Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
ISABELLE
Boxes filled the doorway of my flat. It wasn’t large, a one-bedroom with an open-plan lounge, kitchen, and study area. But it was mine, and I was losing it.
I dropped the next box on top of the pile, it landed heavily – the books and manuscripts inside making it heavier than I intended – the box beneath crumpled slightly under the weight.
“Take your anger out on this.” Sophie reached around me, sliding a small glass into my hand. Condensation dampened the outside where I held it, the tumbler cold from the ice.
Sipping the vodka, I turned, leaning back against the offending packing boxes. “I’m totally screwed, Soph.”
Sophie clinked her glass to mine and threw back her drink. She wasn’t a huge fan of vodka, so when she did drink it, she did it as if she were drinking to forget.
“It’s not ideal,” she sighed.
“Thanks, helpful.” My frustration lay heavy over the room, stifling the atmosphere, but Sophie didn’t notice. She was a pragmatist, my bubbling anger not impacting or regulating her words. “Anything helpful to add, maybe some vague positive upside?”
Sophie shook her head. “Iz, you want to know what I think. I’ve told you before, but I’ll repeat myself. For you.”
Nodding, I could predict each word before she started.
“Your best bet is to give him what he wants quickly.” My mouth moved with her next question. “Twins don’t run in the family, do they?”
“Surprisingly, since you last asked, the answer remains no.”
“Then my view, surprisingly, is to punch out a couple of kids as fast as you can. You have absolutely no alternative. The wedding is set.” I nodded. “It has been for how long?”
I grimaced. “Fifteen years.”
“Jesus, Izzy. I still can’t get over how long you’ve dodged this bullet.” I might not actively worship anymore, but the curse still made me scrunch up my face in objection.
“Just lucky, I guess.” My sarcasm went unnoticed.
“That’s the spirit,” Sophie continued. She was an expert in delivering unwanted opinions. “Two kids. Five years if you manage them one after the other. Wed in a month, nine months for baby one, nine for baby two, four years maternity.”
“That’s over five years,” I groaned. I knew that was the best timeline. The maths wasn’t hard.
“Five years, seven months then. After which you can get back to what you want to do with your life. He’s richer than God, and with your inheritance, you can afford to follow whatever dreams you choose to have.”
“You imply that when he unlocks my inheritance he will leave it to me to use as I see fit, not absorb it into his estate?”
Sophie grumbled in response, and I didn’t push her. I was taking a full dose of brutal reality as it was.
“I don’t think I can do it, Soph.”
Sympathy shone in her eyes. She was a pragmatist, but she wasn’t cruel.
I fidgeted with my glass, running my fingers through the cool droplets on the surface.
“I don’t have a choice.”
Sophie shook her head sadly. “Iz, as soon as you’re married, he’s not only your guardian, but he has access…” She looked up and down my body. “It’s his right, as your husband.”
My stomach lurched, the vodka churning, threatening to come back up.
“I’m not being cruel. Two babies, that’s the expectation. The sooner you deliver, the sooner you can withdraw, or try to. His leverage weakens if you’ve met the reproductive quota, Iz.”
I nodded more. Of course I knew, I studied this. I knew the protocols and policies better than anyone else.
Two babies. That was the expectation. Legally he controlled everything, movement, finances, freedoms, my body.
Refusal to meet the reproductive quota was seen as a malfunction.
To start with, it was called a transition or adjustment disorder, nerves, they said, anxiety.
Before long, the perspective shifted, terminology moving from delay or anxiety to Autonomy Adjustment Syndrome or Fertility Avoidance Response.
These weren’t concepts; they were medically diagnosed states for women who didn’t immediately fall pregnant.
The gentler categories were for women who conceded bodily autonomy to their husbands, but those who resisted that, well, they were classified as non-adaptive, and then autonomy was moved from limited to culled.
Counselling became cognitive reframing sessions, compliance-focused, many being church-led forms of conversion therapy built on shame and hatred.
Take it far enough and things got even worse.
The husband’s authority moved to carer-led oversight.
Nurses moved into the home to control every movement, challenge every thought.
Doctors’ appointments were scheduled several times a week, and fertility drugs were administered to enhance their desire for motherhood, even sedatives to diminish mental resistance to the concept.
All in the name of ‘grounding’ the female population.
Sophie knew this, but she wouldn’t name it. She offered the alternative, the only one, really. Two babies.
“There’s something wrong with me, Soph.”
“Is there hell as like!”
“I never wanted this. Marriage has always been a non-concept to me. When the marriage was arranged, I didn’t question it. It’s the done thing. But as time has moved on, I just don’t want it. I definitely don’t need it. I am happy.”
“I know, Iz.” Sophie topped up my glass again as I gulped at the vodka. I would have a splitting headache by the time the movers arrived tomorrow, but it would distract me for a little while.
“But children. I always knew I didn’t want them. I love my nieces and nephews. I don’t hate children, Soph.”
“Izzy, of course you don’t hate children. I’ve seen you with kids. But you don’t have to hate them to not want them.”
“I don’t,” I mumbled. “I don’t.”
“There aren’t any alternatives, Iz. No-one would believe you were interested in women. With the engagement lasting so long, you’d have come out ages ago.”
Sophie and her wife had been married for over a decade. To meet the reproductive quota, they couldn’t naturally conceive within their marriage without intervention of the male kind. Therefore, beautiful, happy couples such as hers were permitted to adopt, and adopt she did.
At thirty-three, she had a teenage daughter and son, both pushing eighteen. She had completed her mandated maternity period of four years from registration, when she adopted them in her mid-twenties, and was now working almost full time in education.
