The Trouble With Choices Read online

  She rested a hand on her still flat belly, the concept that deep inside her a baby was growing still too overwhelming to comprehend. No wonder they gave a girl nine months to get used to the idea.

  But she’d done the right thing, in spite of the headache she’d brought home with her. She’d told Nick. At least that should get that problem off her back.

  Her phone buzzed, interrupting her quiet. ‘So, what’s going on between you and Nick?’

  Sophie put a hand to her head. Even if it didn’t get another problem off her back. ‘Hi, Han. How’s Fat Cat going?’

  ‘Don’t try to change the subject. What were you doing with Nick?’

  ‘He had a flat tyre so I was doing my good deed for the day and loaning him my car. What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I called Beth because you weren’t picking up your phone—’

  ‘I was driving. I couldn’t pick up.’

  ‘—and told her what happened, and she just said, “I can’t tell you.”’

  ‘She said that?’

  ‘Yeah. Just this big pause and then, “I can’t tell you.”’

  Sophie’s head started thumping. This was how it worked when you had sisters like hers. Even when they didn’t tell someone something, they did, and then they extracted information piece by piece, and before you’d worked it out yourself, they’d put together an entire jigsaw puzzle.

  Hannah clearly couldn’t wait for an answer. ‘So you tell me—are you and Nick an item?’

  ‘No, we are not an item.’ Pregnancy was not an item.

  ‘Only you were dancing with him at Dan and Lucy’s wedding.’

  ‘I saw you dancing with Pop.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s quite the same thing.’

  ‘Well, thanks for calling, Han, but shouldn’t you be saving some animal’s life or something?’

  ‘I’m good. All the animals that needed saving are safely tucked up in their beds dreaming about chasing cats or mice.’ She paused. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

  Sophie sighed, but it was too late to slow it down. Now Beth knew, Nick knew and Hannah had figured something out, and already the snowball was off and rolling. The news would gather speed throughout the district and by the time the new school year started, every parent at the school would have heard the news or would have figured it out themselves from her telltale bump.

  ‘All right, I was going to tell you soon, anyway. Apparently I’m pregnant.’

  There was a full five seconds of silence, and Sophie was beginning to wonder if she’d been cut off, before her sister said, ‘Fuck.’

  ‘That’s certainly a valid response. It sure crossed my mind a couple of times. But then, that’s what got me into this mess, I guess.’

  Her attempt at black humour was met with deaf ears. ‘And Nick’s the father.’

  She paused. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Ooh, I think you just did. So, what are you going to do?’

  Sophie ground her thumb into her throbbing temple. Was there no way to keep a secret longer than ten minutes in this place? She’d have to go and tell Nan and Pop today, before there was a chance they heard it from anyone else first. ‘Nick doesn’t factor into this. And for what it’s worth, I’ve decided to have the baby.’

  ‘What? By yourself, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah, as a single mum. I’m going to do it on my own.’

  ‘Are you serious? Why wouldn’t you ask for help from the father?’

  ‘Beth did it on her own, didn’t she? And she even went back to uni. I’ll cope.’

  ‘She didn’t choose to be a single parent, you twit—she lost Joe. And for the record, she didn’t do it on her own. She had Mum to help and Nan when she went back to uni, and now Mum’s overseas and Nan’s in her eighties—are you really expecting she’s going to be minding your baby while you’re at work?’

  ‘I’ll take time off or work part-time or something. I’ll manage.’

  ‘You’re mad, Sophie. It’s going to make life bloody difficult if not stuff up your career for years if you try to do it alone. Why would you do that?’

  ‘What choice do I have?’ Because wishing it away sure hadn’t worked, and the only other option was something she’d thought long and hard about while she’d tossed and turned at night after talking to Beth, trying to find a solution. ‘I did think about having an abortion,’ she admitted.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I went to see a counsellor,’ she shakily confessed. ‘And we talked about abortion. But in the end, I couldn’t do it. I realised that having a baby now might be inconvenient and costly, but it wasn’t enough reason for me to go down the termination route. It’s not this baby’s fault it’s there, it’s my responsibility and I have to step up. And I know it’s going to be hard and people are going to gossip behind my back, but I didn’t go back. I couldn’t do it, Han. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago. Beth came with me.’

