Chapter 16
“We’re blood,” their dad had said as his needle kissed Tabby’s skin for the first time. “It binds us to each other, and it can never be changed or broken.”
The broken part was probably genuine, but the blood had changed. Or maybe ‘grown’ was a better word. Because inside her womb, there was a half-Tabby, half-Toby hybrid. A new soul. A new creation. New blood.
She dug her tattooed toes deeper into the warm summer sand, touching the cooler stuff below. She’d taken a pregnancy test twice a day since That Day, and at this point, it was pretty undeniable that, yes, she was hosting Toby’s bastard offspring, created amidst whatever messed up sex game they’d been playing at the time.
“Sorry,” Tabby said, pressing her fingers on her lower belly. “What a way to show up, my dude.”
The only bright spot she had to hold onto was that she hadn’t been drinking or smoking weed since she and Toby stupidly started going bareback. She’d been taking the pill, but her insane sex schedule had thrown her timing out of whack, and her timing had never really been in whack.
As she watched ceaseless waves crashing into Rye Beach, she wondered how she could have been so reckless. But the answer was already rising, like the breakers in the ocean. Like not dyeing her ratty roots because she wanted her hair to be brown, she’d negated to take the pill at the same time every day because she’d wanted something to happen. Something to force her hand and change her life.
The thought chilled her to the bone, but alone on the beach with her future progeny feeding on her DaSilva blood, she forced herself to stay on subject. She hadn’t done anything as premeditated as actively trying to have Toby Tennant’s kid. She’d wanted him to finish inside her because it was hot, and if she weren’t pregnant, she wouldn’t be thinking about getting pregnant. But for the last few years, she had been thinking about kids.
She’d always wanted them, always fantasised in some dim little corner of her mind about smearing blood across her cheeks and giving birth like a champion to some interesting, cool little person. She’d always thought she had plenty of time, but watching Nix and Noah struggle through fertility treatments had opened her eyes to how difficult it could be to get pregnant. And she had wondered if it might be easier if you were younger. And she had thought maybe she should do what she always did and go for it. Let the fallout deal with itself once the pact was made.
But where the buck stopped was the thought of actually trying. Not just to find a steady partner who might also want to have kids, but to ever really consider it because…
“I am my mother’s daughter,” Tabby muttered. “Her blood is my blood, too.”
Even before Deborah had reappeared, she’d been the ghost at the feast. The reminder that, no, motherhood wasn’t some magical spell that made you worthy of the job. Whenever Tabby thought about having a baby, she’d thought about herself vanishing into the mist like Deborah. The threat of it had felt strapped to her like a time-delayed suicide vest.
You don’t have what it takes.
You can’t make this work.
You’ll fuck up, and then one day, you’ll be sitting in a café across from your daughter, and she’ll give you legal documents demanding you never talk to her again.
“Fuck,” Tabby whispered, wiping her ten-millionth tear from her cheek. “Fuuuuuuuck!”
She was still rubbing her lower belly, the way Nix had when she was carrying.
Nix. Poor fucking Nix. She’d gone bananas when she’d seen the test.
“You’re not supposed to be pregnant! I’m supposed to be pregnant!” she’d screamed in Tabby’s face, her skinny fists raised. “I’m supposed to be pregnant! It’s my turn! It’s my baby!”
“I’m sorry,” Tabby had said, howling tears as she tried to simultaneously hold Nix at bay and hug her at the same time. “I didn’t mean for this to happen!”
“You never mean for anything to happen because you’re an irresponsible bitch who doesn’t have a fucking clue what she’s doing! You don’t even have a boyfriend! It’s not fucking fair!”
Then Noah and Sam had burst in from their respective bedrooms and pulled Nix away. They got the gist of what was happening pretty fast, and a stony-faced Sam had ordered her to her room.
“It was an accident!” she’d wailed, but her older sister had already gone, down the hall and into Nix’s room to comfort her twin.
She was the disappointment. The shitty baby kid who’d been useless at the Deborah debacle and was now knocked up to boot. Unable to stay for one more moment, she’d packed her bags and climbed out of her bedroom window, hoping the effort wouldn’t hurt the baby.
