Nicki
I’m officially overwhelmed. Way beyond whelmed. There is so much whelm in me and I am so over it. All this stuff, all this endless stuff. The pile of presents won’t go down. It’s like the magic bowl of porridge, except it’s spewing out endless babygrows and muslins and wipes, and everything in the world with either a duck or an elephant on it. My baby is going to be in these things, using these things. The baby in my belly that’s going to come out, and be real, and I’m going to have to look after it forever, in its fucking elephant everything, and not kill it, and I’m going to die in childbirth anyway, and it’s too much. It’s too much, and too hot, and I’m too pregnant, and I just want everyone to leave, and to get into a cold bath and sob and cry because I’ve given up so much for this baby. I’ve given up Phoebe for this baby. And now I’m scared and I don’t want it anymore.
I just wasn’t expecting Phoebe to be here. She’s a living, breathing, stunning, magnetic, heart-beating person who I loved, and who I’ll never know in the ways I want to because of the baby in my stomach. She’s a life I could’ve led. It was easier when Phoebe was a memory. An idea to mourn. I forgot how my eyes can’t leave hers. I forgot how she makes me laugh. I forgot how, just by her being in a room, shadow parts of me unlock – fun parts, untraditional parts. I’m not just , the girl who looks like she was incubated next door, who only has sensible boyfriends, and works sensible jobs, and hasn’t ever tried a 69, or even watched porn, and doesn’t like drinking because the hangover isn’t worth it the next day. With Phoebe, I’m someone subversive . . . flirty . . . unpredictable . . . fun . . .
. . . Until I threw it all away to do the most predictable thing ever.
‘Oh, wow, thank you. What is it?’ I ask, holding up what can only be described as a ‘thingy’. In my hands, they somehow multiply. They are now two thingies. Two little silverly thingies. They sort of look like metal rolled condoms.
‘They’re silver nipple shields,’ Jenny from work explains, laughing at my obliviousness. ‘They’re amazing apparently. All the mumfluencers are using them. You pop them in your bra between feeds and the silver apparently releases microbes that stop you developing mastitis.’
‘Oh . . . huh.’ I slip one onto my tender breast in my maternity bra. They make me look like I have robot nipples. ‘I never knew.’
Charlotte is about to combust next to me. ‘What a good present,’ she practically shouts. ‘I’ve read about them. Amazing. Well done.’
She’s dutifully writing down everything I’ve received, and by who, which is lovely, but also somewhat ruining the mood as she’s also getting them to write down their address for her and the whole thing is feeling like homework. I slip the other nipple shield in, horrified to realise they only just fit over them. I knew my breasts would get bigger and saggier in pregnancy, but nobody tells you your nipples engorge and turn into giant thumbs sticking out of burgers. Just as I do, Phoebe wafts in from the kitchen with Lauren, holding a large glass of punch. She eyes my giant nipples sticking through my top and winks while making a clicky sound. I blush and rip them out again, asking, ‘OK, what next?’ Trying to stay here, in this sweltering box rather than tumbling down another rabbit hole of unhelpful memory.
Matt was surprisingly furious when I’d told him about Phoebe. I’d made us mugs of tea and explained what happened and why our marriage was over. Things had been so lacklustre for so long I assumed he’d be relieved but, instead, he was an unpinned grenade.
‘You kissed her? You’ve cheated on me? All these nights at hers? You were getting with her?’ He paced up and down our living room, palms pressed against his face, shaking the walls of our new-build flat.
‘I didn’t realise you’d be so upset,’ I got out, through sheets of tears. The second I’d told him, I’d started to cry at this unexpected end to our marriage. It was over between us. It had to be. The feelings I had for Phoebe, there’s no way I could have them if things were right between us. That’s what she’d told me. Sending me message after message, explaining it all, helping it make sense. ‘ The light can only get through the cracks, ’ she’d said. ‘ Don ’ t feel guilty, . You wouldn ’ t be feeling like this if you guys were meant to be together. ’
‘Why the hell wouldn’t I be upset? My wife has been cheating on me and is now a lesbian. I’d say that’s quite upsetting. Oh, am I supposed to fucking congratulate you for coming out or something?’ He bowed down with a flourish. ‘Well done on your personal growth, . So brave.’
