Chapter 16
BTN was different from her old network, but Linney had interesting assignments to help prepare her for reporting from overseas. One of the first she worked on was the Eurozone economies, when it appeared they were heading to a third recession in five years. When Greece called a snap election and the stock market crashed, Linney went to Italy, France, and Greece to do a series on the future of the EU. She returned to Greece when the Syrian refugee crisis began, to cover stories of families escaping the horrors of the war, and economic migrants looking for a better life. And when Britain voted to leave the European Union, Linney knew she could be busy for months, if not years, reporting on everything the vote meant and how it would affect the country.
Mac was back at TCN. It was an editorial position, MJ said, and he looked better than he had for a long time. He was still in counselling, he’d told them, and he laughed that he shouldn’t be expected in the pub any time soon. Linney appreciated MJ’s update but didn’t need to know more or to talk to him. She’d moved on and the passion she’d felt for Mac had been permanently extinguished.
The industry was small, however, and Linney and Mac eventually ran into each other at a lunch sponsored by the Associated Press. He saw her first, and Linney noticed him walking across the room with purpose. She steeled herself and decided to be the first to speak.
“Mac. How are you?” He’d lost some weight and looked healthier, but the years of alcohol abuse had permanently changed him. The lines on his face were deeper now, and spider veins around his nose told the world a story. A story she’d been blind to for a long time.
“I’m good. Really good. How are you?”
Linney nodded.
“I have a lot to apologize for. I don’t know if we can ever be friends again, but I want you to know how incredibly sorry I am for what I put you through.”
“Thank you, Mac. I appreciate that.” Linney was polite but did nothing to suggest she wanted to prolong the conversation. She waved to some of her new colleagues who wanted her to join their table. “I have to go now. I’ll see you around,” She turned on her heel and left Mac in the middle of the room. He might be ready to apologize, but she wasn’t ready to hear it yet. And besides, she’d just been given great news. Rob had told her that she could expect to be in Jerusalem by November, a month earlier than she expected.
“Can you believe it?” she asked MJ when they caught up on a Saturday picnic in Hyde Park. “It’s finally happening!”
“I told you you’d be leaving me behind. I’m so happy for you!” MJ would miss Linney fiercely, but she was proud of her friend’s success.
Linney spent the next weeks getting paperwork together and deciding what she needed to take with her. The network had promised her six months there, and then they’d evaluate. So, for now, she was keeping her London flat and would be back a few times during her foreign assignment.
* * *
Derek waitedon Olivia hand and foot through her pregnancy. He suspected he was more excited than she was, especially through first trimester morning sickness that seemed to last all day long. She spent a lot of time on the cold marble floor of their ensuite and Derek knew she was horrified when her stomach revolted at work. Unfortunately, it didn’t go away entirely, and Olivia lived on saltines and ginger ale for months as nausea continued to plague her. Her exhaustion irked her, and she was disheartened at her enormous belly. By her final month, she was miserable. Pregnancy did not agree with her.
When Leo joined them after a long labour Derek was instantly besotted and he was sure Olivia would be too. Everything she’d been through would be worth it.
Leo was a good baby, but Derek hadn’t accounted for how hard motherhood would be for Olivia. When he came home from work, exhausted and emotionally worn out from the stories he heard from his clients, his wife thrust their son at him often before he’d even had a chance to change out of his work clothes. “I just need some time alone,” she would say to him, and retreat into their bedroom, where order reigned, and the room wasn’t filled with baby things.
Most evenings, Derek would give his son a bath and sing the songs to him that he remembered from his childhood while he rocked him and fed him a bottle. Derek loved this time—he would have liked it better if he’d been in jeans and a T-shirt, but he loved it just the same. He did as much as he could to lessen the burden on Olivia, while he drank in the wonder of being a father. When Leo cried in the night, Derek got up with him at least as often as Olivia, despite his early alarm. He found himself needing more coffee to stay alert, and on more than one occasion, he missed his subway stop, having fallen asleep to the rhythm of the train.
