Into My Arms (12 page)

And Charlie’s luck had returned. It must have been that, because everything else was the same. The injections still hurt, her body grew bloated, tears hovered at the edges of every conversation. This time, though, fifteen eggs were retrieved. Even more miraculously, seven of them fertilised. Their doctor asked how many they wanted transferred—four maybe? Three?

Charlie had glanced across at Nell and said, ‘Twins would be nice. Then we don’t have to do this again.’ She’d nodded.

The doctor peered down at her file. ‘In that case, you’d be best off putting back four or five embryos, to maximise your chances,’ he suggested.

‘Is that dangerous? Won’t they all just get in the way of each other?’ Nell asked.

‘There is a slightly increased risk of miscarriage with that number, yes,’ the doctor replied. ‘Against that, you’ve also got an increased chance that one or two will take. It’s your call.’

This time Charlie hadn’t even looked at her. ‘Two then. Just two. Two’s all we need.’

The doctor nodded. ‘Fine. We’ve been developing some interesting techniques with freezing embryos lately. If you like, we could transfer two and freeze the rest. Then, if you have to have another try, we just defrost those and off we go—there won’t be the ovum retrieval or nearly as many injections beforehand.’

It was Charlie’s turn to nod. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘but we won’t be doing this again. I’m sure of it.’

Incredibly, he had been right. Both embryos survived the transfer; grew and kicked and pushed their tiny fists against Nell’s stomach. As he and Nell lay in bed together when she was thirty weeks pregnant, Charlie had put a paper clip on top of her distended belly then waited to see how long it took one of them to push it off. ‘Only forty seconds!’ he crowed. Nell had smiled and snuggled her face into his neck. It had been the best part of a decade, actually. Four weeks later, Arran and Skye were delivered. Two babies, just as Charlie had said, two perfect, healthy babies, a boy and a girl.

A year later the clinic had sent them a letter. She’d spotted the familiar logo on the envelope, and opened it standing at the letterbox, Skye on one hip, expecting a bill or a patient-satisfaction survey. Instead it had been a reminder that she and Charlie still had five embryos in storage. There were plans to begin charging for this service, so could they please inform the clinic as to what they wanted to do?

She’d brought it up with him as soon as he got home. Three options were given: keep the embryos for a future attempt, have them thawed and then discarded, or donate them to another couple on the IVF program.

‘We’re done, aren’t we?’ Charlie had asked her after reading the letter. ‘There doesn’t seem any point paying to keep them frozen if we’re not going to use them.’

Nell had agreed. Still, she found she didn’t like the idea of them being discarded either, simply tipped down the sink like a cold cup of coffee. Too much hope had gone into those cells; too many years of wait and want. They’d been wrought, it seemed, of nothing less than her tears and Charlie’s persistence.

‘I think we should donate them,’ she said.

Charlie looked surprised for a second, then nodded. ‘You’re right. Might as well give somebody else a chance, hey?’ Then Arran crawled into his lap, and that had been the end of the conversation.

Nell sighed now and began to undress. It was all so different back then—so relaxed, so innocent. Recently, a friend’s daughter had commenced IVF and Nell had been astonished by the changes in the protocol. Not just on the medical side, but the counselling and the consent forms. Everything was documented; every possible scenario discussed. By contrast, when Nell had rung the clinic to let them know that she and Charlie were donating their embryos they’d simply thanked her and said they’d make a note of it. If anything ever came of it she hadn’t been informed.

She’d wondered, but not often. Skye and Arran kept her too busy for that, and by the time they started school the whole thing had slipped from her mind. Besides, she thought, pulling her nightdress over her head, the science of freezing the embryos—cryopreservation, they’d called it—was in its infancy back then. It was unlikely they’d even survived.

Nell turned off the light and climbed into bed. She closed her eyes, but found she wasn’t at all sleepy. Just say they
had
survived? Just say they’d been frozen, then thawed, then donated to someone else? And just say that couple had got pregnant, and the baby had gone to term . . . Nell rolled over, thumping her pillow into place. It was a crazy thought. It was a
dangerous
thought, one surely born of grief or menopause or too much time on her hands. What were the odds? Tiny, infinitesimal. She rolled back into her original position, unable to get comfortable. It was senseless to even entertain it. She’d go to sleep, and think about it again in the morning. Things always looked better then.

