In a daze she wandered through her flat, trying to take it in. The test said she was pregnant. Her period hadn’t come and her breasts felt unusually tight and tender. Her body said she was pregnant.
It didn’t make sense.
‘I don’t understand. How could it have happened?’ she asked the doctor next evening.
He looked at her with amused surprise. ‘You don’t really need me to explain about the birds and the bees, do you, Alice?’
‘No, of course not. But I’m supposed to be infertile.’
The doctor frowned and then glanced back at his computer screen, scrolling through her records.
‘You won’t find anything there. I didn’t actually have any medical tests,’ she admitted.
‘Well, my dear, if there was a problem, it seems that nature has taken care of it. You can go home and tell your husband the good news that you’re not infertile any more.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly.
There was only one answer, she thought as she drove home. Todd had lied to her. As soon as she had slept with another man she’d fallen pregnant, which meant that Todd’s stubborn macho pride must have prevented him from admitting that he was the one who was sterile.
Or perhaps he’d never had the test and had simply convinced himself that it must be her problem. The silly sod. Had he chased other women in a desperate bid to prove his virility, his fertility?
For a brief moment she almost felt sorry for him, but then she was too busy feeling sorry for herself. How dared Todd lie? Damn him. She would never have taken a risk with Liam if she’d thought there was any chance of pregnancy.
She was a mess of whirlwind emotions. One minute angry, the next scared and then, in the next breath, incredibly happy.
There was a baby growing inside her.
She almost smiled at the careful way she walked from her garage to the front door with a hand cradling her abdomen, as if she was a fragile vessel with sacred cargo. It was amazing and scary to think of a tiny baby alive and growing in her womb. Her baby.
It was a fantasy she’d never allowed herself.
She gave in to it now—saw herself in a few months’ time in snazzy maternity dress, proud of her round pregnant stomach. She envisioned a divine little nursery, with a white bassinette and delicate baby things—special little soaps and baby talcum powder and little pots of baby lotions.
She could almost imagine her mother and aunts knitting or crocheting tiny things…
And Liam. Where was he in this picture?
She tried to picture him standing beside her, tall and proud, with a protective arm about her shoulders, and a look of loving wonder in his eyes.
And then, of course, the foolish picture fractured. She had no idea how Liam would react to her news. She’d insisted she was safe, that she couldn’t possibly get pregnant, and he’d trusted her completely.
The only communication she’d had since he left was the brief message that had accompanied the beautiful green glass bowl. He’d been away so long he almost felt like a stranger.
Sinking onto a lounge chair, she wrapped her arms across her middle. Liam wasn’t a family man. If he was he’d have married years ago. He was a businessman, a high flier. When he learned that she was pregnant he might well decide she’d been trying to trap him and he would have every right to be angry with her.
What a mess she was in. There was every chance that Liam would be furious. And there was no way her mother and aunts were going to leap into action to knit baby clothes. They would be too outraged by the shock and shame Alice had foisted yet again on her family.
As for everyone at work—damn—how could she face them?
She felt so overwhelmed she couldn’t cry. This was like the nightmare of her divorce all over again.
The bad times were supposed to be behind her. She’d met Liam in the Hippo Bar on her thirtieth birthday as a contemporary, liberated, single woman—and what had happened?
She’d fallen into the same trap that had been ensnaring women since time began.
Monday morning brought worse news.
Dennis’s eyes were almost popping out of his head. ‘You’re never going to believe this,’ he said, staring directly at Alice.
‘What?’ cried all three women at once, and poor Alice’s heart took off like a sky rocket.
Dennis wet his lips and took a dramatic deep breath. ‘The boss is back and he’s brought his wife with him.’
‘He’s what?’
‘He can’t have.’
This time the chorus of cries was closer to shrieks. A wave of nausea rose into Alice’s throat and she felt so suddenly awful she thought she might faint.
‘Mr Conway can’t be married,’ said Mary-Ann, sending anxious looks to Alice.
‘I’m sorry but you’re wrong,’ said Dennis airily. ‘He’s turned up with a woman and her name is Mrs Conway and he was paying her a great deal of attention when he lifted her out of the limo a moment ago.’
‘Lifted her?’ cried Shana, leaping from her seat and tearing across the room to peer through the slats of the venetian blind that screened their office from the front reception area. ‘Oh, my God.’ Her eyes were as huge as Dennis’s as she turned back to Alice. ‘She’s in a wheelchair.’
Alice was glued to her seat.
‘Come and look,’ hissed Shana.
No, Alice didn’t want to. She couldn’t.
Dennis was at the window with Shana now and they were both riveted by the scene taking place in the foyer.
‘I wonder who the young fellow is,’ mused Dennis. ‘Their son?’
A son? Could this get any worse? Alice’s heart pounded like a battering ram; her stomach lurched. Liam couldn’t have a wife. He couldn’t; he couldn’t. He’d told her he wasn’t married. She believed him.
By now Mary-Ann was at the window too. ‘Gosh, she’s beautiful,’ she said in a low, rather awestruck voice.
Both women turned back to Alice.
‘Come and have a look,’ said Shana again.
Alice’s legs felt leaden as she struggled to her feet. For a horrible moment she thought she might need a wheelchair just to get across the room, but somehow she made it. Shana had adjusted the blinds so it was possible to look out without being observed.
She looked and saw Liam out in the foyer with a woman in a wheelchair and a boy of about fifteen. Liam’s hands were resting on the back of the chair and he was smiling and talking to Sally at the front desk. The woman in the chair was laughing.
Shana was right; Mrs Conway was beautiful. She had delicate features, high cheekbones and long autumn-coloured, wavy hair. She was smartly dressed in a cream silk blouse with a chic scarf in mocha tones draped with casual elegance over her shoulders. A longish dark olive-green skirt covered her legs.
There was something very appealing about her, a kind of inner light and friendly warmth. Under other circumstances Alice suspected that she might like the woman very much.
The boy was tall, with the typically gangly build of a teenager, and he had dark hair like Liam’s.
As she and her workmates hovered at the window, spying on them, the trio began to move away, down the corridor towards the accountant’s office. Alice swayed on her feet. Any minute now she was going to be sick. Or she was going to faint. She wasn’t sure which.