Hudson found out the truth years afterwards, a long time after they’d come to terms that for some reason, they couldn’t conceive a second time. Lucinda had never wanted to go down the IVF route and he respected that; it was a lot to deal with and came with no guarantees. They had Beau and they adored their son and it would be the three of them as a family.
When Beau was twelve, Lucinda came down with a bout of food poisoning following a dinner out at a restaurant for their anniversary. They were back to arguing again and Hudson had wanted to make the effort to do something different. She was always at the office, he was working part time and running the house, but this night was an attempt to reconnect.
And reconnect they did. But not in the ways he hoped. The next morning, he’d gone to find her, to take her some water, some toast, see if she could keep something down before he went to work. But she was in the spare room, the little room that doubled as her study when she needed to do any work from home, and she was in the middle of a business call.
He sighed, set down the drink and the toast on her bedside table. At least she was feeling better.
He was about to eat the toast himself given it would be stone cold by the time she emerged from her work environment, when he saw a text flash up on her phone screen from the doctor. He picked up the phone – the text was a reminder for an appointment for today. He’d explained to her that food poisoning likely meant rest, plenty of fluids and didn’t necessitate a visit to the doctor, but clearly she thought she knew best.
‘What are you doing?’ She appeared in the doorway and when she saw her phone in his hand she came over and took possession of it.
‘I was bringing you toast and some water.’
She spotted the plate and the glass. ‘Oh, thanks.’
‘You’re feeling better?’
‘Yes, much better.’
‘Food poisoning usually lasts a bit longer; you’re lucky.’
‘Yes, I suppose I must be.’
Then why did she look so shifty and pale? ‘What’s the doctor appointment for if you’re better?’
‘You don’t have to know everything.’
‘So I’m not allowed to worry about my wife?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Just a women’s check-up; it’s been arranged for ages, nothing to do with the food poisoning.’
She was infuriating when she closed herself off like this, wouldn’t talk to him. ‘Toast is there,’ he said, ‘eat it or don’t eat it. I’m not going to fight about it.’
He was going to be late for work if he didn’t get going so he left her to it.
Ten minutes later, she came downstairs, clearly not expecting him to be hovering in the kitchen.
She clasped a hand against her chest. ‘You made me jump. I thought you’d left.’ She came closer, the plate cleared, her glass half-empty. And that was when she saw the stick on the kitchen table. And she didn’t say a word, just set her plate and her glass down by the sink and looked out of the window, her back to him.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Hudson had gone to put something in the bin, realised the bag had a hole in it, and took the entire thing out to transfer the rubbish into a fresh bag. That was when the pregnancy test had fallen out. A positive pregnancy test.
‘I would’ve told you.’ She still didn’t face him.
‘Is that what the doctor’s appointment is for today?’ He felt his hopes, his spirits rise. ‘This is… this is the best news ever.’
But when she turned around, the look on her face was chilling. ‘No, Hudson. This is not good news.’
He was confused. ‘But we tried for years. We both wanted this.’ They’d assumed it was secondary infertility which happened to some couples. Lucinda hadn’t wanted to undergo any invasive investigations; she’d wanted to let nature take its course. They’d clearly got lucky. Or at least that was the way he was looking at it.
He went over to her. ‘I know it’ll be a huge adjustment.’ Perhaps she was panicking. ‘We’ll get used to it. Beau will have a little brother or a sister. He’ll have siblings just like you did.’ But when he tried to pull her to him, she shrugged him off.
‘I need to get dressed, ready for the doctor.’
‘I’ll call in, take the morning off, come with you.’
‘No, thanks, I’ll go by myself.’
‘Why are you pushing me away? What’s wrong with you that you can’t let me in?’