‘You’re being a dick.’
‘You’ve cheated on me and I’m the one being a dick?’
‘It was only a kiss.’
‘You told me you’re in love with her!’
‘Yeah, but I’m talking to you about it before I do anything.’
‘Wow. Lucky me. So grateful.’ Matt turned and paced again, the walls wobbling around us, his face blooming red with rage. I’d never seen him so animated, so full of fire. It turned me on a bit. In fact, it was the first time I’d fancied him in years. Now I was losing him, all his features were as alluring as they’d been initially. That incredible jaw, the moles decorating the left side of his face like a trail to follow, the crack of skin threading between one of his eyebrows, the deep stark green of his eyes against his dark lashes. I started crying harder, which I knew was unfair on him. I just couldn’t believe I was blowing our lives up. Matt and I didn’t know how to be adults without each other. Our lives had been so gorgeously entwined for so long. Our parents had even been on holiday together. This separation was going to be such an atrocious, humiliating, confusing mess, and suddenly I really wanted to have sex with my husband. Though, with such anger thrumming through him, I was too scared to go near him.
‘I still can’t believe this,’ he said, almost verging on spitting. ‘After all the shit you’ve put me through over the years about sleeping with fucking Steffi . . . when I didn’t even know you existed! And, all these months, you’ve been cheating on me . . .’
‘Those are hardly the same things.’
Why was I defending myself? Why was he bringing Steffi up now? Why was he thinking about Steffi right now? What the hell did she have to do with anything? One of my biggest fears was that Matt would’ve ended up with Steffi if he hadn’t met me. I worried there was something more between them . . . lingering . . . every time they saw one another. I hated that she also knew the noises he made when he came. I hated that she knew what a good kisser he was. How big his dick was (surprisingly so, actually, considering he ’ s so scrawny) . I hated that, technically, from an HPV point of view, I’d now slept with everyone Steffi had slept with, which, let’s face it, is a lot more than most.
‘Of course they’re not the same things,’ he said. ‘I did nothing wrong when I slept with Steffi. Whereas what you’ve done is pure adultery.’
‘I didn’t realise it was.’ I cried harder, hugging a sofa cushion to stop myself trying to hug him.
‘Oh, yes, I forgot. Your lesbian seductress.’
‘Don’t speak that way about her.’
‘You do realise how unfair this is? If I’d cheated . . . if I met some girl from work and stayed all these nights in her fucking bed, and then kissed her, and told you I was in love with her . . . it would be so black and white. I ’ m the arsehole. She ’ s a bitch. But no . . . not with this. Somehow perfect fucking stays the perfect one . . . fuck this. Fuck you, . Honestly. Fuck you.’ I flinched. It was the first time he’d ever sworn at me, and it left a bullet hole.
Then he’d left. He left before I could even tell him the whole story which would help him understand. Which would help him know that I wasn’t to blame. This wasn’t my fault. I still wanted him to like me, to love me. To listen to me. To hear me out. To comfort me. Like he’d comforted me and protected us all these years. Even, yes, when I made unreasonable demands, like him not being allowed to talk to Steffi at social occasions . . . Matt had always listened and taken my side and protected us. But the Matt-shield was smashed and in our bedroom, shoving shirts into a duffel bag, pushing past me to get to the bathroom to take his toothbrush and shower gel, muttering something about staying at Seth’s.
‘You can’t stay there,’ I yelled. ‘Charlotte will find out.’
‘You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore,’ his spit landed on my face even though he was at least three feet away. I collapsed to the carpet then, to try and stop him. Surely, he wouldn’t leave if he saw me this upset? He’d drop to his knees and kiss it better. I wanted him still, even though I also wanted Phoebe. Nothing about how I felt made any sense and I’d only had 24 hours to be allowed to feel it. I’d told Phoebe nothing could happen between us before I’d spoken to Matt.