Miscarriage was still a possibility. She had to be less than two months pregnant, and Nix had shown her that women miscarried all the time. But Tabby knew it wouldn’t happen. In her heart, her guts, in her blood, she knew that if she went through with this pregnancy, she’d have a daughter—a happy, dark-haired daughter with a jewel name like Emerald or Ruby. A DaSilva like her and her sisters.
She thought of Toby, and the tears started flowing again. More than anything, she wished he was with her, rubbing his big hand over her back and telling her that everything was okay.
But how was she supposed to tell him what she’d done? Unlike her, he was a good person. He’d step up and take responsibility. Probably ask her to marry him. But that was of less than zero comfort to her right now. The guy had only spent a couple of years playing the field and having fun, and now she was cooking his first kid in her oven.
Careless.
Selfish.
Reckless.
This was why she’d always loved the unattainable—pursuing it and being it herself. You couldn’t lose the unattainable. You couldn’t let anyone down so badly that they vanished forever. You couldn’t become boring and old and forgotten. Trust. That was the word she refused to put any stock in, ever. Trust me, Toby had said, but she hadn’t. She’d never really trusted anyone. Not her sisters. Not her dad.
Meet me by the back gate, her mum had said. No.
Go to university and make something of your life. No.
Trust me, I love you. No.
No trust. No responsibilities. No love. No one was allowed to permanently lay their hats in her home. Only now, her body was home to something that would need her as no one had ever needed her. A commitment beyond any other. Blood that couldn’t be broken. A baby with a man who’d loved her too long and too well for her to do anything but disappoint him.
From the moment she’d first seen Toby Tennant, she’d thought he was sexy as hell, but she’d liked him so much. Too much. She’d been so scared of losing him as a friend that she’d kept him at arm’s length and ruined everything. And then he’d asked for a tattoo, and they’d started hooking up, and she’d been so infatuated, so tied up in the past and terrified of what she really wanted from him, that she’d refused to let it be more than sex and ruined everything again.
She was the centre of every disaster. The cause of all her bullshit problems. Her goal had been running fast enough to avoid today’s pain. But the cost was tomorrow, and the next day until her whole future was just compound interest.
Tabby was so sick of crying, but the tears came anyway, running down her face like rain. She’d let her sisters down, lied to them about Toby and gotten pregnant. She was a swine and a flake and now she was alone, and how could she ever go back home? What was there to say except, ‘I fucking suck, and I hate myself, and I understand if you hate me too because I deserve it.’
“Hello there!”
Tabby scrubbed her face with the backs of her hands, hardly able to believe someone had approached her. Then again, she was howling her eyes out on a public beach. She attempted to smile at the older woman standing over her.
“Hi,” she said, her voice rusty with tears and disuse. “I’m fine, I promise.”
“Oh, of course, dahling! Only you seem to be crying quite a bit…”
The woman had an English accent and, from what Tabby could see under her wide-brimmed hat, was kind of a MILF with her long blonde hair and smooth skin.
“Yeah, it’s, like… there’s a lot going on,” she told the woman.
“I’m sure. Would you like to talk? Would you mind if I sat beside you?”
“Sure, why not?”
The woman dropped onto the edge of her beach towel. “I’m Maisy, by the way.”
The name stirred something in Tabby’s memory. “Maisy… as in…?”
“Toby’s friend,” she said, obviously pleased to be remembered. “Yes, I’m afraid I’ve found you, dahling.”
Tabby gaped at her. “What? How? I haven’t turned my phone on once!”
“Would that you had, dahling. It would have made all our lives much easier, but regardless, you drew a few pictures on a pad the night you left, didn’t you?”
Tabby had no memory of this, but she didn’t have very clear memories of a lot of things that happened that night. “What pictures?”
“Doodles, dahling, on a yellow notepad. Your brothers-in-law showed me the picture, and I noticed a beach umbrella next to a loaf of bread. You’re very good at drawing, which is why I could tell it was rye bread. And I thought to myself that Rye is a popular beach destination. So here I am.” She made a little ‘ta-dah’ gesture with her hands. “Nice to meet you, Tabitha.”
“I… hello,” Tabby said. She was gobsmacked, a surprising but not altogether unwelcome feeling. It was nice to know that there were still things happening that she hadn’t accounted for.
“Does Toby know?” she asked.
“That I’ve found you? Not for the time being, dahling. And neither do your sisters or their partners. I thought I’d ensure I’d actually found you before I got anyone’s hopes up.” Maisy turned her face to the sun. “You had quite the right idea coming here. The weather’s just lovely.”
