6. Funeral March
“Your body’s response has slowed. We are comfortable letting you return home.”
The words were music to Natalie’s ears. Natalie and Ed packed and left the hospital for home two days after checking in. They settled for another couple of days at home before their transfer.
It was a quiet but nervous time. Natalie was still on pain medication, and unable to move much, remaining positive. Lucy rang as soon as they arrived home with more complications.
“Hi, I am sorry to bother you, Nat. I know this is terrible timing?—”
Lucy sounded wound up.
“What is going on, darling?”
“My Dad just passed—thank God. But now the funeral arrangements begin. Mum is a mess. I must plan the thing.”
“You’ll be brilliant at it.”
“It’s a Catholic mass.”
“Ugh. Do you know anything about that?”
“I have been to a lot of Catholic funerals, but fuck if I know. I’m driving to meet the priest right now. Well, George is driving us. I only had a bit of time to call.”
“Hello, Natalie!” George shouted. “I love you. Please call me sometime.”
Natalie’s heart sank. She’d been neglecting her brother. He was offended she told Lucy everything, but Lucy was everything. Things like this—things only a mother could understand—were best left to Lucy. Natalie was a mess.
“She’s sick, George. Leave her out of it,” Lucy clapped back. “Uh, so I need to be off work. Because… funeral. And I don’t know exactly when I will be back. I still must help my mom tie up loose ends?—”
“Of course, Luce. Any time you need anything, it’s handled. I will work with Meredith. God, I will come?—”
“Nat, you’re not going to make it over here. It’s okay. I’m not offended.”
Natalie felt terrible. Lucy needed help and she was right. Natalie and Ed needed to stay put. They’d have their retrieval and their transfer five days later. They couldn’t leave.
“I’m sorry, Lucy.”
“Don’t apologise. Take care of yourself. I am sorry I’m not there. I will be okay.”
Natalie hung up. Ed entered the sitting room.
“Who was that?” He asked.
“Lucy. Her Dad just died… and I can’t go help her.”
“I’m sorry, baby.” Ed sat.
There was a knock.
“Ma’am, sir, the Duke and Duchess of Inverness are here. They brought some food. They said they are fine just handing it off but would also like to check in on you, Your Royal Highness.”
Ed looked at Natalie and shrugged.
“Let them in,” Natalie replied.
She wanted human comfort. Sanne and Paul would be kind.
“Hey,” Paul popped in. “You alright? Mum said you were really sick.”
“Just cysts. Nightmare girl stuff, Paul,” Natalie said.
Paul and Sanne sat on the sofa next to Ed and Natalie were camped.
“Well, I care. I am glad you are home,” Paul said. “We baked biscuits. A pregnancy craving with a bonus.”
Natalie felt another gut punch. It just kept coming. However, there were few things basic carbs couldn’t do.
“I stole your mum’s recipe,” Sanne said sweetly. “And they are divine. The salt on top and rest times make the difference, I swear.”
“They’re delicious,” Ed said.
Natalie nodded in agreement. “Thanks. I needed a cheer up.”
Sanne smiled. “And how are you doing now, Nat?”
“Achey. I have surgery tomorrow. And about that, I am pretty broken up. Lucy’s Dad just passed. I cannot even attend the funeral.”
“Oh, shit. That’s so sad,” Paul said.
Paul always loved Lucy. He’d been heartbroken when George broke it off.
Sanne patted Paul’s knee. “We should go, baby. We should make sure the family shows up for Lucy.”
“Well, I assume that Rita and Bruno will go,” Natalie said. “I assume they will show up for their daughter-in-law.”
“We could ride over with them,” Paul said. “Rita never flies commercial.”
Natalie snickered. “True.”
“We should. And we’d get to see my family again. They’d come over to see us,” Sanne said.
“You two just want to find any excuse to stay in the U.S.,” Ed joked. “Twist your arms.”
“It’s chill there. You must admit. People are kind in a small town. It’s why George stays.” Paul shrugged.
“It’s beautiful, I’ll grant you,” Natalie said.
Natalie would never quite understand the attraction to living in the States. She had several times, but it never quite stuck with her. Perhaps, living in the California desert wasn’t her cup of tea and the rest of the country was better? The way her mother made her childhood sound, growing up in the U.S. could be idyllic, but all Natalie saw was a herd of people who couldn’t queue to save their lives.
