Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [125]
Me: You, too.
Later I regretted my eagerness in making that call because I missed out on the chance of seeing his face when he heard the news. Fortunately I have my spies. Melanie tells me that as he was leaving his office on the way to that meeting he went via her desk and gave her a huge bear hug and kiss on the cheek. She claims it was the high point of her sex life for the year.
Is this evidence that God has a sense of humour? On a night in late November 2006, when we thought we were saying goodbye forever, Alex and I instead created a bond between us that will link us together for all our lives: Henrik Alexander Andersen is his name. We christened him in honour of Alex’s late dad, and he’s snuffling adorably in his sleep as I write this.
I have to say that on no level, subconsciously or otherwise, did I plan for this to happen. If I’d have known it was possible for me, with my chequered fertility history, to stop the pill and fall pregnant within days…well, you know the saying: ‘if it’s not on, it’s not on’. I should have read the package insert on those contraceptive pills more closely, I suppose. It would have been much simpler if Alex and I had been able to ease into our commitment rather than being thrust into joint parenthood within a year, but I can’t regret for a moment our beautiful little boy. Anyway, Alex seems to have taken to fatherhood like a duck to water, so maybe he was, as he said, ready.
The path has been smoothed by Henry (as he’s now usually called) being the easiest baby ever - almost the polar opposite of Isabel. He rarely cries and was sleeping through the night from an unheard of eight weeks. I’m sure Alex thinks I was making all those horror baby stories up!
Henry has also turned out to be almost as dark-skinned as his father is, so it’s fortunate I didn’t decide to go back to Tony, cross my fingers and hope for the best. Doesn’t bear thinking about really…Much better to have the whole issue of paternity cleared up before delivery day.
Of course, I had the less pleasant task of calling Tony to tell him he was not the father.
‘So now my humiliation is complete,’ he said. ‘My wife conceived a baby with another man while she was still married to me.’
‘I didn’t actually plan for this to happen, you know, but if it makes things easier I’m happy to lie to people and say the baby was premature or something. Or else you can make up some story that I slept with a taxi driver in a fit of jealous rage after hearing about your love affair. Whatever paints me in the worst light.’
‘Oh don’t worry, I’ll be doing that.’
‘Anyway, at least it makes the break less complicated,’ I added, in lieu of anything useful to say.
‘Yes - and when you have your new baby maybe you’ll see sense and stop this pointless fight for Isabel.’
Grrrrr.
Still, in deference to our shared history I didn’t tell him I was carrying the boy he had wanted. I knew he would find that out soon enough.
It wasn’t too long after that that he called me to say that he would be visiting Sydney for a few days in two weeks’ time and would like access to Isabel the entire time. As we were finishing the conversation he said curtly, ‘By the way, I should let you know that Wendy has moved in with me.’
‘Good,’ I said. I had been half-expecting this.
‘She at least was faithful to me the whole time.’
Whatever, I thought but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.
And then, only a few months later, I received another ‘by the way’.
‘By the way, it’s early days yet but I thought I’d let you know that Wendy is pregnant.’
‘Oh…er…congratulations.’
‘Thank you. It happened a bit quicker than we expected.’
‘We seem to be much more fertile with other people,’ I said. ‘Just another way we were incompatible, I suppose.’
Then he said something I wasn’t expecting. ‘It wasn’t all bad was it? We had some good times too.’
What did this all mean?
‘Yeah we did,’ I said, and even though it was risky bringing her