We lock gazes and he narrows his eyes, impossible to read. Maybe all I’ve done is thrown a spanner into the works, but I suspect he likes the challenge.
As for the rest of their questions, a string of answers fall out of my mouth and I can’t be stumped. It’s like I’m channelling some god of desperate, potentially pregnant working mums. Hugh must find me totally unrecognisable. Technically irrelevant as it is, I feel like I’m holding out on them though, by not telling them about the unconfirmed baby. They know about Charlie – I was open about this being my return to work from parental leave. But they don’t know about this next one. Of course, nobody does. Not even Cam.
‘Do you have any final questions for us, Kate?’ Hugh asks. He’s been looking at me strangely since I painted the whole ‘Renaissance Man with a shot foot’ visual.
Probably wondering if he’s being pranked. Or was pranked, at the gym.
I know you’re meant to have a question prepared, but right now I can only think of one. ‘Could I be excused?’ I say, and I run out of the room with my hand over my mouth.
10
When I get home, Cam is lying on the living-room floor in front of the bookcase, reading Jane Eyre for Babies to Charlie. He’s got him the whole series – Pride and Prejudice, Moby-Dick, Wuthering Heights . . .
‘Look at Daddy, filling your head with all that nineteenth-century nonsense!’ I say to Charlie as I throw my bag on the couch and flop down on the floor with them.
He giggles, and flings Jane Eyre across the room, in favour of Paw Patrol.
I kick off my shoes. It’s the first time I’ve worn heels in over a year, and I’d forgotten how much I hate them. I wriggle over and lie down, resting my head on Cam’s outstretched leg. Charlie clambers on top of me, loving this family pile-on. For just a few more seconds, I pretend our world isn’t about to be rocked by a force I’m not sure I’m going to withstand, emotionally.
‘Did he sleep?’ I ask. We’re obsessed with Charlie’s naps at the moment. He’s trying to give up the afternoon one, and we’re on a mission to preserve the status quo, including strict adherence to afternoon cot-time, even if he doesn’t technically shut his eyes.
Cam looks slightly taken aback. Then guilty.
I sit up again, annoyed. ‘Oh, great! You’re hopeless, Cam! Why do I have to be bad cop?’
Charlie picks up one of my shoes, dumps it in Cam’s lap and laughs. I watch as Cam turns it over in his hand, then looks back at me.
‘How did the interview go?’ he asks, as if the shoe has jogged his memory about why he’d had to rearrange his Tuesday lecture to be home with Charlie.
‘Actually, it went pretty well. They’re phoning referees,’ I tell him. ‘Miraculous, really, given I threw up at the end of it!’
‘Oh, no! Nerves?’
I consider ending the story here, as he continues.
‘Were they good about it?’
‘It was that guy from the gym.’
‘Rugby dude? You’re kidding!’
‘Yes, except he’s not a dude. He’s the Head of Development, and my potential boss.’
I watch Cam’s face light up with pride about the possible job. He doesn’t care about the extra money, because he doesn’t fully appreciate how many children we have, but he’s happy for me. I can tell.
‘What’s wrong then?’
I take a deep breath. ‘I think I’m pregnant.’
Saying it aloud brings home everything this would mean for me. I already feel incompetent as Charlie’s mum. The mistakes I have made in the first year alone! What if the mild PND gets worse? What if I really, deeply, fully lose my grip?
I can see that Cam is trying to disguise his excitement. Maybe he should stay home full time with this next one. A flash of guilt slices through me at the thought that I could already be rejecting a baby that, right now, is at its tiniest. The thought of the defenceless little thing inside me makes me tear up. I’m all over the place.
‘I picked up a test on the way home,’ I tell him. ‘It’s one of those early response ones, so we should know.’
When you’ve grappled to hold your mind together while looking after a helpless human, the idea of doubling that responsibility is terrifying. If I’d had any inkling that it wasn’t going to take several rounds of treatment and several thousand dollars to reach this point, we would have been more careful.
I look up to meet his eye, and my voice cracks as I say, ‘What if this is the thing that pushes me over the edge?’
He stands up, pulls Charlie off me and hoists me to my feet and straight into a hug. I burrow into his T-shirt and focus on the scent of his earthy cologne. Whatever else happens, everything feels possible with him by my side.
But then I’m gripped by a grisly and totally irrational fear that I could lose him. It comes out of nowhere and I am horror-struck at the concept. It was bad enough when he was in Rome for ten days.
He releases me from the hug.
‘Take the test,’ he says. ‘I’ll be right here.’
In the toilet, I don’t look at the stick. Can’t look at it. But inside I know. I can sense the life within me the way I sensed Charlie before any test did.
I wash up and come out to Cam, who’s giving Charlie his bottle. A huge pang of love for them both washes over me, and I hand the test to him. ‘Over to you,’ I say. If only I could delegate the entire pregnancy to him as well.
Charlie’s little face lights up when he hears my voice, and he turns to see me, eyes bright, milk dripping down his chin while he smiles at me. His love undoes me. He holds out his arms, wriggling to move from Cam to me, and I go to him, needing his weight against my body, wanting to squish him too tight because there’s no way for me to express how desperately I adore him. And then I’m tearing up again.
I can’t look at Cam’s face. It will be even greater proof than the test in his hand. I stare into Charlie’s eyes while he feeds from the bottle. This is the upside of feeding this way. Such perfect eye contact. Every time I glance at him, he lights up. Every time. He’s my greatest and most loyal audience, my most reassuring cheerleader. Nothing I do – no doubts I have – can stop him loving me the way he does.
‘Charlie,’ Cam says, approaching us for a three-way hug. Charlie breaks away from the bottle and looks at his daddy expectantly, and we both laugh. ‘You’re going to have a little brother or sister.’
Charlie has no idea what Cam is saying, but he beams and giggles. Cam looks into my eyes and finds tears and terror and knowing. And love.
He kisses me on the forehead, and Charlie reaches up and tries to push his face away from mine. In this moment, he won’t share me. My heart breaks for the rude awakening he’ll receive in a few months, when he has to.
‘How will we do this?’ I whisper.
Cam rubs my arm. He’s even more relaxed than he seemed the first time around. ‘One day at a time,’ he suggests. ‘Love you, Katie. I think you’re incredible.’
I wish I understood why. Wish I felt within myself even a modicum of the faith he has in me. ‘But Cam . . .’
He puts a finger gently to my lips and draws me into a long hug, which ends only when I release him.