by Kate Hewitt
Anyway, whatever was bothering her seems to resolve itself; she comes by a week later, and we have coffee and chat in the normal way. I even ask her about Jack, although she doesn’t say much, and I am a bit relieved. I don’t actually want to know details.
In late July, I have my mid-pregnancy scan. Out of instinct, I brace myself for bad news, but for once there isn’t any. The baby is healthy, perfect, a little girl. I’m going to have a daughter. I picture pink ribbons, frilly dresses, lace curtains. But, of course, she’ll be tough too; Matt will teach her football, she’ll dirty her knees and clamber up again. Nothing will stop her. We won’t let it. Alice. I feel as if I know her already. She is just waiting for me to say hello.
I call Anna to tell her the news, and she brings over a cake to celebrate. Jack comes as well, and we all toast Alice, champagne glasses lifted high, everyone smiling and happy. This is how I pictured it; this is how it is meant to be. How it is. Whatever nameless doubts and fears I’ve felt in my own insecurity, I push them away now, to embrace this reality. My daughter.
The weeks start slipping by; Matt and I buy a cot, a high chair, baby clothes, and with every purchase this dream becomes more real. Anna comes over to help paint the nursery, my colleagues at work throw me a baby shower. The intermittent cramps and contractions have stopped for the most part, and I am starting to feel not just optimistic, but assured. I am going to be a mother.
In late August, Matt and I go on holiday, our last as a couple, two weeks on the beach in Cornwall. Long, lazy days, reading and relaxing and dreaming about coming back next year, with an eight-month-old baby gurgling on a blanket beside us.
In September, at the start of term, my mother visits; it has been six months since her diagnosis and she has been responding surprisingly well to the chemotherapy, although it will never cure her, just buy her more time. How much, no one knows, but I am trying to enjoy the moments we do have, although between her symptoms and mine, there haven’t been as many as I’d like.
‘You’re looking so well, Milly.’ She smiles, looking near tears at the sight of me and my bump. ‘You’re radiant. Blooming.’
‘I feel it.’ I let out a little laugh. ‘Finally, after so many weeks of feeling like a lump.’ I take hold of her hand, which feels fragile, her bones hollow like a bird’s. ‘How are you doing, Mum?’
‘I’m all right. Trying to enjoy every moment.’ She sighs and squeezes my hand lightly, her fingers fragile around my own. ‘I want to see this granddaughter of mine. Watch her grow up.’
Tears prick my eyes and I blink them back. ‘You will,’ I promise, but I ache to think of what she might not see – my daughter’s first steps, maybe even her first smile. It is something that hurts too much to think about.
‘I’m so happy for you,’ Mum says, her voice hesitant, her hand still in mine. ‘I hope you realise that.’
‘Of course I do.’ There is an odd look of regret on my mother’s face that I don’t understand.
‘The truth is, I don’t feel I’ve been as supportive as I could or should have been,’ she says quietly.
‘Mum, you’ve had your own things to deal with. I know that—’
‘Yes, but it’s not just that. The cancer.’ She falls silent for a moment, and I wait. I’ve never seen my mother look like this, heard her sound like this. She gazes down at our joined hands for a few moments as she collects her thoughts. ‘I know I haven’t spoken very much about when your father and I were trying ourselves, for a baby.’
No, she hasn’t, not ever, except to say ‘it didn’t happen for us’ in a tone that suggested I shouldn’t ask any more questions, and so I didn’t.
‘It was really difficult,’ Mum says quietly. ‘Years of the cycle of hope and disappointment – well, you know how it is.’
‘Yes…’ All too well.
‘And forty years ago, there was no IVF.’ She smiles wryly. ‘It was still all in the pioneering research stage.’
‘Yes, I suppose it was.’
‘And the worst part, well, one of the worst parts, was that there was never any real reason for it. Unexplained infertility, they called it. They kept telling us, as they patted our hands, that there was absolutely no reason why we couldn’t have a healthy pregnancy, a normal baby, and yet it never happened. Anyway.’ She lapses into silence, and I wait, sensing more, but what?
