The Trouble With Choices Read online

  Sophie broke every rule in the book and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and held on tight to her fragile composure. ‘No,’ she said with a smile she’d prised from somewhere deep inside. ‘Your father and I had a nice chat. It was good of him to come and clear the air.’

  ‘So why do you look so sad?’

  ‘Do I?’ she said, fighting against a sudden wave of despair. ‘Oh, I’ve got a bit of a headache today, that’s all. Actually, I might go take something for it. Will you excuse me a moment?’

  She told the class to carry on with silent reading and that she’d be right back so no talking while she was gone, retrieved her phone from her bag and stepped into the corridor, pulling the door shut behind her. The corridor was empty, only a muffled hum coming from the other classrooms as her phone beeped into life. She pressed a number, praying that her sister was on late shift, or better still, a rostered day off. What had happened was too big for her to deal with on her own. If she didn’t talk to someone about this soon, she was going to explode.

  ‘Hey, sis,’ Beth answered on the third ring. ‘What’s up?’

  Sophie clung onto her sister’s voice like a lifeline. Beth would understand. Beth more than anyone would understand. ‘I really need to talk. Can we meet somewhere—alone?’

  Visiting Beth at her cottage usually made Sophie feel good, the bush, the views over Piccadilly Valley and Beth’s colourful art-works all conspiring to engender a happy mood. Not today, when her gut churned with fear and panic.

  Sophie bypassed the front door and headed straight out back to the studio. Beth waved when she looked up and saw her coming. ‘Hey,’ she called, ‘come right in. I’m just in the middle of something.’

  She stepped inside the old timber garage that had been converted into the studio. Beth hunkered over whatever she was working on atop the central bench, while Madeleine Peyroux’s smooth voice spun magic sounds from an iPod dock.

  It was all so calm and serene and in stark contrast to the turmoil of her panicked thoughts, and Sophie felt like a tangle of steel wool scraping its way out of a cloud.

  ‘What are you making?’ she said, leaning over, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘Something for Dan and Lucy for Christmas,’ Beth said, without looking up. ‘Inspiration hit me in the middle of the night and I had to come play. It’s such awesome news about the baby, isn’t it? There’s nothing like baby news to put a smile on your face.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she said tightly. ‘Nothing at all like baby news.’ Other than news of her period miraculously appearing, that is.

  Whatever she’d loaded in her voice alerted her sister. She looked up, a quizzical expression on her face. ‘What did you need to talk—’ Her eyes opened wide. ‘God, Sophie, you look like shit. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Where’s Siena?’ Sophie said, looking around, the comment about her appearance so unsurprising it slid straight off. ‘She’s not home, is she?’

  ‘I told you, she’s at a friend’s place till dinner. It’s okay, we’re alone. Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on? You seemed fine the other week at Nan and Pop’s.’ She looked closer into Sophie’s face as she put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Have you been crying?’

  Sophie sniffed and started blinking, wiping the moisture away with her fingers. ‘Oh God, don’t get me started.’

  ‘Oh no, wait, wait a minute,’ Beth said, steering her backwards towards the sofa, plopping her down before sitting alongside her and passing her a box of tissues. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I can’t stop crying today,’ she said, swiping at the tissues. ‘I mean, I try to, but they just keep on coming. I just don’t know what to do.’

  ‘There has to be a reason for it.’

  Sophie twisted the tissues into pretzels. ‘Did you cry a lot,’ she asked, ‘when you found out you were expecting Siena?’

  ‘No. But God, I couldn’t stand the smell of—’ Her sister halted mid-sentence. ‘Oooh, back up a minute, sister, what are you saying? Surely you’re not …? Are you?’

  Sophie turned her eyes beseechingly to Beth. ‘I’m not sure. How reliable are those home-test kits, do you know? I mean, it says they’re reliable on the packet, but they would say that, wouldn’t they, or nobody would buy them.’

  Beth nodded slowly. ‘And you got a positive result?’

  ‘Yeah. Two, actually, because I thought the first one must be faulty.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘That’s bad, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, it probably depends on your point of view and your circumstances whether you think it’s good or bad, but I think you can safely assume you’re pregnant.’

