THE DREAM CHILD (14 page)

Finally it was her turn, and she followed the tall young, red-haired woman into one of the imaging rooms. The technician introduced herself as Corinna.

Her words didn’t reassure Sophie, who had almost convinced herself she was going to die of cancer at thirty-six, or at least go through months of intensive radiation treatment, making her hair fall out.

For Sophie this prospect was even worse than dying, because she considered her long chestnut locks her crowning glory.

Corinna dabbed some cold gel on Sophie’s stomach, and ran the probe across her skin. She typed some information on the keyboard in front of the monitor.

There was another monitor in the corner of the room where Sophie saw a triangular image pop up of the inside of her womb.

Corinna resumed moving her probe low against Sophie’s abdomen, making her wish she could go to the toilet. She knew they needed a full bladder so they could see through all the liquid, but it still made her uncomfortable.

Sophie couldn’t really make out what was on the monitor, black and white shapes that could be a baby… or a cancerous growth.

Corinna did some more calculations on her keyboard, which to Sophie did not bode well.

“Well, it looks like you have a healthy little foetus in there, Sophie. Even though it’s no more than a few centimetres long, you can already see the leg and arm buds, and the little head curled over on itself.”

As she moved her pointer across the screen to indicate the various parts, Sophie saw that it was indeed baby shaped.

She didn’t have cancer. She had a baby, a miracle child borne of dreams.

Impossible but true! But would it stay there long enough to grow and be born? Such a miracle
had
to survive, she told herself. It simply had to.

“Your little one is wide awake, moving its little arms and legs about. Can you see?” Corinna asked.

Sophie nodded in absolute wonder, not trusting herself to speak. But already the tears pricked her eyes. She dashed them away with the back of her hand, but they continued to flow.

“Oh I’m sorry. I thought you’d be happy with the news,” Corinna said in concern, and handed Sophie a tissue from the box beside her coach.

“Now I’ll just check your baby’s heartbeat, so we can give your doctor all the information. When you go back out to reception, you can book yourself in for the twelve week scan if you like.”

Sophie nodded. Please stay in there little one, she begged the heavens. Stay and grow and be my dream child.

As Sophie got up to leave, Corinne handed her a photo slide of the ultrasound. It showed clearly what she’d seen on the monitor. A tiny human being with a head and a body, already sprouting arms and legs, a heart and lungs, all the things it would need to grow and develop.

She walked back to the train station in a daze, her hand on her stomach. She’d done this before, but this time it was different.

This child was a true miracle, a gift from heaven. Sophie had never been a real believer in God, but right now she thanked Him from the bottom of her heart for giving her this incredible gift, the baby she’d always dreamed of.

It wasn’t until she got home that other thoughts began to infiltrate her elation. She was still incredibly happy, but the practicalities of reality made their presence felt.

What did she tell her family? When did she tell them?

She wanted to shout her joy from the roof tops, but her past experience made her cautious. She had to get past the twelve week scan, and then make sure there weren’t any of the other problems often associated with being an older mother.

As she stood in the doorway of her bead room, she thought it would now have to become a nursery. Suddenly her small flat looked even smaller as she wondered what to do with all her beads.

And then she remembered her bead class on Sunday. She would have to keep going to work. And what on earth did she tell Victor?

Thinking of him brought her up short. She would have to tell him she was pregnant, but she could never tell him who the father was, if the baby had a father at all. For all she knew it really could have been a gift from Heaven.

No, those dreams had been too realistic, too much like real life for them not to be the cause.

He would never believe that! Never in a million years.

She was still struggling with it herself. She would have to make something up. But what? Whatever she told him would spell the end of their burgeoning relationship.

Could she somehow still get him to believe the child was his? She was sure he wouldn’t object if she slept with him the next time they were together.

No, she was too far along, and he’d probably figure it out anyhow, particularly if the child was born at nine months, all healthy and plump.

If the child was born at all!

There were so many ifs, so many buts. Sophie should have been jubilant. But now she was just downright worried.

She was nibbling on a thumbnail when the loud knocking on her door startled her. Sophie didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now, and contemplated pretending she wasn’t in. But whoever was there knocked again, more insistently this time.

“Sophie! Are you there? Sophie!”

