Chapter 21
Araw December wind stung Lucy’s cheeks as she made her way towards the village.
She walked down the main street and saw Kyle in the distance.
He was sitting waiting for her on the low stone wall that overlooked the cove.
His back was to the village, so he didn’t see her approaching.
He was looking pensively out over the dark, brooding Atlantic as it swelled towards the shore.
Her heart started to hammer at the sight of him and anxiety spilled into her tummy.
There had once been a time when her heart beat faster because he was near; when had this feeling changed to dread?
‘Hey…’ she began when she reached him.
He turned around to look at her. ‘I thought you weren’t going to come.’ He smiled nervously.
‘It did cross my mind,’ she admitted. Lucy had thought about cancelling, knowing that the conversation they needed to have was going to be difficult, but Madeleine and Faith had pushed her out the door and told her to stop trying to avoid the issue.
She was dreading talking about their problems and what it meant for their future.
She pointed at the grassy cliffs that watched over the village.
‘Do you want to take a walk up there?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ he said. He rose from the wall and they began walking along the gravel trail that sloped up the headland towards the cliffs.
‘How’s Cavendish Hall? Did you get a nice room?’ Lucy asked, to make conversation.
‘I was lucky, I got the last one.’
‘I’m glad it’s going well for Grace and Patrick. I believe they’re almost fully booked until next year!’
Lucy had known Grace O’Neill since she was a teenager.
Just like herself and Faith, Grace had grown up in Dublin but spent her summers in Inishbeg Cove, staying with her aunt Maggie.
Grace had recently discovered that Patrick Cavendish – heir to the stately Cavendish Hall – was her birth father.
Together, they had taken on the project of renovating the stately home from a crumbling country pile into a magnificent hotel.
‘I’m not surprised,’ he remarked. ‘It’s a beautiful venue. They’ve done a fantastic job on the renovation.’
Silence fell heavily on them. Lucy hated the strained atmosphere between them. They were like two strangers scrambling for something to say to one another instead of husband and wife.
‘Who lives in there?’ Kyle asked after a beat, gesturing to a ramshackle thatched cottage with its fire-engine red half-door. Sheep grazed on a small patch of grass at the front of the house.
‘That’s Ida the herbalist’s cottage. Apparently, she has the gift of healing.
Nanna said that the villagers used to go to her for cures for minor ailments, but something happened and overnight she stopped healing people.
She’s a little odd – I used to be terrified of her when I was a child, but now I can see she’s a harmless old thing.
She’s a little eccentric perhaps, and likes to keep to herself, but she has a good heart.
’ If only Ida had some potion that would give them a baby, she couldn’t help thinking wryly.
They continued up the cliff path, past the trail that led to Tadgh’s restaurant.
As they made their way higher up the exposed headland, the wind whipped Lucy’s long hair around her face and the marram grass was bent double by the force of the gale.
The roaring wind and steep incline made it difficult for her to catch her breath.
‘I’ve missed you, Lu–’ Kyle said abruptly.
‘So why did you say what you did?’ she asked. The pain of his words still tortured her.
Kyle shrugged. ‘Because it’s the truth. It’s how I feel about it. Honestly, if we never have a baby, as long as I still have you I’ll be okay.’
She narrowed her eyes. Unbridled fury burned inside her once again. Had their time apart done nothing to make him see how hurtful it was when he said things like that? Once again, she was left doubting whether they were on the same page in their marriage. ‘How can you—’
He put a hand up to stop her. ‘Hear me out. I mean, of course I would always wonder what our marriage might have been like with children, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t still live a happy life or that our relationship would be somehow lesser, just because we’re not parents.
I loved you from the day we met; having a child together doesn’t change that. ’
‘I wish I felt that way too, but I don’t,’ she cried, almost shouting to be heard over the swirling wind.
‘I think a part of me would always feel bitter, angry, cheated, robbed if we don’t have a baby together.
I wish I could get past it, and I know we were a couple first, but I can’t help how I feel. I think a baby would complete us.’
‘So, I’m not enough for you?’ He looked wounded. Her eyes met his and she saw their shared pain reflected in them.
‘Of course you are, you’re the best husband I could have asked for, but having a child is all I’ve ever wanted.
I can’t explain how broken I feel. It’s like a deep yearning within me, like a hunger that can’t be satiated.
Having a baby is the most fundamental thing about being a woman, and I feel like such a failure because I’m not able to do it. ’
They soon reached the top of the headland, where the ruins of a cottage abandoned during the famine stood staunchly against the onslaught of the Atlantic winds.
They stopped walking and Kyle reached out to put his arm around her, pulling her in tightly against him.
‘You’re not a failure,’ he soothed. The wind whistled and howled around them and she buried her face into the sanctuary of his chest. ‘What we’re going through is hard.
