over.
‘What’s all this, Gabby? I don’t understand.’ His voice was hollow as he showed her the contents of the box. Contents she’d painstakingly put there. The birthday card so lovingly written. The carefully selected presents. The letters. ‘What’s this about?’
Her hand found her mouth and stopped the wobbling lip. But she couldn’t stop the tears
that threatened and yet never fell. Somehow she forced the words out through her burning throat. ‘They are for my baby.’
Pain crawled across her stomach, up her spine, reached out to her fingertips, down her legs to her toes. Every part of her burned with the loss.
‘Your what?’ His focus was back on the boxes, his voice empty.
‘There are ten of them. One for each year he’s been alive. One for every birthday I’ve missed.’ Again he shook the box towards her. ‘I don’t understand. What are you telling me?’
‘You’ll get the chance to be a father again and again, Max. But I won’t ever be a mother. Not again. I was once, though.’ Now her heart shattered into a million tiny jagged pieces that would never fit back together again. She’d lost everything. She’d lost her babies. She watched as he recoiled, his face a grim mask of disgust. And now she was losing him, too. She was utterly broken. ‘I gave my baby away.’
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What did she mean? Gave it away? ‘I don’t understand.’
Didn’t want to comprehend what she’d done.
He gazed at the neatly stacked numbered boxes. One to ten. Covered in a pathetic collection of stickers that were aged appropriately. From teddy bears, bubbles and balloons to music players and groovy cartoon kids on skateboards. They looked like collages done by a child. The sense of hopelessness that accompanied them was almost palpable. And mirrored the same feeling he had in his soul.
Her eyes were dead. Her face a mask. How she held herself together to say those words he’d never know. But he needed to hear the rest. To discover what kind of person he’d lost his heart to. Because, God knew, she wasn’t the woman he’d believed her to be. ‘Go on, Gabby. I’m listening.’
Her voice, in contrast to his hoarseness and harshness, was shallow and soft. He had to strain to hear her. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to move closer.
She gripped the necklace at her throat. ‘I fell pregnant when I was fifteen. First time lucky.’ The smile was false. ‘First and only time. Until you.’
He supposed that should mean something. She’d waited how long to put her faith in someone? And she’d chosen him. But it didn’t change anything. Couldn’t change what she’d done. She’d given a baby away...for adoption? Foster care?
The same kind of life he’d had.
But it wasn’t the same, he tried to rationalize. This was his Gabby, beautiful, kind Gabby who wanted every baby to be loved and looked after. She’d drilled that into him enough already. He couldn’t imagine her doing such a thing.
So why? Why had she given a baby away?
Had she no idea how that kind of stuff messed with your head? How it always felt like rejection? At least, that’s what he’d always felt. Like he was something nobody had wanted. Not his parents. Not his brother. Certainly not his uncle.
Rational thoughts twisted and screwed in his head. God, he was all kinds of confused.
He watched her throat rise and fall against the diamond heart as she picked her words. He couldn’t find any words of his own so he let her purge herself.
She didn’t look at him. Instead, she spoke to the space between them, her gaze directed somewhere around his chest. ‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant until I was quite far along. Twenty weeks. I’ve always had irregular periods and everything seemed normal, until they stopped altogether. My mum went hysterical when I told her. We had no money, nothing, no way of bringing up another child. Eventually Nonna found out. She was furious. She’d spent her life bringing up my mum then me. She had no intention of doing it again, and definitely no inclination to help me. “Get rid of it,” she said. “Otherwise everyone will look down on us even more. You don’t bring dishonour on your family.’”
His laugh was filled with scorn but he couldn’t hold it back. ‘What? In twenty-first-century New Zealand?’
‘You know what it’s like to be a pregnant schoolgirl, do you? How it is to be under the thumb of an strict family who