I knew she was implying that I didn’t have to have children, but given that I could – female fertility was tested annually at a minimum for those without children – adoption in my marriage wouldn’t be an option.
And avoiding the engagement was also not an option.
Their lives and their futures weren’t similar, and Sophie was acutely aware of that. In her own way, she was trying to calm me in my reality, not offer me fake alternatives.
My future looked like a manor as a prison house, a powerful husband, a forced marriage, and several forced children.
In the best-case scenario, Teddy allowed me to work in education or policy support once both children were in school.
Worst-case scenario, he refused, and I would live the life of a politician’s wife, chained to the house, the children. Suffocated.
Sophie lived a different existence. Without a patriarch in her marriage, she had been assigned government guardians.
Sophie’s guardian was a man named Eric. Eric and his husband, Luke, were wonderful, kind people, and because of that Sophie lived almost entirely free of restriction under his guardianship.
He signed off on her job. She travelled endlessly.
He didn’t meddle in a single choice, path or opportunity she encountered.
While living within the policies and regulations set out, Sophie lived in a form of open prison. Yes, she was restricted. Given a chance, she would have done it differently, but she loved her kids, she loved her wife, and she had choices.
I had none.
And it wasn’t her fault.
Lifting another box and moving it to the stack by the entrance, my head throbbed with the effort. I hadn’t invited Sophie round to depress her.
“How are the twins?” I pivoted.
Sophie smiled. “Amazing, they loved their birthday gifts. Thank you.”
“I know. They both texted.”
“They’re both going into further education in autumn, not really a surprise.” Sophie was beaming now. “Eric has signed off on each of their options. Suzie wants to go and study in Scotland, and Troy wants to stay closer.”
“That’ll be nice for you, but Scotland, it will suit Suze down to the ground.”
“Won’t it, though?” Sophie’s daughter liked the city but thrived in the country. Scotland had enough of both, with less expectation being impressed upon her constantly. It would be a good few years of freedom for her.
“I mean, it could be an option for you?” Sophie frowned at me.
“Scotland? Teddy won’t move to Scotland.”
“Who the hell was talking about Teddy?” My shoulders were grabbed, and I found myself not resisting as I was deposited onto the sofa.
“Okay, then Teddy won’t let me disappear off to Scotland?”
“Again, did I mention Teddy?”
There was the scrape of wood on wood as Sophie shoved the footstool directly in front of me, sitting down and bringing herself eye to eye.
“Soph, what are you talking about?”
“You, in Scotland, no Teddy. That’s what,” she repeated herself, eyes widening with some undisclosed meaning.
“Is there some sort of political overhaul happening that I’m not aware of? Or am I becoming a nun? Mind you…” I trailed off, perhaps taking up the cloth was an option. My now-complete lack of faith aside, I could lie to a Mother Superior as well as I could lie to Teddy.
“No, you aren’t becoming a nun,” Sophie scoffed at me. “I’ve heard some stuff, Izzy.”
“We’re entering conspiracy theory territory, aren’t we?” I picked up the mostly empty bottle of vodka from the coffee table, shaking it; we had inflicted some serious damage.
“Shut up. It’s on the dark web.”
“Oh, yes, of course. The home of all great ideas – the dark web,” I continued, waving the vodka bottle with a flourish. “Do go on.”
Sophie scowled at me. “There’s a service, it’s like a paid guardian thing. Think fake documents, IDs, but also a husband service, marriage certificates, fake wedding photos, even phone calls or husband attendance on request.”
I could feel the horror creeping over my face as a scowl turned into utter disbelief.
“Liz knows this woman. She got into trouble, big trouble. She didn’t comply,” she whispered as if we could be overheard.
I inhaled sharply. She either didn’t marry or wouldn’t give him a child.
“She disappeared, but not in a shallow-grave type of way. She used this service, and she went into hiding. They produced her identity documents, and they moved her across the country. She reappeared somewhere else, with all the evidence of a husband, but one who was conveniently absent.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a shallow-grave type of way, Soph?” I gripped her hand, discarding the cold alcohol. “These things don’t exist.”
Sophie glared at me.
“She’s heard from her, Izzy. It isn’t a rumour.”
“Holy fuck.” My mind raced, the alcohol not helping with clarity.
Could I? No. Of course I couldn’t. Even if it did exist, my face was well known. My father’s political position made sure of that. And Teddy? He was famous in his own right.
Daughter of a Secretary of State and daughter-in-law to the leader of a political party. I couldn’t simply disappear.
“Soph, even if it existed? I couldn’t, it wouldn’t work.” I shook my head, Sophie giving me another moment to think it over.
“I don’t have time for dreams. I need to accept it. You’re right, you know?” I felt sick saying it. “Five years and seven months, that’s it. And I’m sure I will love being a parent, for the kids, you know?”
“I know?” Sophie smiled sadly, nodding. She uncapped the bottle, taking a swig, and handing it to me. I finished it with a few gulps.
“Yeah, of course,” she muttered, hand gripping my leg. “You got this.”
She stood. “I’ve got to go.” Her hand clapped my shoulder and squeezed, tightly.
“You’ll come to the cabin next weekend, please, Soph, please don’t leave me alone with them.” My words weren’t exactly well enunciated, but Sophie found the urgency clearly and an evil smile crossed her lips.
“Miss an opportunity to offend your banshee of a sister with my very existence? You couldn’t keep me away.”
Landing a loud kiss on my cheek, she grabbed her things and opened the door.