Never Say Never (Lakeview Contemporary Romance Book 3)

by Melissa Hill

  Grainne nodded gravely. “The thing is, you really don’t understand true pain or suffering until you’ve experienced childbirth,” she declared, and Leah noticed Amanda’s dreamily serene expression deflate slightly at this. “Nor, until then, can you truly understand what it is to be a woman.”

  “But of course.” Amanda nodded gravely. “As a woman, pregnancy and motherhood completes you.”

  “What?” Leah asked, her hackles rising slightly at this. “What do you mean, ‘completes you’? You’re saying that up until becoming pregnant, your life has been worthless?”

  Grainne nodded. “Well, not worthless, but certainly nothing I’ve done is as important as having my daughter.”

  “But what about all your achievements in life so far – your degree, your career, your relationships?” Leah asked, feeling slightly threatened.

  “Yes of course, but all those things become superficial once you have a child.” Grainne spoke as if motherhood had helped her achieve some form of Zen state. She and Amanda exchanged patronising smiles. “You’ll understand when you have one of your own.”

  Leah’s heart skipped a beat. “When I have one of my own?” she repeated. She felt so uncomfortable with these conversations, hated people’s quick assumptions. Granted, Amanda didn’t know about her situation but still … “And what on earth makes you think I will have one of my own?” she asked Grainne, unable to prevent the rise in her tone.

  At this, it was as if all conversation halted in the room, and everyone turned to look at them. Out of the corner of her eye, Leah saw Olivia approach, and soon after she felt a protective hand on her arm.

  “Oh Leah, I had no idea, I didn’t realise …” To her credit, Amanda looked genuinely perturbed.

  “Me neither.” Grainne shook her head sadly, and assumed a sombre expression. “You must think we’re very insensitive.”

  Insensitive? Idiotic, more like, Leah thought. But really, she decided, she shouldn’t let this kind of talk get to her so much. “It’s fine,” she said, relaxing a little, “but sometimes I do find it difficult to – ”

  “You know,” Grainne went on as if Leah hadn’t spoken. “I sometimes wonder if there’s something in the air these days – something literally in the air, from those nuclear power plants or something – because so many of my friends are having similar problems.” The other women nodded in agreement.

  “Problems?” Leah repeated, her eyes widening.

  “Well, you know what she means …” Amanda actually looked embarrassed as she indicated somewhere in the direction of Leah’s tummy.

  “Fertility problems,” Grainne finished.

  “Leah,” Olivia began, “why don’t we go and sit down –”

  “No,” Leah shrugged her off, blood rushing to her face as she faced Grainne. “I’d like to know why Ms Earth Mummy here seems to think that I have a fertility problem.”

  Grainne frowned. “Well, seeing as you said you couldn’t have children, I just assumed –”

  “You assumed wrong. And I didn’t say I couldn’t have children – I just choose not to.”

  “Oh.” The shocked disbelief on the other woman’s face was a picture.

  Leah sighed inwardly. Same reaction, every time.

  “But, but why? I mean … why not?” Grainne blustered.

  “Why should I?” Leah replied sharply, momentarily enjoying the other woman’s discomfort.

  “But, but … it’s what people do, Leah,” Amanda protested. “What we’re supposed to do.”

  Leah bristled. She was sick of this argument, sick of having to always defend her choices. “Why?” she challenged. “Is it written down in some life manual that in order to live a full and healthy life, all women are supposed to have children?”

  “But – but why would you not want them?” Amanda said, looking at Leah as if she had gained another head. “I mean it’s only natural, isn’t it?”

  Leah’s heart tightened and, for a moment, she couldn’t think of a reply.

  “So, who will look after you when you’re older then?” Christine, another expectant mummy piped up. At this, the other women murmured and nodded in approval.

  Leah recovered from her momentary lapse. “You think that having a child will guarantee you’ll be looked after when you’re older?”

