Chapter 17
Helena returned to her room, brow tight, tears hot in her eyes. She could taste alcohol on her breath, feel a soreness between her legs.
She pulled her backpack onto the narrow bed and yanked at the zipped side pocket. She began pulling out items: a headlamp, a small wash bag, spare socks.
Outside in the corridor, she could hear footsteps, then the fumble of the lock.
She tried a second pocket, stuffing a hand deep into the tightly packed contents. After rummaging for a moment, she pulled out what she was looking for.
Maggie opened the door, hair loose, her smile making her eyes glitter.
“There you are!” Then Maggie’s brow crumpled with concern as she took in Helena’s expression.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Her gaze lowered toward the item Helena was gripping in her hand.
She stepped closer. “Is that . . . a pregnancy test?”
“Yes.”
Maggie blinked. “For you?”
“I need to do this right now. I need you to be there. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay . . . ,” Maggie said slowly, carefully.
Helena’s hands were shaking so hard that she fumbled with the box, dropping it. “Damn!”
“Here,” Maggie said, coming forward and gently taking it from her.
She looked so lovely in her lemon-yellow dress, eyes bright, hair loose. Next to her, Helena felt soiled, the smell of Austin still on her skin.
Maggie carefully removed the test from the box, then flattened out the instructions on the bed. She read for a moment, then removed the cap from the pregnancy test and said, “Wee on this part.”
Helena took the stick, heart thundering, and walked into the en suite like a condemned woman. She peed with the door ajar, feeling a hot stream of urine splashing over her fingers. When she was finished, she placed the test on the cistern and washed and dried her hands.
“I’m timing three minutes,” Maggie said, setting the timer on her phone.
Helena could feel the pulse of blood in her ears. Three minutes. She rubbed her collarbone. Water. She needed a glass of water.
No bloody glass in this toilet. She went to her backpack and rooted around for her water bottle, hands shaking. She took a long gulp, liquid dribbling over her chin.
Maggie watched her. “I’ve got questions.”
“Too bad.” Helena began to pace. Their room was small, furnished simply with two single beds and a wooden desk.
Looking at her phone, Maggie said, “We have two minutes and thirty-four seconds to fill. I get to ask any questions I want until the time is up.”
Helena eyed her suspiciously. “And then we never talk about this again?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want.”
“Okay then,” Maggie said. “First question: how late are you?”
Helena began pacing again. “Eight days.”
“Eight?” Maggie repeated loudly.
Helena’s cycles were like clockwork. Twenty-nine days. Ovulate on day fifteen. Irritated as hell on days twenty-seven to twenty-nine. Then bleed. She was never late.
Helena paced from the window to the door. Six steps. Turn. Repeat.
“Why do you think you could be pregnant? Was there a problem with the contraception?”
“Yes, there was a problem.” She looked at Maggie, chin lifted. “I stopped using it.”
Maggie’s jaw dropped. An actual, physical dropping, like it fell off its hinge. “But you . . . you always use contraception.”
“Contraception queen. Yes, yes, I know.” Helena had been on the pill since she was sixteen—and she used condoms. She’d never wanted children, so why be slapdash when it came to contraception?
Maggie was still staring at her, large hazel eyes shining in confusion. “Why have you stopped using it?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? The one that Helena had been avoiding thinking about. “Time?” she barked.
Maggie checked her phone. “One minute forty to go.”
She stopped pacing and slumped on the end of the bed, the contents of her backpack bouncing beneath her weight.
“I . . . I don’t know . . .” She couldn’t put it into words.
Or at least none that made sense to her.
“Something’s changed, Mags, and I don’t know how to explain it—to you, to me, to anyone. ”
“Is this about Robert?”
Oh, Robert. Her Robert. Her handsome, funny, kind ex-boyfriend.
Robert Louth. Helena had spent most of her twenties single—and happy about it.
Until Robert. He shook up her world in all the right ways because suddenly here was a man she was completely mad about—and who felt the same about her.
Neither of them wanted children and she’d allowed herself to believe she would spend her life with him.
That’s why, two years ago, when they’d been sitting in bed on a Sunday morning, drinking coffee, surrounded by the papers and buttery flakes of croissants, Robert had set down his mug and said, “There’s something I need to say,” and Helena had put down her coffee and thought: This is it. He’s going to propose.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Robert had told her. “I do want a family.”
If he’d told her he’d cheated on her, it would’ve been less of a blow. That was something they could work through. Get over. But having children—well, that was a do or don’t.
And she was definitely don’t.
The breakup was excruciating. They were still in love and wanted each other. They just no longer wanted the same future. Helena had thrown herself into work, into socializing, and into the beds of other men.
