Private Number

Tragedy doesn't happen in a vacuum. It doesn't wait for a rainy day, or a minor key cello soundtrack, or for you to be wearing dignified clothing.

In my experience, tragedy has a preference for sunny Sundays in Mullumbimby, usually while you are deciding between carbohydrates.

If you know Mullum, you know the vibe. It is a town built on a specific intersection of high-end real estate and aggressive relaxation. The air smells of turmeric, despair, and $8 coffee. It was aggressive sunshine, the kind that makes you squint and regret denim.

We were standing outside Bar Henri. We were locked in that mundane, low-stakes negotiation that defines a long-term relationship: The Menu Standoff.

I was pretending I wanted the salad (I didn't). Courtney was analysing the wind direction to see if the outdoor seating would call for a jacket. I was prepared to die on the hill of the Veggie Burger.

It was a beautiful, ordinary Sunday. We were two seconds away from exchanging currency for lunch. We were a normal couple, about to do a normal thing.

Then the phone rang.

I saw the screen light up. Private Number.

There is a specific cortisol spike that happens when you are an IVF patient and you see "Private Number." It is a Pavlovian response. I am the dog; the phone is the bell; the treat is either "a baby" or "devastation."

We hesitated. Do we answer this on the pavement next to a woman wearing a linen caftan? Do we let it go to voicemail and eat my burger in ignorant bliss?

We answered.

The scientist on the other line was kind. She had that specific "Fertility Clinic Voice". Soft, professional, practiced. The voice of an air hostess telling you the plane is going down. She didn't bury the lead. She told us that our embryo had arrested.

This was the one that survived the TESA surgery. The one that made it through fertilisation against the odds. This was the gladiator.

And just like that, in the time it took a stranger to order an almond latte, our hopes were dashed.

I remember looking at Courtney's phone and waiting for the cinematic crash. I expected the traffic to stop. I expected the waiter to drop a tray. I expected the birds to fall out of the sky out of respect.

But the couple at the table next to us just laughed. Someone ordered the fries. A dog barked at a ute.

I wanted fries.

The world kept eating lunch.

That is the violence nobody prepares you for: The absolute indifference of the universe to your personal apocalypse. You are standing in the wreckage of your future, and the guy three feet away is annoyed about the time it took to get a cappuccino.

For a moment, I felt a flash of irrational anger. How dare you? How dare you eat avocado on toast when we just lost all hope?

Then the dissociation set in. I looked at the menu. Food suddenly seemed like the most obscene concept in human history.

We walked back to the car. We got in and drove. The air conditioning was blasting, but neither of us turned it down. We spent the drive trading hollow, logical platitudes, the kind you say when you’re trying not to scream. "Well, at least we have an answer." "At least the limbo is over."

We were posturing. Underneath the stoic exterior, the realisation was hitting us like a physical blow: We had just been fired from the job of "Parents." No severance pay. No reference letter. Just a quiet exit.

In the silence of the drive, the mental projector turned on. I saw the supercut of the life we just lost. It played over and over in my mind like a corrupted file. I saw the version of us that existed in a parallel universe: Teaching a kid to swim, enjoying the messy Saturday breakfast, Courtney reading to our child.

Then the movie switched genres. I started playing out the future we were going to get. I saw the lifetime of "First Day of School" photos that wouldn't be ours. I saw the Christmases. I saw the deluge of friends' milestones that we would have to "like" on Instagram while dying a little bit inside.

The drive was only two hours. The loss felt like a century.

Two years later, I am trying to look at it differently. That Sunday wasn't just a bad day. It was a demarcation line. There was the life Before The Call, and the life After. That moment outside the bistro was the moment the "Plan" died. The Blueprint caught fire.

And looking back, that was the moment we started the long, slow, painful work of figuring out who we were when we weren't "parents-to-be." We were just two people, standing on a pavement, realising that we had to find a new way to matter.

We survived the call. We survived the drive. We are still here.

But I still owe Courtney that lunch.

If it helps, and you feel like it, you can Buy Us A Chip. No pressure.