‘Full-time at home with the baby? Won’t you go nuts?’

‘I’ll get a part-time job so that we’re self-sufficient. I’m thinking about different options. I might go home for a while. To Australia.’

There was a contradiction in the sentence. So that we’re self-sufficient. I might go home. My hope that Rosie might simply have made a grammatical error was extinguished when I realised that we must be referring to her and Bud. If we referred to Rosie and me, or to Rosie, me and Bud, our aggregate self-sufficiency did not require her to have a job. Nor had she consulted with me about moving back. I was stunned. The waiter brought the bill and I automatically put my credit card on it.

Rosie took a deep breath and looked at Gene, and then at both of us. ‘I guess that sort of brings me to the other thing I wanted to talk about. I mean, I don’t think it’s any secret—you don’t have many secrets living in the same house…’

She stopped as Gene stood up and waved at the waiter who approached our table with my credit card on a silver tray. I calculated the tip and filled it out, but Gene took the tray from me before I could sign.

‘What sort of tip is that?’ he said.

‘Eighteen per cent. The recommended amount.’

‘Exactly, judging by the odd cents.’

‘Correct.’

Gene crossed out my writing and wrote something else.

Rosie started to speak. ‘I really need to say—’

Gene interrupted. ‘I think we owe them a little more, tonight. They’ve given us a pretty special, and slightly crazy evening.’ He raised his coffee cup. I had never seen a coffee cup used in a toast, but I copied his action. Rosie did not raise her cup.

‘To Don, who put so much into this evening and who makes life just a little bit crazier for all of us.’ There was a pause. Rosie slowly lifted her cup and clinked it with Gene’s and mine. No one spoke.

As we left the restaurant, we were assaulted by the flashing of cameras. A group—a pack—of photographers was photographing Rosie!

Then one called out, ‘Wrong one. Sorry guys.’ We caught a cab home and went to our separate bedrooms.

26

Gene confirmed my analysis the following evening. Rosie had been planning to end our marriage.

‘It was only because last night at the restaurant reminded her why you two got together in the first place that she stopped short. But that’s not the problem.’

‘Agreed. The problem is not my suitability as a partner. It’s my suitability as a father.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right. Claudia would say they’re inseparable, but Rosie seems to have made the separation.’

Rosie was in bed. Rosie, who had encouraged me to look beyond my limitations, who was the reason for my life being more than I had ever envisioned. I was sitting with my best friend on a balcony in Manhattan, looking over the Hudson River to the lights of New Jersey, with the world’s most beautiful woman and my potential child asleep inside. And I had almost lost it. I was still at risk of losing it.

‘The trouble,’ said Gene, ‘is that the things that Rosie loves you for are exactly the things that make her think you’re too…different…to be a father. She may be a risk-taker with relationships, but no woman’s a risk-taker with her kids. In the end it’ll come down to persuading her you’re…average enough to be a father.’

It seemed like a sound analysis. But the solution remained the same. Work hard on fatherhood skills.

Although I had made enormous progress, thanks to my obstetric studies, supplemented by delivering Dave the Calf and the work with the Lesbian Mothers Project, my new skills had not been visible to Rosie due to the absence of a baby to apply them to. Other initiatives, such as the pram, had had an unexpectedly negative impact.

I anticipated that things would improve after the birth, but was now faced with a challenge to survive the final fourteen weeks of the pregnancy without Rosie rejecting me. One inadvertent error could make the difference: given my propensity to make such errors, it was vital that I create a buffer zone.

I needed expert input to create the optimum survival plan.

Dave was shocked.

‘You and Rosie? You’re kidding me. I mean, I knew you were having some problems, but no worse than Sonia and me.’

‘She’s prioritised the baby over our relationship. Which is leading to marriage failure.’

George laughed.

‘Sorry, not laughing at you. But welcome to the real world. I wouldn’t say your marriage is over just because she’s behaving like every other woman. It’s in their genes, isn’t it, Gene Genie?’

‘I’m not going to win a Nobel Prize for telling you that women are programmed to focus on the baby. But I think Don does have a problem.’ Gene looked at me. ‘It started when he didn’t go to the sonogram.’

‘Shit,’ said Dave. ‘I took time off for that and I never take time off. You missed something, Don.’

‘I saw the hardcopy of the image.’ I was feeling defensive. I had screwed up.

‘It’s different. We could see the baby moving around and—I mean—after all the effort, there it was.’ Dave was showing signs of emotion.

George pulled a bottle from under the table, and I applied my corkscrew. The baseball season was long over and we were at Arturo’s Pizza in Greenwich Village. George’s extreme tipping allowed us to violate the rules and bring his ludicrously expensive Tuscan wines, which he now claimed to prefer to English ale. The break in conversation allowed some time for thinking.