Life Shift (14 page)

 
CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was snowing when they drove back from the hospital. Already every car they passed was covered with a thick powdery layer. Despite the heating
 
in the car Christine could not warm up.

They had not been long in the hospital. A junior doctor had seen to them quickly. He hadn’t asked why Christine needed the two attachments fitted so urgently. The one in the ear felt odd and conspicuous, but when she looked in the mirror she saw
 
it wasn’t visible to a casual glance, someone would only see it if they looked very carefully.

The house was also cold. Christine put on the fire and huddled before it. Damien went straight into the kitchen and she heard him rummaging around, moving cups, clanking plates. She knew she should go out and see what he was doing
 
but she was too cold and tired to move away from the fire. Five minutes later he came in carrying a tray on which stood two steaming mugs of hot chocolate and two plates of hot buttered toast. She suddenly realised
 
she was starving. She smiled at him gratefully. He sat down beside her in front of the fire and silently they ate the toast and drank the hot chocolate. When they had finished he put the cups and plates back on the tray, put the tray to one side and put his arms around Christine, hugging her close. Then he looked at her. “Better?” he said, “You were looking so pale.”

“I’m just so tired.”
 

“I know, we have to look after you, you need to start eating more and getting some rest.”

“Thanks Damien,” she said, “Not just for the food but for everything. I couldn’t do this without you.”

He held her tight again. “I love you Christine and I’m here for you. We’ll get through this.”

They stayed before the crackling fire for awhile. Christine could feel her bones starting to warm
 
and the tension begin to leave her body. Damien could always do this to her. Say the right words and calm her down, or just hold her tight and help the stress pass. He had always been her rock and even here, at this time when what was happening was beyond all comprehension he was here for her unconditionally. She loved him and was grateful to
 
him.

Suddenly she knew she had to talk to him about something. She pulled back.
 

“Damien, you said on Saturday that this could all be happening because we haven’t had a child together yet. Do you really think that?”

He looked away for a moment then back at her.

“I think there might be some connection yes. I know how much you want a child Christine and I know how much it kills you that it hasn’t happened.”

“Yet,” she added, she was always careful to add the word yet; she did not want either of them to
 
admit out loud that
 
both had now given up.

They had been trying to get pregnant for years, after trying to prevent getting pregnant for even more years. When they first started having sex
 
they had been terrified of pregnancy.
 
It had seemed to be the very worst thing that could happen to them. Christine was studying, Damien was not earning much money. When they bought their house it was hard enough making enough money to cover the mortgage, the bills, the groceries - they knew they could never provide for a child as well. And that was how it was for several years. Their family would sometimes ask if they intended having children and both of them would shrug their shoulders and say they weren’t ready yet and did not know if they ever would be. And they meant it.

But ten or so years into the marriage Christine’s feelings started to change. She felt strange one day when a colleague came into work and announced she was pregnant. It took Christine awhile to realise that she felt jealous.

She spoke to Damien about it. Initially he was reluctant. It could ruin things between the two of them he said. He didn’t want to share her with anyone. He didn’t know if he would make a good father. So they left it again and Christine continued taking the pill. And for awhile the ache passed.

And then another colleague got pregnant and the pain was back. And this time it did not go away.
 

So there was another conversation. And tears. And eventually Damien agreed they would stop using protection and see what happened. But she wasn’t to get obsessed. There was to be no temperature checking, no charting ovulation, no pre-planned sex on her most fertile days. They would just see what happened. And that’s what they did for the first few months. But each month Christine’s period still arrived and their disappointment grew. By now Damien was becoming as keen as she was to have a child. The fact it was not happening as easily as they thought it would was a shock to them both.

So Christine started to do some research. She found out their ages were against them, as were parts of their lifestyle. So they made some changes - lost weight, cut out the caffeine
 
(although she never cut out the wine - a fact that still shamed her). Still it did not happen. After months of this they agreed to take a break from it all. Stress didn’t help, they both knew this, and Damien couldn’t stand to see Christine so depressed and unhappy each month. They discussed going to the doctor for tests but neither of them wanted to do this. It would have been an admission that there could be something wrong with one them and neither of them were ready for that. She began to wonder whether she would ever see a positive pregnancy symbol on a pregnancy testing kit. Gradually she began to realise
 
she wouldn’t.
 

And this was where they were now. Still not fully giving up hope but no longer trying with the same focus - back to letting things flow naturally and seeing if it would happen. But it hadn’t. And time was now running out. Christine was forty.
 

So maybe he was right. Because now she had a whole new set of memories of trying for a child with a very different outcome. Alongside the memories of all the failed conception attempts with Damien was of course the story of Teresa and how she and Matt had come to conceive her.

And as she sat by the fire in Damien's arms she remembered the conversation with Matt the night they had agreed to try for a child. They had been much younger than when she and Damien had first started trying. She had just left university but was waiting to hear whether her application for a grant to do a doctorate was successful. It was completely the wrong time to start trying, they both agreed that. They were too young. They did not have enough money. How could they manage with a baby if she was researching full time? But after listing all the reasons why they shouldn’t do it they had looked at each other and laughed. When did they ever do the most logical thing? They had both wanted a child and they had both wanted to start trying there and then. Which they had.

Christine smiled at the memory but then hugged Damien tighter, feeling guilty at where her thoughts were taking her. Any thoughts of Matt were a betrayal of Damien she knew that, and thoughts of she and Matt conceiving a child together were the ultimate betrayal.

But what was she to do then? She had those memories now. She could not escape them. And she didn’t want to. Because in that life she was a mother. And she loved Teresa. She had from the moment she first held her in her arms.

