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I’ve hardly spoken to him over the past few days, and I feel forlorn and adrift. I also feel achy, as if I’m coming down with something. It could be PMS. Or it could be something else.
The day before the funeral, I check my calendar for the umpteenth time and confirm—it’s day twenty-nine of my cycle. My period usually starts around day twenty-nine, sometimes twenty-eight, and the test I’ve bought says it can tell if you’re pregnant from when you’re one day late, so I know it’s time to try it.
When I get home from work, having thought about it all day, I go into the bathroom and, with shaking hands, I pee on the stick. While I wash my hands, my heart races. I feel excited and panicky and a little sad, all rolled into one. I’d kinda hoped I might be doing this with Marc by my side, but that obviously wasn’t to be. Wasn’t this what I wanted? To do it alone? I told him I didn’t want a relationship—that I wouldn’t let myself fall for him. I look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and see tears glistening in my eyes. I’ve been five kinds of idiot, as usual, useless at dealing with people, with no idea of how to handle a relationship. Fancy agreeing to sleep with a guy just to get pregnant. I’m such a fool. I was always going to fall in love with him, wasn’t I?
I turn over the stick.
There’s no line in the large square. I’m not pregnant.
I stare at it. I’m not pregnant?
We’ve made a baby tonight, Marc told me that night he tipped me onto the carpet in the viewing room. I know it, one hundred percent. Unfortunately, he was wrong.
I sit on the toilet seat, my legs suddenly shaky. I keep staring at the test, just in case I haven’t left it long enough, and the line’s going to suddenly appear. But it doesn’t. I’m definitely not pregnant.
I blow out a long breath. It’s good news. It was a stupid arrangement anyway. It would have been really awkward knowing the father, and I know he would have made a fuss, and wanted to be involved. This way, I can go back to my original idea and do it the way I wanted. Cold and clinical. With no emotion involved at all.
I put my hand over my mouth and burst into tears.
*
The next day is the day of the funeral. In the morning, Leon flies Marc, Izzy, and Hal down to Hamilton in the helicopter for the cremation. The Ark stays open until two p.m., with Stefan, Clio, and Summer manning the veterinary center, and then we close, go home and get dressed, and come back to Noah’s house by four p.m., ready for the wake.
By the time I arrive, Brock and Erin are there, and Matt and Georgia, and Dad turns up just after me. Mom is in Australia at the moment, visiting my grandmother—her own mother, who hasn’t been well lately. Half of me wishes I’d gone with her. I miss her, and it would be nice to see my grandmother. Everyone from the Ark is there, along with lots of dogs, and the caterers that Noah has hired are just starting to hand out glasses of champagne when someone shouts that the helicopter has arrived.
Some people go outside to welcome them back, but I stay inside, helping Abby put the finishing touches to the fruitcake she’s made.
“You okay?” she murmurs once we’re on our own. “You’ve been very quiet since you got back.”
“I’m fine.” I give her a quick smile. The truth is that I feel awful. I’m nervous about seeing Marc again, and I’m not looking forward to the conversation we might or might not be having.
“You’re not…” She leaves the question open, and I remember telling her before we left to go to Hawke’s Bay that Marc was hoping to get me pregnant.
“No,” I admit, trying to ignore the hollow feeling I have deep inside. “Unfortunately not.”
“Oh well,” Abby says brightly, “next time for sure, eh?”
I just smile, not wanting to go into it all. She studies my face and opens her mouth to respond, but at that moment Izzy and Marc come through the door, and so the moment passes.
Izzy looks pale, and her eyes are red-rimmed, but she laughs as Noah says something and presses a glass of champagne into her hand, and accepts a kiss on the cheek from him. Everyone goes up to them to give their condolences.
I sip my champagne, unable to tear my eyes away from Marc. He’s wearing a dark-gray suit, a white shirt, and a black tie, and he looks so handsome it makes my heart ache. God, I’ve missed him so much. I wait for him to see me and come over. Will he hug me or kiss me in front of everyone? At that moment, I wouldn’t have cared if he had. I want him to. I just want to touch him, to hold him.
