Claiming Noah (2 page)

‘Just promise that you won't let me become one of those mothers who can only talk about their children,' Catriona said. ‘If my topics of conversation can't get past mastitis and controlled crying, then I give you permission to divorce me. I've seen plenty of my friends turn from intelligent, interesting women to mothers who can't remember or speak about a world BC.'

‘BC?'

‘Before children.'

James laughed. ‘Come on, you're being a bit harsh, aren't you? There's nothing wrong with talking about your children.'

‘That's what you say
now
. You don't see what they're all like. The other day, when I went out to lunch with the girls, they spent a good hour discussing different weaning techniques. I nearly went and joined the table next to us just so I could talk about something else. Promise me you'll tell me if I start doing that.'

He nodded, trying hard to look solemn. ‘All right, I promise. If you can't stop talking about your nipples, I'll stage an intervention for you.'

James pulled into the driveway of the terrace house he and Catriona had shared for the past three years. After an emotional day she felt a rush of relief and affection at the sight of the grey exterior and the red door – and for the frangipani tree in the front yard she had convinced James to keep even though it was bare for six months of the year and dropped flowers all over their yard throughout summer. It was the last day of September, a month into spring, so the branches were covered with large, boat-shaped leaves but no flowers yet. In two months the first white buds would appear, a herald to the start of summer.

Catriona and James had discussed whether the two-bedroom, one-bathroom house was too small to raise a child in, but properties in their neighbourhood were expensive, so if they wanted a bigger place they would have to move further out of the city. James was keen, but Catriona wasn't ready to give up her urban lifestyle yet.
Let's just see how it goes
, she'd said.

James turned to Catriona after he switched off the ignition. ‘I'm going to grab a coffee from Greco's. Do you want to come?'

Their favourite coffee shop was at the end of their street. The baristas made a mean coffee, but the main reason Catriona loved to go there was for their eggs Benedict. The owner saved Catriona and James the corner table outside on Sunday mornings and their ritual was to order the eggs, drink a couple of skim flat whites and read through the Sunday papers. Catriona read the news and health sections while James made his way through the sports pages. It was her favourite part of the week.

‘You go,' she said. ‘I feel a bit drained. I'll just lie on the couch and watch some bad TV for a while. I'll see what Judge Judy is up to.'

James stepped out of the car and then rushed around to Catriona's side to help her out.

‘You don't have to do that, I'm probably not even pregnant yet,' she said, a smile hinting at the corner of her lips.

He kissed her forehead. ‘I know. I just want to take care of you.'

•  •  •

Catriona put her keys on the hall table and absently straightened one of the framed photographs lining the hallway before she looked into the mirror hanging on the wall above the table. She wasn't sure what exactly she was looking for. A glint in her eyes, maybe? A flush in her cheeks? That aura of calm she was sure she had detected radiating from mothers even when their child was scrawling texta over walls or had just pushed over another child in the playground? Would she ever master that level of serenity? Her reflection didn't give away any clues. The only thing out of the ordinary it showed was a pair of bloodshot eyes – red spider webs radiating out from bright green irises – but they were courtesy of a sleepless night spent worrying about how the procedure would go. She saw in her reflection that her short blonde hair was flattened on one side from the way she had lain on the examination bed. Her first instinct was to reprimand James for not telling her to fix it, but then she realised that in his distracted state he probably wouldn't have noticed if her hair had turned purple. His mind had been preoccupied with only one thought: whether or not he was about to become a father.

They had been trying to fall pregnant for the past two years, since they got engaged. Catriona was disappointed each month when her period arrived, but it was nothing compared to the dread she felt about telling James they still weren't pregnant and witnessing his crestfallen response. When they eventually went to a fertility clinic they found out they both had reasons that were making it difficult for them to conceive. Catriona had a blocked fallopian tube, which meant her eggs weren't passing into her uterus every other month, and James had a low sperm count. So, with that double-hit of negative news, they realised their chances of falling pregnant without assistance were negligible.

The decision to try IVF hadn't been an easy one for either of them. Even though they both earned high salaries and could afford the expensive treatments, the pragmatic side of James struggled with the thought of spending the cost of a small car on what was essentially a gamble. Catriona's concern with IVF had been more to do with the invasiveness of the procedures. A friend had told horror stories about the blood tests, ultrasounds and hormone injections, as well as the indignity of having eggs surgically extracted and then reimplanted as an embryo. Catriona and James had considered adoption or surrogacy as an alternative to IVF, but in the end they decided they wanted their baby to be a product of the two of them, a combination of their best traits.

•  •  •

Two weeks later Catriona visited the clinic to have a sample of her blood taken. She had spent the past fortnight scrutinising her body for changes and kept imagining she felt a flutter in her belly, even though she knew full well that after two weeks she wouldn't have been able to feel a baby. She found herself losing track of the conversation in meetings, rereading emails several times before she could understand what they said and nearly missing her bus stop on the commute home from work. One day as she ran errands on her lunch hour she stopped still in the middle of the busy city street, causing a man behind her to step on the back of her heel, pitching her forwards. She had been brought to a standstill by an advertising poster plastered on to the side of a bus: an image of a small child eating cereal. She mumbled an apology to the man, adjusted her shoe and scolded herself for letting her emotions take over. But it was no use fighting it. Every thought and every activity was overshadowed by the perpetual question running through her mind:
Am I or aren't I?

Later that night, while she was at home making dinner, the phone rang. Her heart started to race with anticipation, but she forced herself to stay calm as she answered the call.

‘I'm running late, sorry,' James said. ‘My probation meeting went over.'

Catriona let out the breath she was holding on to. ‘God, don't do that to me. I thought it was the clinic.'

‘Sorry, babe. You must be going crazy. So, no call yet?'