  ‘You told Beth and you didn’t tell me?’

  ‘I had to tell someone.’

  ‘But not me.’

  ‘I thought Beth would understand. She had an unplanned pregnancy, too.’

  ‘Whereas I haven’t.’

  ‘It’s nothing to get huffy about.’

  Sophie heard her sister sigh at the end of the line. ‘Yeah, I know, I know. Just, Sophie,’ Hannah said, her voice breaking up on her name, and if Sophie didn’t know her hard-nosed sister better, she’d almost think she was crying. ‘I’m so glad you chose not to do that.’

  26

  Hannah

  Hannah held onto the phone long after her sister had said goodbye. Sophie was pregnant. First Lucy, now Sophie. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn’t it? There was no reason why her sisters wouldn’t want to have children. And even though Lucy had fears after her earlier miscarriage, there was no physical reason to stop her. All Hannah needed was for Beth to get pregnant, and there’d be a trifecta of babies and the yoke of her infertility would hang around her neck heavier than ever.

  She was still sniffing when the phone in her hand buzzed and Hannah looked at the caller ID. ‘Hi, Declan,’ she said, never happier to hear his voice.

  ‘I know we agreed to catch up on the weekend, but I just got to thinking. Are you busy right now, because the weekend feels a mighty long time away, and I was wondering …’

  She smiled as she thanked God for sexy Irishmen who seemed to have perfect timing and know the perfect thing to say.

  ‘I’ll be right over.’

  27

  Sophie

  ‘You’re having a what?’ said Pop.

  ‘A baby,’ said Sophie, when she dropped in to their little cottage the next day after school on the pretext of picking up some eggs. The warm November afternoon sun filtered through the lace kitchen curtains lighting up the dust motes, while a pot of corned beef simmered on the stovetop. Such a normal everyday scene into which to drop a bombshell. Now, she just had to wait for the fallout. Sophie stared blindly at the carton of eggs Nan had placed in front of her a few moments ago and attempted a smile, trying to keep it light, as if she was talking about getting nothing more significant than a haircut. ‘In a few months’ time.’

  ‘Oh, we already knew that,’ said Pop, waving his hands in dismissal. ‘Lucy’s having a baby. Dan’s going to be a father.’

  Sophie put her cup down on her saucer with only a mild clatter. She’d known it wasn’t going to be easy telling her octogenarian grandparents about the baby, but she couldn’t afford to have them hearing her news from anyone else. ‘Not Dan and Lucy’s baby, Pop. I’m having a baby, too.’

  Pop’s cloudy eyes lit up in surprise. ‘Is that so? When’s the happy day?’

  ‘The baby’s due around late June. About eight weeks after Lucy’s baby.’

  ‘Not that day,’ he growled. ‘The wedding day! We’ll have to get that suit of mine off to
the drycleaner’s again, Joanie.’

  ‘Uh, Pop, before you go making plans—there isn’t going to be a wedding. I’m not getting married.’

  ‘Why not? This baby must have a father. Surely he’s going to do the right thing?’

  ‘It’s okay. It just doesn’t suit either of us to get married.’

  Pop grunted and clambered to his feet, scraping his chair across the lino floor. ‘That’s not how we did things in my day,’ he said, and promptly announced he was off to his shed. The screen door slammed behind him and Nan, who’d been sitting quietly contemplating her cup of tea the whole time, sighed.

  Sophie felt the weight of that sigh heavy on her heart. ‘I’m so sorry, Nan. I feel like I’ve let everyone down.’

  Nan lifted her gaze and looked at her through watery eyes, and simply patted the back of her hand, before she said, ‘Go and make a new pot of tea, lovey. I think it’s time I showed you something.’

