Truly Madly Guilty

Oliver decided to go for a run in the rain.

He risked injury on the slippery footpaths, and also a relapse of his chest cold, but right now he really needed to clear his head because his wife was a common thief and as a result he would never be a father.

He was incorrectly assigning causality but he was very upset. Angry. Shocked.

He double-knotted his shoelaces, stood up, did a few stretches, opened the front door and nearly closed it again because it was raining so hard, but he couldn't bear to roam around his house while his thoughts scuttled like trapped mice.

Running would give him clarity. His nervous system would release a protein that stimulated regions of his brain related to decision-making.

He took a deep breath and headed out. Vid and Tiffany were obviously entertaining. There were cars lined up in their driveway and around the cul-de-sac. They were extremely sociable people.

As Oliver ran out of the cul-de-sac he considered his own, significantly smaller social circle. It might be helpful if he could talk this through with someone, but there was no one.

He did not have the sort of friend he could call up for a 'quiet beer'. He was not the sort of person who said 'quiet beer'. He didn't actually drink beer. He had the sort of friends who drank protein shakes at the local health-food cafe after a thirty-k morning bike ride, while they discussed training schedules for the upcoming half marathon. He liked his friends, but he had no interest in hearing their personal problems and he therefore couldn't share his own. He couldn't lean over his protein shake and say, 'My wife has been stealing memorabilia from her best friend since she was a kid. What do you reckon? Should I be worried?'

He would never betray Erika to another man like that anyway.

A confidential discussion with a woman might be better. Maybe if he had a sister, or a mother. Technically he did have a mother. Just not the right sort of mother. She would find Erika's stealing screamingly funny or tragically sad, depending on where the pendulum of her mood currently sat.

A car drove by and tooted at him in either a supportive or derisive way: hard to interpret.

If Erika had started hoarding, he could have handled that. He'd even mentally prepared himself for that remote possibility, in spite of her constant, obsessive decluttering. He'd prepared himself for depression (common while undergoing IVF), for breast cancer, for a brain tumour, for accidental death and even an office romance (he trusted her, but her managing partner was apparently a 'ladies' man'), but never for this. Never for petty thievery. They were straight-down-the-line people. Their financial affairs were in scrupulous order. He and Erika would welcome a tax audit. Bring it on, they'd say to the tax office. Bring it on.

His glasses needed windscreen wipers. He kept running while he took them off and tried to dry them with the edge of his T-shirt. Useless.

She had taken Clementine's stuff, like a Dickensian pickpocket. It was unfathomable. She said she was going to stop and that she would give back what she could over a period of time, but in Oliver's world, people never stopped. His parents had said they'd stop drinking. Erika's mother had said she'd stop hoarding. They truly believed it at the time. He got that. But they couldn't stop. It was like asking them to hold their breath. They could do it for only so long before they had to gasp for air.

Another car swept by, and a teenage boy stretched almost half his body out the window in order to yell, 'Loser!'

Really dangerous activity there, sport. You could get sideswiped by another car. Also bad-mannered.

He took the corner at Livingston. Twinge in that left knee again.

Right now Erika was over at Clementine's telling her that they wouldn't need her as an egg donor after all. They had discussed it and agreed it would be polite to tell her in person. She'd invested her time doing blood tests and filling in paperwork. They didn't like to waste someone's time.

It was Oliver's decision. There were Clementine's unkind comments that Erika had overheard. Repulsed by the idea. Bitch, he thought as his foot hit a puddle and water sprayed. Clementine wasn't a bitch. He was fond of Clementine, but the things she'd said had been so unkind a

nd unnecessary.

He thought of Erika's little face (she had a small darling face) and how she must have looked when she'd stood in the hallway overhearing those awful words. His fists clenched. He felt a sudden urge to hit Sam, because he obviously couldn't hit Clementine.

The moment passed, as primal urges did. He'd never hit anyone in his life.

Anyway, even if Clementine hadn't said what she'd said, obviously Erika's relationship with her was too ... strange? complex? dysfunctional? ... for this to go ahead.

'Absolutely not,' he'd said to Erika. 'She can't be our donor. It's not happening. It's over. It's finished.'

He couldn't tell if she was relieved or shattered.

He'd been so adamant, but now, as he ran, his clothes getting wetter and heavier (you would think there'd be a point of total saturation, at which they couldn't get any wetter, but apparently not), he was regretting his decision. Maybe he'd been too hasty.

It felt like another loss. Each time he thought he was doing well, avoiding the hope. Each time he told himself, I have no expectations, but with each new failure it hurt so much he understood the hope had been there after all, flitting seductively around his subconscious. It didn't get easier either. It got worse. A cumulative effect. Loss upon loss. Like the ligament strain in that left knee.

So, what now? Anonymous donor? They were so difficult to find, unless they went overseas. People were doing that. They could do that. He could do it. He could do whatever it took to have his own biological child. He just wasn't sure if Erika could. He had a terrible suspicion that if he said, 'Let's forget about the baby', the first expression he'd see on her face would be relief.

His heart rate was up very high. He could hear himself puffing. He couldn't normally hear himself puffing. That chest cold had affected his fitness. He concentrated on breathing in rhythm with his footfalls.

He saw a blue car coming his way from the opposite end of the street and realised it was Erika, on her way home from seeing Clementine.