Phoebe:
Of course, hon. Of course you want to do things right, that’s one of the things I love about you. We didn’t ask for this to happen. I’ll wait for as long as it takes. I know it’s a lot. I’ll never stop waiting for you xxxx
But Matt did leave. In fact, he left so roughly that a painting fell off the wall as he slammed the front door. I waited on the floor for him to come back, arranged as daintily as I could for when he returned from walking around the block to calm down. I kept myself crying, even when I was running low on tears, as I wanted him to see fresh tear stains on his return and feel guilty for waiting so long to talk it through. Matt couldn’t leave me like this. He was my husband. He loved me. He never left me. Part of what was so annoying about him was how utterly invested he was in me. How I never had to wonder how he felt about me. The only thrill I got was when we had to hang out with Steffi, and I’d get intrusive thoughts of them fucking, and I’d want to be sick, but also want to have sex with him the second we got home.
But that night he left me. He left me and didn’t come back for two weeks.
And that, somehow, changed everything.
I glance over at Phoebe again, the magnet pull just as strong as always. For the first time in the third trimester, I almost forget about the baby twisting in my stomach and let myself fall into the fantasy of what life would’ve been like if I’d chosen differently. Life with Phoebe. Living in East London, going out most nights, figuring out my sexuality, exploring, touching, tasting, panting. Who am I with the brakes off? With my hair untied? Travel. Spontaneity. Being cool . . . A life like Steffi’s . . . adventurous. Phoebe’s eyes meet mine. She winks again and I know with that wink that she’s here to cause trouble. She must be. Why else would she come? Is she going to tell everyone about us? Or is she just here to fuck with me? To remind me of what I’ve missed? Does she know her being here is fucking with me enough? Phoebe never took revenge, even though she had every right to. I treated her as appallingly as I treated Matt – marinating for two weeks in my total selfishness. What do I want? What’s best for me ? Is there any way I can have both?
I was so unfair to her.
I feigned a horrific flu at work and took a fortnight’s leave – messaging her to say I needed space. I also messaged Matt, to tell him I wouldn’t see Phoebe. I wouldn’t take my betrayal any further forward while I figured things out.
He replied with only this.
Matt:
Take your time but also know I’m not here forever. I know I’m worth more than someone having to agonise over wanting to be with me. You’re not just fucking your life up, , you’re fucking mine up too. Ours. The life we’ve been building, brick by brick, for over ten years now. But I’m not going to beg you to stay. You’ve already taken the piss. So much. I know you want me to beg, but I won’t.
Matt was right. He knew me so well. How my selfish brain works. I was distraught he wasn’t at the door, on his knees, crying and pleading for me to choose him. He knew the worst of me but he’d always loved me anyway. He then added:
Matt:
Really think about the life you want, and whether this woman can give it to you, . In the long-term, not the short. I see you as the mother to my children. My family I’ll have forever. But I can find that with other women . . . can you find that with Phoebe?
I read and re-read that last message maybe a thousand times, marvelling again at just how well Matt knew me. Before Phoebe started working at my company, we had started talking about kids. For the first time since meeting her, I remembered those conversations and how . . . exciting they’d been. Honestly, what had I done? What was I doing? What was I going to do? The worst part of my agony was that I was completely alone in it. Matt hadn’t stayed at Charlotte’s after all, but gone to bunk with David, his bachelor mate who lived in Canary Wharf. Nobody in my life knew about Phoebe and I was too ashamed to confide in anyone, so I just shuffled around my flat in a dirty pair of pyjamas, festering with shame. What was I ashamed of? The emotional affair? Though I kept reassuring myself I didn’t know I was having one. Potentially being gay? Though I still wasn’t sure if I was. I didn’t want girls, I just wanted Phoebe, and how being around Phoebe made me feel. I wanted to tell the Little Women, but then Steffi would know, and I couldn’t bare her knowing there were chinks in mine and Matt’s marital armour. The smug satisfaction she’d take in our downfall. In those wretched nights of sleeplessness, twisting in my empty bed, literally holding my head from the buzzing of the decision making, I’d add to my anguish by picturing Steffi and Matt getting together if I left him for Phoebe. Maybe they’d end up married and she’d have Matt’s children – not me.