‘Adoption wasn’t my first choice,’ she says finally. ‘Obviously. But I always felt guilty about it, once we decided to go down that route. I never wanted you to feel as if you were second best to a biological child.’
‘I didn’t,’ I say, but inwardly I am thinking about the running theme of my life story: I’m adopted, but… How much of that was in my own head, and how much was in my mother’s?
‘Because you were wanted so, so much, Milly. You really were.’
‘I know.’ She has told me at every opportunity, and yet perhaps that was part of the problem. When someone keeps insisting on something, you start to doubt it.
‘And then when you had trouble trying to conceive yourself…’ Mum continues slowly, ‘it was strange. I was so sad you were experiencing the same heartache I was, of course I was, and yet when you did get pregnant, I felt… envious. A little. Which is ridiculous.’ She bites her lip, looking ashamed.
‘It’s not ridiculous, Mum.’
‘And not just envious,’ she continues with a note of steely determination in her voice that reminds me of me. She is going to say this, no matter what. No matter how much it hurts. ‘I felt… threatened. Because this baby will be closer to you, in a way, than I am. Your own flesh and blood, in a way I can never be, and that’s… that’s hard, for me.’
I still, implications tumbling through me. We still haven’t told my parents about the egg and sperm donation. We keep putting it off, saying there will be time later, if it ever needs to be told. These things are private, after all, even if they’re acknowledged and appreciated.
And yet with my silent betrayal comes my mother’s. What is she saying? That I’m not her flesh and blood? That despite all the assurances that I was special, chosen, wanted, whatever, there was always a distance between us that could never be closed?
‘I know I shouldn’t feel that way,’ she says, resting her hand on mine. ‘I know it doesn’t really matter.’
I stare at her helplessly, at a loss. Now is the time to tell her the truth, surely. To admit that actually, yes, I am just like her, and of course it doesn’t matter. Genetics are nothing but that – mere science, abstract, almost theoretical. Relationships are what matter. I know that, and yet…
If that is true, why do we have to have this conversation at all? Why did I resent the fact of my adoption? Why do I resent Anna’s part in the conception of my daughter? Because I do. No matter how hard I try not to, I know in this moment I do. And so I stay silent. I watch my mother smile sadly, feel her squeeze my hand, and I say absolutely nothing.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mum says, giving a little shake of her head. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this now. I just wanted to be honest. My… diagnosis… it makes me want to make the most of opportunities.’
‘I understand.’ But I still don’t make the most of this one.
‘But most of all,’ Mum continues, ‘I want to tell you how much I love you. How much I’ve always loved you.’
My chest is tight with emotion. ‘I know you do, Mum. And I love you, too.’ I’ve never doubted that, despite all the other things I’ve wondered about. Love might not be easy or simple, but it still is. I’m sure of that. I’ve always been sure of that.
Mum lets go of my hand, letting out a little sigh as she gives a smile. ‘So how’s Anna?’ she asks after a moment. ‘She stopped by a few weeks ago, with some lovely flowers, but I haven’t seen her since then.’
‘I think she’s okay.’ I speak cautiously, because I haven’t seen Anna much lately. We communicate more by text, and even that has become a bit intermittent. Somehow it’s been easier, to have
a little space.
‘She mentioned something about her job?’ Mum’s forehead wrinkles. ‘About taking some time off?’
‘Time off?’ That doesn’t sound like Anna. ‘She hasn’t said anything to me.’ And I wonder why not. Surely if something big had happened, she would have told me? But then I realise that she might not have, and I wouldn’t have asked. More strained silences in our friendship that were never there before.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have said. She never likes to talk about herself.’
‘I know. I’ll give her a ring.’
But when I call, there’s no answer, so I leave an awkward voicemail. ‘Hey, Anna. It’s Milly. I know it’s been a little while. I’m sorry about that.’ I pause, blowing out a breath, trying to find the words. ‘I hope you’re okay.’ Which makes it sound as if I think she isn’t, but it’s too late to clarify what I meant, I’ve already disconnected the call.
