Chapter 3
Perhaps other husbands might have guessed, but not him. Because they had been trying for so long, he’d grown accustomed to, and had even anticipated, the inevitable disappointment at another negative pregnancy test. After five years of marriage, they had both virtually given up.
He felt like retreating to the bed to sit down but instead stood on the other side of the bathroom door. Now he understood her insistence that they be together, just the two of them, for Christmas. She had wanted to savour the long-awaited news just between them.
Eleanor didn’t like to be fussed over and never liked to be the centre of attention. Now she would be. And he knew she would need time to adjust to that.
‘You’ve ruined it now,’ Eleanor sniffed from behind the door.
He gently rested a hand on the bathroom door. ‘I can barely believe it after all this time,’ he whispered.
‘It was going to be your Christmas present.’ She paused. ‘Our Christmas present.’
‘Christmas came early.’ Jake smiled ruefully. ‘I can’t wait to tell everybody.’
‘I don’t want you to do that – not right now.’
Jake nodded. He understood. They’d wait until the family gathering at Christmas. He promised, although he could hardly contain his delight. Was this how all new fathers felt? He was so excited that he wanted to tell the whole world.
Eleanor didn’t respond.
‘Ellie?’ Jake put his ear to the door and listened to her breathing. ‘Let’s not keep it to ourselves this Christmas,’ he said softly, stroking the door. ‘We’ll go to The Lake House as planned and it will be our Christmas present to …’
‘You didn’t listen, did you?’ she said abruptly.
‘I know you need time to get used to it after all the disappointments, but …’
‘Disappointments,’ her voice echoed.
‘Yes, so I think it will do us both some good to get away and celebrate.’
There was a long pause.
‘Yes, celebrate,’ she said in a dreamy voice.
‘Good, then it’s settled. We’ll give the family the news on Christmas Day. Besides, now I’ve got the news already, you can think of it as a practice run for the big day, when we tell the whole family we’re expecting a baby. How about that?’ Jake thought it was a terrific idea. Who wouldn’t want to broadcast to the world that they were having a baby?
The handle of the bathroom door turned and Jake stepped back as Eleanor emerged from the bathroom.
‘That’s right – you come over here.’ Jake guided her to the bed. ‘You need to rest. It’s been quite a day.’
She sat on the bed. Her hands lay limply in her lap.
Jake knelt down and took off her moccasins.
‘We’re not staying here for Christmas, are we?’ she said.
Jake looked up into her tear-streaked face. Hadn’t they just had this conversation? He didn’t get why she wasn’t bouncing around the room, filled with joy at the long-awaited news. Jake put the moccasins to one side and got off his knees to sit beside her on the bed. He took her hand in his. ‘It must have been quite a shock today, after all this time.’
She nodded.
‘I know I’ve ruined it for you,’ Jake apologised, ‘but in a few days, when we’re all sitting around the tree on Christmas morning and you tell them the news, you’ll be glad we decided to go. I promise.’ Jake patted her hand, feeling sure they were doing the right thing. ‘Besides, how would the family feel if we didn’t include them?’ He smiled at Eleanor.
She turned towards Jake but didn’t smile back.
‘Come on, you have a lie-down.’ Jake plumped the pillows as Eleanor lay on her side, bringing her knees up to her chest.
‘It doesn’t make sense, does it?’ said Eleanor, as Jake covered her with a silk sheet.
Jake had a good idea what she was talking about. ‘You hear about couples all the time who desperately want a baby, and then when they stop trying, it kind of just happens, out of the blue.’ Jake leaned over and gave her a tender kiss on the forehead.
Eleanor closed her eyes. She felt Jake’s presence hovering over her for a moment. Then she heard the bedroom door click shut. She opened her eyes wide. She was thinking about Jake’s last words. She had wanted to ask the doctor how it could have happened. She had thought you couldn’t get pregnant while on the pill.
Eleanor turned over and lay on her back, throwing off the silk sheet. She put a hand on her stomach, hoping to feel something – anything other than misery. She’d lied to Jake about trying to get pregnant. Deceived him. Why hadn’t she been able to just admit she wasn’t ready? Would he have understood, empathised with her feelings? He wanted a family of his own so very much. She just couldn’t look him in the eye and tell him she felt differently. So instead, like the coward she felt she was, she had gone about things in this underhanded way.
She had put them through tests and sleepless nights, letting him believe there might be some fertility problem with one or both of them. Finally, the family doctor had advised them to forget about it, and it would probably happen. Eleanor had felt relieved because she knew when she was ready, then it might happen – not straight away.
But Jake had not shared her apparent stoicism. He wasn’t happy with the advice, so she had still been attending family planning appointments at Harley Street when she was in London. She had insisted she attended there, because unbeknown to Jake, she had another doctor who prescribed her the pill. The appointments also gave her an excuse to spend some time in the city she loved – even if, just lately, she had mainly been seeing London out of a car window.
She propped herself up on the pillows and looked down at her tummy. There was nothing she could do about this. She ran her hands over her stomach. Popping a pill was deceitful enough, but as far as Ellie was concerned, she wasn’t hurting anybody. It was just a delaying tactic, and she had felt that Jake would just have to have a bit of patience. But this was a whole new ballgame.
All she’d wanted was to spend Christmas without the whole family surrounding her, suffocating her over the news. In hindsight, she realised she could have waited and told Jake after Christmas. But she’d delayed starting a family for long enough, and it had been for nothing – the career in interior design she’d thought she’d get off the ground hadn’t materialised, and now she felt so guilty over those wasted years of not giving Jake the one thing he really wanted – a child. So, she’d decided, on the way back on the tube, that she’d give him the news as his Christmas present.
‘I’m so sorry, Jake. I even ruined that,’ she whispered to the empty room. She turned back on her side and closed her eyes. She suddenly felt so tired.