“We’ll go then.” Paul squeezed Sanne’s hand. “We should leave you anyway. Get rest, sister. Take care of yourself.”
“Thanks,” Natalie smiled a bit, unsure what to say.
“Call us if you need anything,” Sanne said sweetly. “We’re just five seconds away.”
“Thanks,” Natalie said.
They left. Ed shook his head. “When does it get easier?”
“When we have our own baby, Edwin.”
Natalie hoped that was the truth.
“Can I get you anything?”Sanne asked Lucy.
Lucy sat on a swing in her sister’s backyard in the north suburbs, out of it.
Lucy shook her head. Sanne wasn’t sure how to help. Lucy was near-silent this entire time. So, rather than gather with the rest of the family inside, she was kicking her feet up on the swing set outside in the cold. The wind smacked Sanne’s face.
“I don’t like that priest,” Lucy muttered.
“I don’t like priests at all. They make me nervous. I always wonder if they can tell I was raised by lesbians and are already damning me to hell.”
Lucy chuckled as Sanne sat on the other swing. “Nah. I doubt priests care that much. They’re more apt to try to gauge if they should stay here or if there is a guarantee that there will be top-shelf booze elsewhere.”
“Fair. I respect that.”
“I doubt this priest had any idea that any of us had money,” Lucy murmured. “We were always asking for a handout because Dad drank his life away. Mum was always so embarrassed to ask for help. I suppose that’s where I get it from.”
“Lucy, you’re a Countess. Did no one?—”
“Sanne, I know we sound alike. We grew up a stone’s throw from one another, but unlike you, I don’t have any relatives who would even understand what that means. And my father was embarrassed by my mere existence. Your parents always love you. They always think you’re perfect. The idea that we could even live in a house like this…”
Lucy gestured at the back of the small McMansion. “It’s a dream.”
“Nah. It’s generic as fuck,” Sanne said. “I would take our little cottage over this any day. I would take Linny’s historic home in Buffalo Shores 100 times. I’d take my old condo in River North. This… it’s soulless. It’s about showing you have money and can keep up. You are collecting swag when you move into a neighbourhood like this. It’s plastic. It’s sanitised.”
“Said like someone who was born wealthy,” Lucy murmured.
It took Sanne ages to understand Lucy was right. They were different people.
“I learned to keep up, but my ‘picker’ will always be off when it comes to cultural capital,” Lucy said. “I still get nervous when I see Winston throw out a tube of toothpaste that still has paste in it. No joke. I still worry we will run out of food. That’s the one that kills me. I have panic attacks trying to think about how to feed Malcolm. My therapist says that my childhood neglect will always kick in—even if I have nothing in the world to want for. You always had everything, Sanne. I don’t say it to be cruel, but I had no emotional support from my parents. My mother was incapable of functioning as she made up for my father’s lack of it. We had no money. We were always behind. You grew up with two mothers who spared you all those nasty details.”
Sanne rubbed Lucy’s arm. “It sounds hard, Lucy. You’re right, I have no idea. But you manage all this royal chaos. I owe you so much for all the help you’ve given me. I am sorry if that feels invalidating.”
“I don’t know why I’m so blue,” Lucy said. “It’s not because Dad died. I am relieved—as terrible as that sounds.”
“Luce, don’t beat yourself up. The way Winston tells it, he was a toxic human being.”
“Thanks. Thanks for just… letting me… feel. You and Natalie have just let me vent. George, too. I just needed that. I love you all. I always expect to be deserted because this is ugly or complicated, but… you never leave me. You never desert me—none of you do.”
“Family shows up,” Sanne said.
“I think it’s watching my mother’s heartbreak now. She’s been so tortured by him—beaten, making excuses, covering for him—for so many years. And yet? She’s here, losing her mind.”
“Everyone has complicated emotions. Your mother was a victim, too, but a lot of people have issues with codependency. Your parents were married for three decades, right? That’s a long time. Give her some space to feel, too. She cannot control how she grieves. You can only hope that she works on herself and makes her own life better.”
“I don’t even know what Mom will do.”
“She will figure it out. That’s not your problem,” Sanne said. “You want to take care of everyone, but sometimes you must take care of Lucy because she”s important to many people.”
