Read Online Claudia's Big Break by Lisa Heidke - Free Book Online Page B

as they were, still feeling young and stupid, and without even an ex-husband to complain about.
    Right now, though, I didn’t much care. We were in paradise and we still had the ouzo to open.

7
    I lay in bed thinking about my aimless existence and the similar lack of direction in my friends’ lives. Were Sophie and Tara seeing this holiday in the same way I was — as an opportunity to tackle some hard questions and query some of the life choices we’d made over the years? Because the more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether any of us really knew where we were heading.
    Sophie seemed the most together of the three of us, which was saying something, considering her history. Back when Levi was three months old, Sophie left him with Alex under the guise of buying bananas. She did actually buy bananas at the local fruit shop, but then she drove to a nondescript café a hundred kilometres away, where she ordered a large skinny cappuccino and a double slice of chocolate cake.
    As soon as Alex realised Sophie was taking an extraordinarily long time fruit shopping, he phoned me. We both knew Sophie wasn’t coping with the switch from corporate high-flyer to full-time mother and Alex panicked she might have done something silly.
    Tara and I spent the day ringing friends and searching the suburbs, desperately trying to find her. When Sophie arrived home six hours later as if nothing had happened, Alex was frantic. Unfazed, she explained that the demands of looking after Levi had overwhelmed her. ‘I needed time to breathe,’ she said.
    â€˜But you can’t just walk out like that,’ Alex shouted. ‘Anything could have happened to you. You could have been dead for all I knew.’
    â€˜Sometimes I think I’d rather be dead than look after Levi,’ she said.
    After the café incident, I moved in with Sophie and Alex for a couple of weeks while they interviewed for a suitable nanny. (Over fifty, was Sophie’s only stipulation.) She seemed paralysed with fear and wouldn’t even hold Levi for fear of hurting him.
    â€˜Not on purpose, Claud, but what if I accidentally drop him or tip steaming hot coffee over him? Besides, what kind of mother leaves her newborn son and husband and goes out for the day without telling anyone? A bad and desperate one,’ she answered before I could reply. ‘I don’t want this baby any more, I want my life back. I feel sexless. There’s nothing left of me.’
    I can’t presume to know what Sophie was going through emotionally but I gained some understanding of the physical demands of looking after a baby. Even though Alex and I were working together, it was exhausting — waking in the middle of the night, every night, sometimes half a dozen times to attend to Levi. I remember thinking that babies never slept. At least this one didn’t. I was beyond shell-shocked. I don’t think I’ve been that tired, ever.
    It was a great relief when Alex hired Patricia, a responsible live-in nanny (ex-nurse, fifty-three years old, seventy-eight kilos) and I could go home. But I still spoke to Sophie every day. She felt like a failure who didn’t deserve to be a mother. She spent most of her time in bed and her health rapidly deteriorated. It was a matter of weeks before she collapsed and was taken to hospital.
    â€˜It’s a huge relief,’ Sophie admitted to me at the time. ‘Finally I have a reason to stop being a mother for a few days.’ She seemed at peace in hospital, despite being hooked up to tubes.
    During her hospitalisation, Sophie began seeing a counsellor and, once discharged, kept up regular appointments. Three years down the track, it wasn’t something she and I talked about any more. I tried bringing it up now and again, but Sophie didn’t want to discuss it, just explained it away by saying it was a hiccup. I knew things were still difficult but didn’t want to make an