  And the floodgates opened again and it felt to Sophie that she’d never stop crying, except this time they weren’t just tears of despair but also mixed with tears of relief that she could tell someone, the burden of a secret too big to deal with alone finally shared.

  ‘Bloody Norah,’ Beth said, wrapping her arms around Sophie. ‘It’s turning into baby season in the Faraday family. First Lucy and now you.’

  Sophie sniffed. ‘But I didn’t mean to get pregnant.’

  ‘I hope that means you used some kind of protection.’

  ‘Of course! We had condoms and I was still on the pill. Kind of.’

  ‘You can’t “kind of” be on the pill. It’s like you can’t be a little bit pregnant. You either are or you aren’t.’

  ‘I may have forgotten to take one …’

  ‘Good grief,’ Beth said, rubbing her back. ‘How do you think Jason will take it—after all that’s happened, I mean?’

  ‘It’s not his.’

  Beth’s hands stopped for a moment and Sophie could just about hear the questions spinning around in her sister’s head. ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘It’s been weeks since Jason and I were together, and I had my period since …’ She shook her head, twisting the tissues in her hands. ‘It can’t be his.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief. The news is getting better already.’

  Sophie attempted a laugh, but it came out sounding like a hiccup instead.

  ‘So, who is the father?’

  ‘What does that matter? He’s not the one people are going to look at and whisper about behind his back.’

  ‘Times have changed, Soph. Unplanned pregnancy doesn’t have the baggage it once did.’

  She sniffed. ‘Maybe not for the rest of the planet. But I’m a school teacher. Parents expect me to be a good influence on their kids. They don’t want to have to answer awkward questions about why Ms Faraday suddenly looks like a watermelon. They’d prefer to believe I don’t know what sex is.’

  ‘Come on, it’s not that bad.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ She chewed her bottom lip, thinking about some of the parent–teacher nights she’d had and knowing that not all of her parents were as open-minded as Beth. And if it got out in their tiny community that it was Nick who was the father … Oh no, that could never get out. ‘Oh, Beth. What am I going to do?’

  Beth hugged her close. ‘I can’t answer that, but there is one thing I can tell you.’ She lifted Sophie’s head from her shoulder with both hands and swiped back the damp hair that had stuck to her face. ‘Whatever happens, you’re going to get through this. You’re going to be okay.’

  Sophie sniffed. ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Hey, I’ve been there. I know it. Seriously, there are worse things in life than having a baby. I mean, didn’t you always want to have kids?’

  ‘Sure, but not yet! I was planning on doing the romance and marriage thing first.’

  ‘What’s that line in the song, about life happening when you’re busy making other plans?’ Beth squeezed Sophie and let her go long enough to make her a pot of tea and grab a packet of chocolate biscuits she’d hidden from Siena. Then she was back to hug her some more, and Sophie was grateful for the tea and biscuits and the comfort. Whatever happened from now on, at least she knew she wasn’t alone.
/>   ‘Were you frightened?’ Sophie asked a little while later, her head on her sister’s shoulder as the tea and comfort and demolishing three Tim Tams in a row worked on soothing her fractured psyche. ‘You know, when you found out about Siena? I can’t remember.’

  ‘What do you think? I was eighteen years old and I was shit-scared. Joe and I both were, for that matter, and the last thing anyone wanted was to suck you into all of that. I didn’t even confide in Hannah until I’d told Mum. But Joe and I were in love and planning on getting married one day, and we figured it just brought our plans forward a little. Still, it was terrifying the day we faced up to Mum and Nan and Pop to give them the news.’

  ‘God, I can’t imagine.’ Sophie was almost seven years older than Beth had been back then, and even now the prospect of having to front up and admit she was pregnant was terrifying.

  ‘But then once Mum got over the shock, she was one hundred per cent supportive. Nan and Pop too. I think after losing Dad not long before, everyone was happy to focus on the future. And of course, they all loved Joe. Everyone loved Joe …’

  Beth’s voice trailed off and Sophie knew she was thinking of all that she had lost when Joe’s motorbike had hit black ice on the road two months before Siena was born. That bit, she had no trouble remembering. ‘Do you still miss him?’ she asked.

