‘You didn’t make the appointment though, did you?’
It wasn’t her place to do it, she thought irritably. He was a grown man more than capable of booking his own doctor’s appointment and yet maybe he had a point. Had she been the one who’d wanted him to have the vasectomy, she would have definitely booked it in and seen to all the arrangements, but she was beginning to suspect that perhaps she hadn’t felt entirely comfortable with their options being so … final, despite the fact she wasn’t exactly over the moon about the news either.
‘We should never have trusted the pill. How did it even happen?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, sinking to the edge of their bed. ‘It was probably when the kids were sick a few weeks ago. I had a touch of it—an upset stomach,’ she said.
‘You’re supposed to be a bloody nurse. How did you not realise you wouldn’t be protected?’
‘I don’t know!’ she snapped irritably. He was right, she should have suspected that diarrhoea, even a slight case of it, could have affected the pill’s protection. It hadn’t helped that they’d also had sex unexpectedly. Their sex life had been as dismal as their budget over the last few years, with herexhausted from shift work most of the time, and him travelling with his new job so much. She simply hadn’t thought about any consequences—hadn’t for so long that she’d almost forgotten about sex being linked to babies and stretch marks!
Eventually, shock had turned into acceptance and Jenny found herself becoming excited about baby number three. Everything would be fine. They’d manage—they always had in the past, they would again.
Chloe had been the perfect baby—adored by her two older sisters and managing to wrap her father around her little finger from the very first moment he’d laid eyes on her. The initial concerns about having another baby seemed to have been forgotten and life settled into a new rhythm. Everythingseemedto be fine-ish. But she’d felt Austin pulling away. At first it hadn’t been that noticeable—his work took him away on conferences and training seminars, so it was normal that when he was getting home she was heading out on a night shift, like ships passing in the night. Then it washerjob causing issues. She needed to do casual shifts after her maternity leave in order to keep her registration, so she was often stressed and tired, looking after a young baby on top of the odd work hours. Intimacy had naturally taken a back seat for a while. She noticed, of course, but she wasn’t too concerned—in a year or two things would settle down and they’d reconnect and get back on track … Only they hadn’t. Nothing went back to any kind of old normal. Instead, they settled into somenewnormal that was only ever supposed to be temporary.
Over the next ten years or so, the investment apartment in Sydney they’d bought so Austin didn’t have to pay foraccommodation on his numerous trips eventually became his full-time residence—for work. Then he’d dropped his bombshell on her: he’d been seeing someone down there for two months. He’d seemed surprised when Jenny had been shocked.
‘You barely even notice I’m gone,’ he’d accused when he’d come home to announce he wanted out of their marriage.
‘That’s because you’re never here,’ she’d thrown back.
‘Because I was working. To give you and the kids a better life.’
‘And I haven’t been?’
‘My career has always been the one that allowed us to live the lifestyle we have. Do you honestly think you’d be living in this house or that the girls would have got a new car for their birthdays if it wasn’t for my job? Your pay cheque wouldn’t cover half of this stuff.’
She’d been stunned, truly shocked by his remarks. She shouldn’t have been— she’d always known Austin was ambitious. When they were first married, he’d lay awake at night and tell her all about his plans for making his first million. She’d always let him dream big without trying to pop his bubble—she’d never cared about the money side of things, she had everything she’d ever wanted: healthy children, a stable marriage and a house to live in. But Austin had never been satisfied with what they had for long, always striving for more. And she took offence at his belittling her career. She hadn’t become a nurse to make a fortune. She loved her job, despite the fact it was stressful and nurses were underpaid and often under appreciated. She did it because she cared about people and wanted to look after them. And she was good at it.
She still loved her job, Jenny thought as she pushed herself up off the lounge and headed for the black tourmaline candle on the sideboard, lighting it with a decisive strike of a match. There was no room in this house for bad energy anymore. She took a long breath in and let the spicy citrus scent fill her senses.
She wasn’t sure why she’d felt a need to let the past intrude on her thoughts like this. She’d spent the last few years learning how to be herself and she had to admit this newfound independence thing could be quite exhilarating. It was time to stop looking back and focus on the future.
