Almost Mine (21 page)

Blake took another sniff, this time boldly leaning toward me. ‘Vanilla, that’s it. Does that date back generations, too? Thanks.’ He winked as he took the basket of muffins as it was being passed around the table.

I kept my tone polite but, as much as I could muster, uninviting. ‘It probably does, but through the Johnson family I suspect.’

‘So, how’d things run out there this morning?’ Nick broke the to and fro between his employee and his wife.

‘Fine, Boss,’ Blake gave him a nod.

‘All those pallets have been cut up?’

‘Yeah, all done.’ Then he added after taking a spoon full of soup, ‘They’ll do alright in the pot belly I noticed in Cate’s office.’

‘That’s why I asked you to do it. I don’t want Mrs Mathieson to freeze out there, do I? You know what they say, happy wife, happy life.’

Around the table, hospitable chatter and the clinking as spoons as they scooped up the soup quietened for a moment. They understood the mistake Blake had made to fraternise with the boss’s wife; Seth worked at the winery for a short while, but he liked me a little too much and Nick was none too impressed by it. They all knew that it was in their best interests to keep clear of me, and to speak to me only when they were spoken to.

To Kevin — the winery’s second in charge — Nick said, ‘So, Dad’s coming by this afternoon to help me step out some plans for the restaurant. Can you give us a hand?’

‘No worries. But, the cellar still needs to be hosed out and the floors need to be scrubbed.’

‘Blake can handle that I’m sure, right Blake?’

‘You’re the boss,’ Blake said with a soldier’s salute.

‘Good.’

‘So things are still going as planned? The meeting really didn’t go too disappointingly then.’ I renewed our earlier conversation.

‘Oh no, it was disappointing, but there’s no reason why we can’t still get the ball rolling.’

‘Then why so glum?’

Nick eyed the blokes around the table, especially Blake, who’d just choked on his soup and then forced an amused grin from his face.

Nick said in a hushed tone, ‘I’m not
glum.
Can we will talk about this later?’

‘We certainly will be.’

Lunch had all been inhaled and everybody had left the homestead to get on with a hard afternoon’s work, leaving me to continue with my own daily duties: wiping up after messy men who were more suited to a pig trough than a dining table set with fine china and freshly pressed Egyptian table linen.

Today was no different.

However, instead of working to the beat of a satiated heart, I could feel a shift in Nick’s mood. He knew every detail about how to make his plans for the winery and for the restaurant come to fruition; even if a brick wall confronted him, he could always find a loophole or solution that would enable things to go his way. So why did the brick wall that he’d hit this morning seem impenetrable to him?

The fact is, I understood that this morning’s mood suppressant had nothing to do with the winery. Albert had informed me that the meeting had been rescheduled for Thursday morning, and had asked could he come earlier this morning to go through the floor plans for the restaurant because he got so fatigued by mid-afternoon.

Albert still attended the important meetings regarding the winery; it was after all his baby, he’d built it from the ground up, he just wasn’t as hands-on like he used to be. After his health scare last year his weak heart would never forgive him for anything more strenuous than a walk to the letterbox. I had to tell him that Nick wasn’t home so coming over would be a waste of his limited energy, but that I would send Nick over to him when he returned from wherever he was to go through a few things.

So this was what I was about to do now: to see my husband to pass on the morning’s revelations, and see what he had to say about the fact that he had, for the first time ever, lied to me.

I finally found him on his knees in the office, reloading the pot-belly with perfectly sized pieces of hardwood palings from disused pallets. He dragged in a breath before blowing it gently into the pot belly, giving the smouldering fire the ammunition to flare again.

I sat behind my desk and then flipped through some new invoices.

‘I’ll have to give Marco a call,’ I said as he continued to blow on the embers. ‘I’m sure I paid the invoice for the irrigation last week.’