‘Nothing yet. How was your meeting?'

‘Oh, you know, the same. I can't wait to be done with them.'

‘I know. Only one more year.'

Regular probation meetings were a requirement of the three-year good-behaviour bond James had been granted by the court, instead of prison time, after he had been arrested two years earlier for his assistance in the cultivation of a commercial quantity of cannabis.

It had seemed so out of character when James was arrested that Catriona initially asked police whether they had the wrong person. As she told them, James wouldn't even park the car without putting money in a meter. And to be arrested for growing cannabis? They had once shared a joint with a few friends during a ski trip, but other than that she didn't think James had ever touched drugs. But when the story eventually came out, and Catriona learned that it was James's oldest friend, Spencer, who had been responsible for turning a rented country house into a hydroponic marijuana greenhouse, it all made sense.

Spencer's juvenile and adult life had been littered with drug convictions, assault charges and illegal schemes he managed to coerce friends and family to be part of. Remarkably, Spencer had talked his way out of most of his past offences by paying a fine or doing community service, but this one had rewarded him with a five-year prison sentence. Spencer had convinced James to handle the financial aspects of the cannabis operation – the banking, rent and bills Spencer couldn't have in his own name without arousing suspicion from the police, given his criminal record.

Catriona still couldn't understand why James agreed to help Spencer, and how he had kept it from her without hinting that something was awry. She had stopped bringing it up with him because it always caused an argument, but it still concerned her when she allowed herself to think about it. She knew that James felt a sense of loyalty towards Spencer because they had been friends since primary school, and she admired that about him, but surely loyalty could only stretch so far. She blamed Spencer for the estranged relationship James had with his parents. Even though James said he had never been close to them, they had still been a part of his life and had visited him whenever they came down to Sydney from Brisbane, where James had grown up and his parents still lived. But their refusal to lend him the money to pay the bail for Spencer's drug conviction had led to a huge row. Spencer had ended up in prison, and James said he wanted nothing to do with his parents. The only contact since then had been an impersonal exchange of birthday and Christmas cards. Catriona felt that James had overreacted and hoped he would reconcile with them one day. His parents could become grandparents soon, and Catriona didn't want to deny her child a relationship with them over something that could easily be resolved.

Ten minutes after she hung up the phone, James walked into the kitchen and kissed Catriona's cheek. She was standing at the stove cooking dinner, a trail of steam illuminated in the light from the range hood.

‘Why don't you turn the fan on?' he asked, leaning past her to flick the switch.

It roared to life above Catriona's head, startling her. She turned it off. ‘The noise makes me anxious. And I can't deal with any extra anxiety today.'

James stood next to her at the stove, assessing the contents she was stirring around a wok. ‘Chicken stir-fry?'

She nodded. ‘I can't concentrate enough to make anything more complicated. So, your meeting was horrible?'

‘It was fine. It's just annoying that I have to keep going to them. I'm so tempted to blow them off. Especially since we might have a lot more on our plates soon.' He patted her stomach and walked over to the fridge.

Catriona turned around to look at him, the stir-fry forgotten. ‘You have to go to them, you know that. If you don't, you'll go to jail.'

‘Babe, I know, okay? I was joking.' He took a bottle of beer from the fridge and sat on one of the stools nestled under the breakfast bar. They had bought the designer wooden stools when they renovated the kitchen after moving into the terrace. James found them uncomfortable and impractical; Catriona liked that they matched the dining table and said it didn't matter if they were uncomfortable. As usual, she had won the argument.

‘If we do get pregnant you can't use that as an excuse not to go,' Catriona said.

James thumped his bottle on to the breakfast bar, splashing beer over the stone bench top. ‘I know that. You don't have to treat me like a child. I've been going to them for nearly two years now and I've never missed a single one.'

‘Don't yell at me.'

‘I'm not yelling at you, I just . . .' He sighed and walked over to the pantry, taking from it a paper towel to mop up his spilled beer. ‘I'm sorry, Cat. I'm just so nervous. I haven't been able to think straight all day. Why hasn't Doctor Malapi called yet? What does that mean? Do you think it's bad news?'

Catriona started to spoon the cooked stir-fry into bowls as she spoke. ‘He'll call, regardless of whether the news is good or bad.'

She had done her best to hide her nerves from James. He always said she was the strong one in their relationship, and from the state he was in she knew he needed her support more than she needed his.

‘And what if we're not pregnant?' James asked.

‘If we're not, we're not. You know what Doctor Malapi said: we have a thirty per cent chance with our first attempt. So, that's a seventy per cent chance against.'

‘Thanks, Einstein.'

Catriona pushed one of the bowls towards James and walked around the breakfast bar to sit next to him on the spare stool. ‘So, how was—'

She was interrupted by the sound of her mobile ringing. It was a noise Catriona heard several times a day but it seemed louder now, more insistent. They exchanged a nervous glance before James picked up the phone from the kitchen bench, looked at the number and then handed it to her. ‘You answer. I can't.'

Catriona gingerly held the phone up to her ear. She recognised the soothing voice immediately.

‘Catriona? It's Doctor Malapi. Sorry to call you so late, but I just got your blood-test results back and I thought you'd want to know the news straightaway.'

Catriona paused, waiting for the words she had wanted to hear for the past two years.

‘You're pregnant! Congratulations.'

Doctor Malapi went on with some other information about ultrasounds and check-ups, but Catriona wasn't paying attention. She silently repeated his joyous words to herself over and over again.
You're pregnant. You're pregnant. You're pregnant.
James was watching her intently, trying to follow the conversation from the expression on Catriona's face. He mirrored her smile and started nodding his head in question, his eyebrows raised. She only just remembered to thank Doctor Malapi before she hung up.