I wait for Anna to call back, but she doesn’t. A few days later, she finally sends a text, just a quick message to say she’s fine, and that she’s been busy. It feels a bit like a brush-off, and I wonder what’s going on, if anything. I wonder if I want to know.
‘Why don’t you just invite her over?’ Matt asks when I mention my low-level fears that there might be something wrong. ‘Have her and Jack over for dinner?’
‘I don’t know if they’re still seeing each other.’
‘You don’t?’ Matt looks surprised. ‘They certainly are, Milly. Jack mentioned it to me a few days ago – he took her up to see the house in Stroud. It’s almost finished.’
‘Oh, really?’ I try to sound offhand, but I am shaken. Why wouldn’t Anna tell me about that? Is it because she knows I feel strange about her relationship with Jack? Or is it because I am realising, more and more, that Anna doesn’t tell me anything? ‘Right, I’ll invite them both.’
A week later, they are in my kitchen, sitting at my table, and I feel uneasy. Anna looks as if she is in love, and I notice they hold hands under the table. Why am I not okay with this? Am I that insecure, that selfish, that I don’t want my best friend to be happy?
‘So things are going well with Jack?’ I ask brightly when Anna and I are clearing up, Matt and Jack outside on the patio.
‘Yes, I think so.’ She smiles quietly to herself, as if she’s keeping a secret. I feel excluded, even though she’s right here next to me, rinsing plates.
‘That’s good.’ For once I am at a loss for words. Anna feels a bit like a stranger to me now, and I realise it’s been happening gradually, bit by bit, a chipping away of the security and strength I took for granted, until we’re both free floating and anchorless. ‘Mum mentioned something about work? Is everything okay there?’
She hesitates, and then shrugs. ‘Lara’s giving me some trouble. Just the usual, really.’
‘Right.’ And then, for perhaps the first time in our lives, we have nothing more to say to one another.
‘That went fine, didn’t it?’ Matt asks when they’ve gone and we’re sitting on the sofa, my feet in his lap.
‘I suppose.’ I know he’ll only roll his eyes at the nebulous feeling I have that something is off between us, the growing fear that perhaps something always has been, and it’s taken this – this baby, this situation – to show me.
‘Don’t worry so much, Mills. You’re almost in the home stretch.’ He pats my bump lovingly. ‘Thirty weeks now.’
‘I know.’
‘Once the baby comes, you’ll be able to put all these little ups and downs into perspective,’ he continues. I know he means to be encouraging, but I feel patronised.
‘These little ups and downs aren’t so little, Matt. Anna is important to me. We’ve been friends for over twenty years.’
‘And nothing’s actually wrong between you, right?’
‘Right.’ I know I can’t explain it to him, not so he’d understand. What would I even say? That things feel a bit awkward? Anna herself said things were bound to be a bit strange, and perhaps Matt is right. Once I have Alice, things will be different. Everything will make sense. It will all be worth it.
I repeat those promises as if I can make myself believe them, and I almost do.
Fourteen
Anna
After keeping so many secrets for so long, I’ve finally told my biggest one to Jack, and it felt like the scariest and most wonderful thing I’ve ever done.
When he called, months ago now, and I asked him to come over, he came straight away. He held me in his arms and let me speak, the words spilling out, freeing me.
‘I’m dealing with a sexual harassment case at work,’ I began, feeling as if I were taking my finger out of the hole in the dam. ‘And it brought up some memories…’
‘You mean the relationship you were in, back when you were eighteen?’ Jack asked gently.
‘Yes.’ I continued to wipe my eyes, which seemed determined to stream. ‘Yes. That. At work, one of the graduate apprentices was… propositioned, I suppose, by her boss.’ I shouldn’t have been telling him that much, and yet I had to, for context. Because I had to tell him about me. ‘And it reminded me… about when I was eighteen. Well, seventeen to start…’ I stopped, and Jack put his arms around me.
‘You can tell me, Anna.’
