‘You don’t know how I feel,’ he said scathingly. ‘You only think you do. But you made a big mistake if you thought you could talk me
round. You’re not going to con me into bearing the responsibility for your decision—’
She felt as if he had stabbed her in the chest. ‘If you’re talking about a decision not to terminate, I don’t need anyone else to take responsibility for that,’ she said sharply. ‘I don’t care what you or my mother say, I’m not getting rid of my baby just because it doesn’t fit the image of a sophisticated career woman.’
He stiffened at the wheel. ‘Your mother told you to have an abortion?’ He cast her a violent look. But was he any better?
‘I haven’t told her—I wanted you to know first,’ she said, turning her head to stare blindly out the window. ‘But I know that’s what she’ll say I should do. She would have aborted me, if she could have done it legally…even back then she was thinking ahead to what would best serve her professional reputation. I grew up in a one-parent family so I know how tough it can be, but I can do it, I could even afford a house and take in boarders to help with the mortgage and child-care if necessary. There are always plenty of overseas university students looking for quality long-term home-stays. My mother will be furious and scathingly disappointed in me, but then that’s nothing new…’
The thick, condemning silence descended again, reinforcing Drake’s message of brutal uninterest, and this time it lasted until they arrived at the group practice on the outskirts of Whitianga. While Drake parked the car Kate walked inside and explained matters to the practice nurse on the desk, who immediately said she’d show her into an examination room to await the first doctor to become free. As she was leading the way across the hall Drake came striding up to them, eyes raking over Kate, and the nurse hesitated.
‘Oh! Does your hus—um…your partner want to come in, too?’
‘No!’ said Kate firmly, before Drake could open his mouth to say anything hurtful. ‘And he’s not my partner. He just gave me a lift. You can stay in the waiting room,’ she told him with dismissive coldness that blew directly off the frozen wastes in her heart.
She was feeling both hot and cold fifteen minutes later as she stared at the kindly, middle-aged female doctor in a mixture of anger and disbelief.
‘But the test was positive both times I did it,’ she repeated, ‘and it said on the packet that it was ninety-seven per cent accurate.’
The doctor shrugged. ‘Done correctly, yes, but there are a number of things that could give a false-positive result—for instance you may have let the test sit too long before you read it, or, if it happened twice, the kit might have been expired or faulty, or if you’d had a urinary-tract infection you were unaware of at the time, that could have compromised the test—’
‘But I’ve also had all the signs since then,’ protested Kate. ‘I’ve missed two periods, and I’ve been nauseous, and having to go to the toilet more frequently, and my breasts have been sore…’
The doctor’s voice was gentle, but inexorably firm. ‘Well, I’ve done the internal exam and tested your urine and you’re definitely not pregnant. The pain you’re feeling is probably a pulled muscle from your fall, or possibly a little tear—an anti-inflammatory will soon settle that down. I’ll do the hCG blood test for you but I’m sure that’ll just confirm my diagnosis. You said there was some spotting a couple of weeks after your first period was due? You could have had what we call a chemical pregnancy, which is a very early miscarriage.’
‘But I missed another period after that and—and I was so sure…’
‘Have you been under any emotional stress at work or in your private life recently?’
‘Well, yes, but no more than usual.’ Kate grimaced. She had always found Drake’s arrivals and departures very stressful—trying to act normal and carry off the appearance of cool acceptance of his wanderings while she was dying inside. Whenever he left she would wonder when they would see each other again, and when he returned she was never certain how long he would stay.
‘You wanted this baby very much, I take it?’ the doctor murmured, as she gently dealt with the splinters embedded in the hand with which Kate had grabbed at the rail.
‘Yes,’ Kate whispered. ‘I did.’ As soon as she had watched that test strip change she had eagerly embraced the miracle, the long-forbidden hope. She had wanted Drake’s baby more than anything else in the world…except his love…
And now she had to face life with neither.
‘Well, sometimes, when we want or believe in something very, very much the mind can cause the body to produce signs and symptoms that can fool a woman into thinking she’s pregnant…’
Fool! Kate repeated to herself as she left the doctor’s office, hollowed out by grief and the shameful knowledge of her own devastating self-betrayal.
She knew now why she had convinced herself there was no rush to have her pregnancy professionally confirmed. At some deep level of her subconscious she had known the truth and not wanted to face it. The phantom pregnancy had been a way for her to break out of the prison of her ‘no strings’ affair with Drake, to force herself to take action and challenge the very nature and balance of their relationship.
To make a horrible situation worse, when she got back out to the reception desk she found that she had left her purse lying on the floor back at the house, and had to ask Drake to pay for her consultation.
‘Well?’ he said curtly as they walked to the door.
She swallowed. She wasn’t going to parade her guilt and shame in front of a roomful of interested patients. ‘Quite well.’ She stretched her mouth into a meaningless smile. ‘The doctor said I must have pulled a muscle in my fall.’
Drake stopped outside the doors. ‘So the baby’s all right, then—it wasn’t hurt?’ he said, his voice tight with hostility at having to ask.
Kate’s dry eyes ached. Fool! She lifted her chin. ‘It was all a stupid false alarm,’ she forced herself to confess.
‘In that case, here.’ Drake stunned her by slapping her car keys into her hand.
‘You want me to drive home?’
‘I don’t care where you go. As long as I’m not there. I can’t do this. I’m out of here.’ He turned on his heel and headed along the pavement towards the township.