That word.
Children.
That thought.
I was 30 years old. I’d always seen Matt as the father of my children.
Alone to figure this out, I spent my days essentially feral, in bed, my Google search history a meandering list of increasingly desperate despair.
Can you be gay and not realise it?
Am I lesbian?
How do lesbians have sex?
Can you love two people at the same time?
Am I bisexual?
Should I leave my husband?
What counts as cheating?
Lesbian porn
Lesbian porn for lesbians not men
I had an emotional affair
How to choose between two people?
Nando’s Deliveroo menu
How do lesbians have children?
How do sperm donors work?
Success rates of sperm donation
Success rates of IVF
How much does IVF cost?
I read loads about IVF, and how many rounds you have to finance privately if you’re a lesbian couple, before getting help on the NHS. I also started to truly understand what Charlotte had been going through the past two years. At 2am, I scrolled through video diaries of the egg retrieval process, shuddering at photographs of swollen bellies riddled with injection bruises and wondered how Charlotte had been able to keep up her almost toxic levels of positivity throughout three rounds of this. Whenever I’d asked her how it was going, she’d always crack into her manic grin, and told me she had a really good feeling about this upcoming round, or that the destination was worth the journey , and all her other typical Live Laugh Love soundbites. But I now realised just how devastating it must’ve been for her, just how expensive, and invasive, and disheartening, and holy fuck, I never realised how shit egg freezing was. The statistics were terrible! All through my twenties, all I’d ever heard was, ‘ Freeze your eggs! Everything will be OK if you freeze your eggs! If you get a job at Meta they let you freeze your eggs! You can wait until you ’ re 82 to have kids as long as you freeze your eggs. ’ It sounded almost like a luxury spa treatment. Something you could slip in between appointments for a laser regeneration on your sunspots and a back, neck, and shoulder massage. But actually, it seemed to be a hugely medical procedure, including general anaesthetic, and injections and hormone nightmares, and even then . . . only about a 30 per cent chance of it even turning into a baby? Plus, it cost ￡350 a year to keep the little critters frozen.
I snapped my laptop shut. ‘You don’t even know if you want children,’ I’d whispered to myself. ‘And there’s nothing worse than having them with the wrong person.’
I wasn’t totally alone. Phoebe practically suffocated me with messages every day.
Phoebe:
How are you? Thinking of you.
I’m so sorry. I know how hard this must be.
Here’s an article about internalised homophobia that I think you’ll find helpful
I love you.
I miss you at work.
I wish you’d call.
I know you want space but I’m going out of my mind here, . Sorry. It’s just . . . never mind.
One night, she was obviously drunk and she got nasty and threatening.
Phoebe:
Look, I get that you’re scared but aren’t you more scared of being bored fuckless your entire life?
Is it the sex stuff? We can take it slow.
Fuck u , not even replying. It’s not fair. Why do u get all the power? Fuck this. A woman is hitting on me so hard in this bar right now. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t go home with her.
I’m going home with her. Fuck you.
I didn’t. I couldn’t. Sorry. Please just hurry up and decide.
I’m going to leave the company if you back out on us. I can’t see you every day. It will hurt too much.
I ignored them all. I didn’t even write replies and then delete them. Each message from Phoebe would make everything so real that my brain would short-circuit and I’d just turn my phone off, wishing I could bury it in a sandpit.
In contrast, Matt only messaged every few days, checking I was OK, but mainly checking I was watering the houseplants, and asking if a package had arrived for him. The coolness froze the blood in my veins. Matt had always been the warmest man ever. I tortured myself with how it had felt when we’d first met. That bashful, scrawny, guy, scratching his ear in our kitchen, laughing at a joke I’d made about Jigglypuff looking like an angry ovary. The way he held eye contact the whole time after Steffi came down in those tacky tiny pjs – not realising she was too obvious and too late. It had only taken an hour for us to fall in love, for him to know I was The One, he’d told me. Over and over. Year after year. As we delighted at ourselves, and our happiness, and how much suffering we’d both dodged by being lucky enough to find one another so early. Where had that Matt gone? Had I lost him forever? After months of complaining about how boring and comfortable my life was with Matt, I’d disintegrated it in one evening. Undone it, maybe forever. And I didn’t find this unknowingness as exciting as I thought I would now it was a reality.