  “But of course – who else would do it but your own flesh and blood?”

  Leah shook her head, having heard this argument many times before too. “I’m sorry but have any of you visited a nursing home lately? Do you think all the residents are there because they have no family to look after them? Of course not. Chances are most of them do have children of their own – children who for one reason or another cannot, or choose not to look after them. It guarantees nothing.”

  “Well, I think that people like you are terribly selfish.” Christine laboured the point. “You do realise that it’ll be our children – the taxpayers of tomorrow – paying your pension when you get older, don’t you? So, our children will be looking after you.”

  Leah bristled. “You’re calling me selfish, when the only reason you could give for having a child is someone to look after you when you get older? Give me a break.”

  “Amanda, Leah and I have to get going soon,” Olivia said softly, trying to be peacemaker.

  “I think you’re all missing the point,” Grainne went on, ignoring her. “What about all those poor couples who can’t have children? Isn’t it incredibly selfish and unfair of you not to have children, when you can?”

  That particular accusation really annoyed Leah. As if her own, personal choices were made out of spite.

  “I feel desperately sorry for anyone who wants a child and can’t have one – of course I do,” she said, “but my having a baby, simply because I can, won’t help those people. And even if I did do that – even if I did bring a child into the world, but knew well I wasn’t fully committed to motherhood – then surely that is even more unfair to the child?”

  Grainne didn’t respond and the two women glowered at one another.

  “How then, can you call me selfish?” Leah persisted.

  “Look,” Christine said then, “I respect your choice, as long as you don’t have anything against children. Because, personally, I think anyone who doesn’t adore children is just plain weird.”

  At this, Leah’s stomach gave a little jump.

  “OK, I think we should end this conversation here and now,” Olivia said a little more firmly this time.

  “No, this is interesting actually,” Leah went on. “So tell me then, why did you decide to have children, Christine? What made you come to that decision?”

  “Well, I suppose I’ve never really thought about it all that much, and I didn’t come to a decision – as such.” She looked around at the others for support. “It’s just what you do, once you get married, isn’t it?”

  The other women nodded in agreement.

  “Amazing,” Leah said, shaking her head. “I’m standing here in a roomful of educated, successful career women, and you’re all saying that you made this decision – this immensely important decision to bring another person into the world – because ‘it’s just what you do’? Another human being that needs constant looking after – not just now but for the next twenty years or so? Crazy …” She shook her head in bewilderment. “Put it this way, if child-rearing was considered a job you’d have to stay with for all those years with no pay, would you be so willing to sign up without thinking strongly about it? I don’t think so – so why this?”

  “You’re looking at all of this very practically though, aren’t you? What about love? What about that wonderful, amazing feeling of absolute adoration for your child? Not to mention the love they will give you in return?”

  Leah looked from one woman to the other. “So you’ll all love your kids no matter what? And you think that no matter what, you will always have someone to love you back?”

  “Yes.” The women nodded in unison and Grainne smiled, sens
ing she had won the argument.

  “You think that’s a good enough reason for creating another life – just to have someone to love you? And you lot think I’m selfish?”

  The other women looked at one another, unsure how to answer that.

  Grainne broke the silence. “You’ll understand it all when you have one of your own,” she said dismissively. “Until then, you really haven’t got a clue.”

  18

  “You know that kind of judgemental attitude really gets to me,” Leah said later, when she and Olivia had left Amanda’s and were sitting in Leah’s apartment eating a fish and chip takeaway. “I think you’re terribly selfish,’ she mimicked Grainne’s patronising tone. “Motherhood completes you – what in the hell is all that about?” Her hands shook as she spoke, annoyed that once again, she had let people’s – women’s – disparaging attitudes get to her.

  “Leah, they are spoilt, pampered biddies, that’s all,” Olivia said softly. “Between the nanny and the housekeeper, they all have plenty time on their hands to sit back and think about the ‘psychology’ of motherhood. I’m willing to bet that Grainne one has never had to clean up after a sick child, or been kept awake all night with a screaming baby. It’s a warped view of motherhood, a rose-tinted Hollywood version, and I can tell you from experience that it’s nothing like that.”