Still, he loved every second he spent with his son and snapped endless pictures to send to his mother and Linney. He beamed with pride when he took Leo out to the St. Lawrence Market in the stroller. It quickly became a Saturday morning routine for them, letting Olivia sleep late. After a morning alone, Olivia was more herself, and the new family slowly settled into a rhythm. Sure, there was less time to catch up on reading legal briefs than there used to be, but the more Leo gurgled and smiled, the more Derek fell in love with his son. He wouldn’t let anything or anyone hurt his precious little boy.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised when Olivia announced matter-of-factly over dinner one night—they’d gotten a babysitter for the evening, and she’d dressed up for the first time in ages—that she was cutting her maternity leave short to get back to business deals for her clients. When Derek asked if she’d reconsider, she made it clear the decision was already made. She explained how she’d been interviewing nannies and had found the right one. While Derek listened with disbelief, she told him that Zuzanna would be coming by his office the next day to meet him.
“This will make me happy, Derek,” she insisted. Doing his best to be supportive, he agreed to meet the nanny she’d selected, but turned to Linney to vent.
I just don’t get it. I want to spend every second with Leo. Why doesn’t she?
It’ll come. Not every woman is a natural mother right off the bat. And look at me. I don’t even want kids. I guess you’re right. But she seems to want to run away from it.
Give her time.
I’m trying.
Hang in there.
You really don’t want kids? You’re so good with Leo.
I’m happy to be an auntie. I can’t have kids and the job I want.
I’m sad for you. I can’t imagine anything more amazing than being a parent.
I made my peace a long time ago. I’m sure Olivia will come around, especially when she gets back to work. Like I said—give her time.
The next day, a slight blonde woman knocked on Derek’s office door. “Mr. Blake?” Her voice was gentle. “I am Zuzanna. Your wife sent me?”
“Please come in,” he said. “Would you like some coffee?” She nodded and Derek went to find some. He met Aiden in the hallway. “What do I ask a nanny?” he hissed.
Aiden was little help. He wasn’t married yet and nannies were far outside his area of expertise. “Maybe ask her—I don’t know—what she thinks of Dr. Spock.” Derek rolled his eyes at the reference to the baby specialist.
When he returned with the coffee, Zuzanna asked what he’d like to know about her.
“I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t know anything about you—or my wife going back to work—until last night.”
“Let me start then,” she said in accented, but clear English. “First, I am older than I look. I am twenty-nine years old.” That was a surprise. Derek had her pegged for twenty at best. “I was an au pair in Poland for English families at the embassy. Now I am working in Toronto, but the family I work for does not need a nanny anymore. Mrs. Hastings has told me all about your baby. I will take good care of Leo.”
Derek sat back, taking in all of this information.
“Has she sorted out schedules with you?”
“I will live in during the week and go to my boyfriend’s apartment on weekends.” It seemed Olivia had thought of everything. Derek wasn’t sure if he was surprised or annoyed.
“And you’ll look after him while we’re at work?”
“Yes, and in the evenings if you need.”
“Wow. Well, Zuzanna, it is good to meet you. This is all new to me, but I will look forward to your help. He shook her hand and after she left, he sat back in his squeaky chair wondering how he’d ended up here.
The week that Zuzanna moved in was the same week Linney moved to Jerusalem. Derek would need to remember he seven hour time difference between them now—two more than before. Texting her on the subway home from work was probably off the table. He’d have to think about it at lunchtime now, or very late at night when he was up with Leo. Or perhaps Zuzanna would be up with the baby, he realized. It would be strange to have another person in their condo.
He quickly got used to it. His reliance on caffeine diminished, and the change in Olivia was amazing. She spent her days in silk blouses and pencil skirts, buried in law books, and gaining energy from her work. She smiled again, and there was a bounce in her high-heeled steps. She was finally able to give a little bit of herself to Leo. And to Derek.
* * *
Linney settled quicklyin Jerusalem with the help of the fixer and cameraman who had worked with Rory before her. In some ways, it was what she’d expected—a city unified on paper, but meaningfully less integrated between East and West in reality. What did surprise her was how international the city was, with expats from many countries. Among those expats were fellow foreign correspondents in the city, and Linney was pleased to discover that the community shared information freely.
