The Husband's Secret

‘Get yourself your first ever passport, Mum! You could even see a bit of America if you wanted. Go on one of those bus tours. Or, I know, do one of those Alaskan cruises!’

She wondered sometimes whether, if their lives hadn’t been divided so cleanly as if by a giant wall – before 6 April 1984, after 6 April 1984 – Rob would have grown up differently. Not quite so relentlessly upbeat, not quite so much like a real estate agent. Mind you, he was a real estate agent, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when he behaved like one.

‘I want to do one of those Alaskan cruises,’ said Lauren. She put her hand over Rob’s. ‘I’ve always imagined us doing one when we’re old and grey.’

Then she coughed, probably because she remembered that Rachel was old and grey.

‘It certainly would be interesting.’ Rachel took a sip of her tea. ‘Maybe a little chilly.’

Were they mad? Rachel did not want to do an Alaskan cruise. She wanted to sit on the back step in the sunshine and blow bubbles for Jacob in the backyard and watch him laugh. She wanted to see him grow week by week.

And she wanted them to have another baby. Soon. Lauren was thirty-nine! Just last week Rachel had told Marla that there was plenty of time for Lauren to have another baby. They had them so late these days, she’d said. But that was when she’d secretly thought there was going to be an announcement any minute. In fact, she’d been planning for that second baby (just like an ordinary, interfering mother-in-law). She had decided that when the baby came, she’d retire. She loved her job at St Angela’s but in two years she’d be seventy (seventy!) and she was getting tired. Looking after two children two days a week would be enough for her. She’d assumed this was her future. She could almost feel the weight of the new baby in her arms.

Why didn’t the damned girl want another baby? Didn’t they want to give Jacob a little brother or sister? What was so special about New York, with all those beeping horns and steam billowing oddly from holes in the street? For Pete’s sake, the girl went back to work three months after Jacob was born. It wasn’t like having a baby would be that big an inconvenience for her.

If someone had asked Rachel that morning about her life, she would have said that it was full and satisfying. She looked after Jacob on Mondays and Fridays, and the rest of the time he was in day care while Lauren sat at her desk in the city, managing her projects. When Jacob was at day care Rachel worked at St Angela’s as the school secretary. She had her work, her gardening, her friend Marla, her stack of library books and two whole precious days a week with her grandson. Jacob often stayed overnight with her on the weekend too, so that Rob and Lauren could go out. They liked going out, those two, to their fancy restaurants, the theatre and the opera, do you mind. Ed would have guffawed over that.

If someone had asked, ‘Are you happy?’ she would have said, ‘I’m as happy as I can be.’

She had no idea that her life was so flimsily constructed, like a stack of cards, and that Rob and Lauren could march in here on a Monday night and cheerfully help themselves to the one card that mattered. Remove the Jacob card and her life collapsed, floated softly to the ground.

Rachel pressed her lips to Jacob’s head and tears filled her eyes.

Not fair. Not fair. Not fair.

‘Two years will go so quickly,’ said Lauren, her eyes on Rachel.

‘Like this!’ Rob clicked his fingers.

For you, thought Rachel.

‘Or we might not even stay the full two years,’ said Lauren.

‘Then again, you might end up staying for good!’ said Rachel, with a big bright smile, to show that she was a woman of the world and she knew how these things worked.

She thought of the Russell twins, Lucy and Mary, and how both their daughters had gone to live in Melbourne. ‘They’ll end up staying there,’ Lucy had said sadly to Rachel one Sunday after church. It was years and years ago, but it had stuck in Rachel’s head, because Lucy had been right. The last Rachel had heard, the cousins – Lucy’s shy little girl and Mary’s plump daughter with the beautiful eyes – were still in Melbourne and were there for good.

But Melbourne was a hop, skip and a jump away. You could fly to Melbourne for the day if you wanted. Lucy and Mary did it all the time. You couldn’t fly to New York for the day.

And then there were people like Virginia Fitzpatrick, who job-shared (in a manner of speaking) the school secretary’s position with Rachel. Virginia had six sons and fourteen grandchildren, and most of them lived within a twenty-minute radius on Sydney’s North Shore. If one of Virginia’s children decided to go to New York, she probably wouldn’t even notice, she had so many grandchildren to spare.

Rachel should have had more children. She should have been a good Catholic wife and mother and had at least six, but no, she hadn’t, because of her vanity, because she’d secretly thought she was special; different from all those other women. God knows exactly how she’d thought she was special. It wasn’t like she’d had any specific aspirations of career, or travel, or whatever; not like girls did these days.

‘When do you leave?’ Rachel said to Lauren and Rob as Jacob slid from her lap unexpectedly, and bolted into the living room on one of his urgent missions. A moment later she heard the sound of the television start up. The clever little thing had worked out how to use the remote control.

‘Not till August,’ said Lauren. ‘We’ve got lots to sort out. Visas and so on. We’ll have to find an apartment, a nanny for Jacob.’