Then, a year ago, she had answered the call she’d been dreading. Robert had met someone. They were engaged. His fiancée was pregnant. “I wanted to be the one to tell you. I’m sorry. I know this is hard.”
Maggie lowered herself onto the bed beside Helena and took her hand.
Helena said, “I saw a photo of Robert with his daughter. She was so perfect. She has his nose. His coloring. That funny little widow’s peak. And God, it was like glimpsing what our child could have looked like.”
Maggie squeezed her fingers hard.
“I always knew he’d be an incredible father—and I’ve no doubt he is—just not to our child.
” She removed her hand from Maggie’s and moved to the window.
She pulled the curtains open onto the black of night.
In the reflection, she could see Maggie’s concerned expression.
She opened the window, letting in a cool blast of mountain air.
“The timing with Robert’s baby . . . ,” Maggie began. “It was all so close to losing your mum . . .”
Helena nodded. Her mother had died ten months ago and the loss had almost destroyed her.
You don’t know how much you love someone until you realize you’re never going to see them again.
That you must live in a world where they no longer are.
The finality of it, the utter endlessness of grief—it was overwhelming.
She couldn’t fix it. Or change it. Or bargain with it.
Or control it. It just happened and she was powerless.
Grief was so brutal that she didn’t know if she’d survive.
Some days she’d find herself walking the streets of Bristol looking around, thinking: How many of you have lost someone you’ve loved? How are you still standing?
She said to Maggie, “When Mum died, all I could do was hold her hand. That’s what life gets reduced to in those final moments—the person you choose to hold hands with.
I couldn’t do anything to keep Mum alive.
I couldn’t take away her pain. But I could hold her hand.
I could do that. I’m her daughter, Maggie, and I was with her, holding her hand as she left.
” She sucked in a breath. “When I die, I want someone to hold my hand.”
In the reflection, she saw Maggie was biting down on her lip. If she cried, it was game over. Helena would crack right open and God knew what would spill out. “Time?” she barked, pushing to her feet, hands on her hips.
Maggie jumped. Looked at her phone. “Fifty-eight seconds.”
Her stomach lurched. She glanced toward the open bathroom. Her future was written on a stick. She was sweating. Damp patches had formed under her arms. She crossed the room, resuming her pacing.
“Maybe this isn’t anything to do with Robert or losing Mum,” Helena said. “Maybe my biological clock struck midnight and sent some ridiculous hormone message to my brain that said, Go forth and procreate!”
She pushed her hands into the roots of her hair. “What a mess. I’m a mess. This,” she said, pointing into the bathroom, “this is a mess!”
“Forty-five seconds,” Maggie offered.
Her stomach churned. She wiped her palms down her thighs.
Maggie asked: “Who did you sleep with?”
“Who didn’t I sleep with? I’ve been steadily working my way through the suited half of Bristol.
” She’d been accepting booty calls from guys on dating apps and sleeping with people she met in bars.
Every week there was someone. She’d been through promiscuous patches in the past and had sat in the therapist’s chair enough times to know it was wrapped around self-worth issues and needing to be wanted, loved.
God, it was all so pathetic and predictable.
“I just shagged that guy Austin in the lodge toilets, as it gave me thirty seconds of respite from my own thoughts. Healthy pattern, right?”
“Oh, darl—”
“Time?”
Maggie glanced at her watch. “Twenty seconds.”
A hot wave of fear tore through her. “I can’t look at it. You tell me.”
“Okay.”
As Maggie walked into the bathroom, she hesitated, turning back to Helena. “What do you want the test to show? That you’re pregnant—or not pregnant?”
“I . . . I . . .” She stopped pacing.
She thought about her mother’s hand, cool and still in her own as the breath left her body for a final time.
She thought about Robert, with a baby strapped to his chest, his eyes bright with joy and pride.
She thought about her sparkling flat, the walls kept bare except for expensive light fittings and art, while her friends’ homes were covered with photos and crumpled paintings by their children. Did she want that?
But she barely liked children. Except for Phoebe.
Helena couldn’t have a baby. She was too selfish.
She was too busy at work. She’d resent taking a step back in her job.
She didn’t even have a partner, for God’s sake!
Her apartment was completely impractical for raising a child.
And wine—she loved wine! She’d be no good at motherhood.
She had never wanted children. She’d always been clear about that.
Everyone knew. It was part of who she was. How she saw herself.
Maggie’s gaze lowered to the pregnancy test.
Helena’s insides bunched tight. Her skin felt painfully hot. Her future hinged on this moment. She swallowed. “Tell me.”