‘When will we deal with it then? How long are you even going to be here for?’
‘Molly!’ he was immediately exasperated and I recoiled, confused by the sudden escalation of his impatience. ‘I’ve only been home for twenty-four hours. I need to shave and shower and eat something and then you can start at me about how I’ve been working too hard and I’m not meeting your needs. Okay?’
He stood and walked into the en suite, slamming the door behind him.
Later, Leo apologised. He came back to bed and he cuddled me, and he promised me he’d give it some thought. By the time he left again, we’d actually gone as far as to talk about seeing a GP together on his next visit so we could discuss any prenatal testing we might need.
‘As soon as I’m back, okay?’ Leo had promised me. And I smiled at him and I embraced him and in those moments, I felt more positive about our immediate future than I had in some months.
He was gone for five weeks on that next trip so I saw a doctor on my own. I started prenatal vitamins. I wondered if I was imagining a further drop-off in how often he called, and how long those calls lasted.
I didn’t mention trying for a baby again while he was away, and when he came home, I did make a determined effort to hold back my enthusiasm until he’d had a chance to settle back in. In the end, I didn’t need to raise the subject the second time. A few days later, we were in the bathroom dressing together when he saw the prenatal vitamins.
‘What’s this?’ he asked, and he held the bottle towards me.
‘We talked about it last time, remember? I saw the GP, she said to start them as early as possible.’
Leo put the bottle back in the medicine cabinet and closed the door. He didn’t say anything else, but the furrow in his brow spoke volumes.
‘Leo… don’t you want a baby too?’
He sighed and rubbed his hair with a towel, looking at me from the mirror. ‘I just don’t think that this is the year.’
‘We can’t put this off forever. Do you really think next year is going to be any quieter for you?’
Leo hooked the towel onto the rail and turned to face me directly. ‘Give me a year,’ he said.
‘A year?’ I repeated. My heart sank. ‘But…’
‘Molly, I’m not ready. When we do this, I want to do it properly. I want to be here for you… with you. We’ll talk about it this time next year, okay?’
He brushed a kiss on my cheek as he passed me, but he didn’t wait for my reaction – he headed straight upstairs to his office.
‘Leo,’ I called, and ran up the stairs after him.
‘On the phone,’ he whispered, as soon as I entered the room, and then louder, ‘Oh, hey, Brad! Yeah – how did that editing go?’
But I wasn’t going to let him off that easily – I stood behind him for several minutes, and then when he continued to ignore my presence, I walked to his desk and pushed some paperwork aside to sit right in front of him. He frowned at me.
‘Hang on, Brad.’
‘You can’t walk out on a conversation like that.’
‘And you can’t force me to be ready when I’m not,’ Leo said pointedly. ‘I’m on the phone, Molly. We will talk about this – and soon. But not right now.’
‘When?’
He sighed impatiently, and turned his back on me to resume the phone call. ‘Yeah, I’m back. No – nothing. Just Molly.’
I convinced myself that the gradual fading off of Leo’s communication with me was simply a consequence of our marriage now being a couple of years old, so over the next few months I decided I would make a determined effort to reach him more often.
When a day passed and he didn’t call me, I’d send him an email, even if it was just a line or two asking how he was and telling him about my day. Sometimes he wrote back, sometimes he did not – but I felt better for having made the effort. When he called me one night, I asked him.
‘Leo, can you call me more often?’
‘Honey – it’s so difficult, you know what it’s like. I’m travelling all of the time and often not in the best circumstances…’
‘Can I call you, then?’ I had always been reluctant to call the satellite phone, knowing instinctively that I should save that intrusive method of contacting him for an emergency. His sigh stung and I was instantly defensive. ‘Don’t sigh at me! You were only ever going to travel for three weeks at a time, remember? Six trips a year, you said at one point? You’re away all of the time now. I’m supportive – I’m patient – but you need to make some kind of effort.’
‘I have a job to do, Molly, for Christ’s sake!’
‘Brad has the same job, Leo. And he calls Penny and the kids every single day.’
There was silence on the line and I thought it had dropped out altogether. I swore and moved to hang up.
‘I’ll try harder,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’m sorry, okay?’
‘I don’t mean to nag you, Leo. I just miss you so much.’