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Kelsi recognised the name—the surgeon was an obstetric specialist—based at the premier private women’s health clinic in the city.
‘You’ll go? It’s all paid for in advance.’ He actually went paler. ‘But I’ll be back well before...um...it arrives.’
Kelsi tried not to show her surprise at his steamroller approach to deciding on her care. He was so insistent about this. But she didn’t want to fight. Saying goodbye was tough enough.
‘I’ll go.’ She took a step away. ‘But I really should get going to work. I don’t want to be late.’
‘You’re walking again.’
‘Sure. You were right, it is better. I beat all the banked-up traffic.’ Trifling talk was so much easier than dealing with all that was unsaid.
And his answering grin was small, but it was there.
‘So, I’ll see you in a bit.’ Her throat had gone all tight. She turned so she wouldn’t have to look at him. So he wouldn’t see the waterfalls building in her eyes.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Soon.’
She walked to the top of the staircase.
‘You go get your trick, Jack. Get your gold.’ Kelsi really, really wanted that for him. She wanted him to be happy.
He didn’t move from his doorway and she was halfway down before he suddenly spoke. ‘Kelsi, you can call me if you need me, okay?’
She nodded but didn’t turn back. Too busy concentrating on the stairs and on holding back the tears.
She strode fast, out past the over-the-top fencing and along the road that took her to the heart of the city. She ran her thumb across the edge of the obstetrician’s card. She’d have to diary the appointment in her computer or she’d forget.
A few minutes into the walk—well out of sight of the house—she stopped mid-path to put the card in her purse. She stared at it, her brain ticking. His insistence bothered her. Why was he so concerned for her health? Why had he always made such an effort to cook her all those decent meals. Why did he want her to have a team of specialists for what should be a perfectly normal, healthy pregnancy? What had he seen that made him so nervous? Hadn’t his mother ever?—?
Her thoughts seized.
His mother.
She sat down at the bus stop a little along from where she’d stopped. She pulled out her phone. But this time she read the Wikipedia profile instead of being side-tracked by the YouTube clips of all his tricks. This time she hunted through for the bit about his background. Born in China—in a remote mountain village where his father was prepping for an expedition. There it was—just a single line detailing his early arrival, and his mother’s death only hours later.
No wonder he was anxious about prenatal care. His mother had died giving birth to him.
Kelsi put her phone in her bag and stood up. Her legs wobbling as she digested that tragedy. Poor Jack. And poor Jack’s dad—no wonder he’d put his own adventures on hold. No wonder things were so complicated. And why was it only now that she realised just how much she loved him? She wanted to make it all so much better—to support him however he needed. When she had so much to give, why didn’t he want it?
Hardly watching where she was going, she walked, her breathing a little difficult. She definitely should walk more often if she was this unfit. But now the edges of her vision were darkening. Had something gone wrong with her contacts? She shook her head and blinked several times to clear it. Distantly, the thought registered that she wasn’t wearing contacts today. But the blackness was all-encroaching now.
And all of a sudden the world went woosh.
‘Kelsi? Kelsi?’
Kelsi frowned. Who was calling her?
‘Kelsi, are you okay?’
‘Alice?’ What was the interior decorator doing here? What was Kelsi doing here—flat out on the footpath?
‘I think you fainted. Have you hit your head?’
She struggled to sit up. Her stomach rocked as if she was on a catamaran in a storm round Cape Horn.
‘Wow,’ she said, desperately trying to recover some dignity. ‘That was embarrassing.’
‘I was driving to the house and saw you keel over. Good thing the traffic was moving so slow or I might have missed you.’
