The Aftermath by Gail Schimmel (books to read in a lifetime txt) 📗

I speak before I can think. ‘If he sends Julia, you’re not going anywhere.’

‘Then I hope he sends her,’ says Mackenzie. She says it quietly, and she’s looking out the window of the car at the passing scenery.

‘Don’t you like staying with Daddy? Don’t you miss him?’

Mackenzie sighs and rests her head back against the car seat. ‘Mummy, I miss everything,’ she says. ‘I can’t wait till Daddy comes home. His holiday is taking so long. He must just come home now.’

I don’t know what to do, and my throat closes up. I can’t get out the words I know I should be saying. What Mackenzie has just said reflects almost exactly how I feel. Can’t this be over? Can’t Daniel just come home?

Can’t we pretend that none of it ever happened?

And then I think, maybe that’s why he wants to see me today. Maybe he wants to beg me to take him back. Oh, I’ll make him beg alright. I’ll make him pay for this for the foreseeable future. But for Mackenzie’s sake, I’ll take him back. I know we can fix this. What Daniel and I had, you don’t get that every day.

He must have realised that by now.

‘Oh, Mackenzie,’ I say. ‘We’ll see what happens.’

‘Okay.’ She goes back to looking out the window. I don’t think she’s going to say anything more, but after a few moments she says, ‘You’ll fix it, Mummy. You always do. Daddy always says you can fix anything.’

That’s true, I think. Granted, Daniel’s never broken anything this badly. But I can fix anything. Anyone who knows me will know that about me. I can fix this.

When I drop Mackenzie at school, I’m feeling happier than I have in months. I smile at everyone, and I find time to make small talk. It slows me down, but I don’t care.

I’m a fixer. And I have hope.

Daniel

I arrive early at the coffee shop where Claire and I agreed to meet. I feel like I’m waiting for something awful – the dentist or a prostate exam. I’ve never felt this way waiting for Claire before. Not even after I started sleeping with Julia and I felt guilty all the time.

The thing I feel now is more than guilty. I don’t even have words for this thing I feel now, but it’s not a feeling I ever expected. My whole life has turned into something I never planned or expected. I want to go back, but then I’d have to give up Julia, and I can’t give up Julia, with her wild hair and easy manner and uninhibited sex. So I have to plough forward with this new life.

I order a cup of coffee, but when it comes I just stare at it. I can’t even find the energy to get the coffee to my mouth. I consider putting my head down on the table and closing my eyes, but I suspect the restaurant manager might call the men in white coats. Then I start to wonder whether there really are men in white coats. I can’t see that it could be true, but then who do you call when people go crazy?

I’m thinking about this, and not worrying, and I even manage to take a sip of coffee. And then Claire walks in.

Julia

To take my mind off the fact that Daniel is seeing Claire today, I make an appointment with the doctor. First, I try for the gynaecologist I sporadically use, but when I phone and say I need a check-up, the next appointment I can get with him is in three months’ time, and the receptionist sounds so irritated that I don’t get the chance to explain my situation. So I decide to go to the GP instead.

Dr Malcolm can fit me in immediately because she’s just had a cancellation, so it seems like it was meant to be. At the same time as Daniel is probably starting to talk to Claire, I walk into the doctor’s office.

‘I think I’m pregnant,’ I tell her when she asks what the problem is today.

‘Have you done a test?’ she asks.

‘No,’ I say. ‘But I actually know I’m pregnant. I don’t need a test. And I hate them. Pee everywhere.’

Dr Malcolm smiles. It’s a warm smile, but I know she thinks I’m crazy.

‘Let’s start with this,’ she says. ‘Do you want to be pregnant?’

I open my mouth to answer, and I find that I don’t know what to say. I certainly didn’t plan this. And it has complicated everything. But I also don’t want to not be pregnant because it’s Daniel’s baby and because I’ve felt a bit different since I admitted to myself that I’m pregnant. I’ve felt excited. ‘I won’t terminate it,’ I say to Dr Malcolm.

She laughs. ‘That’s not exactly what I meant, but I guess it’ll do as an answer. Okay, let’s test.’

‘I don’t really need a test.’ I can hear that I sound a bit petulant. ‘I know that I’m pregnant.’

‘Okay, well, humour me,’ she says.

She takes some blood and puts it on a little test stick. I’m fascinated.

‘Do you have to kill a rabbit now?’ I ask, remembering something I once read about pregnancy tests.

‘Thankfully not,’ says Dr Malcolm. ‘I wouldn’t fancy that at all.’

She explains that we must wait three minutes for the test to show a result, and for the first time it occurs to me that I might not be pregnant. The test might be negative and it will turn out that in fact I am dying of a rare form of cancer. Daniel will be so cross – he’s telling Claire right now. And when she finds out that I’m not pregnant but dying, she’ll be triumphant. I can’t believe this. What if I’ve set everything in motion too soon? Why do I always make such a mess of things?

I start to cry, and Dr Malcolm is unfazed. She just hands me a box