Paper Chains (10 page)

‘Of course I did,’ she responded, and he thought her voice sounded a tad edgy. Uh oh, was she annoyed that he was home so late? He changed tack. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said, taking in her summer dress and tousled hair.

‘Thank you,’ she replied, placing the plates on the table and running her fingers through her hair self-consciously. She did look good, but she also looked tired. Dark circles ringed her eyes.

Liam was kicking his shoes off, when Hannah said suddenly, ‘Listen, do you mind if I actually eat my dinner a bit later? I sort of snacked a bit when Gracie ate tea and I’m not that hungry just now.’

‘Oh. Sure, we don’t have to eat right now. Why don’t you take a bath or something? Relax. We can both eat later.’

‘No, no. You eat. What I really feel like doing is taking a walk. It’s still so warm outside and I haven’t had the chance to get any fresh air today.’ She paused and then added, ‘You’ll be right then? Ethan shouldn’t need another feed for a little while yet, I’ll be back in plenty of time.’

‘Course, enjoy yourself,’ Liam replied quickly, watching as Hannah scooped her plate back off the table and placed it in the fridge. She disappeared down the hall to change and Liam shrugged and began to eat. He was getting the feeling there was something she wanted to say – but maybe the walk would help clear her mind. Perhaps she’d be more relaxed with him when she returned.

As she was leaving Liam called out from the table, ‘Wow, babe, dinner tastes great. What did you put in this sauce?’

‘Just some different herbs and things. See you in a bit.’ And then the door slammed shut. Liam ate quietly, and then eventually migrated to the couch where he turned on the television and flicked through the channels until he found the tennis. He was watching a close match between Federer and Nadal when he heard a high-pitched wail from down the hall.

Ahh, there’s my little man
, he thought, secretly pleased that Ethan was awake. He’d been asleep when Liam had left this morning, so it felt like it had been forever since he’d held him in his arms.

Ten minutes later though, Liam was beginning to wish that Ethan had waited until his mum was back before waking for his feed. ‘Come on, mate,’ he said, as he danced back and forth across the living room, jiggling Ethan up and down in his arms while he continued to scream and scream. ‘Your mum says you don’t need a feed just yet. Come on, settle down, settle down.’ He watched as Ethan’s gummy mouth continued to open and close like a fish; his head kept turning inwards towards Liam’s chest, searching. ‘Not going to find any milk there, buddy.’

After another fifteen minutes of constant screaming, Liam was now of the mind that Ethan was in fact hungry.
Maybe Hannah had got the time mixed up?
he wondered. He was slowly feeling more and more useless as he failed to placate his tiny son. ‘Come on, Han,’ he murmured. ‘Where are you?’

When he finally heard the key in the lock, he breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Here she is, mate, mum to the rescue,’ he whispered to the red-faced bundle in his arms. As Hannah stepped inside, he practically launched their son into her arms. ‘Thank God you’re back,’ he exclaimed. ‘Could
not
get him to stop crying. Think he needs to feed,’ he said in a rush. Hannah stared back at him, seemingly taken by surprise, but then she nodded and turned away, heading down the hall to their bedroom.

Liam hesitated. Should he follow? Keep her company while she fed? Offer to hold him while she took off her sneakers? He probably shouldn’t have thrust the baby straight into her arms as soon as she arrived home. But he had been feeling his stress levels increase in time with the pitch of Ethan’s cries. He didn’t like to feel helpless. He decided to leave her to feed in peace and turned his attention back to the tennis match instead, just in time to see Nadal drop to his knees and punch the air in triumph.

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was 3 am, and Hannah was having trouble sleeping. ‘You should always sleep while the baby is sleeping,’ she chanted quietly to herself as she tossed and turned. As she lay there, her eyes attempting to focus on the darkened ceiling, she thought with interest,
Tonight is the first time that you have ever lied to your husband.
She was referring to the great chicken dinner deception. But then she realised that this wasn’t true and the moment didn’t seem quite so poignant any more. She had in fact lied to him on the first night that they had had sex. It was eight years previously, their second date, and she had promised herself that she was going to take it slow with this guy. She thought she might actually really like him and so the grown-up thing (because of course she was a grown-up now, at twenty years old) would be to wait,
at least
until the fifth date – that seemed appropriate.