I would never have enough time to make this decision, but life hurried me up. Work emailed to check how I was doing, and to politely remind me that if I needed any further time off I’d require a doctor’s note. The email arrived on Friday, I’d be expected back in on Monday. 72 hours to decide the rest of my life and still no idea what decision to make. That night I had dinner pencilled in with the Little Women. I thought I’d cancel, but I realised I’d come no closer to certainty by being a mad hermit for a fortnight, so, I dragged myself into the shower, into a jumpsuit, and onto the tube – blinking into the lights of the South Bank as I steered my way to Wahaca. We’d always met there in our early twenties, thinking drinking margaritas by the Thames was the height of London sophistication and living our best Carrie Bradshaw fantasies. It took half a decade to realise we were surrounded by tourists, and there were probably literally a million unique places to eat in the capital, but it had become our place by then. We revelled in the tacky sameness, and how Lauren flat-out refused to ever share her bowl of guacamole.
‘I need a drink,’ I announced, when I arrived, taking my seat between Lauren and Charlotte. ‘Don’t ask,’ I added.
But only Steffi and I ordered the classic margarita. Charlotte was on her last round of IVF and didn’t want to have any sugar since that makes implantation more difficult. And Lauren . . . well . . . after Steffi said, ‘ Shit, you ’ re not pregnant, are you? ’ after Lauren ordered a mocktail, had shrugged, and said, ‘ Well, I was going to wait until after the drinks had arrived, cheers Steffi. But, yes, yes I am. ’ We’d all started screaming in shocked happiness. I was stunned. I didn’t even know Lauren had started trying. I couldn’t believe someone was going through an even bigger life change than me right now. While Steffi and I squealed, Charlotte seemed less shocked.
‘We got coffee yesterday and she told me,’ Charlotte explained, sipping from her sparking mineral water. Her smile was wide and real. Strained, but there. ‘I’ve almost exploded keeping it to myself.’
I squeezed her hand and rubbed it. Reached out and took Lauren’s too. They were the best of us – these two. Lauren carefully telling Charlotte privately, to give her the time she needed to digest it. Charlotte, genuinely happy for her friend, despite the pain the news no doubt caused.
‘Shit, Lauren, I’m so sorry,’ Steffi said, hand over her mouth. ‘I didn’t mean to ruin your big moment. It was just a thoughtless joke.’
I tried not to roll my eyes.
‘No, don’t worry. You weren’t to know,’ Lauren replied. ‘I was only going to tell you tonight that we’d started trying, but it’s happened really fast. Like, straight away . . . sorry Charlotte,’ she added awkwardly.
‘I’m so happy for you,’ she squeaked, leaning forward, her face a Cheshire Cat. ‘Honestly. No apology. My time will come soon.’
As the lights blinked on the water outside, and waves of tables arrived and left around us, we chatted until late, celebrating this seminal moment in our friendship group. One of us was pregnant. One of us was having a baby. That was so grown-up and huge. We’d all been playing at adults for years, me especially. Even on my own wedding day, I’d felt slightly like Matt and I were playing mums and dads in the playground. Like I was slipping around in a pair of grown-up heels I’d stolen from my mum’s cupboard, that my veil was fashioned by Andrex toilet tissue. When Lauren and Charlotte got married it was still hugely surreal, that these big adult days were our days now. These things we’d grown up wondering about were an actual occurrence. Marriage seemed so huge at the time, but now, downing another cocktail and licking the crunchy salt flakes off my lips, those wedding days felt nothing like Lauren’s news. She was pregnant. That meant she was going to become a parent. A mother! One of those tired-looking people sighing into a disposable coffee cup, pushing a kid on a playground swing as I jog past them at 6.30am. It was so grown-up. So unimaginably adult. And, as I tossed the lime liquid to the back of my gullet, I had my first clear thought in over two weeks.