I take a deep breath, preparing myself for admitting something I’ve never told anyone. Ever. ‘The man I was in a relationship with… not that I should even call it that… he was my teacher. He taught history.’ As if that mattered. The strange thing, or at least one of them, was that Mr Rees wasn’t young or fun or particularly good-looking, all the usual suspects when it comes to student-teacher affairs. He was forty-five, balding, okay-looking for his age, but certainly nothing special. Looking back, I can’t explain it even to myself, except perhaps that after my parents’ divorce I was lonely, and having someone pay attention to me – a man like my father, even – felt good, sick and sad as it was, as horrible as it felt.
‘What happened?’ Jack finally asked.
‘What you’d expect. I stayed after one day for help on an essay…’ And just like Mike Jacobs, he came up behind me so I could feel his breath on my ear, his body so close to mine. I remembered feeling frozen, and then foolishly, pathetically flattered.
‘Did you report him?’ Jack asked with a note of vehemence. ‘You should have reported him.’
I shook my head. ‘No, I never did.’ It all ended predictably; a few sordid trysts at school, one late-night meeting behind a pub that left me feeling dirtier than ever. And then I fell pregnant, and Mr Rees gave me three hundred pounds to take care of it, and we never spoke again. He was probably terrified I was going to point the finger at him, but it never even crossed my mind, whether out of shame or disgust or just relief that it was over. I didn’t think of it once.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a pause. ‘I can’t even imagine…’
‘It’s okay.’ I sniffed, trying to regroup. ‘I’ve never told anyone before. And today… after everything… I needed to tell someone.’
‘I’m glad it was me.’ He kissed me gently, and something in me loosened and let go. He wasn’t repulsed; he wasn’t backing off as I’d feared. ‘What happened to you, Anna, it was wrong. I hope you know that.’
‘I think I’m starting to. Hearing Sasha tell her story… it made me realise how much I’ve doubted myself. How I’ve felt it was my fault…’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘Thank you.’ I tried to smile. ‘That means a lot.’
Telling Jack freed me, but not enough to tell Milly any of it. I thought about it sometimes, when we were out together, although that was happening less frequently. I thought about sitting her down, letting it all spill out. But it felt like such a big thing, the biggest thing in my life, that I didn’t know how to begin, and I was afraid to navigate the why-didn’t-you-tell-me conversations, opening up a whole new arena of hurt.
Part of me wondered if Milly even wanted to know. Was that why she’d never asked, ba
ck then or now? Why she’s never said a word?
And in my meaner moments, I wonder if that has always been the nature of our friendship. From the beginning, I have been relegated to the supporting role, the sidekick, and I’ve never minded. I’ve been so grateful to have Milly at all, to have her fierce and unwavering loyalty – and yet I am now realising it has come at a price, albeit one I’ve always been willing to pay.
I am willing to pay it now, not least because Milly is an important part of my life, she is pregnant, she needs me, and most of all, because of Alice. I want to be in Alice’s life. I want at least a little bit of that vision Milly painted for me, way back when.
And so I keep texting and meeting for coffee every so often, listen to her moan about swollen ankles and stretchmarks, enthuse about the lavender-themed nursery, with its walls of pale violet, the framed botany prints, the glider with its cushion of cream velveteen. But there is a growing part of me that is starting, with a quiet ferocity, to resent it all, resent her, and I feel both vindicated and horrified by that. How can I be this way? How can I not?
Then I find out I’ve been fired.
First Lara met with Mike Jacobs on her own, and managed to get Sasha’s case dropped, most likely through intimidation. I wasn’t even surprised, but for the first time I didn’t feel like rolling over.
‘I should have been at that meeting,’ I told her, trying not to let my voice tremble. ‘I was in charge of this case…’
‘Honestly, Anna, you seemed a bit too personally involved.’ Lara eyed me coolly from behind her desk. ‘So I decided it was better if I handled it myself.’
My nails dug into my palms. ‘And now it’s been dropped?’
‘Better for everyone, and certainly better for Qi Tech. Sasha sees that. She was a bit of a silly girl.’ Lara smiled at me almost pityingly, as if she suspected that once upon a time I had been a silly girl, as well.