“Sure,” Tabby agreed, her brain still working overtime. “You’ve met my sisters?”
“No, dahling, I met Scott and Noah. They came to Toby’s house while I was there. Quite the contrast, aren’t they?”
Tabby snorted. “Yeah.”
“They were very worried about you. Everyone is. Toby especially.”
Her insides knotted. “I miss him.”
“Well, he misses you, dahling! Shall I call him and tell him you’re here? End this amusing but highly distracting experiment in escapism?”
God, she made it sound so easy. So easy and so good. There was only one problem.
“I’m pregnant,” she told Maisy.
The older woman didn’t bat an eye. “Yes, I rather suspected that from your drawings. Two lines, like the tests.”
“Jesus,” Tabby said, beyond impressed. “You’re like James Bond!”
“Thank you, dahling. Well, if you’d like to make some arrangements before you see Toby again, I’d happily drive you to a clinic or anywhere else you’d like to go.”
Tabby started crying again, lowering her face between her knees. Maisy put a hand on her back and rubbed small circles, and while it wasn’t as good as having Toby do it, it was still pretty nice.
“I don’t want to… do that,” she gasped. “I know it’s nuts, but I think… I think I want to have the baby.”
“Very good, dahling,” Maisy said without the slightest change of tone. “But I still think you should reconsider vanishing without a trace. Your family doesn’t seem like they’ll calm down until you’re safely home, and Toby definitely won’t calm down. And there are a lot of financial and social implications that come with being a missing woman. Let alone a missing woman with a baby.”
“I know,” Tabby said, wiping her running nose on her wrist. “But how am I supposed to tell Toby I’m pregnant?”
“I’d imagine you’ll just open your mouth and say so, dahling. Alternatively, you can wait for him to realise on his own. He’s a clever boy, so I assume it’ll only take six to nine months.”
Tabby laughed, and it felt so good that she almost started crying again.
“Thanks,” she said to Maisy. “But I feel like I fucked him over by getting knocked up. How can I tell him that I screwed him like this?”
Maisy’s eyebrows twitched, which Tabby guessed was the most they could do with whatever was keeping Maisy’s skin so smooth and wrinkle-free.
“Dahling, if a man wants to ejaculate inside you, he has consented to get you pregnant, and that’s that. You’re a bright girl, by all accounts. You understand.”
“But I wasn’t taking my pill properly…”
“Then Toby should have worn a condom,” Maisy said airily. “It takes two to tango, dahling. Women are not solely responsible for the genetic material men dump into us, willy nilly.”
“But—”
“If Toby had said he was more comfortable using condoms, would you have refused to sleep with him?”
“Fuck no!”
“Would you have poked holes in the condoms? Collected samples of his sperm and went to a clinic and tried to inseminate yourself?”
“No!”
“Then I don’t see a problem. Accidents happen, as they say.”
Tabby found herself laughing again. “You know what Maisy? I like you.”
“Thank you, dahling. I like you too. I see why Toby thinks you’re just the very thing.”
“I don’t deserve him.”
“Why don’t you let Toby decide what he deserves?” Maisy said lightly.
“Soon. Don’t call him yet? Please?”
“Of course.”
They watched the waves for a while, side-by-side, and it occurred to Tabby that she didn’t know anyone Maisy’s age. She had never even had a coffee with someone from the same generation as her mother.
“I wish we’d met before now,” she blurted. “I could have used someone to talk to about all this stuff. I mean, I can talk to my sisters and my friends, but not anyone who has perspective on this kind of thing because they’re...” she hesitated, not wanting to say ‘older’ or ‘middle-aged’ or anything that might offend the woman who’d been so kind to her.
Maisy just smiled. “You can say I have perspective because I’m old, dahling. Believe me, I know. It’s costing me an absolute fortune.”
They both laughed, and Tabby pressed a hand to her lower belly, caressing the space where her and Toby’s tadpole was growing.
“I’m so scared to be a mum. I want it—I’ve thought about it for ages—but my mother is such a ballbag.”
“I’ve heard,” Maisy said with a sad smile. “They often are, dahling. But to your point earlier about not knowing anyone my age, I think that in an ideal world, we’d live in communities. A mix of people of all ages and backgrounds, all caring for one another and doing the laundry, and gathering mushrooms and what have you.”
