For Once In My Life, page 2
If she hadn’t been so caught up in everything going on, she probably would have realised that it was at this very point in time that her marriage had begun its downhill slide.
‘You can’t be pregnant. Take another test,’ Austin had said after staring at her for what seemed an eternity.
‘I took two,’ she told him dully. But at his insistence, she did a third test and watched his face fall as the twin stripes appeared in the window.
‘I knew I should have got that bloody vasectomy years ago!’ he growled, getting to his feet to pace the room.
‘I didn’t stop you,’ she pointed out.
‘You didn’t make the appointment though, did you?’
It wasn’t her place to do it, she thought irritably. He was a grown man more than capable of booking his own doctor’s appointment and yet maybe he had a point. Had she been the one who’d wanted him to have the vasectomy, she would have definitely booked it in and seen to all the arrangements, but she was beginning to suspect that perhaps she hadn’t felt entirely comfortable with their options being so … final, despite the fact she wasn’t exactly over the moon about the news either.
‘We should never have trusted the pill. How did it even happen?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, sinking to the edge of their bed. ‘It was probably when the kids were sick a few weeks ago. I had a touch of it—an upset stomach,’ she said.
‘You’re supposed to be a bloody nurse. How did you not realise you wouldn’t be protected?’
‘I don’t know!’ she snapped irritably. He was right, she should have suspected that diarrhoea, even a slight case of it, could have affected the pill’s protection. It hadn’t helped that they’d also had sex unexpectedly. Their sex life had been as dismal as their budget over the last few years, with her exhausted from shift work most of the time, and him travelling with his new job so much. She simply hadn’t thought about any consequences—hadn’t for so long that she’d almost forgotten about sex being linked to babies and stretch marks!
Eventually, shock had turned into acceptance and Jenny found herself becoming excited about baby number three. Everything would be fine. They’d manage—they always had in the past, they would again.
Chloe had been the perfect baby—adored by her two older sisters and managing to wrap her father around her little finger from the very first moment he’d laid eyes on her. The initial concerns about having another baby seemed to have been forgotten and life settled into a new rhythm. Everything seemed to be fine-ish. But she’d felt Austin pulling away. At first it hadn’t been that noticeable—his work took him away on conferences and training seminars, so it was normal that when he was getting home she was heading out on a night shift, like ships passing in the night. Then it was her job causing issues. She needed to do casual shifts after her maternity leave in order to keep her registration, so she was often stressed and tired, looking after a young baby on top of the odd work hours. Intimacy had naturally taken a back seat for a while. She noticed, of course, but she wasn’t too concerned—in a year or two things would settle down and they’d reconnect and get back on track … Only they hadn’t. Nothing went back to any kind of old normal. Instead, they settled into some new normal that was only ever supposed to be temporary.
Over the next ten years or so, the investment apartment in Sydney they’d bought so Austin didn’t have to pay for accommodation on his numerous trips eventually became his full-time residence—for work. Then he’d dropped his bombshell on her: he’d been seeing someone down there for two months. He’d seemed surprised when Jenny had been shocked.
‘You barely even notice I’m gone,’ he’d accused when he’d come home to announce he wanted out of their marriage.
‘That’s because you’re never here,’ she’d thrown back.
‘Because I was working. To give you and the kids a better life.’
‘And I haven’t been?’
‘My career has always been the one that allowed us to live the lifestyle we have. Do you honestly think you’d be living in this house or that the girls would have got a new car for their birthdays if it wasn’t for my job? Your pay cheque wouldn’t cover half of this stuff.’
She’d been stunned, truly shocked by his remarks. She shouldn’t have been— she’d always known Austin was ambitious. When they were first married, he’d lay awake at night and tell her all about his plans for making his first million. She’d always let him dream big without trying to pop his bubble—she’d never cared about the money side of things, she had everything she’d ever wanted: healthy children, a stable marriage and a house to live in. But Austin had never been satisfied with what they had for long, always striving for more. And she took offence at his belittling her career. She hadn’t become a nurse to make a fortune. She loved her job, despite the fact it was stressful and nurses were underpaid and often under appreciated. She did it because she cared about people and wanted to look after them. And she was good at it.