  Leah’s shook her head. “I’m sorry, but sometimes those sorts of comments really upset me. I hate being made to feel like I’m a leper just because I’ve made a decision not to have any children. I mean, what’s it got to do with any of them?”

  Olivia was silent for a moment. “Leah, you shouldn’t let them upset you like that,” she said kindly. “Look, you and I both know that what they’re saying about motherhood being all sweetness and light is utter crap. I love Ellie to bits, but most of the time I’d be lucky if I actually got any time to ponder over how ‘wondrous’,” she made quote-mark signs with her fingers, “the whole experience is. As it is, I’m torn between one minute wanting to hug her to bits, and the next wanting to shake her to bits.” She laughed. “You know all this anyway, and you shouldn’t be letting Amanda’s stupid cronies get to you.”

  “I know, but I’ve been hearing a lot of this lately, and it’s driving me mad. People always assume that Josh and I are childless either because we’re waiting to have them in the future, or we can’t have them at all. They can’t bloody accept that we are childfree by choice. And the problem is, I always seem to end up having to defend myself – as if I’ve committed some kind of crime or something!” She shook her head. “There are enough messed-up kids around these days, and maybe if their parents had thought a little bit more about whether they actually wanted them or not, instead of just having them because it’s ‘what you do’ …” She trailed off and shook her head. “Why is choosing not to have children such a taboo, Olivia? Open the papers and all you see is people talking about how childcare is too expensive, and how much strain and pressure they’re under trying to raise them properly. Yet when some of us decide not to put ourselves through it all, they call us self-obsessed and heartless.”

  Olivia nodded, but for a long moment an uncomfortable silence hung between them.

  “It’s just so bloody frustrating.” Leah said then. “As women, we’re supposed to have all these choices and in this day and age I – stupidly, it seems – thought we were free to make them. Yet, when I’m honest about my choice not to have children, I’m made feel as though I’ve done something wrong.” She shook her head. “And to be honest, what with Kate’s pregnancy and now Amanda’s, I seem to be feeling the pressure more.”

  “I’d imagine it is frustrating for you.” Olivia said carefully.

  Again there was a strained silence, until eventually, her heart beating quickly, Leah looked at Olivia. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

  “Of course not.”

  In truth, Leah felt guilty about it, and was loath to push it, being very aware that reawakening memories of a very difficult and lonely time in her friend’s life could be very hard for Olivia. Still, and especially after tonight, she needed to ask.

  “What is motherhood like?” she asked her. “What was it like in the early days – the really early days, when you knew nothing about babies, nothing about looking after Ellie, or feeding her or all that?” She watched Olivia closely for a reaction. “Was it anything like you’d imagined?”

  Olivia gave a wry smile. “To be honest, I’m probably the wrong person to ask, really. It wasn’t quite the same for me.”

  “I know that, and I really don’t want to bring it all up again for you but – ”

  Olivia waved her away. “No, no, don’t be silly, I don’t mean that. It’s just obviously I wasn’t myself at the time. I was still grieving, so I wasn’t your typical new mother. I had other things on my mind, so I think I went through it all on complete autopilot. I had no other choice. I had to decide whether I would fall to pieces over losing my husband, or be there for our daughter. As well as that, I had a lot of help from my mum.” She smiled. “Actually, I think she’s the one you should be asking about this, Leah. She did most of the nappy-changing and night-feeds back then.”

  Leah remembered how devastated her friend had been after the funeral, and how Olivia’s mother had thrown herself into caring for her eldest daughter and then, a few months later, her new granddaughter.

