m doing it to you.’

‘I’m ok, Nick. I have you.’

He eyed me as if I’d said the most foreign thing in the world, in Russian at that. ‘How are you ok? You may never be a mother. Doesn’t that tear you apart? It rips me to pieces.’

I smiled. ‘Ma Lily is very insightful, you know. She makes me realise the most interesting things about myself whenever I visit her.’

He didn’t believe a word I was saying. He needed verification. ‘Like what?’

‘She tells me things that I’m still trying to understand in my own head. I can’t quite verbalise them yet, but, nonetheless, she is always very perceptive.’

‘Maybe I should go and have a chat with her myself,’ he huffed.

His words surprised me. ‘I would have thought that talking to the dead is a bit, I don’t know, a little out-of-this-world for you.’

‘Desperation can make a man do desperate things.’

‘Oh, Nick.’ The shoe was on the other foot and I was not about to stamp all over his optimism. He’d never once clipped my dreams. I leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘I will do this, but let’s do it tonight. I’ll cook a fancy dinner and we’ll have some wine and we’ll light candles and put on our music. We’ll make night of it. Who knows, you could be right and there may actually be a baby in here.’ I placed his hand on my belly. He rubbed it in small circles, as if invoking a miracle.

‘God, I hope so, angel.’

Nick had organised Kevin to take over from him for an hour or so while he ran some errands, and I waved from the veranda as he crept the Jeep down the driveway, turned left and then drove out of sight down the dirt road. I pulled my robe tighter around myself as a cold wind blew and I realised that I still hadn’t dressed since my shower. If I hadn’t fastened the belt I would have put on quite a show for the blokes planting in the vineyard to my right.

In the kitchen, I pushed down the toaster lever and waited for my grain bread to turn golden brown. I filled the stainless steel kettle, turned on the gas cooktop with a click and sat the kettle above the flame. Then I fished around the refrigerator for butter and apricot jam, having to return to the fridge once I’d set the condiments on the breakfast bar for the forgotten milk for my tea. I smiled as I placed the carton on the counter; wasn’t forgetfulness another symptom for pregnancy?

The hum of the coming-to-the-boil kettle and the warm smell of toast worked wonders to calm my nerves. Taking yet another pregnancy test — a highly likely negative pregnancy test — was not a task that I was overly looking forward to. Despite the fact that this time there were actual symptoms that led toward pregnancy, optimism was held at bay. But what if, I dreamed…

Unfortunately, as a sleeping baby lay in my arms and the aroma of baby soap and lullabies and wispy, sticking up baby hair under finger tips flowed vividly through my mind, the side door opened letting in the cold, interrupting heaven.

‘Hi, Cate,’ Blake said without entering.

My hand found the butter knife beside my plate and I grasped it, but then let go when I realised that I didn’t feel afraid of him. ‘Oh, hi Blake.’

‘Can I come in?’

The kettle whistled on the stove top and I was torn. Nick would not like this, and not only because Blake would be in our home while he wasn’t present, but because I was naked under my robe.

‘Can’t you wait for Nick?’ I asked as I lifted the kettle from the heat and poured the steaming water into a large mug. I left the tea bag in as I added milk. The toaster popped.

‘Actually I’d prefer to talk to you about this.’

I let out a heavy sigh. ‘Ok, just make it quick.’ I waved him in as I plucked the toast out and took my seat at the breakfast bar. I began scraping butter and jam across the crunchy grains.

Blake closed the door behind him and leaned on the counter opposite me. ‘I just noticed that Nick had left and I thought that I would check on you.’

I glanced up at him before taking a crunching bite. ‘What makes you think that I needed to be checked on?’

‘It sounded pretty full on up there yesterday.’

‘Oh right. Well, that’s marriage for you,’ I shrugged, ‘many ups and downs. I’m sorry that you had to witness one of our rare downs.’

Blake made a move to walk around the counter, but I shook my head to stop him.

I swallowed my mouthful of breakfast. ‘Do you like working here?’ I asked him.

‘Better than anywhere else that I’ve worked.’ He winked.

I ignored the ill-mannered sentiment. ‘Then I suggest that you do as Nick asks. This covert visit into our home and calling me by my first name are deal breakers for him, and by extension, to me too of course. Sticking your nose into business that has nothing to do with you will only jeopardise your future here. Everybody calls me Mrs Mathieson, and this house is our castle; uninvited guests are not well received.’

He leaned his forearms on the counter again, leaning close to me. ‘Doesn’t sound like you agree with the
rules?
They don’t leave much room for fun.’

‘For who?’

‘For you.’

‘I’m thinking that perhaps we have differing opinions about what fun is.’

‘I doubt it,’ he laughed. ‘He keeps you on a pretty tight leash.’

‘No. He keeps inappropriate employees on a tight leash,’ I amended. ‘I’m free as a bird.’

He gave me an I-don’t-buy-that-for-a-second kind of look. ‘So,’ he ventured, ‘I’ve heard the name Seth being thrown around a few times with the blokes, something about him harassing you.’

‘And you’d do well to listen to those and take note of the repercussions.’

‘What happened? Did Nick overreact to an innocent smile or something?’

I sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know what you’ve already heard, but I will tell you that a few summers back, when we were just starting out here, Seth was a backpacker looking for work and Nick hired him as a seasonal picker. He came into the office while I was working, locked the door behind himself and tried to take from me what did not belong to him.’

Blake’s eyes grew wide as if he had not expecting such a scandalous explanation.

I took another bite of toast. ‘You think Nick is over-protective for some other reason?’

‘I thought he was just a bit high strung. You know, because he likes to be in charge of everything. The boys never said anything about that. They just said that Seth worked here, he fucked up royally and Nick broke his face and fired him.’

‘So ease up on him. He reacted accordingly to protect what is his, like a loyal husband should.’

‘Did Seth…?’

‘I was pretty messed up, but no,’ I answered his incomplete question.

He ran two hands over his shorn head. ‘Fuck me. He does that to someone to protect you and then he grabs at you like that. What a hypocrite.’

‘I should warn you not to make such assumptions about my husband.’

He laughed once. ‘Of course you’d say that.’

I was losing patience. ‘Was that all that you wanted to talk to me about? How badly Nick treats me and that I just take it.’

‘I guess it was.’

‘Well, then,’ I gestured with a nod of my head to the door.

He gave me a long look before backing away. ‘Ok, Mrs Mathieson. Sorry for bothering you.’ He opened the door, but he turned back before he stepped out. ‘I have my eye on him though. You shouldn’t let him put his hands on you. He’s not the only one who would protect you so fiercely.’