I thought, Thank God I followed them. Otherwise I might never have known what day it was that they went for the ultrasound. It would have suddenly occurred to me, probably at three a.m. one morning, that they must have been due for an ultrasound by now, and then I would have lain awake, obsessing over the details, wondering when it was, and where, and what they wore. At least this way I had some control. I was still part of it; I still existed. Even if they didn’t know I was there, I would know. I could say, “Fancy seeing you here!” as they came out of the office, or I could send a text tonight saying, “How was the ultrasound?” or I could do nothing at all, but I would be a part of it from the beginning: from that very first pregnancy test, of course.

Perhaps they’ll make me godmother.

Oh, I’m a riot.

It was a big busy waiting room, filled with plump pregnant bellies, and couples holding hands while they chatted softly, and slim women reading magazines while secretive smiles played across their faces. These were all people who fitted as snugly into society as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle: clean, wholesome people who loved and were loved back.

I sat down on the first seat I saw, close to the door, and picked up a magazine. As I did, I heard a nurse say, “Ellen O’Farrell.” There was a pause and then again, louder this time, “Ellen O’Farrell.”

I looked up and saw that Ellen had been in the middle of helping herself to two plastic cups of water from one of those water cylinders, and now she was flustered, in that charming, girlish way of hers, uncertain what to do with the cups, her bag slipping off her shoulder as she straightened up too quickly. I saw Patrick and Jack walk toward her, and Patrick took the cups out of her hands while Jack lifted the strap of the bag back up over her shoulder—so grown-up, so well mannered. I taught him those manners. Then the nurse said something I didn’t hear, and they all smiled, and off they went down a corridor, the three of them; they hadn’t noticed me at all.

A woman sitting next to me said, “Are you all right?”

I hadn’t even realized I was crying.

“If you died,” said Jack to Ellen, “would the baby die too?”

“Jack!” said Patrick. “What sort of question is that?”

They’d gone out for an early dinner at a local pizza restaurant, and Jack was studying the ultrasound photos while they waited for their pizza to arrive.

“The baby needs me to be alive to keep growing,” said Ellen. Should she reassure him that she wasn’t going to die, like his mother? Or was he just interested? Or was he hoping she would die? Maybe he was sick to death of the healthy lunches.

“Did you eat your lunch today, Jack?” she asked.

“So, like, when Armageddon comes, and all the pregnant women die—” began Jack.

“Jesus! Enough with the Armageddon,” said Patrick. “This is why you’re having nightmares and this is why you’re falling asleep in class.”

“I didn’t actually fall asleep,” said Jack. He put the ultrasound photos down and Ellen slid her finger across the table and pulled them back toward her. “I just closed my eyes for a minute to concentrate.”

“They couldn’t wake you up, mate,” said Patrick.

Just before Ellen and Patrick had been due to leave for the ultrasound, the school had called to say that Jack had put his head on the desk and fallen so soundly asleep that the teacher had carried him all the way to sick bay without being able to wake him up. They’d assumed he was coming down with something, but he seemed in perfectly high spirits now, thrilled to have been given the day off school and taken along for the ultrasound.

“You were probably snoring,” said Patrick. “Nobody else could concentrate.”

He put his head on one side and gave a convincing rumbly snore.

Jack grinned. “You snore. I never snore.”

“Me? I don’t snore,” said Patrick. “Do I, Ellen?”

“No,” said Ellen. He did snore, in fact; she was considering earplugs. She picked up the ultrasound photo and studied it. Mine, she thought. My baby. She glanced at Patrick and amended it: Our baby. The photo had a ghostly look to it, as if it was a photo of some supernatural phenomenon. “Everything looks just as it should,” the woman doing the ultrasound had said. “Congratulations.” And then she’d said, “Oh look! He or she is waving at you!” and she’d pointed out a tiny, ghostly hand, and Patrick, Ellen and Jack had all waved back.

“You snore like an earthquake!” Jack jabbed his finger at Patrick. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and the tablecloth began to slip. “You snore like a volcano!”

“Careful, mate.” Patrick adjusted the cloth. “Actually, your mum taped me snoring once. I did sound a bit like a volcano.”

Ding! Fourth Colleen reference in the last hour, thought Ellen. She couldn’t seem to stop noticing it, no matter how hard she tried.

“There’s a volcano in America called the Yellowstone Supervolcano,” said Jack. “And when it erupts—POW!” He banged his fist on the table and a glass full of sugar packets tipped over. “That’s the end of the world. It could happen any minute.”

“Really?” said Ellen.

“I don’t think so,” said Patrick. “Where’s our pizza? Don’t they know we’re starving over here? Let’s see that photo again.” He took the photo from Ellen.

“Have you got a photo of me like that somewhere?” said Jack.

“Yeah, your mum put it in your baby book, remember? You’ve seen it before.”

Ding!

Oh, Ellen, give it a rest. What was the poor man meant to do? Ignore his son’s questions? Pretend Colleen never existed?

“I’m going to the toilet,” announced Jack.

He always went to the toilet whenever they went out. It was his excuse for wandering around the restaurant, checking out whatever interested him.

“I bet he stops right there, where you can see into the kitchen,” said Ellen.

Jack stopped on cue, looking nonchalantly casual as he pressed himself up against a potted plant, and stood on tippy-toes so he could see over a ledge into where they were tossing pizza dough up into the air.

Ellen and Patrick laughed, and for a moment it felt like they were both his parents. Patrick smiled. “Funny kid.” He lifted up the photo and looked at it. “I wonder if you’ll be worried about Armageddon one day, baby? Or will you be a serene, spiritual soul like your mother?”

Tags: Liane Moriarty Romance
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