  Sophie half-heartedly took herself off to the sink to fill the kettle, wondering if she’d made the right decision in keeping the baby, after all. It was so different to how Dan and Lucy’s baby news had been received. Everyone had been thrilled for them, and full of congratulations. She didn’t have a problem with that, she was over the moon happy for them, too, but all her news seemed to bring was shock or disappointment, and it was hard to believe she was doing the right thing in going ahead with this pregnancy.

  She heard Nan muttering as she rummaged around in the linen closet, looking for whatever it was she was looking for, heard the doors bang shut, and met her bearing an old hat box back to the table. ‘It’s in here, I’m sure it is,’ she said, as she lifted the lid to a treasure chest of old photographs and papers, spreading them one by one on the table.

  ‘What is?’ asked Sophie, scanning through the photographs. Some she’d seen before, the old sepia photographs stained and curling at the edges, containing images of great aunts, uncles and great grandparents long gone.

  ‘This one,’ Nan said, putting a black-and-white photo down in front of her granddaughter.

  Sophie recognised it. ‘That’s you and Pop, on your wedding day.’ There was a blown-up version of it in an oval frame on the mantelpiece in the lounge room. ‘You both look so beautiful.’ Her nan was wearing a calf-length gown with a short veil fixed to her dark hair by a band of flowers, a bouquet of white gardenias in her hands, while Pop stood tall and upright beside her in a smart double-breasted suit, a spray of matching flowers in his buttonhole.

  Nan took back the photo, running her fingertips across the faded image as if trying to erase the years and connect with the girl she once was. ‘I was so young. Just eighteen years old. Much younger than you are now.’ She took a deep breath, as a single tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek. ‘So young.’

  She sighed and put down the photo, continuing to dig through the contents of the box with her knobbly-jointed fingers until they paused at a folded paper. She nodded as she unfolded it, ironing out the creases with the side of her hand on the table.

  ‘Here,’ she said, sliding it in front of Sophie.

  ‘Your marriage certificate.’

  Nan nodded. ‘And what do you notice about it?’

  Sophie could find nothing out of place. It all looked perfectly unremarkable. There was the name of the minister who’d married them and the names of her grandparents, the bride and groom, and there were their signatures, written in beautiful copperplate script.

  ‘The date,’ Nan hinted. ‘Twenty-fifth of August, nineteen forty-nine,’ Nan said, spelling it out. ‘And when was your father born?’

  ‘First of—’ Sophie blinked as the tremor slid down her spine. ‘Oh my God. February first, 1950. That’s only—’ She peered into her grandmother’s face. ‘You mean …?’

  Nan nodded. ‘“Large for dates” the nurses all said when he was born, but back then, everyone knew what that meant.’ She looked at the wedding photo again. ‘I was barely eighteen.’

  Sophie took her grandmother’s hands in hers. ‘Oh, Nan, you must have been so scared when you found out.’

  ‘You have no idea how much. I was sick with fear at the thought of telling my parents. Sick with fear at what would happen if I tried to hide it. My father was a very strict man, you see, and highly respected in our church. He threatened to tear Clarry limb from limb when Mum broke the news to him. Shouted the house down and said he’d skin him alive if he didn’t do the honourable thing. We were married inside a month.’ She shrugged world-weary shoulders. ‘That’s how things happened back then. Nobody asked you what you wanted, a girl was expected to get married, like it or lump it. It’s not like they gave you any say in it.’ She shook her head. ‘I’d sinned against God, my father told me. I’d pay for it, he said. I thought he meant by having to get married. I thought that was punishment enough. But he was right, because after your father, I never had another child.’

  It sounded so harsh to Sophie, and so very cruel. ‘But wouldn’t you have married Pop anyway?’

  Nan clucked her tongue. ‘I don’t know about that.’ She blinked and turned her liquid eyes to Sophie’s. ‘I barely knew Clarry, and I had such plans, you see. I was going to be a concert pianist. I’d already given recitals in the Adelaide Town Hall and I wanted to travel all over the world. London. Paris. New York, I had it all planned …’ She trailed off, her quaky voice softly wistful, her eyes staring into the past.