It takes its toll… But what if it doesn’t happen for us, Lu?
’ Fear shaded his eyes. Lucy found herself looking away because it was hard to see her own biggest worry reflected in his gaze.
‘We’ve already done three rounds of IVF, and it hasn’t worked.
We could do another three and still find ourselves in this situation – there are no guarantees,’ he went on.
‘We can’t give up hope! It still might happen – you always hear stories of people trying for years and lo and behold, they finally get pregnant.
We can’t give up now.’ Lucy clung to positive stories as if they were beacons in the fog, guiding her along the path, helping her to keep going in the darker days.
She especially loved hearing about miracle babies: when women had been beaten down by round after round of IVF and had made peace with the fact that they would never have a baby, only to be surprised in the best possible way.
‘Well, if you’re really adamant that you want to keep trying for a baby, then maybe we need to try a different approach. What about using a surrogate, or even adoption?’ he suggested.
She shook her head in frustration. Why didn’t he get this? Why didn’t he know her?
‘Because I want to be the one who is pregnant,’ she said desperately.
‘I want to carry our little baby. I want to feel the fluttery first kicks and watch my tummy growing bigger by the week. I want to moan about aches and pains and complain about stretchmarks. Hell, I even want to experience the agony of labour contractions and have my body push my child out into the world. I don’t want to hand it over to somebody else – I want all of that for myself. ’
He shook his head. ‘You’re so stubborn. You’re so fixated on doing things the traditional way that you’re not open-minded to different options.’
‘So, you think I’m selfish for wanting to experience pregnancy?’ she challenged.
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying, but I think you have tunnel vision when it comes to having a baby. Don’t you think you should be open to the fact that maybe now we need to explore different avenues?’
‘I am open to trying different things, but carrying my own baby is important to me,’ she argued.
‘If it hasn’t happened after three rounds of IVF, then the odds really aren’t in our favour.’
‘I know people who waited eight rounds for it to work! Imagine if they had given up? They’d never have known that it could happen.’
‘At what cost, though? Our marriage is on the brink. We’ve used up all our savings. To be honest, I don’t know how much more I can take.’
‘Poor you,’ she said sardonically. She hated herself as soon as she’d uttered the words. What had she become? This ordeal had reduced her to a nasty, bitter person and she loathed the person she was turning into.
‘I don’t want to do any more IVF, Lucy,’ he stated.
She blinked back tears. ‘You want us to give up?’
‘I think that the time has come for us to accept that it’s not going to happen for us.
I hate seeing you taking all those drugs and injections.
I hate seeing the desperation in your eyes every month as you analyse every little twinge, even though I know you try so hard not to get your hopes up, only for you to be crushed when your period arrives.
I hate seeing you get more and more depressed each month when it hasn’t worked.
’ He reached out to take her in his arms, but she stepped to the side to avoid his embrace.
‘When was the last time we laughed properly together or just had fun without it all being so serious?’ he went on.
‘I can’t even remember when we last talked about stuff without it all coming back to babies. I want the old you back.’
‘Well, she’s long gone,’ she snapped bitterly.
‘Don’t you think I want to be’ – she raised her index fingers to make air quotes – ‘“fun” again? Of course I’d love to be able to relax and not get wound up about it all, but I can’t help it.
This journey has changed me. It has given me my darkest days; it has brought me to my knees.
It consumes my every waking moment. I think about it as soon as I open my eyes in the morning and it’s the last thing I think about at night. I can’t escape it.’
‘I’m sorry you feel that way and I see how much it means to you to have a baby but I think the time has come to draw a line under it,’ he went on. ‘I want us to move on and accept our lot.’
It felt like he had taken a hot sword and used it to sear her heart. ‘No way.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘I’m not giving up now. It will still happen, I know it will.’
‘But you might not have any choice. I think we have to be realistic and face the fact that it might not happen for us. I’m not prepared to keep going month after month trying to put on a brave face as you become unrecognisable to me. It’s ripping us apart.’
‘So, are you giving me an ultimatum?’ she demanded, still in disbelief.
His gaze locked with hers and in his eyes she saw an urgency, a kind of desperate pleading. ‘I don’t want to do this, Lu, but I can’t take it any more. We either forget about this baby stuff, or we try to save our marriage.’
‘I can’t do that,’ she said resolutely. ‘I’d spend the rest of my life regretting it. If it doesn’t happen, I’ll have to come to terms with that, but at least I’d know I did everything possible.’
‘I’m serious Lucy, you’re not the only one suffering here. I don’t want to do this any more. I’m done.’
Tears burned in her eyes and she blinked hard. She loved her husband. He was a good man, and yet he wasn’t enough for her.
‘Y-you’re done?’ she stammered, feeling the pressure of tears pulsing behind her eyes.
He nodded. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered.