It had been a beautiful summer, the best for years but the days had hung heavy on Kate. She missed Caroline, there were no two ways about it; her heart yearned for the comfort only Caroline could give, the peace she found only in Caroline's company, the joy she felt only in Caroline's arms.
'Stop it Kate McKenzie' she thought pressing her hands gently against her slowly expanding belly reminding herself that she had made her decision three months ago, that the child growing within her was the living proof that there was no way back. Her essence now had to be spent on protecting and nurturing this child but, she did miss Caroline, it was like a physical pain that she carried with her every waking moment and often beyond into her dreams as well.
Kate had loved Caroline from the moment they met, that moment when they shook hands on Kate's first visit to Sulgrave Heath. Before then Kate would have said that the idea of love at first sight was ridiculous, how after all, she used to think, could you possibly love someone you didn't even know? But she had fallen in love with Caroline at that very first moment and even though it now felt like a lifetime ago she knew her feelings had never lessened, they had only strengthened and deepened.
Caroline was magnificent, Kate had used that adjective to describe Caroline for so long but even now she never tired of thinking about the magnificent, glorious, beautiful woman with whom she was completely besotted. Caroline's magnificence wasn't all about looks and demeanour. The headmistress of Sulgrave Heath had no idea of what an amazing mind she truly had, certainly she was sufficiently self-aware to know that she was very intelligent but she never seemed to realise how her mind flitted so lightly across a diverse range of subjects absorbing facts and information that she was then able to communicate in a way that was both interesting and enlightening. Kate knew that she herself was an intelligent and accomplished woman, she also knew she was a good teacher but she often wished she had half of Caroline's teaching ability and a tenth of her skill as a leader.
But it wasn't the public woman that Kate loved, it was the unknown Caroline Elliot, the vulnerable tender woman that only she got to see, that had nurtured her love and converted it into something strong and lasting.
Yes magnificent, that was Caroline, an enticing mixture of brilliance and ignorance, arrogance and vulnerability. A woman who gave of herself freely and passionately in private but who was almost frigid in her public reserve and that was the problem, the tender vulnerable Caroline that Kate loved was encased in a hard carapace of arrogance, selfishness and fear and it was this outer woman that had left Kate feeling used and abused.
Kate had tried to convince herself that it was her Caroline that had asked her to move into Conway Drive, that Caroline was asking because she loved her and wanted to be with her but the evidence kept on telling Kate that it was actually the other Caroline who was behind the invitation, the selfish Caroline who was using her simply to drive John out and secure her beloved house for herself.
The fearful Caroline, the woman who couldn't accept her own nature and who was terrified of what people might think of her if she stepped out from behind the illusion of the perfect lifestyle she had created still played a large part in their relationship. Twice Caroline had promised she understood how her behaviour made Kate feel; twice she had promised she would try harder. Then, when she had broken her word for the third time, when she had hidden their relationship behind the hypocrisy of single rooms Kate had known she had to protect herself, she couldn't, she wouldn't live the rest of her life in Caroline's shadow, her furtive little secret affair.
But, Kate had told herself, the final nail in the coffin, had been Caroline's inability to understand the depth of her need to be a mother. Admittedly she hadn't chosen the best place to broach the subject with Caroline, and their subsequent talk on the sports field hadn't gone much better but, that night as they lay in each other's arms and Caroline had comforted her as she spoke of her four miscarriages Kate had tried to believe she could get Caroline to understand her overpowering need to have a child of her own. Of course it hadn't been possible, why would Caroline want to have another child at her stage in life especially when she already had two healthy, almost fully grown, sons of her own.
It was true that Kate had used Caroline's inability to publicly accept her as her partner as the main cause of their break up but in fact it was Caroline's reluctance to have a child with her that was the real issue.
It wasn't until now, until she was once again pregnant and had reached the twelve week point that she had been able to look back at that time with less emotion.
Kate could now see that from the moment she had told Caroline she wanted a baby until that fateful weekend at the hotel when they had finally disintegrated she had been building a case in her own mind, a case to help justify to herself what she was about to do. She had seen the reluctance in Caroline and had used this as the foundation of her reasoning, Caroline she had told herself didn't really care about her, she had always wanted only what was best for Caroline and a baby wasn't part of that mix. With hindsight she was able to see things more as Caroline would probably have seen them at the time. Yes, there were overtones of the selfish Caroline but Kate now realised she had failed to see that some of Caroline's reluctance stemmed from the older woman's very real concern about the difficulties inherent in what at best would be a late in life pregnancy or what at worst could be the devastation another miscarriage would wreak psychologically on the woman she cared about.
At the time she had seen how hurt Caroline had been when she had suggested she attempted to get pregnant by sleeping with Greg. In typical Caroline style though the older woman had only expressed this hurt as not being able to 'process some things yet'. Kate had convinced herself that this was simply Caroline's arrogance speaking, however stupid it sounded that Caroline couldn't accept that Greg could do something for her that she couldn't. Kate had now allowed herself to understand just how devastated Caroline must have felt when she suggested 'just doing it' with Greg in order to get pregnant. She had always known that making love was to Caroline the final surrender, the act that proclaimed your trust in and commitment to your partner, it could never be just sex to Caroline. Indeed Kate had known so well how important, how treasured was their physical relationship that she had used it as the final insult with which to push Caroline away.
Passing twelve weeks in her pregnancy was a turning point for Kate in more ways than one. As well as being the point when she felt able to start, cautiously, thinking about the future it had also brought her back into Caroline's presence on a one to one basis when she had had to tell her headmistress of her pregnancy and discuss arrangements for maternity leave. At that meeting earlier today she had been amazed by the pain etched on Caroline's face when she had told her of the pregnancy. Kate, who knew Caroline so well, had been able to read the tumult of emotion that had passed across the older woman's face, had been able to see from the tension in her neck and jaw the effort she was making to retain her composure, to remain the professional Dr. Elliot. Then, just as she was closing Caroline's office door the gasp she had heard as her headmistress obviously struggled to breath, to suppress a cry. What the hell was going on, why was Caroline so upset, she had never wanted this baby.
Seeing, experiencing, being enveloped by Caroline's distress had made Kate think and that had broken down some of the barriers the younger woman had been so carefully bolstering for the past three months. Kate knew that the desire within her to have a child had clouded her judgement, she now felt she understood Caroline's position just a little better.
Kate was again feeling the strong magnetic pull that was Caroline, the pull of the woman she loved beyond reason. But, other than that she was now willing to give Caroline the benefit of the doubt around her apparent unwillingness to have a child with her, and while now that she was pregnant that particular aspect of their break up may not seem quite so important, Kate couldn't see that anything else had fundamentally changed. She had to think now only of the child she carried, she couldn't allow herself to be tempted back into that half-life that had been her existence with Caroline and all of the older woman's complicated emotional baggage.