Nell lay on her back and made a conscious effort to relax, working through a meditation she’d learned years ago. First she took the tension out of each toe, visualising it as a tangled black mass, a bit like used steel wool. Next came her ankles, then her feet. She moved up her body: legs, trunk, arms, the fingers on each hand. It was working. She could feel herself dropping off. Almost there . . . her neck, her face.
His
face. Ben’s face appeared before her, his deep brown eyes. She sat up in the dark and reached for the phone on her bedside table.

14

She loved it when he did this. Skye let her head fall back on the pillow as Ben’s tongue moved down her body, licking between her breasts, then travelling in a straight line to her navel. He paused there for a moment, lapping gently, his shoulders pushing her legs apart. She knew what came next. Her limbs felt heavy, sodden with desire; her speech was lost somewhere at the back of her throat. ‘Ben,’ was all she could murmur, and then the phone rang.

Skye tensed immediately. That stupid ringtone. She’d been meaning to change it for weeks. Every time she heard it it reminded her of Hamish, tarnished her deep delight with guilt. Thank God he’d taken time off for his exams and she hadn’t had to face him at the gym. Vanessa had mentioned recently that he’d said he might not return after he’d finished his degree, and Skye fervently hoped so. She didn’t want to have to see him. He’d only start asking again, just as he had in those frantic emails and phone calls the week after they’d first broken up:
Why? Why?
She felt terrible about what she’d done, but she had no answer to his question, no reason to give him. She’d been happy with Hamish. She was happier with Ben.

‘YMCA’ sounded out four more times, then cut off. Skye relaxed. She hoped Ben hadn’t heard it. Her fingers wound through his hair, pulled his mouth closer to her body. He’d moved lower while she’d been listening to the phone, his stubble now rasping the inside of her thighs. It wasn’t the sex, she thought. Or rather, it was, but not in the way Hamish would think. If anything, he’d been the more technically proficient lover. He’d known exactly how to please her, and was conscientious about doing just that. Hamish had made love the way he ran his training sessions or completed his uni assignments: thoroughly, meticulously, always striving for the best possible outcome, and how could you possibly complain about that? Skye hadn’t, but it was lovely too, she realised, to be with someone whose desire trumped his control; who had no plan, only hunger. Then Ben’s tongue probed deeply between her legs and she stopped thinking anything at all.

They were falling asleep half an hour later when the phone rang again. Ben groaned and rolled over, pressing his hands to his ears.

‘Sorry,’ Skye muttered, switching on the light. ‘I’ll just go turn it off, OK?’ She climbed out of bed, still naked, and moved quickly to the opposite side of the room where she’d dumped her bag, bending over it in the gloom.

Ben sat up in bed behind her. ‘No hurry,’ he said. ‘I’m enjoying the view.’

Skye smiled to herself, located the phone and went to turn it off. As she did so the screen lit up, and she recognised the number of her two missed calls. Nell. Damn. She turned back to Ben. ‘It was Mum,’ she said helplessly. ‘She never calls me this late.’

‘Will you be able to sleep if you don’t ring her back?’ he asked.

Skye shook her head. A year ago, yes, but not now. She crossed to the bed clutching her phone. Ben pushed back the covers and gathered her in.

‘I just want to be sure she’s OK. Arran too. He seems better now, but you should have seen how depressed he was when Mark dumped him a few months ago. Back then I worried every time the phone rang.’

‘Shhh,’ said Ben, pulling her under his arm. He smelled of fresh sweat and recent sex. Skye knew his chest would taste salty if she licked him. Instead she began to dial.

Nell picked up on the first ring, though it was now after midnight. ‘Skye?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, it’s me. What’s the matter?’ As she spoke, Ben switched off the light and idly ran one hand down her flank.