She still loved her job, Jenny thought as she pushed herself up off the lounge and headed for the black tourmaline candle on the sideboard, lighting it with a decisive strike of a match. There was no room in this house for bad energy anymore. She took a long breath in and let the spicy citrus scent fill her senses.
She wasn’t sure why she’d felt a need to let the past intrude on her thoughts like this. She’d spent the last few years learning how to be herself and she had to admit this newfound independence thing could be quite exhilarating. It was time to stop looking back and focus on the future.
Two
The sound of the front door opening and voices chatting drew Jenny’s gaze to the living room entryway. She smiled as a small human cyclone came running across the room towards her.
‘Nanna!’
‘Sophie!’ Jenny gathered the grinning toddler in her arms and hugged her until she squirmed and wriggled to be put down. It was hard to believe that in, three short months, her only grandchild was going to be two.
Brittany, Jenny’s eldest daughter, had moved back home six months earlier when rental prices skyrocketed in the area after Covid sent the real-estate market through the roof. As a single mother who worked as a teacher’s aide in a small school, it had become impossible for Brittany to afford rent. While most of Jenny’s friends looked forward to their children moving out so they could redecorate their empty nest, Jenny was happy to have hers living at home again. The house had been quiet with only herself and her youngest, Chloe, living there.
Shortly after Brittany and Sophie had moved in, Savannah had come home from backpacking overseas to pick up a bit of work before meeting up with some travel friends. The six weeks had turned into an open-ended kind of arrangement. Now, with her three grown daughters back home, it felt like a bunch of flatmates living together, only Jenny still had to play referee and break up arguments over who was hogging the bathroom in the morning. But most of the time she enjoyed this new adult companionship.
‘Leave the cat alone!’ Brittany called after the toddler, who was gleefully chasing the cranky old tabby that simply wouldn’t die. The damn thing had to be close to twelve and was still going strong.
‘How was your day?’ Jenny asked as Brittany dropped a bright pink Bluey backpack on the table followed by her own huge tote bag. She often wondered where her girls had gotten their height from—certainly not from her. Brittany, dressed in a flowy maxidress that would have bunched on the ground if Jenny was wearing it, her long black hair pulled back in a thick ponytail, always looked so graceful—something Jenny had never been able to pull off.
‘Long. How about yours?’
‘Yep. Same.’
‘One more day to go till Friday,’ Brittany said, coming to a stop beside her as Jenny stretched her arm out and fist-bumped her.
‘We got this,’ she said with a determined nod.
‘You’d better go and get ready,’ Brittany said.
Jenny fought back a sigh. Damn it. She’d forgotten.
Once a month, they went down to the markets. Jenny loved the night markets—they were breathing fresh life into Barkley and always had such a great vibe—but she was finding it difficult to summon up the energy to get dressed and leave the house again. Once upon a time, between kids’ activities, work and sport, she’d barely stayed at home. Nowadays, however, nothing gave her more pleasure than an early night curled up in her PJs, watching a chick flick with a glass of wine. But that was not going to happen tonight.
Jenny got out of the shower and wrapped the towel around herself as she walked into her bedroom, noticing Savannah sitting on the end of her bed, curly blonde hair cascading over her shoulder, wide blue eyes studying her mother thoughtfully. Her middle child was the most outgoing of her three children. She was Jenny’s little adventurer. And the one she seemed to worry the most about. She’d left university—or rather, ‘put it on hold for a bit’, as Savannah described it—to go and travel for a year. That had been about five years ago and, other than the compulsory return home after her visas ran out, she’d pretty much been working and backpacking the entire time.
‘What were you planning on wearing tonight?’ Savannah asked as she leaned back on her arms.
