The Aftermath, Gail Schimmel [sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt] 📗

And then somewhere in my laughter, reality sinks in.

Julia is pregnant. With Daniel’s baby.

My husband is worrying about meeting another woman’s parents.

I push back my chair, my coffee as untouched as Daniel’s.

‘I need to go,’ I say. ‘I can’t do this.’ I stand up and turn, then turn back. ‘I guess you’d better get your lawyer to call mine.’ I almost enjoy the look of panic that crosses Daniel’s face. ‘And if it’s all the same, I’ll keep Mackenzie with me this weekend. I know it’s your turn, but I don’t want her to have to meet Julia’s weird family just yet.’

I can see from the look of confusion chased quickly by relief that Daniel had completely forgotten he was even supposed to have Mackenzie. And that’s the thing that makes me start to cry. Daniel is so deeply enmeshed in his new life that he’s already left Mackenzie and me behind.

I turn before he can see the tears, and I walk out. I hear Daniel call my name once, but he doesn’t follow me, and he doesn’t call again.

Julia is pregnant, and my marriage is over.

Julia

The test is positive. I’m eight weeks pregnant.

I don’t know whether I’m relieved, happy, or desperately afraid.

I thank Dr Malcolm, and take the pamphlets and prescription for vitamins she offers me. I promise to make an appointment with the gynae, which she promises I will get immediately if I tell them I’m pregnant.

This is real. I’m pregnant.

Daniel and I are going to have a baby.

PART 2

MAY

MONDAY

Helen

I’m visiting Mike, even though it’s not my usual day. I swapped with the temp, because I really wanted to see him today and tell him the latest about the baby.

So now I tell him the exciting news Julia told me yesterday – that at the twenty-week scan they had on Friday, the baby was finally lying in a way that they could see its sex, and it’s a boy. When Julia told me that, I nearly started crying. I don’t know if it was joy or shock or simply all the emotions of the last few months catching up with me. I felt my eyes filling with tears and so I quickly turned away, not wanting Julia to see how her news had affected me. It’s not something I can explain to her. There is too much water under the bridge.

But after I’ve told Mike that the baby is a boy, I seem to have nothing else to say and I sit back holding his limp hand in mine. I allow my mind to drift over all the things I am worrying about. First among them is the fact that I still haven’t reassured Mike that when the baby is born, we can die. For so long that has been my aim, and Mike must know this somewhere inside him. He must be waiting in that prison of his body to hear me say the words, but I haven’t. I haven’t changed my mind. I’ve even checked that we have the right drugs in the fridge at work, so I can steal them when the time comes. I wasn’t convinced that the dose we have in stock was enough – and it’s not something I could ask someone – so I ordered more. Nobody questions what I do there. But everything is playing out so differently from how I thought it would that it has somehow derailed my thinking and I can’t tell Mike. Julia’s life isn’t following the script I always expected.

It’s not like I don’t like Daniel. I’ve got to know him a bit over the last few months, and I like him – he’s clever and funny and charming and I can see why Julia is attracted to him. When he met me, and then Mike, he handled it so well. I had expected him to be awkward, meeting a man in a coma. It’s the first time that Julia and I have introduced someone new to Mike, and I had a moment of thinking maybe it would shock Mike out of the coma, but of course that didn’t happen, and afterwards I realised that Mike meets new nurses and doctors and physiotherapists the whole time.

But Daniel was respectful, and he spoke to Mike without any sign of how strange the situation was. I like him for that. But liking him doesn’t change some basic facts. He had an affair and left his wife. He has another child. As far as I can make out, he’s not doing anything about a divorce. And while I can see that Julia loves him – or feels something she thinks is love for him – it’s not quite right, and I can’t put my finger on it. I spend a lot of time thinking about them. And when I am with them, I watch Julia carefully.

I absent-mindedly stroke Mike’s hand, my mind back on the baby. The baby boy.

When we were young, you couldn’t see what sex the baby would be. It was a surprise when the baby came. Maybe for some people this way is better, but for Mike and me it never mattered. With this baby, with Julia’s baby, I suddenly understand. I’m glad I know now, that I have time to form a mental picture before this baby is born.

Usually, I would talk my thoughts through with Mike, but it’s different somehow, since Julia got pregnant. There’s what I haven’t yet told him about what will happen after the baby is born, and there’s what I haven’t talked about except that one time just after The Accident. For the first time since I met Mike, the air between us is full of things I can’t say. I can’t speak. Which is awkward what with Mike not being able to speak either.

To my enormous surprise, I snort with laughter at that thought, and once the snort breaks