‘It was almost out,’ Nick said as the fire finally caught and he closed the door on the pot belly, opening the vent at the bottom to let ample oxygen in. He came to stand next to me and picked up the invoice. ‘You haven’t made an oversight?’

I looked up at him and took the invoice from his hand without breaking eye contact. ‘I don’t make oversights, Nick.’

Our eyes remained locked for a moment before I looked away and picked up the phone. I started dialling Marco’s number. ‘I’m sure I can clear this right up.’

‘I’m sure you can,’ Nick said as he made to leave.

‘If you’ve got a minute, I’d like to talk about this morning,’ I said before he stepped out.

He consulted his watch as he hovered in the doorway. ‘Dad will be here soon. We’ll talk tonight, ok?’

‘He called this morning to cancel this afternoon’s plans.’

Nick visibly paled. ‘He did?’

‘Uh huh. But he did say that he can still make the meeting on Thursday morning, you know, the one with Taylor’s Construction that you rescheduled from this morning?’

I almost felt sick for him. ‘Oh, right.’

I replaced the handset and stood from the desk.

‘So you’ve got time then?’

‘I guess I do.’

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from him when we sat on our bed to talk. It most definitely was not this. I was stunned into silence; how was I expected to react to, and then process, such horrific news?

‘I didn’t know what else to do, Cate. I’m so sorry that I lied to you.’

I remained quiet as I tried to wrap my head around this. An abortion? I wasn’t shocked at the fact that Lucy would have resorted to that; I was shocked that she had let herself get into such an unsought situation in the first place. Did she not use contraception? Did she not take all precautions to prevent such a tragic outcome?

As I sat on our bed where Nick and I had spent countless hours trying to make a baby of our own — and had cried countless tears, with Lucy, despairing at the fact that it just wasn’t happening for us — anger built from the pit of my stomach, pushing the bitter taste of bile into the back of my throat.

‘This is just so fucking unbelievable!’ I said to no one in particular, the words soiling my otherwise characteristically clean language.

‘It is,’ Nick dutifully agreed.

‘Oh, don’t you say a word to me right now. I can’t
believe
that you hid this from me!’

I had to get off our bed that was being tainted by such ugly words. I crossed the room purposefully, heading for the ensuite.

‘Cate, let’s talk about this,’ he urged as I slammed the door behind me; the impact of the door hitting the frame threw a wedding portrait hung on the adjacent wall out of alignment. At the vanity I opened and then slammed shut the cupboards and drawers. Opening the door again, with hot tears streaming down my face, I began hurling boxes at his feet.

‘See these, Nick?’ I opened a drawer and threw another box out. ‘This is everything we use to help us make a baby. Ovulation kits,’ I threw them out before opening the next drawer, ‘pregnancy tests. Thermometers. Vitamins. Creams.’ I threw it all out one by one, a couple of them ricocheting off his shins. ‘See all of this effort, all of this…this
wanting
to have a baby?’

He stood from the bed as he saw me crumple slightly. He moved toward me and my body enclosed around itself as the pain constricted my chest. Slowly, tentatively; as if I were a caged animal ready to attack, he approached me.

‘I’m so sorry, Cate. I know how horrible this is.’

‘No, you don’t know, Nick! Otherwise
you
would have no part in this!’

‘You need to calm down.’

‘Calm down! Are you honestly telling me to calm down? Your friend had an abortion this morning knowing very well that that innocent child was not entirely unwanted, and you, my ever loyal husband,
helped
her! It would be nice if your loyalty remained with your wife instead of that, that…’ I was breathing hard, my accusing eyes boring into him. When I spoke again, my voice was low and deliberate. ‘Did you for one second think of the fact that you could have saved that baby’s life, instead of helping to kill it?’

‘Alright, Cate. That’s enough!’ He grasped my elbow and pulled me back to the bed, holding me in place when I fought to get up. ‘Just take a breath and
try
to calm yourself,
because I won’t sit here and listen to you accuse me of being so fucking heartless. What else was I supposed to do?’

