A Christmas Wedding(18)

‘I don’t want to wait much longer. I’m going to be thirty-five next month,’ I say imploringly.

‘I’m not ready,’ he states again, shaking his head and letting go of my hand.

‘No one thinks they’re ready and then they have a baby and it’s the best thing that ever happened to them.’

He stares at me directly. ‘It’s not going to happen. Not any time soon. I can’t even support a kid.’

‘I’d have to go back to work,’ I say, feeling a pang at the thought of a horribly short maternity leave.

‘What? And I’d be a stay-at-home dad?’ he asks incredulously, getting to his feet.

‘We’re actually really lucky,’ I say as he paces the floor. ‘You work nights and weekends, while I work weekdays. One of us would always be with him. Or her.’ I realise I have a battle on my hands in convincing him. He doesn’t even want a baby, yet here I am suggesting he be its primary carer…

‘We don’t have room for a kid.’ Lachie waves his hand around our poky bedroom to make his point.

‘We’d have to move. Probably further out, but—’

‘I don’t want to move! I like it here!’

‘We’ll have to make some compromises.’

He comes to a standstill. ‘Bronte, I am not having a baby. Not yet. Not any time soon.’ His tone turns regretful with his last few words. ‘I’m sorry, but you won’t change my mind. Having a family is a long way off for me.’

‘How long?’ I ask stupidly, brushing away tears.

‘I don’t know,’ he replies heavily, sitting back down on the bed and staring at me forlornly. There are only a couple of feet between us, but it might as well be a chasm of Grand Canyon proportions.

Try as I might, I just can’t bury my head in the sand about this one.

The weeks leading up to my setting off to the UK are overwrought with tension and arguments. There is no compromise to be found.

I want a baby; Lachie doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.

We’re stuck. Stagnant. With nowhere to go.

What’s worse, Vivienne gets a new editor who turns out to be a complete nightmare. She’s disorganised and indecisive and I end up working longer and longer hours. Although Lachie’s birthday gig at the bar turned into a fantastic regular stint, I’m lucky if I make it in time to see his last couple of songs.

But Fliss is always there, invariably. Lachie claims to have backed off from their friendship and has cut down the amount of time he spends with her outside of the weddings that they do together, but the message has not filtered down to her.

More likely, his signals are nowhere near strong enough.

A few days before I set off to the UK, Lachie and I find ourselves at opposite ends of the sofa, facing each other. The telly is muted and our dirty dinner plates are on the coffee table, but we can’t find the energy to get up and drag ourselves to bed. I rest my cheek against the sofa and look across at him, my knees up in front of me.

‘Will you think about everything while I’m gone?’ I ask softly.

He sighs.

‘I get it if you don’t want a baby now or even next year,’ I continue. ‘But can we come up with some sort of plan, agree to some form of commitment?’

He swallows and dangles his arm over the back of the sofa, breaking eye contact with me. ‘What if I can’t?’ he whispers. ‘Is this a deal breaker for you?’

‘What do you mean?’ I ask warily.

‘What if I don’t want to have children?’

My jaw drops. ‘Are you serious?’

He roughly drags his hand over his beard. ‘I’m just… I’m so far off wanting to be a dad. What if I never am?’

I shake my head. ‘I can’t bear to think about that possibility.’

‘We might have to.’

I stare at him with horror. ‘Then yes, it’s a deal breaker!’ I can’t keep a lid on my emotions. ‘I want kids! I’ve always wanted a family. Are you serious? You might do an Elliot on me?’

He stares at me despairingly. ‘I don’t know. But what if you are wasting your time with me? You said it yourself: you don’t want to be an older mum. But that’s the way things are heading if we stay together. And that’s if we ever even get to that point.’ He grows misty eyed. ‘I love you,’ he says in a choked voice. ‘And I promise you this is not about Fliss.’ I jolt at the sound of her name being brought into our intimate conversation. ‘I like her as a friend, nothing more, but it’s true that I have felt more on her wavelength than yours in recent months.’

I feel like I’m going to throw up. And he’s not finished.

‘Being around her has made me face the fact that things haven’t been right between us for a while. We’re not connected, not like we used to be. I feel like you’re racing ahead in a different direction to me and I can’t catch up with you. I’m not sure I even want to catch up with you.’

My stomach continues to freefall. ‘Do you just need some time and space to think? Because you’re about to get it.’ I’m going to be away for over three weeks. My new boss is none too pleased about it, but it was organised well before she came on the scene.

‘I’ve had plenty of time and space already,’ he says. ‘We barely see each other.’