  Olivia had come through all the heartbreak eventually, but Leah knew she was today a completely different person to the one she had been back at university. Back then, Olivia had been a planner, a perfectionist and everything from study time to nights out needed to be organised and planned down to the very last detail. Peter had been the same – hardworking, diligent and equally fastidious – so the two of them as a couple had been so perfectly matched it was incredible.

  Thinking back now, Leah suspected that this very fact might have been part of the reason for their short break-up after graduation. She knew that Olivia had struggled a little then, the lack of routine and structure that suited her so well in college life having completely upended her in the ‘real world’. Trying to make sense of what she wanted to do with her life, and unsure of all the plans she had so carefully laid, both professionally and in her relationship, Olivia panicked, and out of the blue finished with poor Peter. Leah had been in Paris at the time, and couldn’t believe it when she heard that the ‘perfect couple’ had broken up, yet she suspected that it wouldn’t last long.

  She was right. After a short while, the two were back together and, if anything, their time apart galvanised them into action and made their relationship stronger. Peter proposed, they made plans for their wedding and bought their first house, and from then on in it seemed there was no stopping them.

  But tragically, as Olivia had eventually discovered, there were some plans that couldn’t be fine-tuned to the last detail, some things that just couldn’t be controlled.

  “Earth to Leah,” Olivia teased, and Leah smiled, realising she had spent the last few minutes deep in thought. “Look, don’t worry – you shouldn’t feel as though you have to justify your decisions to anyone.”

  “Oh, I suppose, I’m worse. In fairness, I should just let them think what they like, or that I do have fertility problems. But at the same time, I don’t see why I should do that. I don’t see why I have to lie and cover up about it because I might insult someone who has chosen differently. I totally respect any woman’s choice to have a child, so why can’t they do the same for me?”

  Olivia looked sideways at her. “Leah, what’s brought all this about? Are you and Josh OK?”

  Leah sighed and shook her head. “No, we’re great. Granted we haven’t seen all that much of one another lately, what with work being so busy over the last few weeks, and he’s not all that excited about all the work I need to do to get the shop going.” She rolled her eyes. “Still, we’ll be fine.”

  “You should take it easy. Work isn’t the be-all and end-all of everything, you k
now.”

  “I do know.” Leah smiled. It was still strange hearing something like that come out of Olivia’s mouth, when she herself had thought the very opposite a few years ago.

  “Nah, things will be fine, he knows what I’m like – and once we get the shop opened and I take on some staff, things will settle down. It’s just …” She took a deep breath.

  “What?”

  “It’s not … it’s not just tonight that’s got to me. It’s all this talk of pregnancy and motherhood, with Kate too. I don’t mind admitting that lately I feel a bit … weird. I’m not quite sure how to handle it.” She looked embarrassed.

  “Weird?”

  “Well, for a start, I worry that I’m not giving Kate the necessary support. We’ve always been close, and I suppose I’m afraid that our friendship will suffer because we can’t share all this pregancy and new mother stuff.”

  Olivia nodded. “I suppose it must be strange, because in college you were the one who wanted children, Kate insisted she didn’t, and then she went off and got pregnant on you.” She laughed, seeing Leah’s expression. “You know what I mean – Kate was probably the last one of us you could picture as a mother. Then, Amanda – look, she’s just being Amanda – looking for attention, and getting lots and lots of it. I mean, whoever heard of a party to celebrate your pregnancy?”

  Leah rolled her eyes. “I know.”

  “But look, it hasn’t happen to us, has it? I’ve been a mum for years now and you and I are still as close as ever - despite living in different places even.”

  “But that was different. I was away for most of your pregnancy and for Ellie’s early days. Other than sending her presents on her birthday and hearing about it all on the phone, you couldn’t really say I was involved.”

  “But you don’t really have to be involved, Leah. You can still be a good friend, you still are a good friend.”

  Leah nodded and looked away, although she still wasn’t quite sure how to get her feelings across without sounding silly. “It’s just … oh, I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, and after all this time, it’s not as though I can do anything about it but –”