“She’s a lovely girl Damien,” she said to him suddenly. He visibly flinched and pulled back.
 

“I’m here for you Christine but I can’t talk about that.”

“We have to talk about it Damien, we can’t ignore it.”

“I don’t even know what it is Chris,” he said. “You tell me you are living another life in another world and I’m trying to get my head around this, trying to be here for you and support you. But in that life you have a child, with another man.”

She looked away. She had been crazy to think she could talk to him about this, absolutely crazy. Why was she so selfish? Why was she hurting him like this?

She looked back at him. “I’m sorry Damien, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

He was silent for a moment, then he said, “It hurts that he has given you what I can’t. You must prefer that life to this one. You must. Because a child is what you’ve wanted for so long now and he has given you that.”

His eyes started to fill. She reached over to him and drew him close to her. “I love you Damien, you are what I’ve wanted the most in life, and even if we never have a child together I will always be grateful and thankful that you are in my life. You are enough for me.”

He kissed her and held her for a moment but then pulled back and when she looked at him she saw doubt and fear in his eyes. He didn’t fully believe her. And why should he? There was now another life where things were very different and where she was happy – with another man, with a child, and where Damien did not feature at all. What did that really mean about him and the role he played in her life? If he was everything to her in this world how could there be another world in which he meant nothing to her at all?

But before she could even begin to think about that or even try to reassure Damien she felt the now familiar pain start up again.
 

“Damien, it’s happening …,” she began, but before she could finish the white light came, then the colours, then the darkness and when she opened her eyes Damien had gone.
 

 
CHAPTER TWENTY

She was sitting on the floor in front of a fire. For a second she felt disoriented, there was something unfamiliar about the fire. She looked around her. No everything was the same. It was her home. Why was she having these moments where she felt odd and unsettled. Matt had said something similar the other day hadn’t he. She remembered again her mother’s changing face at the doorway a few days ago and she shivered.

“Are you okay?” said a voice. It was Matt, entering the living room carrying a tray bearing two glasses of egg nog. Their usual Christmas Eve treat.
 

“I’m fine,” she said smiling. She did not want to tell him about her moment of disorientation. He would only worry. And part of her was scared that he would tell her he was having more of those moments too and she didn’t want to think about what that could mean.

He passed her a glass of egg nog and she took a sip. It was delicious. She looked over at the sparkling Christmas tree and felt a warm glow inside.
 
She loved Christmas. She always had. She remembered Christmases at home – first with her mother and father and then in later years with her mother and stepfather. All of them had been magical. Even with the money troubles that her parents used to have Christmas still managed to cast a spell of joy over them all. Her father seemed to relax more at Christmas, his bristling anger subsiding for a few days at least. For that short period of time each year they seemed a normal family. Then later when her stepfather was in their lives there was even more warmth, even more normality.
 

She and Matt had tried to create their own traditions for Teresa, merging what each had done separately with their own family and creating something new. So early Christmas Eve Christine and Teresa would spend hours in the kitchen. Christine would let Teresa help make the stuffing – mixing onion, mixed herbs, knobs of butter and milk and rolling it all into bite sized balls. Then she would help baste the turkey, laying bacon strips on top so that the turkey skin tasted juicy and salty. Then finally she helped roll out the pastry for mince pies. All the while the radio would play in the background, Christmas tune after Christmas tune, Christine and Teresa singing along merrily.

Matt would then come bursting through the front door, last minute shopping in hand – bread, milk, potatoes, secret packages quickly hidden upstairs.

Then together the three of them would sing more carols as they cleaned up the kitchen and put the shopping away.
 

It was around this time Teresa would ask to have her bath and get in her new pyjamas, anxious for it already to be night time so that she could go to bed and be visited by Santa. But of course it was too early. Their main task for the rest of the day would be to keep Teresa occupied, busy and distracted and to tire her out so that she would sleep through the night.

They played Christmas films – always The Muppets Christmas Carol followed by Albert Finney’s Scrooge. Teresa loved the Scrooge story. Then food followed by a mince pie. At around five o’clock Christine relented and gave Teresa her bath and dressed her in her new pyjamas. As Christine brushed her long hair Teresa chatted away merrily
 
about where Santa was now, had he even left the north pole, were his reindeers all prepared and ready to fly? Christine answered each question, weaving for Teresa a magical Christmas world so real that even she found herself getting excited. Then together they set out a mince pie and glass of milk for Santa and Teresa had her photo taken before the Christmas tree, another Christmas Eve tradition. And then it was time for her to go to bed.
 

She would lay her stocking at the foot of her bed and crawl under the covers. “I think I’m too excited to sleep Mum,” she would say and Christine would just smile, kiss her on the forehead and tell her that sleep would soon come, that she would dream of magical things and that before she knew it morning would have arrived and Santa would have been.

“Good night Teresa, sweet dreams,” she’d say as she turned off the light and closed the bedroom door. She knew it would take Teresa about half an hour to get off to sleep but that this would seem much longer in her head. In the meantime Christine and Matt would lay out all the presents in the living room, finish preparing the vegetables for morning and ring their relatives to make final arrangements for the following day. Then when half an hour or so had passed Christine would creep into Teresa’s room and lift the empty stocking gently from the bed. She would take it downstairs and fill it with all the smaller presents she had been buying over the past few months. Then, the stocking now bulging, she would return it to the bedroom and lay it at the foot of the bed. She knew how excited Teresa would be when she woke up in the middle of the night and reached down to the foot of the bed and patted the stocking. She would know then that Santa had come.