  ‘I never knew that, Nan. You never told us you were a concert pianist.’

  She screwed up her nose. ‘Well, it’s all water under the fridge, now,’ and Sophie didn’t have the heart to correct her.

  ‘So you married Pop instead.’

  Nan nodded as she blew out a breath. ‘Yes. I married Clarry.’

  ‘Yet you said you barely knew him. So how—’

  ‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking. But things weren’t as different then as they are these days. Not by a long shot. Not when it comes down to the birds and the bees.’

  She sighed and looked at herself in the old photo again. ‘It was cousin Ivy who invited me up to the Ashton Hall for the Saturday-night dance. She was a good few years older than me and very sophisticated, I thought, and she did my hair and lent me her lipstick and I felt quite wicked. Ivy had a beau, a handsome young orchardist called Robert, who introduced me to his friend, your grandfather. Clarence was a good-looking young man back then, I can tell you, tall and sun-tanned from working outside, and he asked me to dance and I was smitten. I hadn’t had much male attention up till then, you understand, I was always too busy practising my scales, and it went to my head. So, when he asked me to go out for some fresh air after Robert and Ivy had disappeared outside, I went. I suppose I was very naive, but I liked the attention and I wanted to seem more sophisticated than I was. I was off to Europe, or so I thought. I wanted to appear so very sophisticated.’

  She shrugged. ‘One minute I was a budding concert pianist and the next I was a housewife with a new baby who got to play the organ at Sunday church.’

  ‘Oh, Nan,’ Sophie said, leaning over to wrap her arms around her and hug her tight.

  Nan patted Sophie’s arms and pulled a flapping tissue from under her bra strap to wipe her eyes. ‘So, don’t you go worrying about Clarry and thinking you’re letting us down. If anyone understands what you’re going through, it’s us old-timers, even though Clarry might not like to be reminded of it. And though I’d be lying if I pretended I didn’t wish you had a lovely husband to go along with the baby, for my part, I’m glad you get some kind of say if you don’t want to get married. I’m glad things have changed since my day.’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘I never knew any of this. Did any of us know? Did you tell Beth all this, when she was having Siena?’

  Nan looked sad. ‘I should have, I know. But we’d only recently lost your father, and I couldn’t bring myself to admit the truth when it had been buried so long. I didn’t want to go digging up the past when the present was still so painful. A
nd call it a silly old lady’s pride, but I was still so ashamed of what I’d done. And then Beth’s Joe died and she didn’t want to hear my sad story. She had more important things to think about then.’

  She sniffed again into her tissue and Sophie gave Nan’s shoulders another squeeze before letting her go. ‘I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you the way you would have liked back then.’

  ‘I made my choice,’ said Nan, clearing her throat and firming her shoulders, ‘even if I was terribly naive. I had to live with the consequences. And mind, they’re not all bad, if I had your father for as long as we had him, and I have four beautiful grandchildren, a great-grandchild and another two on the way.’ She smiled, though her eyes were still clouded with the ghost of another life foregone. ‘They’re not all bad consequences, are they? I’ve had a good life and Clarry’s been a good husband. A gem at times, if truth be told, but don’t let him catch me saying that. I could have done a lot worse. And whatever happens, I know that it will work out for you, too.’

  Sophie smiled at her nan, for her faith that things would turn out all right, her eyes falling on the framed cross-stitch on the wall above her head—the one that said, Sometimes the wrong choices can still lead us to the right places. And she wondered what her nan had been thinking as she’d stitched every letter of that herself.

  They sipped their tea in silence, and for a while the generations slipped away and they were simply two women united by the common bond of an all-too-common misstep, a choice made and the repercussions that had spun their lives in different directions from what they’d planned.

  Until through the screen door came the sound of a flock of screeching cockatoos descending into the line of pine trees outside, and the spell was broken. ‘A shame about cousin Ivy,’ Nan said at last, clucking her tongue, getting to her feet to check on her bubbling pot.

  Sophie started collecting the cups and saucers. ‘What happened? Did she marry the orchardist?’