  ‘Every day,’ her sister said on a wistful sigh. ‘Every bloody day and every bloody night, for that matter. I miss him and I curse him for leaving me like he did, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving him. But I have Siena, and she’s Joe’s gift to me, and she’s a pretty damned special gift if I do say so myself.’

  ‘She’s awesome.’

  ‘That she is,’ she said, shaking her head as if ridding herself of sorrowful thoughts. ‘Anyway, that’s all history. You need to work out what you’re going to do. You have choices, you know that? It’s not like the olden days when there were none. I mean, I would never have gone down that road, given I loved Joe so much, but maybe it’s something you need to think about.’

  Sophie blinked. ‘You mean abortion.’

  ‘It’s an option.’

  Sophie exhaled a long breath. Her thoughts hadn’t got that far yet. She was still at the stage of hoping for a miracle. ‘I read that a lot of early pregnancies take care of themselves. I was kind of hoping …’ She licked her lips. ‘Only then I felt bad for wishing it away. I mean, Lucy’s miscarriage really shook her up, didn’t it, and there was me wishing for the same.’

  ‘Welcome to mother guilt,’ her sister said with an ironic laugh. ‘It kicks in early and it’ll never let go. But never try to compare your circumstances to anyone else’s, and believe me, you wouldn’t be the first woman to wish her little problem would just vanish. I can one hundred and ten per cent guarantee you won’t be the last. Just don’t go pinning your hopes on that eventuality because there are plenty more pregnancies that go the distance.’

  ‘Great,’ she said, ‘just great.’

  ‘You know,’ Beth said, reaching for the pot to top up their tea. ‘I know you don’t want to tell me who the father is, and that’s fine, but sooner or later, if you decide to keep this baby, you’re going to have to tell him.’

  Sophie stiffened. That was another place she hadn’t wanted her thoughts to go. Especially when she thought about her meeting today with Nick, about how uncomfortable it had been already, even without confessing their one night together had ended with consequences. She swallowed. ‘How long before I need to tell him? I mean, if it doesn’t take care of itself.’

  ‘That’s a tough one. He’s the father, so he has a right to know this has happened. Besides, sooner or later he’s going to be able to tell you’re having somebody’s baby and he’s bound to wonder, so you might want to give him a heads-up before that happens.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t want to know?’

  ‘That’s his problem. Maybe it’ll teach him to keep his dick in his pants.’

  ‘Beth!’

  ‘Hey, that’s what got you into this mess! Anyway, you need to tell him, in case you need help with medical expenses and the costs of raising his child, should you go down that route. You could be looking at twenty years of child-raising expenses, after all.’

  Sophie’s head spun. She was little more than three weeks out from conception with another eight months to go before the baby was even born—and Beth was talking twenty years of expenses after that.

  And they said a puppy was for life.

  ‘I don’t know if I can do this,’ she whispered, her tears drying up, leaving her bereft and empty and floundering like a fish on the beach searching for rescue. ‘This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. I don’t think I’m ready.’

  Beth covered Sophie’s hand with her own. ‘Hey, you don’t have to decide today, you know. There’s no rush. Maybe you should talk to someone—a professional at the Pregnancy Advisory Centre—maybe that might help you work through the issues and help you decide.’

  Sophie nodded, staring straight ahead through eyes that couldn’t see beyond the banner-sized twenty-year sentence in the forefront of her mind. Because right now, it felt like a sentence. It felt like her life had been hijacked while she hadn’t been looking. ‘Yeah. That sounds good.’ She turned her eyes up to her sister’s then. ‘Would you come with me, Beth? I don’t know if I can do this alone.’

  Beth squeezed Sophie’s shoulders and smiled. ‘Of course I will.’

  19

  Nick

  Nick served up the spaghetti bolognaise while Min found the grated parmesan in the fridge and jumped onto her chair. He’d never call himself a chef, but he had learned something over the years, especially once Penelope had walked out and he’d had to pay more attention to his mamma’s recipes, and he liked to think his bolognaise was the real deal. It was Min’s favourite, too.

