‘This has been the worst day of my life,’ I tell him bluntly. I immediately feel guilty, because today was also the day we saw our baby for the first time, and that was temporarily gorgeous.
We’re walking slowly back to the car park. It’s the speed you’d saunter in the twilight if you had all the time in the world – or were trying to string out the sweet spot between one horrible reality and another, as I am. Being here, with all this medical testing horror, and being at home without Cam. I’m dreading getting through Charlie’s night-waking and calling out, invariably for Daddy, who he seems to favour at the moment. Gosh, now more tears.
Hugh walks beside me and must be well aware of my crying but is doing nothing to cheer me up. It’s the perfect response. So many people can’t handle someone’s discomfort, but this gentle strength is exactly what I need right now. Of course that makes me cry even more . . .
‘Will Grace be able to stay over?’ he asks.
Oh, I hope so.
‘Obviously don’t give a second thought to work,’ he adds.
I hadn’t given it a first thought.
‘The doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong,’ I say. Hugh hasn’t intruded, but I need to talk about it. ‘She said they need to do a lot more tests. The CT scan didn’t show anything obvious.’
We’ve reached Hugh’s Audi now, and he clicks the central locking. I swing myself into the leather passenger seat and notice how immaculate it is. No mashed rusk and random sultanas worked into the upholstery. I try to imagine Hugh as a dad, and think he’d struggle a bit with the mess.
Not like Cam, who revels in it. If anyone was born to father children, it’s my husband. The parental instinct runs strong in him, and I often wish I could borrow even a fraction of it, instead of second guessing every move I make.
‘This is really kind of you. Thanks. I think I would have sobbed all over an Uber driver and it’s bad enough with you.’
Understanding blue eyes acknowledge my plight. ‘Put your address in here,’ he says, ‘so you don’t have to think about it.’
I tap it into the GPS and send Grace a message to say I’m on my way. Then I lean back on the headrest and shut my eyes. It feels like I’m carrying today’s exhaustion, plus all the provisional exhaustion from the future.
Our companionable silence is broken only by the occasional sniff from me. I look over at him at one point, his eyes focused on the traffic, face lit up by the passing street lights, and realise he’s one of those quality people anyone could call, day or night, and he’d be there.
The darkness of the Monaro Highway cloaks my agony, and I wish the drive home would suspend reality for longer than twenty minutes. Eventually Hugh pulls up in our driveway and cuts the engine just as my outside light flicks on and Grace appears in the doorway. My other angel. She comes down the path and gives me an enormous, silent hug, then wipes the tears from my face and her own.
When she’s composed herself, she looks at Hugh and extends her hand. ‘Hello again.’
He smiles and shakes Grace’s hand and she falls in love with him on the spot and they live happily ever after. The end. Seriously. I’ve seen that look in her eyes many times. Usually it’s directed at totally the wrong guy. But this time . . .
‘Nice to see you again, Grace,’ he says.
‘How’s Charlie?’ I ask.
‘Go inside and see him, Kate. He’s fallen asleep in the most gorgeous position in the cot.’
I turn to walk towards the house, and pause to thank Hugh for everything. When I spin around, the two of them are just standing in silence, watching me, and looking spectacular together. I almost feel superfluous to this gathering and I’m swamped by a wave of sadness, missing Cam.
Hugh puts his hand gently on Grace’s arm, as if willing her to go to me. He hasn’t touched me at all, even when I was distraught, so matchmaking-wise, this is a promising sign.
‘Should we exchange numbers?’ Grace asks. ‘Keep in touch?’ He ducks back to the car to get his phone and I watch as they swap details, mutually helpful. Of course, my vivid imagination takes this moment and runs with it all the way to my matron-of-honour speech at their future wedding. It all started late one night, when Grace led Hugh up my garden path . . .
I see myself toasting this, happily. Toasting them. It’s all so crystal clear in my mind’s eye.
And then I turn to clink glasses with the man who is always by my side, who I’ll acknowledge in the speech as having inadvertently brought Grace and Hugh together during his alarming but ultimately innocuous health scare.
But that’s where the daydream starts failing me.
15
By the time I’ve dropped Charlie at childcare the next morning, found a hugely expensive car park at the ends of the earth and walked miles into the hospital and up to Cam’s ward, he’s had an MRI scan and some other pathology tests, and is sitting up in bed eating a tub of fruit.
‘There you are!’ he says warmly, the second I appear through the gap in the blue curtains and drop my bag on the end of his bed. ‘The love of my life.’
Yep. That’s me.
‘You okay? How’s Charlie? I missed you both!’
It’s all the wrong way around. I should be asking about him, but I’m too scared to.
‘Did you get any sleep?’ he asks.
‘Not much. You?’
‘Can’t sleep without you.’
‘Me neither.’
We are the cutest. Honestly. It’s a beautiful thing to be one half of ‘Cam & Kate’. At least, it is when that pairing isn’t being threatened. Suddenly, I wonder if I haven’t been dinking on the back of our relationship. Too much ‘Cam & Kate’, not enough ‘Kate’? It’s too anxiety-inducing to contemplate.
‘Any more news?’ I finally build the courage to ask.
‘They said the doctor will come around with the results of the scans as soon as possible. I’m really sorry I’m putting you through this, Kate.’
Do. Not. Cry.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asks. ‘How’s the morning sickness?’
He remembered. Actually, now I think of it, there’s been none this morning. I must have turned a corner.
‘Do you want the rest of my fruit?’ he offers, and I shake my head.
Though the bed is narrow, I squash onto it next to him and I doze on Cam’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. In each other’s arms, nothing can touch us. We’re safe. It doesn’t matter if my identity is one part struggling new mum, one part frustrated writer with fundraising talents and eight parts in love with Cam Whittaker. The whole equation works. If he’s well.
‘This reminds me of that single bed we crammed ourselves into the first night we slept together,’ he says. ‘Remember?’
I shudder. How could I forget? My twentieth birthday. Way too many alcopops at the party. Each of us basking in the other’s starlight, barely able to keep our hands off each other. My gorgeous boyfriend. Everyone loved him. I loved him so much I fell to my knees at one point and drunkenly proposed marriage in front of everyone, just as a joke. He said yes. Also joking. One giant hangover and seventeen years later, here we are.
‘Why did you say yes?’ I ask him now. ‘Even as a joke?’
He squeezes my shoulder. ‘The debauchery and disorderliness was disarming.’