While Jerusalem was where the government was headed, it was Tel Aviv that was the heart of the country’s economy, so Linney frequently travelled the short distance. Other times, she went to Beirut, Tunis, or Cairo. Her stories were sent back to London to wide acclaim. Still, something felt not quite right about it. Linney couldn’t put her finger on it, but the job wasn’t as fulfilling as she’d expected.
* * *
Back in Toronto,Olivia and Derek celebrated Leo’s tenth month in April in the middle of an unseasonably late blizzard by simply sitting with him on the beautiful warm Persian rug they’d recently purchased as he got close to taking his first steps. It would be any day now, and Derek had his phone ready to capture the moment.
Olivia had been working extra hard to make up for her six months away, so the quiet Saturday was welcome, and she took a nap while Leo slept in the afternoon. Even Derek dozed on the couch, pretending to read. He was working just as hard right now on a difficult refugee case, and he missed putting Leo to bed most nights. They couldn’t have managed without Zuzanna. When Leo woke, Derek put his son into his highchair for a snack. Half an hour later, when Leo was knocking over stacks of blocks Derek built for him, Olivia stirred. A few minutes later, she came out of their bedroom, looking pale, and holding up a stick with two pink lines.
Derek’s eyes widened. “Another baby?”
She nodded, and Derek missed the look of panic in her eyes. “You’re pregnant.” It wasn’t a question, simply a statement. This would explain Olivia’s recent exhaustion.
“It’s too soon.”
“It’s wonderful news! Leo will have a little brother or sister.”
Another stack of blocks was knocked over, and even Olivia laughed at that. But she turned serious quickly. “Are we ready for this?”
Derek couldn’t remember the last time she sounded so vulnerable. He kissed her tenderly. “We will be. I’m sure this time will be easier for you.”
But he was wrong. Very wrong. Being pregnant was everything Olivia remembered, and then some. Her morning sickness was worse and even landed her in hospital in her ninth week. Derek was frantic with worry for her over the four days they kept her. But intravenous fluids helped her dehydration, and she seemed to listen to the stern lecture from her doctor about taking it easy. She had no choice.
When Linney saw them in July, she was shocked. Derek had been texting her, of course, but she didn’t expect to see Olivia still throwing up every day. She had none of that pregnancy glow and her face was gaunt and grey, despite being very pregnant. She looked like a stick figure that had eaten a melon.
“Derek, you have to get her to take it easy,” Linney admonished him when she joined him and Leo for their Saturday St. Lawrence Market visit. “She works too hard at the best of times, but she’s pregnant and you have Leo. She’s driving herself into the ground.”
Leo reached for a rice cake, and Derek handed one to him. “I know, and I can’t get her to stop. She’ll be in the office this afternoon, trying to catch up.”
“Does her firm not understand this is serious?” Leo reached his arms up and Linney gently pulled him from the stroller and sat him on her lap. She sighed as he snuggled into her. She was in baby heaven.
“I’m beginning to think I may have to talk to her boss myself. But she’d kill me.” Derek picked up the hat Leo had thrown on the ground and popped it back on his son’s head.
“Sometimes you have to do hard things to protect the people you love.” She kissed Leo’s chubby baby cheek. “Do you want some juice?” she asked him when he reached out for his sippy cup.
“Are you sure you don’t want kids,” Derek said.
Linney shook her head. “My job is too unpredictable. And besides, soon you’ll have another little one for me to spoil when I come home.” Linney was completely satisfied with her decision.
At least about kids. The move to BTN was another thing. She liked her job, and Jerusalem was an amazing city. But it wasn’t TCN, and she missed working with the team there. She was stopping in London for a week on her way home, but she’d heard that Gemma was retiring. A return option might not even be open to her any more. Still, she hoped to have a few quiet meetings while she was there. Linney had some soul-searching to do as her first six months with the British network drew to a close.