It was Victor, the last person on earth she wanted to talk to right now. But then she reasoned she might as well get this over and done with. Then she would have one less worry to burden her already troubled mind.

Slowly she unlocked the door. He had come straight from work, as he was still in his crisp work shirt and tie. His blonde hair however looked wind blown, or like he’d been raking his fingers through it, which was something he did when agitated or worried.

Sophie didn’t accept his outstretched hands, but she did sit down at the other end of the lounge. He continued to lean towards her, narrowing the space between them.

There was really no easy way to do this

“You’re not going to like it, Vic,” she said at last, the words getting caught in her throat. “I… I’m pregnant.”

For a moment he stared at her, an array of emotions chasing themselves across his handsome face, disbelief, doubt, anger. Finally he sat back in his seat and dropped his gaze.

He couldn’t even bear to look at her now, for which she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

Sophie heard the pain in his voice. She could tell he was hurting, and what she’d rehearsed to say would probably hurt even more. But since she couldn’t lie to save her life, she could only bend the truth so far.

“I don’t know who he is. It was just a one night stand.”

“Jesus, Sophie! You spent years with your husband, trying to have a child, and now…now you get pregnant on a one night stand. That’s just… just not like you at all. I don’t think you’re telling me the truth here.”

“But you know it now.
Who is he?
” he asked vehemently. Normally a softly spoken person, his loud voice took her by surprise.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why do you want to know that?”

“So I can drag the bastard in here and tell him to face up to his responsibilities,” he said harshly, his vivid blue eyes flashing in ire.

“What’s that going to achieve? I’ve always wanted a baby. So it didn’t happen the way I wanted it to, or when I wanted it to, but I’m going to love my child and bring it up as best I can, and if I have to do it on my own, so be it. Plenty of other women do.”

Suddenly he was on his feet. “I can’t handle this right now.” His entire body shook with rage. If he didn’t leave right now he suspected he’d do something he might regret later. “I have to go.”

Victor stalked across the floor and yanked open the front door, and hurried down the stairs, almost tripping in his haste to get away form her and her beseeching hazel eyes.

It wasn’t until he was inside his car that he vented his anger, banging his fists so hard against the steering wheel that pain lanced up his arms.

“Damn it all to Hell,” he cursed.

If only we’d met a few weeks earlier, I could have prevented it from happening, he thought in ire. Now she’s pregnant to some dickhead she only met once.

Why had she done it? Was she really that desperate for a child that she’d get herself drunk so she’d sleep with a total stranger?

That could be my child she’s carrying, Victor thought in bleak disappointment. I would have stood by her, supported her, helped her any way I could…

It wasn’t until he was lying in bed waiting for sleep to claim him that he remembered the dreams he’d had about her. They had happened just before they’d met.

He sat up with a start, rage blurring his vision.

While Victor had been dreaming about her making love to him, she’d been sleeping with this other man. Or had she?

He recalled how real those dreams had seemed at the time, and the effect they’d had on him, as though she’d really been there with him, leaving him spent and wet in the bed.

That thought was too unreal to even consider, but once the idea took root, it was impossible to budge.

Victor mulled it over in his mind. Could it be possible that those dreams had really happened, leading to the child she now carried?

Oh don’t be ridiculous, he told himself, lying back down again. How could a dream create a child?

He rolled over and punched his pillow in frustration.

She’d gotten what she’d wanted, the baby she’d always dreamed of. Where did that leave him? Back where he’d started. On his own again. She didn’t want him. She didn’t need him.

He’d be a fool to offer to help her, but Victor couldn’t shake the deep yearning his dreams of Sophie had aroused in him.

CHAPTER TEN

Sophie knew she couldn’t take any more time off work, particularly since she wasn’t really feeling that sick any more, but she dreaded Monday with a vengeance. She had no idea what Victor told his mother about the cancelled bead class, but she suspected it wasn’t going to be easy working with him from now on.

She proved herself correct on that point.

From the moment he arrived, Sophie felt the chill in the air around him. Gone were the warm smiles and pleasant greetings to all and sundry. He barely cast anyone a glance as he slumped angrily into his chair at his desk, and turned on his computer.

This must have been the man Louise met not long after he’d been forced to give up teaching, which made Sophie realise just how much he must have cared about his fiancé, and about her.