The Aftermath by Gail Schimmel (free ebook reader for ipad .TXT) 📕

‘We’ll know soon,’ she says in her quiet voice.

But suddenly I’m pretty sure that I’m not pregnant. And I’m pretty sure I’ve ruined everything.

Claire

I see Daniel sitting at the table, staring at his coffee with that look on his face that tells me he’s far away. The sight is at once so familiar and so foreign that I feel a lump in my throat. I can’t walk into this crying – I have to be strong and ready to heal our relationship. I take a deep breath and straighten my shoulders before I approach him.

‘Claire,’ he says, pushing his chair back to stand up. One of the things I like about Daniel is his old-fashioned manners. He stands up when a woman enters the room, and he walks on the outside of the pavement.

Oh yes, and he sleeps with my friend.

I swallow again. This is not the time for bitterness.

Daniel looks at me intensely. ‘Do you think they actually send men in white coats, or is that just something they say?’ he asks in lieu of greeting. ‘Like, do you think there’s an actual team on stand-by? Maybe at the fire station?’

From anybody else, this might surprise me. But this is so Daniel. So exactly why I fell in love with him in the first place.

‘I think it’s just something they say,’ I tell him, sitting down. ‘But maybe historically it was true.’

Daniel pulls out the notebook he always carries and makes a note. I know that somewhere in the future, some creative execution of Daniel’s will involve men in white coats. I love his brain, with its convoluted passageways so different from my own.

Once the note is made, Daniel comes back to me. ‘So,’ he says, sitting down. ‘So, how are you?’

‘Fine,’ I lie to my husband of ten years. ‘Busy. You know how it goes.’

The words are so weightless, so superficial, that I feel them float away over the sugar bowl, out the window.

But Daniel nods eagerly, like I’ve said something profound. ‘Good, good,’ he says. ‘Busy is good.’

‘Yes,’ I say, although I don’t really know what I’m agreeing with. ‘And you?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Fine. Busy. Weird.’

‘Weird?’ At last something true has been said.

Daniel rubs his forehead with both hands. ‘So weird, Claire. It’s like I went to bed and I’ve woken up in a different life.’

‘Well, basically you have,’ I say, exasperated by his confusion. ‘That would be because when you went to bed, there was a different woman in it.’

Daniel looks like I’ve slapped him for no reason. ‘You’re very angry, Claire,’ he says, like he can’t think of a single reason why this would be so.

‘Yes.’ But I’m not feeling angry; I’m feeling icy calm and my tone is matter-of-fact. ‘I’m very angry. You slept with my friend and left me. That’s kind of up there in shitty behaviour. Even my mother thinks you’re a wanker.’ My mother loves Daniel. She cannot believe this has happened.

‘Well, that’s telling me,’ says Daniel.

At that point a waiter comes over and I order coffee. Daniel looks bleakly at the coffee in front of him and declines.

‘So,’ I say when the waiter has left, ‘is there anything special you wanted to say, or are we just shooting the breeze?’

Daniel looks at me and then around the room, like he’s looking for an escape route between the freelancers tapping at their laptops, and the mum-crowd who’ve met up after drop-off, and the breakfast meetings.

‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he says.

‘Okay. Is it about Mackenzie?’ Obviously I know it’s not about Mackenzie. I’m waiting for him to tell me that he’s made a mistake and he wants me back. That’s the only thing he can be going to say, though I’m less sure now.

‘I don’t really know how to say this . . .’ he says.

‘Well, I can’t help you there. Maybe just close your eyes and spit it out?’

He looks at me like this is the wisest thing he’s ever heard. ‘You always know, Claire. You always have this great advice and know how to make things easier. I miss that.’

‘Oka-ay,’ I say. ‘Is that what you wanted to tell me?’

He’s quiet for a moment and then he actually closes his eyes, and awkwardly places his hands flat on the table. ‘Julia’s pregnant.’

I can’t take it in.

I sit there like I’m in one of those cartoons where they hit the character over the head with a frying pan, and they stay frozen before they fall. Only, I’m stuck in the frozen part. It’s like my whole body switches over into panic mode, like a rabbit, frozen still in the hope that the problem will go away. I stare at Daniel’s mouth.

‘Claire, say something.’

But I can’t. I can’t speak.

Daniel cannot be having a baby with someone else. This is not happening. I shake my head, and for some inexplicable reason Daniel thinks this is some sort of signal to carry on talking.

‘It wasn’t planned,’ he says. ‘I’m as shocked as you. So is Julia. She’s quite upset, actually. But it’s happened now. So there it is. A sister or brother for Mackenzie, eh?’

I shake my head again, trying to make this end.

‘She’s told her mum. I’m going to meet her this weekend. And her dad. We’re going to tell him.’

This extraordinary statement manages to rouse me. ‘Her dad who’s a vegetable?’

And then the strangest thing happens. Daniel meets my eyes and we both start giggling. Because one of the things we’ve talked about in the past is Julia’s tragic story and her dad, who she maintains is not a vegetable. And I know my laughter is actually hysteria: a defence mechanism against the unhearable thing Daniel has just said.

‘I’m not sure what I’m expected to do,’ says Daniel. ‘Do I shake his hand?’

We start giggling again, and for a moment it’s Daniel-and-Claire against the world, Daniel-and-Claire who laugh at things that other people don’t find funny. For a moment the connection is so strong it glows.