But he had invited her back to his place after the movie and she had agreed, trying to convince herself that she really was going there for a cup of coffee and also attempting not to show how excited she was to be dating an older guy who actually had his
own
place. They had been breathlessly kissing on the couch for an entire thirty minutes and every now and then his hand would creep deliciously along her thigh or down the side of her top, just tracing the rounded edge of her breasts. He had suddenly whispered in her ear, ‘Shall I grab a condom then?’

And she had frozen, unsure of how to respond. She had been enjoying herself tremendously for the past half an hour. But she had been looking forward to leaving him that night, filled with anticipation for their next date, both of them going to their own beds, flushed with desperate longing for one another and lingering over the perfect ending to a
somewhat
respectable second date.

As she had wondered how to respond without hurting his feelings, a thought struck her. If she said no to his question, would he take that as a no to having sex, or a no to using a condom? Imagine if she had unprotected sex, just because he misinterpreted her response! Feeling flustered and deciding she had no other option, she whispered back a nervous yes.

Later that night, as they lay on his bed, her head resting on his chest with his arm curled around her, he had told her how glad he was that she, like him, hadn’t wanted to wait any longer and she had nodded her agreement and kept the secret buried inside.
The first time I had sex with my husband was due to my fear of a misunderstanding.

Still, that had all worked out in the end, hadn’t it? They’d been together now eight years, married for four and had two children together. So what did it matter that she’d slept with him on the second date instead of the fifth? Silly, really.

And she almost laughed at herself as she thought of her twenty-year-old self, lying in that messy bedroom in that apartment in the middle of Leichhardt, earnestly promising herself that
next time
, she would wait. Obviously there hadn’t been another next time. The laughter dried up as it touched the air though, as she thought about how much she had changed since that day. What had happened to that crazy, quirky girl who had sex with boys because she didn’t want them to misunderstand what she said and had dinner at a different Italian restaurant almost every second night on Norton Street with her new, older boyfriend?

Why are you even thinking about this stuff? You’re happy with Liam. You love him fiercely and you love your new life with your two children even more, right?

Okay, so why doesn’t it feel better?

Because you’re just having the three-day baby blues a bit late, that’s all.

And what if it’s more than that?

And she forced herself to think about the one thing that had been worrying her since the day she had brought Ethan home from the hospital and everything that had at first seemed so perfect so quickly fell to pieces. Why aren’t I feeling anything for Ethan like I did for Gracie when she was born? It wasn’t that everything had been easy with Gracie – far from it. She had been terrified at the prospect of looking after a tiny human being – but she had definitely felt this strange sense of instant love for Gracie. And that’s what got her through the difficult times, when she was struggling with this new thing called motherhood.

So what’s wrong with me this time around?

Sick of lying there next to Liam’s solid, sleeping form, thinking these confusing thoughts, she threw back the covers and crept out of bed. Her stomach had that empty, hungry feeling. She never had got around to eating dinner after her walk.
What have I actually eaten today?
she wondered with vague interest as she wandered down the hall to the kitchen.

I’ll just grab something to keep me going
,
she decided,
maybe it will help me sleep?
Searching through the pantry she found a block of fruit and nut chocolate. Then she sat down at the kitchen table in the darkness, and steadily ate her way through the entire block without pausing.

When she finally climbed back into bed, she felt a sick sort of satisfaction; she had never eaten that much chocolate in one sitting in her entire life. Looking across at Liam, fast asleep and snoring lightly, she had a sudden desire to reach across and wrench the pillow out from under his sleeping head. She shuddered – where had
that
come from? Weird reaction to the sugar rush, she decided. And she lay down guiltily and fell asleep, her fingers lightly tracing Liam’s arm.

‘Latte, two sugars – am I right?’ The pretty girl smiled shyly at Liam from under a straight-cut blonde fringe.

‘You got it,’ he responded cheerfully, not wanting to deflate her by admitting he actually normally ordered cappuccinos.

‘How’s your day?’ she added as she stepped over to the coffee machine to fill his order. Liam glanced up at the clock behind the counter. It was just on 6.30 am, not really far enough into the day to comment. He shrugged. ‘Not bad, if you don’t count the fact that I was up before five.’