“Lucy is… she doesn’t even know. She’s probably always making things worse, to be honest.”
“Impossible!” Sanne shook her head. “Luce, you keep us all running. We could do a lot more for you, sweetheart. And that little boy? You’re his whole world. Your husband? You’re Winston’s everything, Lucy.”
“Am I? Every time I come back here… it’s eerie. I begin to doubt if I belong here. I don’t. And if I don’t belong here… do I belong there?”
“Lucy, you’re one of the most powerful people in London. So, yes.”
“You think?”
“Yes,” Sanne was confused as to why her friend was on this spiral.
“Lucy, darling,” Rita, the Duchess of Lauderdale, approached her daughter-in-law. “Bruno and I are going to cut and run before this storm comes in. Sanne, are you and Paul still staying on?”
Sanne nodded. “Thanks for offering to bring us back, but we want to help.”
“Understood. Well, stay safe in the storm, alright? Lucy, darling, if you need anything, just ring me. Anything at all. And if you want to dump Malcolm on us for a couple of days when you return, the door is always open. He’s our favourite person.”
Lucy smiled, “Thanks.”
Rita left.
Lucy kicked the ground with the toe of her boot. “I want to go home so badly, but I must help. Francine is flagging and she’s trying to finish law school.”
“I get it,” Sanne said.
She realised that when Lucy said home, she meant London. Sanne wondered if she would ever call it home. For Sanne, being within fifteen miles of Lake Michigan meant home. Home meant this little stretch of the upper Midwest. It meant this skyline and the dunes. She didn’t know if London would ever feel like home. She hoped someday it might. But, for now, this was home. And the minute she got back on a plane, leaving her sister, mothers, and niece, Sanne would be homesick.
“Dr Yang, hi,”Natalie answered the phone excitedly.
She and Ed waited to hear when their transfer would be scheduled the next day. Natalie fought through the bloating and pain, praying they would get this over with and she’d soon be having a baby, as planned.
“Hello, Natalie,” the consultant said. “Is your husband there?”
“I’m putting you on speaker,” Natalie said.
“Okay.”
The consultant’s voice was stable, but not excited. Natalie worried something was wrong.
“So, we had three embryos make it through day three,” the doctor said. “But, unfortunately, I have bad news.”
“We only have one?” Natalie asked.
“No. You have none. You had no viable embryos remaining this morning. I am so sorry, you two. I know how hard we tried. You had so many good prospects, but I think the issue is just sperm quality at the end of the day.”
Ed looked upset. He paced.
“So now what?” Natalie asked.
“Well, normally, I would suggest two things. One, that we try IUI?—”
“Well, let’s do that, then,” Ed said.
“That would require donor sperm. So, in this case, I cannot recommend that, sir.”
Natalie hung on. Doctors always fixed things. They always had solutions, right?
“Unfortunately, the other solution would be to do another cycle and retrieval. But, given your body’s reaction to even a low dose of hormones, Natalie, I think that is a poor choice and could be very dangerous.”
“So what do we do?” Ed was agitated.
Natalie rarely saw him like this.
“I am sorry to say that, even after talking to every colleague I could think of who might have a creative idea, I think this is where it ends.”
“Where it ends?!”
“Edwin, calm down,” Natalie said, voice sharp. “We cannot help it. We cannot… it’s not her fault. She is trying to help us.”
“She’s not trying hard enough then!”
“I am so very sorry. Your case file looks like a hole-in-one, but bodies are enigmas. You cannot plan to know what one will do until you work with it. I am so sorry. We don’t talk enough about how fertility journeys end if they don’t end with a baby, but I usually suggest couples like you see a therapist and double down on hobbies that make life seem meaningful. I have a list of resources.”
“Please send them,” Natalie said, feeling numb.
End of journey. It was so final on a day she was so full of hope.
“I need to leave,” Ed said. “I need… I need ages to just… digest this.”
“Ed, please, I need?—”
“No. I need space.”
Ed filtered out, deserting Natalie. She wanted to cry. She wanted to feel anything but sat in shock—numb. She had no idea what to do next, but it was over. They would have no children. The one job she had to ace… she couldn’t. The one thing she was supposed to get right eluded her.