Jenny raised her eyebrows at her daughter’s sudden interest in her fashion choices but shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Jeans and a top, I suppose.’
‘That’s what you always wear,’ Savannah said dismissively, then pushed herself up and walked across to her wardrobe. ‘How about this?’ She held up a teal and brown dress. ‘With those tan boots you bought. And maybe a belt.’
‘Don’t you think that’s a little dressy for the night markets?’
‘You should start dressing up more. You don’t want to become one of those women who let themselves go.’ Savannah draped the garment on the bed and bent down to place the boots on the carpet beneath it, giving it a firm nod of approval.
‘I hardly think my seventy-odd dollar jeans and the ninety-nine-dollar blouse I just purchased is letting myself go.’ She’d recently found an online boutique she loved and had been splurging a little more than usual on new outfits.
‘Oooh,’ Savannah said, her eyes brightening as she ducked into her mother’s walk-in wardrobe and produced a garment. ‘This denim jacket you got would look awesome over the top.’
Jenny shook her head wearily, giving up trying to protest. Part of her wanted to see what the outfit looked like. She’d had no idea what she was going to wear the jacket with, wasn’t even sure why she’d bought it in the first place, only that it had looked too nice not to buy. Maybe she did need to cut back a bit with the online shopping.
‘Okay, fine. Get out and let me get dressed,’ she mumbled, snatching up the clothing from the bed.
‘And do your make-up,’ Savannah threw over her shoulder.
‘Make-up? It’s just us and Beth going to the damn night markets,’ she said, exasperated by this sudden bossiness. They tried to do something with Beth every few weeks when her husband, Garry, a fly in, fly out worker, was away.
‘Will it kill you to wear some make-up once in a while? Seriously, Mother.’
I’ll give you seriously, Mother in a minute, Jenny thought, but eyed her reflection in the mirror critically. Lately she’d been ignoring the faint crinkles in the corner of her eyes. They were laugh lines, she reminded herself, before reaching for the foundation she hardly ever bothered wearing. Maybe she could go and get her eyelashes and brows tinted again soon. It seemed like a waste of time and money when she rarely went anywhere, but if the kids were beginning to notice she was giving up on the maintenance, did that mean her age was starting to show?
She was fifty. Fifty! When the hell had that happened? When she was a kid, fifty had been ancient—incomprehensible, really. Suddenly, though, she was staring down a very confronting barrel. She was a fifty-year-old divorced woman with adult children … and a grandchild, she reminded herself. Crap! She was a divorced grandmother! God, that sounded even worse. Stop it, she told herself firmly as she applied eyeliner and eyeshadow. You’re being ridiculous.
When she headed downstairs to the living room a few moments later, she found the others waiting and it crossed her mind that it was a little odd that she wasn’t the one calling to her three daughters to hurry up and get ready. Even Beth had already arrived.
‘Are we ready, then?’ Jenny asked after she’d kissed Beth’s cheek. But she paused when she realised no one else was following her to the door.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Okay, so don’t be mad,’ Brittany started, and dread filled Jenny. Nothing good ever started with that phrase.
‘The thing is, Mum,’ Savannah said, picking up from her sister, ‘we kind of did something.’
‘Did what?’ Jenny asked as real panic began to set in.
‘We’re not going to the markets,’ Beth said. ‘Well, we are,’ she corrected, glancing at the other girls, ‘but you’re not.’
‘What Beth’s trying to say’—Brittany once again took the baton and ran with it—‘is that we’ve organised a date for you.’
‘You’ve what?’
‘There’s this app—a dating app—and we kind of set you up on it,’ Chloe said excitedly.
Jenny had a million questions racing through her head but not a single one of them would come out as she stared with growing horror at her children and best friend.
‘We thought it might take a while to get a response so we didn’t say anything, but the notifications have been going off all day, so we accepted,’ Chloe continued with a small squeal and clap of her hands. Her honey-blonde hair was pulled back in a high ponytail that was swinging like a cheerleader’s.
