‘Does Parker want to come?’
‘I mean, if you want to debrief about your problems with a thirteen-year-old—’
She laughs. ‘They’re not reallyproblems… More of a crossroads.’
No good can come from an announcement of a crossroads that couldn’t wait until our regular Monday night dinner back home.
Parker runs over when she sees Rachael, and throws herself into her arms for a long hug.
‘You came!’
‘I said I would! Might even go for a walk on the beach with you later!’
‘But you hate beaches!’ Parker’s eyes are wide. She knows Rach as well as I do.
‘Always willing to make an exception for you two.’ This is delivered with a pointed glance in my direction.Are too many exceptions being made?‘Come with us to the cafe, Parks? Or do you want to stay with your friend?’
‘Bring me a milkshake?’
As she runs off, Rachael and I start off on foot, sunlight filtered through towering eucalypts as we saunter along the road.Her hand flies to my arm when she spots a pair of king parrots, red feathers glistening, and we stand still while she watches them and I watch her. Trying to shake a foreboding sense of unwanted, incoming change.
When we reach the wooden shack converted into a popular coffee spot, she orders her latte, but can’t face food, apparently.Another warning bell. She puts her keys and her phone down on the empty third seat, and I watch the subtle shift in her expression.Audrey should be sitting there.
I have been so constantly aware of Audrey’s glaring absence from this party of three, I seem to have missed our comfortable slide into a duo. The shape of us felt wrong without her. ‘You marry one of us, you marry both of us,’ they once joked. It was like having a live-in sister-in-law at times. No, not a sister-in-law exactly. Not any sort of sister, now that I’m really looking at Rachael.
The thought ignites but barely has time to lift off before she slams me with ‘Frase, you know I’ve been wanting a baby?’
Is that it?The baby thing. A million questions jostle in my head.
‘I’ve booked an appointment with a fertility doctor,’ she barrels on.
Right.That Rachael wants a baby is not a surprise. Audrey had let it slip during one of our rolling conversations about her own decision on this front. I think she was checking that I hadn’t descended into the resentment she always feared, despite the reassurance I always gave her.
‘So you’re really going to do this?’ I ask now. It would make sense of a lot of things. Her having been withdrawn. The weird looks. The crossroads.
She’s shaking with nerves.
‘I’m forty,’ she says. ‘I’m almost out of time. Could already be out of it. I can’t wait any longer for everything else to fall into place.’
Theeverything elseburrows under my skin like a fresh splinter.
Audrey and I once set up Rachael with a colleague of mine, Michael, a nuclear physicist—loves neatness and cats and galleries, hates being outside. He found her clever and interesting, and she said he was fascinating and kind. Everything had aligned, on paper. But she always found a way to call things off with a man before they became too serious.
‘Do you need my help?’ I say without thinking.What am I even suggesting?
She swallows a mouthful of latte, scalding herself, and splutters, ‘No, Fraser. That’s not why I’m here.’
The idea, just seconds old, is pierced now by a shard of disappointment. ‘Parenting is hard. We could make a good team?’We already do. With Parker.
She rolls her eyes. ‘You don’t just jump into a lifelong parenting commitment with someone over a hot beverage.’
‘I’m not justsomeone!’ The argument presents itself before I can stop it. ‘Am I?’
‘I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to have your baby, my friend.’ She places her hand on my arm briefly. ‘It’s cleaner this way.’
Cleaner?I must look injured, because she adds, ‘It’s nothing personal, Frase. You know I adore you. But I need a complete change.’
My heart really kicks off now, more than it did at the idea of suddenly becoming a dad again. Something tells me the baby is just the beginning of whatever Rachael’s working up to here.