Nell paused. ‘I’m probably being silly,’ she said finally, ‘but I need to know where Ben was born, and when.’

‘Ben?’ Skye asked, glancing over at him. His eyes were closed, fingers sleepy on her skin. ‘What on earth for?’

‘I can’t go into that now. Can you just ask him? You are with him, aren’t you?’ There was an edge to her mother’s voice that Skye hadn’t heard since her father died.

‘Yes, I’m with him.’ she sighed. ‘Hold on.’ She nudged Ben, laying the phone down against her chest. ‘Mum wants to know where you were born. And when.’

At first he didn’t answer, and she thought he must have gone to sleep. Eventually, though, he mumbled, ‘Nineteen eighty-five. Somewhere in Melbourne. Mum and Dad came up from the farm.’

Skye related the information to her mother.

‘Nineteen eighty-five?’ Nell said. ‘So he’s younger than you.’

‘Just two years,’ snapped Skye. She suddenly felt very tired. ‘It’s not as if it matters.’

‘It might,’ Nell said cryptically. ‘When are you home? Tomorrow? I need to talk to you.’

‘I’ll come home when Ben leaves for work in the morning. I don’t have to be at the Y until three.’

‘I have to go to the centre, but I’ll wait for you. Come straight home,’ Nell commanded. Then her voice softened, and she sounded almost sad. ‘Thank you for ringing, Skye. I know it’s late.’

After she’d hung up, Ben turned to Skye and pulled her down into the bed. Their legs bumped, touched, then wound around each other like vines. Skye’s thighs were still wet with his semen, and she closed her eyes as she pushed her face against his chest, breathing him in. How grateful she was for this man.

‘What was all that about?’ Ben asked quietly, stroking her hair.

Skye shook her head. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

‘You said she was an old hippie. Is she into astrology? Maybe she’s trying to do my birth chart, see if I’m the right match for her daughter.’

‘You are,’ said Skye, reaching up to kiss him. ‘You are.’

Skye put her key in the lock and gingerly pushed the front door open. The house was still. Good. No lights on in the kitchen, no sound from the bathroom. With any luck Nell was still in bed, which meant Skye could do the same: disappear into her room, pull the covers over her head and catch up on some of the sleep she had missed last night. She pushed off her shoes and shut the door behind her as quietly as she could, stifling a yawn. She hadn’t slept well. That was unusual for her, particularly at Ben’s. On the nights she stayed over, he normally had to wake her so he could say goodbye before he left for school. This morning, though, as the light crept around the curtains and she thought she’d go mad if she lay there staring at the ceiling for a minute longer, it had been her that nudged him, her that crawled between his arms and stroked his face until his eyes had opened. Ben had moaned when he saw the time, but he hadn’t complained long. It had given them an extra hour before he had to get up, and they’d made the most of it. Skye smiled now, recalling it as she tiptoed her way along the hall.

‘Skye.’

She jumped and wheeled around. Her mother was sitting in the lounge room in her dressing-gown, the blinds still drawn.

‘Nell. I didn’t see you. I thought you were asleep.’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Nell. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to come home.’

Skye put down her bag and went and sat on the arm of Nell’s chair. ‘Poor you,’ she said, putting her arms around her. ‘Bad dreams? Were you thinking about Dad? I’m sorry I wasn’t here.’

Nell sank against her and Skye breathed in her mother’s familiar smell: paint and Pond’s Cream. There had always been a pot on Nell’s dressing table, or stashed in the glove box of the kombi. The lids used to be made out of glass, Skye remembered. Blue glass, before everything went plastic . . . As a child she’d been fascinated by them, loved their hue and their heft and the way that when you held one up to the light and peered through it the room suddenly looked as if it was underwater.

Nell shifted, sat upright. ‘I wasn’t thinking about Charlie, Skye. I was thinking about you. You and Ben.’

‘Ben?’ asked Skye. ‘I know it seems quick, I know you liked Hamish, but it was as if we couldn’t help it, Mum. He said he felt the same way—that he couldn’t stop thinking about me, that we
had
to be together. I feel terrible about Hamish, but—’