‘You accepted a date for me? Without asking if I even wanted to go on it?’
‘You would have said no,’ Savannah said.
‘Of course I would have. This is insane.’
‘Jen,’ Beth started in the calm, let’s-talk-the-crazy-woman-down voice she’d had plenty of practice using on Jenny over the years. ‘The girls just thought this would be something fun for you to do … you know, get out of the house a bit.’
‘You thought it was too,’ Savannah reminded Beth, clearly not about to be thrown under the bus alone.
‘Well, you can just go and un-accept and explain what happened.’
‘We can’t,’ Brittany said with a slight wince. ‘He’s on his way over.’
‘What!’
‘It’ll be fine,’ Savannah said, airily. ‘We checked him out; it’s not like we’d set you up with some weirdo.’
‘How did you check him out?’ Jenny asked, suddenly concerned.
‘We’ve been chatting online to him,’ Chloe said.
‘So, he’s perfectly happy to be set up on a date with someone’s mother? This doesn’t scream weird at all?’ Jenny asked, searching their faces frantically.
‘Well, technically, he thought he was chatting to you,’ Brittany admitted.
Jenny opened her mouth to yell, but nothing came out. She couldn’t seem to manage a single coherent word as she stared at her best friend and daughters, lined up like a football team’s front row, staring her down determinedly.
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘We are. It’s all been arranged.’
‘But I don’t want to go on a date.’
‘We’ve waited patiently for you to take the first step back out into life again, and you haven’t done it. We can’t sit by any longer and watch you wither away,’ Brittany said.
‘You’re too young to be an old, lonely woman,’ Savannah said with a shrug.
‘An old, lonely …’ Jenny let the sentence fade away as she stared at her daughter in shock. ‘I’m not old!’
‘Well, you’re not getting any younger, either, Mum,’ Chloe pointed out.
‘Now hold on a minute—’
‘Jen, it’s all right to acknowledge that you’re not as fun as you once used to be,’ Beth soothed.
Okay, that one hurt. She was still fun, damn it! ‘I am not ready to be sat down in a rocking chair with my knitting just yet, thank you very much,’ she informed them bluntly, then narrowed her eyes as all four of them displayed sporting, smug smiles. Too late, she realised she’d walked into a trap. Maybe she was losing her edge a bit—once upon a time she’d have never fallen for something that obvious.
Brittany nodded. ‘So you agree, then, that you’re not ready to give up and you should be out there enjoying life.’
‘I don’t see why dating has to be the thing that’s going to save me from a life of dreary boredom,’ Jenny shot back.
‘Because you’re still young and attractive and you need to get back out there and find someone to have fun with again,’ Savannah said.
‘Among other things,’ Beth added with a wink.
‘Eww,’ Chloe said, with a dramatic shudder.
‘Well, what did you expect was going to happen if you set your mother up on a date with a man?’ Beth asked, seeming genuinely confused by the reaction.
‘I was trying to not think about it, that’s all,’ Chloe answered.
‘Would you two stop?’ Brittany cut in before turning back to Jenny. ‘Ignore them. Look, you don’t have to rush into anything—’
‘Good. So, I don’t have to go out tonight then,’ Jenny said.
‘You do. That bit’s already been arranged. But you don’t have to feel pressured into doing anything more than going out to dinner, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Until that point, she hadn’t even thought about what more could be involved than going out for dinner and now she was worried. Considerably. Surely this person wasn’t going to expect sex? Tonight? She hadn’t even shaved her legs, for goodness’ sake!
‘Uh-oh … I think we’re losing her,’ Beth murmured.
‘Nope. I’m not ready for all this.’ Jenny shook her head and backed away.
‘You are. At least, you will be,’ Brittany assured her. ‘You’re never going to feel ready unless you get out there and do it. Remember what you always told us? Whenever we were nervous about doing anything new, you used to tell us to just wing it. Get in there and just do it.’
