Australia: Handsome Heroes: His Secret Love-Child

‘So?’ He wasn’t going to get sucked into the emotional bit here, he thought. He couldn’t afford to.

‘So then I fell for you,’ she said softly. ‘And I got pregnant.’

He closed his eyes, trying to think back to all that time ago. But it didn’t make sense. He’d never been stupid. He of all people knew the risks. ‘How can you have got pregnant? We took precautions.’

‘Are you saying I’m lying?’ Anger flashed out then, bordering on fury. ‘Do you think I planned the pregnancy?’

‘I don’t know what to think.’

‘Well, think what you like,’ she snapped. ‘But I didn’t plan it. I was on the Pill. I knew how much you didn’t want children, and I was hardly in a position to want them either. So we were careful. But I guess there’s truth in the saying that the only sure contraceptive is two brick walls with air space between. Whatever we used didn’t work. Anyway, I couldn’t believe it. I discovered I was pregnant when you were upcountry on a medical evacuation flight. You were gone. I was down in Townsville, staring at a positive pregnancy test. Thinking I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t.’

His eyes opened at that and he met her look head on. Challenging. ‘Why the hell not?’

‘What would you have said?’ she whispered. ‘Be honest, Cal. How would you have reacted?’

‘How do I know?’

‘Well, I know,’ she said drearily. ‘You’d said it over and over to me. You didn’t want family. Your family life was the pits. You never wanted commitment. Sure, what we had was special and we both knew it, but it wasn’t enough to make you want marriage. Or children. The thought appalled you. You said it over and over. It was like a warning. Love me despite it—and I did. I was willing to accept you on your terms. But then I fell pregnant. I sat there staring at the test strip and I thought, I can’t get rid of this baby. Maybe I did my growing up right there. I wanted this baby. I wanted our baby.’

He shook his head, bewildered. ‘Gina, if I’d known—’

‘You might even have done the honourable thing,’ she said heavily. ‘I knew that. But honour wasn’t what I wanted from you, Cal, and you were capable of offering nothing more.’

‘I might have—’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I knew your background, you see, though I heard much of it from others. Not from you.’

‘My background has nothing to do with this.’

‘It has everything, Cal,’ she said heavily. ‘If I don’t accept it, at least I can understand. Your mother walked out on you when you were still a kid yourself, trapping you into caring for your two little sisters. Your father was a drunk. You had to leave school to support everyone and then, just as your sisters started being independent, your mother reappeared and offered your sisters a home in the States with her new man. But not you. After all you’d done, they left you without a backward glance. Your dad died and you had to regroup and work your butt off to get yourself through medical school. You learned in the hardest way to be independent. Do you think I was going to trap you again?’

‘Hell…’

‘It was hell,’ she whispered. ‘For both of us. For different reasons.’

‘So you just ran.’

‘Strangely, I didn’t,’ she told him, and her chin jutted, just a little. Finding her feet again. This part of the story was easier. ‘While I was trying to sort some sense out of the mess the phone rang and it was Paul’s mother. It was…as if it was meant. It was horrible but it was real. She rang to tell me that Paul had been injured—dreadfully injured—in a motorbike accident in Kathmandu. She was distraught. She couldn’t go herself. Could I go? she asked. She pleaded. There was no one else. I had medical training and that was what Paul desperately needed. Family and western medicine. So…’ She paused and stared blankly out over the sea. ‘So I just went.’

He stared at her, still disbelieving. ‘Without waiting for me to get back?’

‘You were gone for two days. Paul’s mother thought he was dying. I had to move fast. As it was, I only just got there in time. I found him in a tiny village outside the capital and he was dreadfully injured. From then on the drama of the situation just took over. Getting him stabilised. He’d smashed his spine, and the convolutions to evacuate him back to the States took weeks. And then…by the time I’d caught my breath, somehow I was three months pregnant and I was back to being Paul’s wife again.’

‘That was what your note said,’ he said heavily, remembering. ‘That Paul had been injured and you were still his wife and you were staying with him. That your marriage had resumed.’

‘I didn’t lie.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I guess you didn’t.’

There was a long silence then. There wasn’t tension here. It was as if the world had somehow paused and was regrouping.

But finally the questions started again.

‘How badly was Paul hurt?’

That was easy. ‘Break at C1/2. Complete quadriplegia. No function below the neck and barely speech,’ she told him. ‘No unaided respiration. The guy he crashed into had basic medical training so they were able to establish an air supply. Maybe that was a good thing. Sometimes I don’t know. But Paul had almost five years of life before the infections became too frequent and his body shut down.’

‘You don’t think,’ Cal said carefully into the stillness, ‘that it might have been fair to tell me this?’

‘What? That I still loved you but I’d decided I needed to stay with Paul? How could I tell you that? It wasn’t even fair. If I had to stay with Paul, what was the use of telling you I loved you? Besides,’ she said softly into the stillness, ‘you knew that I loved you. I’d told you that over and over. But you’d never said it back to me. Not once, Cal. Not ever.’

‘I…’ He paused and she shrugged, moving on.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told him. ‘Not now. And it couldn’t matter then. Cal, Paul had no one except his elderly mother who was incapacitated herself. He needed me so much. And when CJ was born…’

‘Yeah, that’s what I can’t understand,’ he snapped. ‘How he accepted another man’s son.’

‘CJ gave him pleasure,’ she told him. ‘Huge pleasure. You know, when Paul learned I was pregnant he didn’t even ask who the father was. I said I’d had a love affair that hadn’t worked out and he didn’t want to know more. But the pregnancy itself made him…joyful. It was as if something good had come from the mess he’d created. For the few years left of his life, CJ was the centre of Paul’s life. And Paul had been my friend for ever. I couldn’t take that away from him.’

‘You took it away from me.’

Her eyes flashed at that. ‘You didn’t want it,’ she said, steadily now, as if she was on ground she was sure of. ‘When I found out that I was pregnant I was appalled. I knew you didn’t want a child. I knew you didn’t want a family. Am I right, Cal?’

Was she right?

He stared at her and he couldn’t answer.

Of course he didn’t want kids. He never had. Damn, with his family, how could he? Kids were a disaster. Commitment was a disaster.

‘Maybe,’ he said—grudgingly—and she winced and hauled herself to her feet.

‘There you go, then. So I kept my son where at least someone wanted him. Paul was his daddy, and Paul loved him more than life itself.’

‘And you,’ he said softly. ‘Did you love Paul?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Cal,’ she said heavily. ‘To ask a question like that…Don’t be so daft.’

He stared at her, wondering where to go from here. Where…

‘Here are the cookies! I have cookies.’ There was a triumphant stage whisper from behind them. The glider was flying cautiously back through the screen door, bearing two glasses of water and four choc-chip cookies, all balanced precariously on a plastic tray.

‘Bruce is in the kitchen,’ CJ told them in satisfaction, handing over his burden with care. ‘He says he’s really pleased to see us and can he take us out to dinner?’

‘Bruce?’ He was almost grateful for the interruption, Cal decided. For something else to focus on. Emotions were threatening to overwhelm him.

‘It’ll be Bruce Hammond,’ Gina told him. ‘We met Bruce while we were staying here. He took us on a crocodile hunt but we didn’t find any.’

‘We did,’ CJ retorted. ‘It was only the grown-ups who said it was a log.’