My next few heaving breaths as Nick continued to hold me took me from furious to just deeply sad; my tears fell fast and helplessly.

‘Oh, Cate, I’m so sorry. Come here.’ Nick pulled me into him but I used all of remaining energy to push myself off him.

‘Don’t touch me.’

He sat mute, wounded by my rejection.

‘Is everything alright up here?’ Nick’s head whipped around to the entrance of the bedroom.

‘You shouldn’t be up here, Blake.’ Nick reprimanded. ‘You know that.’

‘I heard yelling.’ He eyed me. ‘Are you alright?’

‘You’re crossing a line. Now get the fuck out of my house!’ Nick reiterated as he let go of me and stood from the bed, obscuring Blake’s investigative search of his wife’s emotional state as I lay down, continuing to cry. ‘This has nothing to do with you.’

Blake observed the debris of boxes strewn across the grey oak floor with apprehension. ‘Cate?’ he spoke passed Nick.

‘You heard him. I’m fine. Just go.’

‘I was just a bit concerned about you.’

‘Like I said,’ Nick moved toward the door and began to close it, ‘there is nothing for you to be concerned about. Now, I’m sure you have a lot of work to do?’

‘Yes, boss.’

Nick closed the door and listened as Blake’s footsteps led down the stairs. Satisfied that we were alone again, he sat down next to me on the bed as I sobbed into my pillow. He reached a hand out and rested it on my hip.

‘Please don’t touch me.’

His hand remained, steadfast. ‘Will you just hear me out?’

‘Will you just leave me alone?’

‘There is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you, Cate.’

I shuffled across the bed so that his hand had no choice but to fall from my warm hip and onto the cold feather doona. I felt the bed shift as he stood, then the bedroom door opened.

‘I know what I’ve done is unforgivable,’ he said as he stepped out, closing the door behind him.

My mind raced as day morphed into night. A plethora of emotions suffocated me, tightening my chest as I forced myself to be livid with a person that, in this situation, was a mirror image of me. Of anything in this world that Lucy and I could have had in common, why did it have to be the man that we loved, along with such a despicable act?’

In the dark, I sat wrapped in a blanket in the bay window of my bedroom with my knees pulled to my chest, looking out at a world that was not as straightforward as I implored it to be. Why couldn’t everything be so black and white? Wrong is wrong. Right is right. Why couldn’t it be that simple?

I knew the answer.

As much as a thread may pull in the exact same way within our lives, we are not all cut from the same cloth. We are not the same as any other person; as humans we possess too many variables. So this was why it was too hard to be completely sickened by Lucy’s behaviour. And by Nick’s too, I guess. There’s almost always a valid reason behind all of our behaviours.

I gazed out at the winery as my heart broke. My insides were in turmoil. I wanted to feel so much anger toward Lucy, but not because of what she had done, not exactly. I was trying to forget my own decisions that sickened me, back when I was a teenager, before I grew a backbone. How dare she inadvertently stir all of my suppressed loathing of myself? And how dare she rope my Nick into such a horrible situation?

The bedroom door opened, creating an arc of light from the landing, and I turned to see Nick waiting on the threshold.

‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

I nodded.

Closing the door behind him, and guided only by the glow of the low moon, he walked to the bed and sat on the edge of it. Muted light reflected our muted hearts. I didn’t know what to say to him, and the way his quiet silhouette gave the illusion that perhaps he wasn’t there at all, told me that he didn’t know how to begin either.

I breathed back a shuddered breath. ‘It’s just so sad, isn’t it?’ I said into the darkness.

‘Devastating.’

We sat quietly as we allowed our thoughts settle; the one thing remaining true within the past few hours was that I could never blame Nick for this. I just needed him with me. He was the other half of our united front.

‘Come here.’ I invited him with my opened blanket to come to me. And without hesitation, he did.

‘I feel awful that I lied to you,’ he said as he wrapped me in his arms.