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I leave her to it, and head out the door.
I’m halfway through the meeting with Hemi when I get a text from her. While he’s jotting down some notes, I glance at my phone.
Joke for you: There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary and those who don’t.She finishes with a smiley face and:Don’t forget your three p.m. appointment!
I chuckle and pocket my phone.
After my three p.m., I join Kip for a conference call with Sydney, and then I have senior leadership, so by the time I get back to my office, Catie has gone home, her desk left neat and tidy. I go into my office, sit down at my desk, and stare around. She’s sorted all my loose papers into relevant piles and paper-clipped them. My handwritten notes are neatly stacked. She’s emptied my rubbish bin, and placed a bottle of water on the desk with a Post-it that says “Drink Me!” with a smiley face. Next to it is a chocolate muffin.
I open my laptop and check the dictation file—she’s completed all the tasks, and she’s halfway through the next long report that I assumed would take her until the end of the week.
She’s also sent me an email. I open it, undoing the water bottle and drinking some of it as I read the message. She’s left me her address—an apartment block in Newtown—and she’s linked to a few websites that she says she’s developed over the past year. I click on them and check them out.
There are a couple of smaller ones: an accountancy firm, a department store, and a local primary school, all relatively basic, but with a smart, clean design, easy-to-read text, and links that work.
Then I give a short, surprised laugh as I see the link to Sirius Plaster. It’s a new company we’ve started doing business with because they make the plaster for the casts which are taken of residual limbs before prosthetics are made. I’ve admired the website before, which features a prosthetic arm that clicks on the buttons to the various web pages as you navigate them. It’s different and easy to follow, and illustrates the company perfectly. She designed this? I’m not easily impressed when it comes to computer programming, but Catie O’Clery has exceeded my expectations today.
I sit back in my chair and turn to look out of the window. What a day. My head is still spinning. I don’t know what to make of it all.
“Saxon?” It’s Kip, sticking his head around the door. “Team meeting?”
“Yeah, I’m coming.” There’s no time to ruminate on today’s events, and that’s probably for the best. There’s no point in wrangling the data until it’s complete. I’ll know more tomorrow after Catie’s scan, and maybe then we can start making plans and deciding how the future is going to look.
*
At 7:45 a.m. the next day, I park the car outside Catie’s apartment and wait for her to appear.
It’s not the worst area in Wellington, but it’s not the best either. I’m kinda glad it’s summer and she finishes work at five, because I wouldn’t like her to walk through these streets on a dark night.
After a couple of minutes, the door opens, and she comes out. As usual, she’s dressed all in black, the T-shirt stretched over her bump, with black leggings. It occurs to me then that she won’t have any maternity clothes. I can’t imagine she’s going to let me take her into Baby Bump to buy her a new wardrobe. I’ll have to think about that, if all goes well today.
It’s only now that I realize how nerve-wracking the process of going for a scan is for new parents. I know that eight percent of pregnancies involve complications, and suddenly that seems like a very high stat. The thought that there might be something wrong with her, or, God forbid, the baby, makes me breathless. Is she thinking the same?
She walks down the steps, then stops and stares at the car. I wait for a moment, then lower the window. “Everything all right?”
She bends to look at me. “You’re in a fucking Aston Martin.”
“I’m a regular James Bond,” I reply. “Can you get in before someone steals the wheels?”
She hesitates, then walks around and gets in the passenger side. She sits there for a moment, looking around. “I’m afraid to move in case I damage something.”
“Put your seat belt on,” I scold. “I don’t want to be late.”
She buckles herself in, then looks at me.
“Happy birthday.” I hand her a small parcel wrapped in greaseproof paper.
She reads the printed wrapper, laughs, and opens it. It’s a BLT bagel from a nearby café. “Thank you.”
“I thought you might not have had breakfast.” I join the traffic, heading for the clinic.
“I had a slice of toast, but this smells wonderful.” She takes a big bite.
“That’s for you, too.” I gesture at the takeaway coffee in the cup holder. “Did you drink the water?”
“I did, so I don’t really need the coffee, as my bladder is already the size of a basketball, but thank you. I’m only accepting it because it’s my birthday, though.” She has a swallow of coffee, then another big bite of the bagel. “Oh my God, that’s so good. Do you want a bite?”
“I’ve had one, thanks. It’s all yours.”