‘ It should be me. ’
I should be the pregnant one. I should be the one who goes first. I’m the most mature. I’m the one who’s been with their partner the longest. I’m the one it’s expected from.
It was such a selfish and self-indulgent thought, and luckily nobody could hear it, but it had diamond clarity and was slicing me up as I leant in and listened to Lauren’s story.
‘ . . . Tristan basically passed out when he saw the test. I thought he’d be happy, but he went white and said he needed to go play tennis. I’ve been so sick since . . . sorry if I’ve been such a shit friend but, honestly, I’ve hardly been able to get out of bed . . . I can’t stop sleeping . . . I’m sick whenever I brush my teeth . . . got bruised ribs from all the retching . . . I’m due in October . . . still can’t believe it . . . excited now, obviously . . . I can’t wait for you all to become aunties.’
Lauren kept stroking her stomach without realising. Her eyes were dewy, her skin looked insanely good. She was quite clipped in her responses, out of respect for Charlotte, and kept trying to move the conversation on, but we wouldn’t let her – Charlotte especially. She was asking questions I’d never even thought to ask. ‘ What will the baby ’ s star sign be? You haven ’ t been taking standard folic acid, have you? You need to get the tablets that are made from ground-up food otherwise it doesn’t absorb properly. Are you going to do hypnobirthing? It ’ s supposed to be amazing. Are you going to have a doula? Let me get you one – my present . . . ’
Her manic determination to show how totally OK she was allowed me to sit back in my seat and let the crashing waves of realisation pull me into the tide. I wanted what Lauren had. I wanted a baby. I wanted a baby. I wanted a baby. I needed a baby. I needed a baby now. Yesterday. I needed to become a mother. To know what it feels like to have life grow inside me. To birth it, and raise it, and probably fuck it up but try really hard not to. To teach it how to ride a bike, to get a splodgy painting of a shit daffodil on Mother’s Day, to zip it up into one of those squidgy snowsuits when it’s cold with only their red chubby cheeks peeking out. I wanted this traditional, boring, obvious, clichéd path. Desperately. Hurriedly. Now. And, I realised, crumbling a tortilla chip to dust over my side plate, I want to have a baby in a traditional, boring, obvious, and clichéd way.
With a man.
With Matt.
Who I knew would be an incredible dad, which had always been one of the reasons I loved him. I always found it weird when women fancied men who were so obviously going to be shit dads. Steffi seemed to find them attractive, but I guess she has that freedom as she never wants kids herself.
By the time the bill was paid, I’d squashed my feelings for Phoebe like the tortilla chip I’d crumbled to dust earlier. Matt was no longer boring and predictable – he was safe – the best thing you want in a co-parent. Our ‘dull’ life was actually just a sign from the universe it was time for this next step. Phoebe tried to ruin something so important – tried to twist what it was into something that served her – and I was angry. I closed the gates, I pulled back my shoulders, I got my fucking shit together.
What the hell was I doing? I wasn’t a lesbian ! How ridiculous was that?
I walked miles home, through the dark, letting my love for Phoebe alchemise into rage. How dare she kiss me? How dare she try and use our friendship to get close to me and then make a move. Matt was right. If a woman had done that to him, we’d have thought she was a home-wrecking whore. Does Phoebe really get a free pass because she’s gay? It was underhand. It was deceitful. She took advantage of me. Of my innocence. Of my vulnerability – using our friendship and trying to use it to get me to fucking have sex with her. I didn’t even think of her in that way until she’d kissed me. And she made a move when I was drunk! Again, if she wasn’t a lesbian . . . And, not only was I the complete victim of this situation, so was poor Matt. We were both victims of this . . . predator . . . yes, that’s what Phoebe was . . . a predator.
I rummaged for my phone in my coat pocket as I marched along the Thames, anger keeping my toes warm in my slightly holey boots. She picked up on the third ring.
‘Oh my God, she finally answers my calls.’
‘Fuck you,’ I shouted with the conviction of a woman who’d drunk four margaritas.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Fuck you. How dare you? How dare you try and fuck up my life. How dare you try and stop me having a baby.’ I could hear a heavy bass in the background. She was out again. Drinking too much. Probably preying on someone.
