The Girl Before

“Why would she do that, if she really wanted to be with Edward?”

“Because Edward had rejected her.” I feel a surge of satisfaction—not just because I think I’ve finally worked out what was behind Emma’s bizarre accusations about Edward, but because I sense I’m catching up with her, hot on her heels, her twists and changes of direction. “It’s the only answer that makes sense. Simon was all Emma had left. So of course she told him it was her who’d broken up with Edward, when actually it was the other way around. Can I use your loo?”

Carol looks surprised, but directs me to a toilet.

“There’s another reason I’m here today,” I say when I return. “The most important one. I’m pregnant. It’s Edward’s.”

She stares at me, clearly shocked.

“And there’s a chance—a very small chance, admittedly—it may have Down syndrome,” I add. “I’m waiting for the results of a test.”

She recovers quickly. “And how do you feel about that, Jane?”

“Confused,” I admit. “On the one hand, pleased to be pregnant. But on the other hand, terrified. And on yet another hand, not sure when and what I should be telling Edward.”

“Well, let’s start by unpicking those. Are you only pleased to be pregnant? Or has it renewed your grief for Isabel?”

“Both. Having another child feels so…final. As if I’m leaving her behind, somehow.”

“You’re worried the new baby will replace her in your thoughts,” she says gently. “And since your thoughts are the only place where Isabel now lives, you feel as if you’re killing her all over again.”

I stare at her. “Yes. That’s it exactly.” Carol Younson, I realize, is a very good therapist indeed.

“Last time we met, we talked about repetition compulsion—the way some people get stuck in the past, acting out the same psychodrama again and again. But we’re also given opportunities to break out of those cycles, and move on.” Carol smiles. “People like to talk about clean slates. But the only truly clean slate is a new one. The rest are gray from whatever’s been written on them before. Perhaps this will be your chance for a brand-new slate, Jane.”

“I’m worried I won’t love this one as much,” I confess.

“That’s understandable. The dead can seem impossibly perfect to us—an ideal that no real person can ever live up to. Moving on from that isn’t easy. But it can be done.”

I consider her words. They don’t apply just to me, I realize, but to Edward. Elizabeth was Edward’s Isabel: the perfect, lost forerunner from whom he can never break free.

Carol and I talk for another hour—about the pregnancy, about Down syndrome, about the terrible, painful subject of abortion. And by the end of it I’m clear in my own mind what I’m going to do.

If the test does turn out to be positive, I’m going to have an abortion. It isn’t an easy or a straightforward decision, and I’ll bear the guilt of it for the rest of my life, but there it is.

And if I do, I won’t tell Edward. He’ll never even know I was pregnant. Some people might consider that moral cowardice. I just can’t see the point of telling him there was a baby if there isn’t, anymore.

If the test is negative, though, and the baby’s all right—which, as both Dr. Gifford and Carol have been at pains to point out, is still by far the most likely outcome—I’ll go down to Cornwall immediately and tell Edward in person he’s going to be a father.

I’m just saying goodbye to Carol when my cellphone rings.

“Is that Jane Cavendish?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“It’s Karen Powers from the Fetal Testing Center.”

I manage to reply, but my head’s already swimming.

“I have the results of your cfDNA test here,” she continues. “Is now a good time to discuss them?”

I’d been standing up, but now I sit down again. “Yes. Please. Go ahead.”

“Can you give me the first line of your address?”

Impatiently I go through the confidentiality preliminaries. Carol has by now realized who’s calling and is also sitting down.

“I’m very pleased to tell you…” Karen Powers begins and my heart soars. Good news. It’s good news.

I start crying again and she has to repeat the results. They’re negative. While only amniocentesis is a diagnostic guarantee, cfDNA is considerably more than 99 percent accurate. There’s no reason to think my baby will be anything other than healthy. I’m back on track. Now I just have to break the news to Edward.

THEN: EMMA