Page 63 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
They both tried to reassure me at the same time.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said. I coughed to clear my throat then pulled my hands free of their respective clasps.
‘I’m just going to check on those scans,’ Dad said, which left Mum and me alone together for the first time that day.
The industrial-strength painkillers she’d been given had evidently kicked in because she no longer looked grey with pain, just tired. Now that I knew she was comfortable, I felt concern for her transform into something else.
‘What were you doing in that stupid ball?’ I asked, my voice almost a whisper. ‘You were wearing heels!’
‘It was a low wedge,’ Mum said dismissively. ‘It was your special day – I wanted to join in. I didn’t want to stay on the sidelines.’
‘Well, if you wanted to participate, you should have been prepared. Like Jane was. Like everyone else was. You don’t just get to decide halfway through to sub in and mess up everyone else’s fun. God, Mum – you just do exactly what you want. You never think about who might get hurt,’ I said, unable to stop now I’d started. ‘But people do get hurt! You got hurt. And you mademyday aboutyou!’
‘I make everything about me?’ Mum said, matching my tone. ‘Stones in glass houses. You got drunk at my birthday dinner. And now I’m in a hospital bed and you’ve picked a fight. And I don’t make everything about me. In fact, Hamish and I didn’t even have a proper wedding, a real celebration, so we wouldn’t upset anyone.’
‘Well, maybe you should call Hamish. How would he feel about the fact you’re batting your eyelashes at your exhusband while he’s on the other side of the world visiting his daughter?’
‘Is that really an accusation you want to make?’ Mum asked sharply.
We stared at each other, both of our mouths open in disbelief that the other had stooped so low. It was like I was a sixteen-year-old again and Mum and I were having one of our shouting matches. We’d go head-to-head over something stupid, like a curfew. Then we’d apologise to each other and be hysterically laughing minutes later.
But we never fought like this anymore. After she left, we’d barely spoken for a year. She lived with Hamish, and I lived with Dad. Then we’d slowly drifted back into each other’s orbits and rebuilt a relationship. But it was a very different dynamic from what we’d had – we held each other at a civil distance, where emotions always stayed in a calibrated range.
‘Mum, are you okay?’ Nick appeared at the door, breathless. He was in scrubs, the lanyard from his hospital still around his neck, his auburn hair mussed in a way that made me suspect it had been recently under a scrub cap. His work clothes suited him – I couldn’t imagine him in a suit or high-vis. Even though it looked like he’d raced here and was worried about Mum, he emanated a practised aura of calm and competence.
‘I just had a fall,’ Mum said in her most reassuring voice.
‘I thought you were meant to be at Matt’s buck’s?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, I was really hoping to get down there but—’
‘You had to work,’ I finished his sentence before he could.
‘Becs, I don’t decide when a patient goes into labour,’ Nick said in the tone he’d once used to explain to me why, because he was so much older, he got the front seat, the better bedroom, control of the remote. ‘I can stay with Mum. You go back to yourparty. Stella’s put so much work into it. It’s not fair to her if you—’
‘That’s what’s not fair to Stella?’ I felt something that had been stretched too tightly inside me snap as frustration ratcheted up to anger. It felt like my eyebrows were almost at my hairline. He was really telling me off for leaving Stella in the lurch. Was he blind to the fact that the struggle of trying to care for both a newborn and preschooler single-handedly had left her an exhausted wreck? Did he not understand how unfair it was that he gave all his time and energy to his work and almost nothing to his wife and family? Were the Hippocratic Oath and hypocrisy a package deal?
‘Becs...’ Nick began to speak but a nurse appeared at the door. I could see her take the room’s temperature.
‘I’ll come back in five to take your blood pressure,’ she said to Mum after a moment, then quickly left. I was glad she wasn’t taking my blood pressure, which I knew would be through the roof. I turned back to Nick.
‘Let me translate this into the language the Evans family understands. Patient presents—’
‘Becs...’ Nick tried again, with a weary sigh, but I was on a roll.
‘Patient presents as a mother of two with head and muscle aches. Difficulty concentrating. Extreme fatigue. Dehydration. Anxiety. Overwhelm.’
‘Take a deep breath. I can seeyou’reoverwhelmed right now,’ Nick said in an irritatingly calm voice, ignoring everything I’d said. He spoke as if I was one of his patients – except instead of birthing a baby, it was a bouncing bundle of histrionics.
‘The answer is maternal exhaustion. Or for those of us without medical training... leaving my friend, your wife, to sink,’ I said.
I turned to face Mum, who looked bemused (or possibly high from her pain meds). ‘I leave you in capable hands.’
I stalked out of the room with as much dignity as was possible while wearing a leotard.
By the time I’d walked through kilometres of hallway to reach the hospital’s main lobby, I’d calmed down. My finger hovered over Matt’s name on my phone’s screen. I didn’t want to interrupt his night of fun, just because mine had been cut short. But he’d also told me that he was the person I was meant to call when things fell apart.
He picked up after a few short rings.