Tabby grinned. “You sound like my dad.”
“Then he must be a very intelligent man. But it is devastating how we’re all so cut off from one another in this day and age. Again, in an ideal world, you’d have more than one mother figure to turn to if one was as abhorrent as the woman you came out of. And that way, old chickens like me could help raise children even if we couldn’t have them ourselves.”
Tabby heard Maisy’s voice throbbing with sadness, and though she was terrified of another Nix-style freakout, she knew she had to ask: “You couldn’t have kids?”
“No, dahling. It was quite distressing.”
“I bet,” Tabby said, again thinking of Nix.
“But it got easier with time, and I have my friends and my freedom, and a lot of interesting things to occupy me. Most of the time, I find it’s not too painful.”
“You can babysit my kid,” Tabby said. “I mean, if you want to?”
Maisy flashed a wide smile. “I would absolutely love that, dahling.”
“Really?”
“Of course. I love babies. And Toby is really like a son to me. A gorgeous, largely naive son.”
“Yeah, he’s a sweetie. Shame I fucked him over so bad.”
“Did you? Or did you just get your wires crossed for a little while there?”
“For two years? More if you count the time we were mates?”
Maisy yawned, pressing a manicured hand to her mouth. “I know it might be hard to believe, but from the perspective of an entire lifetime, that’s not very long.”
“And what about the perspective where we’re going to go from having casual sex to having a baby?”
“I don’t see the problem, dahling.”
“I’ve forced him to commit to me,” Tabby said. “For forever, basically.”
“Oh, but he was already committed to you. Everything he did was for you. The house, the car, even that little podcast he had, all he ever wanted was for you to listen to it. Did you?”
“Yeah, I thought it sucked.”
Maisy laughed. “Yes, well, they can’t all be winners.”
Tabby squinted at her. “Are you the one who helped him pick out his clothes?”
“Yes, dahling, and I did a rather wonderful job, if I’m being honest.”
“True.” Tabby thought for a moment. “He liked dating and stuff, didn’t he? He liked being single?”
“No, dahling. He was extremely opposed to the whole debacle. He did it because he’s a man, and they will do such things if opportunities present themselves, but he was always uncomfortable. I egged him on, but he was reluctant.”
“Why—”
“Because he was in love with you, and he didn’t particularly want anyone else.”
Tabby thought of that night with the two blondes at the Village Belle. Her mouth filled with spit. “Then why did you egg?—”
“Because he deserved a life and some experience, dahling.” A little steel entered Maisy’s tone. “He needed to understand to the very heart of himself that he’d made the right choice wanting to be with you, and while I’m sure it’s uncomfortable to think about, it would also be uncomfortable if you were always wondering if Toby only loved you because he’d never slept with anyone else.”
“True,” Tabby said again. “You’re really good at this.”
“I know, dahling. Those who can’t do, teach.”
She smiled. The weight that had been bearing down on her all week, all month, all year was shifting. She still had problems, and they were real, but they also seemed more manageable.
“I can”t believe I’m gonna have a kid,” she told Maisy. “It’s cooked.”
“It is what it is, dahling. And for what it’s worth, I think you and Toby will handle it just fine.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Besides, you’ll have me and your sisters and their extremely mismatched partners and any number of other people to help.”
Tabby winced. “My sisters hate me.”
“Poppycock,” Maisy said like a posh person cliché. “I’m sure they were a little shocked when they found out their baby sister was expecting, which anyone could have predicted, but from what I’ve been told, they’re worried sick about you. They’ve been in Traralgon for days looking for you, and if that isn’t love, I don’t know what it is.”
“Shit, really?”
“Yes, really.” Maisy swept some sand off her long white dress. “I don’t want to rush you, dahling, but I have Mopsy back at my hotel, and she needs her medication. Would you like to come with me and see her?”
“Mops is here!?”
“She is, and so is a nice bottle of Mo?t on ice. You can’t have any, of course, but you can watch me drink it while we discuss how and when you’ll let everyone know you haven’t been kidnapped and locked in a box somewhere. I’ll even call room service and get you a ginger ale. We can pour it into a champagne glass. How does that sound?”
Tabby’s stomach churned at the thought of speaking to Toby or her sisters, but it was long past time she tried to make things right. Besides, ginger ale in a champagne glass did sound nice.