‘Totally. I’m like, what am I doing out of bed? Torture. Don’t know why we have to be open so early.’ She hesitated and then added slowly, ‘Although then we wouldn’t be able to get you your early morning fix, would we?’ and she gave him a rather cheeky sideways look as she turned to froth the milk.

Ahh, she’s flirting with me
, Liam realised, and then he wondered just how long that had actually been going on and whether he’d been missing the signals for weeks. Still, he wore a wedding band; he assumed she wasn’t expecting any sort of reciprocation – probably just playing for tips.

Liam couldn’t help but feel flattered though, as he headed out of the café and around the corner to his office with the warm paper cup in hand. Nothing wrong with a bit of harmless flirting.

Once he was at his desk, he took a moment to stretch his arms, massage his temples, and then he rolled his chair forward and began clicking through his emails. Busy day today; he might have to head back down for another coffee in a couple of hours.

Hannah was having trouble figuring out how she could leave the house. She couldn’t go out if Ethan was due for a feed, because the prospect of trying to breastfeed him in public just seemed too daunting. It took forever to get him to latch on and when he finally did, she usually had to keep her arms in an awkward position, one elbow stuck out to the side and her hand clutching her breast, shaping the nipple for him. If she let go and tried to cradle him – and give herself a bit of privacy by placing her arm all the way around his body – then he just seemed to slide off. She also couldn’t go out if he was due for a sleep – she was determined to get him into a routine and she didn’t want to mess it up. That left a very small window to leave the house.

And then there were all the things she would need to do to get herself out. Pack the nappy bag. Snacks and a drink bottle for Gracie. Spare change of clothes in case Gracie wet her pants – oh toilet training was such fun. Get Gracie dressed. Get Ethan dressed. Get herself dressed: shower, brush hair, brush teeth.
Nup. Impossible task.

Looking out the lounge room window at the cars rushing past, Hannah began to feel a claustrophobic constriction in her chest.
Trapped. I’m completely trapped in here.

But no, that wasn’t true. Gracie had to go to preschool tomorrow. So regardless of how hard it seemed, she was going to have to get herself out of the house.
That’s a good thing
, she reminded herself as she sat down cross-legged at the coffee table to help Gracie open the lid on the play-dough container.

Thirty minutes later Hannah noticed there was something strange about the way she was behaving. She was feeling robotic, unnatural, as she tried to interact with Gracie. She tried to think back to what she was like before she had headed off to the hospital to give birth to Ethan. She was sure she used to be able to play naturally enough with Gracie. But right now she was feeling self-conscious, acutely aware of how her voice sounded, of how her back was stiff and straight as she moulded shapes out of the dough. ‘Well done, Gracie, what a clever shape you have created,’ she found herself saying in an overly formal tone. She was aware of how odd she sounded, but she couldn’t seem to shake it from her shoulders.

She switched on ‘Sesame Street’ and stood up to leave Gracie to it. Maybe a ten-minute break, perhaps taking a look at Facebook on her laptop, might help her to feel reconnected to the world. As she scanned through her news feed though, she slowly began to feel grossly inadequate. There was Josie, a girl she had worked with a few years back, who had three children now and was posting gorgeous pictures of her children along with adoring captions. There was Tiana, an old uni friend, posting a gushing status update about how her little boy Jordan had just given her his first toothless smile. Not only that, but so many other mums seemed to be actually
doing
things with their children. They were at the park, feeding the ducks; they were out at coffee shops, playgrounds, Wiggles concerts. They checked themselves in to all of these exciting locations along with bright, smiling photographs of themselves and their children. How did they do all of that?

She stared at the computer screen, feeling insecure, incompetent as a mother. And then without really meaning to, her hand moved to the mouse and she slid it over the update-status button. She hesitated, and then she clicked and began to type:

Hannah is at Taronga Zoo with her two gorgeous kids, Gracie is in seventh heaven!

This was insane, why was she even considering posting this? But her body seemed to be moving without her approval. She clicked the submit button and then leaned back in her chair.

Well, that was an odd thing to do.

Liam had a ten-minute break between client meetings. He slid one of those frozen instant meals into the microwave and then stood back to wait as it rotated slowly. He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket to check out Facebook while he waited. Skimming the posts, one from Hannah caught his eye. ‘Out at the zoo?’ he exclaimed. They had never taken Gracie to the zoo before; he kind of thought that was something they would do together for the first time.