  ‘Eat up,’ he said, ‘and then we can get stuck into your reader before bath time.’

  ‘I’m bored of that one,’ she said, sprinkling on the cheese and sucking a forkful of saucy pasta into her mouth, the tails of her spaghetti slapping wetly against her cheeks.

  ‘Why are you bored with it? Didn’t you get a new one today?’ Lord knows they’d spent hours on Sunday night hammering out each and every word until he’d thought she had it down pat.

  ‘Ms Faraday had to go before I finished reading and then the siren went and it was recess and then we had library and I didn’t get a new reader.’

  Nick was still hung up on the ‘Ms Faraday had to go’. ‘Why did Ms Faraday have to go?’

  ‘She said she had a headache,’ Min said between mouthfuls, ‘except she looked like she’d been crying.’

  Nick thought back to their encounter this morning. He’d worked out it was something more than hayfever that was bothering her. But she hadn’t wanted to talk about it and he hadn’t hung around long enough when he’d picked up Min, to see how she was faring at the end of the day. He’d figured he’d made his peace and she’d accepted his apology. It wasn’t like she’d wanted him inquiring about her welfare, anyway. Then again, it wasn’t like she’d wanted anything to do with him since that night—but that was a good thing, wasn’t it? ‘Maybe it was a really bad headache.’

  ‘Maybe. She said it wasn’t you that made her cry.’

  ‘Oh? And why would she say that?’

  ‘Because I asked if you’d been mean to her again.’

  Nick put his fork down. ‘I might have snapped a bit at our last meeting …’ He caught Min’s wide-eyed accusation, and amended that to, ‘So I did snap at Ms Faraday, but that was an exception. I’m not in the habit of being mean to people, Min.’

  She shrugged her six-year-old shoulders. ‘I know. I was just checking. Just in case you needed to say sorry again.’

  He grunted, picked up his fork and stabbed it into his spaghetti. Nobody said he couldn’t be mean to that. ‘So I’m off the hook, then? No other intervention required?’

  ‘Inter-what?’

>   ‘Doesn’t matter. Eat your dinner. And then, after the dishes, you can read your boring book to me.’

  ‘Da-ad.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But that’s what you get for thinking I upset your teacher.’ Because Min was completely out of order. Whatever was bothering Sophie Faraday had nothing to do with him.

  Nothing at all.

  20

  Hannah

  Pop’s lawnmower stood abandoned on the back lawn, a rough strip carved behind it, when Hannah dropped by lunchtime Friday. She found Pop out in his shed and muttering to himself while he rummaged around in his toolbox. ‘Hey, Pop,’ she said, giving him a quick hug around the shoulders and a peck on the cheek. ‘Where’s Nan? I was hoping to pick up some eggs.’ She didn’t cook a lot, but she was planning a chocolate cake for Declan, who was turning out to be a man with voracious appetites, in and out of bed. She figured the least she could do was supply him with a few calories.

  He shrugged. ‘She was inside mucking around in the laundry, when I came outside.’

  ‘She’s not there now. I couldn’t find her anywhere.’

  ‘Well, don’t ask me what she gets up to when I’m not looking,’ he said, gnarled fingers burrowing through a lifetime’s collection of bits and pieces. ‘The woman’s a law unto herself, that one. Ah,’ he said, frowning as he pulled out a spanner. ‘I reckon this is the one. Blades are too bloody low, wouldn’t you know it?’

  ‘I better go look for Nan,’ Hannah said.

  ‘You do that, girlie,’ said Pop, wandering back towards the lawnmower. ‘And tell her someone out here would kill for that cup of tea she promised me. My stomach thinks me throat’s been cut.’

  Hannah headed back inside, feeling a bit concerned, and it wasn’t just that nobody should be able to just open the front door and walk through the house unchallenged. Nan and Pop weren’t getting any younger. Summertown was hardly the crime capital of the world, but they’d be an easy target for any passing opportunist.

  The fact that Nan was nowhere to be found was more troubling. ‘Nan,’ she called, when she got inside. No answer. She switched on the kettle—at least she could get Pop a cup of tea—and checked the house again. It didn’t take long. It wasn’t a big house.