She took the masks and trudged back to the dining room, where she handed them out. ‘Please wear these.’
When she gave one to Dennis, his face told her what she already knew—she’d have to move out.
His voice was muffled behind the mask. ‘Doc, I’ll have to arrange for a licensed asbestos-removal company to deal with this before we can come back in and work.’
No need to panic yet. ‘And about how long will that take?’
‘To ring the company? Two minutes. Until they can actually come and do the job?’ He pulled on the scraggy ends of his beard. ‘This close to Christmas and with the entire building industry shutting down for its annual holiday at the end of next week …’ his shoulders rose and fell in defeat ‘… how long is a piece of string?’
She sucked in her lips and then breathed out slowly. ‘So you’re saying I might have to move out for more than a couple of days.’
‘It will probably be more like a month. I can’t really see this job happening until after New Year.’
Her mind grappled with dates. ‘So you mean totally finished by early January rather than in two weeks? I can move back in the moment the asbestos is gone, right?’
He sighed, his expression resigned. ‘I mean the asbestos will be removed early January and then we can come in and finish the job. Mid to late January.’
Her knees wobbled and she sat down on a chair as reality slugged her hard. She heard herself wail, ‘But the baby’s due on January twelfth.’
‘Sorry, Doc. I know you want everything perfect for when the baby comes, but babies don’t care about stuff like that. Hell, our firstborn slept in an old bottom drawer from a tallboy.’ He grinned at the memory. ‘We’d just moved again before the second and his room didn’t get painted until he was two.’
‘Dennis, if you’re trying to reassure me, it isn’t working.’ Logistics raced around her mind and her heart rate matched their speed. She’d planned to finish up at work at the end of the week and spend the ten days before Christmas removing building dust and setting up the nursery. Now she was effectively homeless for weeks. None of this had been part of the plan. None of it was supposed to be happening. She was always so well organised and now all her best-laid plans were dust. Asbestos dust.
She bit off the rising stream of expletives that begged to pour from her lips, not just because her builder didn’t need to know she could match him in that department but as part of practising for motherhood. Instead, she dropped her head in her hands and pressed her thumbs into her temples.
‘I’m sure your family would love to have you stay with them at Christmas and fuss over you,’ Dennis offered, hope in his voice.
‘They’re dead.’ The words shot out, unexpectedly harsh, driven by her lack of control over the mess that was her house and the fact that the festive season was always a tough time for her without her parents.
Dennis’s eyes widened. ‘I didn’t know. Sorry, love.’
‘No, I’m sorry, Dennis.’ She sat up straight, pulling herself together. ‘You’re trying to help and I appreciate it, but all in all today pretty much sucks.’
‘Yeah, love, it does. How about you make this enforced time out of the house work for you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Take a bit of a holiday. Head down the coast because once the baby comes, you’re going to be busy.’
The coast. An idea pinged into her head so big, bright and shiny that it was the answer to her problem. She shot to her feet and hugged the brawny builder. ‘Dennis, you’re brilliant.’
He grinned. ‘Be sure to tell my wife that.’
She laughed. ‘I will. You go and make that phone call and I’ll go and pack a couple of suitcases.’
CHAPTER FOUR
HAMISH tipped the taxi driver and hefted his bag over his shoulder as he turned to gaze at the shimmering haze of purple blooms that illuminated the ancient jacaranda tree in his front garden. To him, the colour meant summer, Christmas and home. He still had the stench of Mumbai in his nostrils and he longed to replace it with the sharp tang of fresh salt air, but that would have to wait a bit longer, so for now he contented himself with a lungful of lemon-scented breeze, drifting over from the stand of white-barked eucalypts that grew across the road in the park.
Magpies, in their suits of black and white, stood on the nature strip, fixing their beady eyes on him and chortling as if acknowledging his absence and welcoming his return. He greeted them with a ‘Coodle-loodle-do’, fished his keys out of his backpack and bounded up the front steps. Sliding his key in the lock, he turned it, opened the door and called out, ‘Honey, I’m home.’ He promptly laughed at his own joke.
Twenty-four hours ago, just as he’d been preparing to leave India, he’d received a text from Georgie saying she hoped it was okay but she’d taken up his offer of a few days of R and R. He’d started texting his reply of ‘No worries’, but had stopped, deciding instead to surprise her. Although they’d been in contact with each other as much as usual, it had been a year since he’d last seen her—the afternoon she’d requested he be a sperm donor.
The fact they hadn’t seen each other was his fault. After his three trips to the IVF clinic in Tasmania, the need to move had been so great that he’d put his hand up to co-ordinate an extra mission for Giving Back. He’d flown out to Ethiopia for three months. During that time he’d been on tenterhooks waiting for her to tell him she was pregnant.
When it didn’t happen, the relief he’d experienced had been so strong and vibrant that he’d gone out and partied as if he’d just been reprieved from the gallows. He was off the hook. If she did get pregnant in the future, at least it wouldn’t be from his sperm.
His return from Abbis Ababa had coincided with Georgie leaving for a beach holiday on Hamilton Island and by the time she’d returned, he’d left for India. Throughout the year she’d continued to post on his internet social network page and send her usual entertaining emails filled with funny and unusual stories about her work. She was equally interested in hearing about the challenges he faced co-ordinating the overseas trips of doctors who volunteered for Giving Back.
One thing he was certain of was that had she achieved a pregnancy from his donation, there’d be no way she’d be taking a mini-break in his house. She’d been as adamant as he that the baby was hers and hers alone.
‘Hello? Who’s there? Haim?’
He heard the hesitancy in her voice—her concern he might be an intruder—immediately followed by the accompanying creak of the third stair, and then he caught a glimpse of a shapely, tanned ankle followed by a toned calf. He smiled—she’d always had good legs. ‘Yep, it’s me.’
The clack of her sandals against the stairs sped up and a moment later there she was with her arms wide open and a matching smile. ‘Welcome home.’
The bag he’d anchored on his shoulder with his hand slipped past suddenly numb fingers, falling with a dull thud onto the floorboards as shock sucked the breath from his lungs. He instinctively shook his head as if