‘A baby? What? ? Are you drunk? Are you OK? Are you alone? You’re not walking home alone, are you? It’s gone midnight. Where are you?’
‘Shut up. I’m not telling you where I am so you can come and pretend you care when really you’re trying to sabotage my life.’
‘ What? ’
‘I want a baby and I can’t have one with you!’ My shouts bounced out over the dark water of the Thames.
She sighed. ‘I can’t hear you properly over the music. Hang on, let me step out.’
But I wouldn’t let her have a second to get her story straight. As I staggered along the river, swerving in all sorts of directions, vaguely aware I should probably give up and order an Uber soon, I let Phoebe know all the conclusions I’d come to. How she’d tricked me. Used me. Deceived me. When the music died in the background, so had the care in her voice.
‘. . . and, yeah, so, I just want you to leave me alone, Phoebe. Get out of my life. I love Matt. We’re going to start a family.’
‘OK.’
‘Is that all you’re going to say?’
‘OK. I’ll leave you alone, like you’ve asked.’ Her voice was crisper than the night air seeping through my Zara coat.
‘Well . . . er . . . good.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Umm. Yes.’
‘Thanks . I appreciate the call. I wish you every happiness in your totally beige life filled with utter self-denial.’
She hung up and left me in a rare silence of the capital city, staring at my phone. A grief started tickling the back of my throat. An urge to cry. I was shaking, but only because of the cold, I told myself. I fell to a nearby bench and shivered as I replayed every memory of Phoebe that I had. The lunches, the laughter, the late nights, the thrill, the sweet taste of her mouth, and I let one tear fall down my frozen cheek. ‘Stop it, ,’ I whispered, and instead I pictured Matt’s hand in mine on a maternity ward. His face bleary with tears as he held our baby before leaning over and kissing my forehead. ‘Yes,’ I said, into the dark. I stood up and swallowed the feeling that part of me was dying, an important part. In the following months, before Phoebe took a giant promotion at a mainstream kooky jewellery company, we only traded formalities. I didn’t even go to her leaving do. I had dinner with the Little Women and their partners instead. I cooked them a strange meal of the only things Lauren could stand eating during her pregnancy. It was part of Matt and I’s plan to return to ourselves – surround ourselves with people who support our way of life, our path. People who think it’s lovely, not weird, that we’ve been together for a decade.
Steffi was replaced as the albatross in Matt and mine’s marriage. We were now victims of Phoebe. Just as well we never had to see her again. It was all a strange blip. But we told ourselves it was a necessary blip because it made it clear to us how much we loved each other, how much we wanted to move forward as a couple. Start a family. Go to the next step. Phoebe’s interference actually moved us forward and our happiness was our revenge on her.
When we had our first scan, and our baby’s heartbeat echoed through the darkened hospital room, I wept at what we’d created. At how worth it everything was. Afterwards, I stared at the pixilated scan several times an hour, tracing the blob that was our baby with my finger, clutching it to my chest, and felt sheer relief and gratitude.
My baby.
I’d made the right decision.
I’d made the best decision.
And I still feel that way. I do. At this ridiculous baby shower, with everyone I love around me, and a mounting pile of tiny clothes to my side that will soon have a warm and wriggling creature in it, it feels so right.
But, as my eyes are dragged back towards Phoebe’s, something else feels right too. So utterly, wonderfully, complicatedly, right. My eyes moisten, and I pretend it’s at the sheer joy of receiving an ugly plastic teething necklace. The delusion I’ve cloaked myself in drops away to the ground, and the extent of my sacrifice pummels into my chest.
Phoebe tilts her head at me, knowing. She knows the tears aren’t for the atrocious necklace.
They’re for her. For us. For the life – and love – I had to throw away to get here. Not just throw away – torch to the ground and act so atrociously she could never forgive me and try and tempt me again.
But Phoebe’s here, despite my horrific behaviour, she’s here. Does that mean she has forgiven me?
Or is she here to mess with me? As one final act of revenge?