She cleared away a few pieces from the table—for no reason other than that she didn’t want to be just sitting waiting for him when he got back. So when she heard his footsteps at the door, she had her back to him, running something under the tap and holding her breath.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually, in a shaky voice redolent of raw emotion.
She stared into the sink a little longer, gathering her thoughts, and fighting down the swell of tears that seemed to be climbing her throat. She couldn’t account for them, couldn’t reason why the croak of his voice made hers swell with sympathy.
‘I’m sorry, too.’ She turned off the tap and slumped back against the sink, relief washing through her. ‘I shouldn’t have made those plans without you.’
‘And I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I’m genuinely sorry. But there are some things we need to talk about if we’re going to make this work. I know you like to have everything all worked out, but I can’t do that.’
‘So what am I meant to do? Just wait and see if you turn up at my office again?’ She tried to laugh, to pretend she could live like that, but it sounded hollow even to her.
‘Would that be so bad? I’d make sure I was there when you—when the baby—needed me. Does everything need to be planned months in advance?’
Her spine straightened again; Leo’s presence was seemingly anathema to serenity. ‘And is that what I should tell my doctor? Oh, I’ll definitely come along at some point. An appointment? No. I’ll just arrive when I’m ready.’
‘And what about the baby—is he allowed to arrive when he’s ready, or are you going to hold him to whatever due date the doctors pull out of the air? I hope for his sake he isn’t late.’
She was about to snap back, when her train of thought faltered and her voice failed. ‘Wait, he?’ she asked, with the beginnings of a smile tweaking her lips. ‘Who says it’s a boy?’
His face softened, and for the first time she saw the hard expression around his eyes ease, and his usual humorous glint return. She found she was relieved to see it, had been worried for a few moments that she and the baby had caused its disappearance to become permanent. It had been his determination to make her laugh that had drawn them together that first night, and she was worried that without that humour between them the very foundations they were working on were unsteady.
‘I don’t know. In my head, when I think about how things will be, I just always see a boy.’
‘You’ve thought about it?’
His eyes bugged.
‘Have I thought about it? What else am I meant to think about? Have you thought about anything else?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘So what do you?’
He raised an eyebrow by way of a question. ‘What do I...?’
‘What do you think, when you think about it?’
He crossed to the table and dropped into a seat, reaching for his abandoned cup of coffee. A smile was creeping across her face at the sight of the hint of a grin on his. He thought about their baby. The knowledge glowed inside her. ‘I don’t know. Just flashes of things, I suppose.’
‘Good things?’
‘Mostly.’ They shared a long look, mutual happiness turning both their mouths up like a mirror. But they couldn’t leave it there. If they wanted this to work, they had to dig deeper than that. Learn to trust one another.
‘And the bad?’ she asked.
‘This.’ He motioned towards her colour-coded papers. ‘This is pretty much every bad thing I’ve imagined since Wednesday afternoon. I want you to know, Rachel, that I’m here for you and for the baby. But I will not do this entirely on your terms. We’re both going to have to compromise.’
‘And the first thing that’s got to go is any attempt at a plan?’ She couldn’t help her defensiveness—he was threatening the only thing that was keeping her in any way connected to sanity.
‘This plan? Yes. We didn’t discuss a single thing before you made it. Of course it has to go.’
She felt a wave of nausea as she realised what he was saying. Every plan she had made in the past few days. All the words and the numbers and the tidy tick-boxes that had soothed her mind—were going to be thrown out. Already panic was making the edges of her thoughts fuzzy, and that wave of nausea was starting to feel more like a tsunami. With a shock, she realised it was more than just nausea. She must have looked pretty green, because as her hand flew to her mouth Leo was already by her side, grabbing her free hand and pulling her to the stairs.
LEO LEANED AGAINST the landing wall, trying not to hear the noises emanating from the bathroom, and wondering whether he was relieved or annoyed that Rachel had so easily brushed away his offer of help and slammed the bathroom door shut with him on the outside. Not that it sounded a particularly appealing place to be right now, but the knowledge that she was perfectly happy doing this alone—was happier doing it alone—made his chest uncomfortable. Because at the moment, it felt as if any involvement in his child’s life depended entirely on this woman’s opinion of him, and was entirely on her terms. He’d been terrified, was still terrified, when she’d told him that she was pregnant; but the thought of his child out there in the world not even knowing him was more frightening still.
He’d have to apologise for snapping at her like that. Losing his cool definitely didn’t help him get what he needed—but he had to get her to see his point, and to agree with it. Of course there were parts of this situation that he couldn’t avoid planning in advance—he was perfectly prepared to understand that a doctor’s appointment had to be made for a particular time. And though the thought of those appointments stretching out for years in the future didn’t do brilliant things to him, it didn’t fill him with the same queasy dread he’d felt when he’d glimpsed the plan she’d drawn up. Just the headings told him he was in trouble. Timing. Finance. Schooling. Schooling? He didn’t even know when the baby was due, and they were talking schooling already? Did she even know yet when it was due? Had she been to the doctor? Probably things he would know already if he hadn’t walked out on her. The bathroom had gone quiet, and he leaned back against the door.
‘Rachel?’ he shouted through the wood. ‘All okay in there?’
‘Fine,’ she replied and he could hear tears in her voice. Was that the sickness or something else?
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No, I’m fine. I just need to catch my breath.’
He heard her lean back against the door, and he followed her down, until the old oak was supporting them both.
‘Then can I ask you a question?’
He took the mumble he could hear as a yes.
‘Tell me about the plans. Why do you need them? Help me understand.’
He held his breath, hoping that she would trust him. See that he was reaching out to her, and wanting her to reach back. He needed to understand her. To try and find out how they were going to manage to get along, now that they were tied together.
‘I don’t need them. I just like to have an idea of what’s going on. What’s wrong with that?’
‘There’d be nothing wrong with that. But that’s not how you felt downstairs just now, was it?’
He listened through the door, wishing he could see her face, wishing he could at least see her expression. Just as he was