Page 17 of Prognosis Irreconcilable Differences

The little girl stopped crying then, and just as abruptly shot him a gappy smile.

Nathan laughed. ‘Still have a way with the babes.’

Jacqueline would have rolled her eyes, had she been capable. But her heart had banged to a halt for a brief second as the familiar ache roared to life with a brutal stab.

‘Where’s your mummy?’ Nathan asked, looking around. He could see a harried young woman looking around frantically further down the beach, and he waved at her to attract her attention.

It was easier to do that than watch the way the toddler’s hand squished into Jacqui’s breast. Or see the way she looked so at home with a child on her hip. Or the sudden stricken look in her eyes as she stared down into the toddler’s face.

‘Oh, thank you! I’m so sorry,’ the woman apologised, whisking the toddler out of Jacqui’s arms and squeezing the child to her in a boa-constrictor-like embrace. ‘She’s so quick these days.’

Nathan smiled and waited for Jacqui to say something, but she was looking kind of dazed. ‘No problem,’ he assured her.

Jacqueline watched their retreat, unable to move, barely able to breathe, already bereft at the loss of contact with the chubby baby hands. The little girl waggled her pudgy fingers, and Jacqui couldn’t drag her gaze away as the yellow hat disappeared into the crowd.

‘Are you okay?’

She took a deep breath. And then another. The pain in her chest pulled viciously with each expansion of her lungs. She turned her attention to the horizon again, desperate for the earth to right itself, for the pain to go away, for calm to return. She tuned into the steady, soothing rhythm of the ocean.

In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Nathan waited a few minutes. ‘Jacq?’

She nodded. ‘I’m fine.’

He waited another minute. ‘You never did have that baby?’

Jacqui gave a brittle laugh to fend off another twinge in her chest. ‘Nope.’

‘There must have been other men, Jacqui.’

She looked up at him. ‘Why? Because there’s been other women for you?’

He shook his head. ‘Because you’re a sexy woman who, from what I can remember, has a very a healthy libido.’

He seemed so calm and collected, while inside her a hundred emotions swirled around in seething disquiet like a giant bubbling cauldron. She wanted to lash out, wanted to hurt him. ‘Oh, there have been others.’

Nathan flinched, surprised to find her admission stung. He’d suggested it because ten years was a long time, but now it was out there the thought of another man being with her really grated.

‘Nobody else I wanted to have a baby with, Nate.’

His irritation evaporated as her wounded eyes sucked him back into the past. To the monthly disappointment when her period arrived, and how devastated she’d been to find out about the PCOD which complicated her endometriosis and further blighted her fertility.

‘Not that you wanted to have a baby with me.’

Her quiet statement slapped him across the face hard. The sounds of the beach faded and he became very still. ‘That’s not true.’

Jacqui shook her head on a half-laugh, half-snort, and blinked to clear a sudden welling of tears. ‘Oh, come on, Nathan. It’s been ten years. At least be honest with yourself now. You only went along with it in that last year to placate me, and because you knew we were falling apart and it was a way to hang on. But if you think I couldn’t see the relief in your eyes each month, then you’re wrong.’

Nathan regarded her quietly for a moment. Jacqui had always possessed an uncanny knack of seeing straight through him. She was right — he had been relieved. And simultaneously guilty. ‘It just wasn’t the right time for me.’

Jacqui nodded. He’d been busy working his way to the top. He hadn’t wanted the distraction of a child.

‘You know,’ he said hesitantly, not sure how his next suggestion would be met, ‘it’s not too late. Plenty of women whose circumstances have never been advantageous are using fertility specialists to fulfil their life-long dream of having a child.’

Jacqui blinked. She dragged her gaze away from the horizon as it pitched out of kilter. She felt as if her head was going to spin off her shoulders. If her feet hadn’t been grounded in wet, heavy sand she might well have levitated.

This truly was surreal.

---