Not My Daughter

That evening, I weave through the tables in Harveys Cellars, the underground wine bar in Bristol’s old city that Milly and I have always used as our regular. I find her in the back, legs wound around a high stool, sipping a large glass of red wine. Her expression is closed and shadowed, her wild, dark hair tamed into a neat ponytail. When she looks up at me, I see a terrible depth of grief in her eyes, and wordlessly I pull her into a quick hug.

She returns it tightly, burrowing into me for a second, before she pulls away, dabbing at her eyes. ‘I don’t want to fall apart completely,’ she explains in a shaky voice, and I ache for her.

‘What are you drinking?’ I ask.

She shrugs. ‘The house red, whatever it is. I wasn’t too bothered.’

Matt’s the foodie of the two of them, insisting on pairing a proper wine with whatever meal they’re having. I’ve eaten enough happy suppers at their kitchen table to know how he likes to talk about bouquets and hidden notes and all the rest of it. ‘All right,’ I say, trying to pitch my tone somewhere between cheerful and sympathetic. ‘I’ll get one, and a refill for you.’

Milly shakes her head. ‘No, I’m driving. I can’t get drunk, as much as I want to.’

When I return to the table with a glass of wine, Milly has nearly finished hers, and she sits with her chin in her hands, her expression resigned yet determined. She almost looks angry.

‘So the news wasn’t good?’ I knew she’d gone in for a discussion about the scan she’d had a week ago, along with a battery of other tests. Milly had been buoyant, determined to get some answers and finally be able to deal with the situation, but I’d felt more cautious. I always do. Milly can get carried away on a tide of resolute optimism, while I tend to hang back. Wait. Observe. I think that’s why we’ve worked as friends; we balance each other out.

‘No, it was just about the worst news I could get.’ She glugs the last of her wine and then looks up, her face bleak. ‘I can’t get pregnant, Anna. There isn’t even the smallest chance.’

‘What?’ In shock, I listen as Milly tells me all the details – even I, in my cautious, over-worrying way, hadn’t thought it would be as bad as that. ‘Milly, I’m so, so sorry.’

‘I feel selfish, being so sad about this,’ she says as she rotates her wine glass between her palms, her gaze lowered. ‘I mean, this is a first-world problem, you know? So I can’t get pregnant; there are other solutions, and having a baby isn’t everything. I know that. I do.’

‘But it’s still your problem. Your grief.’

‘Yes.’ She presses her lips together. ‘It’s just… it’s so hard to let go of that dream, you know? A baby that’s like me and Matt. Someone who is actually related to me. It’s never going to happen now.’ She sighs, a shuddering sound. ‘But I’ll get over it. I have to.’

She straightens her shoulders, determined, as always, to be brave. I reach over and squeeze her hand, and she gives me a quick, trembling smile.

‘So what are you going to do?’ I ask after a few minutes of heavy silence. ‘Have you thought ahead yet?’ Milly is a determined planner, marching towards some shining destination or other – a promotion, a bigger house, an exotic holiday, a marathon. Whatever it is, she has always gone after it with resolute optimism, taking Matt along with her, and often me. When I would have just wavered or wobbled or simply stood still, Milly has pulled me along. I don’t think I would have survived secondary school without her. I almost didn’t.

‘I don’t know. Dr Finlay mentioned some options, but I can barely get my head around them.’

‘Adoption?’ I suggest, and her expression tenses a little.

‘I don’t want to adopt.’ For someone who is adopted herself, she sounds surprisingly firm. She holds up one hand as if to forestall any protests I might make, although I wouldn’t. ‘Look, I’m very glad I was adopted, of course I am, and my parents are wonderful. I love them to pieces. But it still has its complications, you know?’

‘Yes, it must,’ I say after a moment. Milly’s adoption has not been something we’ve discussed very much in our two and a half decades of friendship. She told me quite matter-of-factly that she was adopted that first day of year seven, and that seemed to have been both the beginning and end of the subject, a fact that had to be got out of the way before we could move on to other, better things.

‘It’s just…’ Milly blows out a breath. ‘Mum and Dad never wanted me to look up my birth mother, and so I never did.’

‘Did you want to?’

‘Yes, when I was a teenager, I became curious, but I could see that it would devastate them.’ She purses her lips. ‘And it’s not just about that. It’s always been such a thing. I can’t explain it exactly, but I’ve always felt this… this weight. The fact of my adoption always has to be trotted out at various events, in schools, with friends. “These are my parents but I’m adopted.” It’s the hashtag to my life.’

‘I didn’t realise.’ I’m surprised Milly has never told me this before; she has always acted as if her adoption didn’t matter, and I genuinely believed it didn’t. I love Milly’s parents. They practically became my own in my turbulent teenager years, when my parents were constantly battling each other and then me. They’re low-key and loving, warm without being effusive. Her mum sends me a birthday card every year, and always hugs me when she sees me, a real hug, the kind where you know the person means it. The kind I never got from my own parents.

‘I don’t talk about it that much because I feel guilty for feeling that way, even just a little. And it is only a little, really.’ Milly lets out a sigh. ‘My parents have never been anything but completely loving and generous to me, and I know that if I did adopt…’ She pauses, her forehead furrowing, her voice catching. ‘It’s just, I really wanted to feel that connection. My child kicking inside me… knowing they were and always will be a part of me.’ She swipes at her eyes, the gesture impatient. ‘If we adopt, I’ll never have that. I won’t have it anyway. I can’t now.’ Her voice breaks and she covers her face with her hands. ‘Sorry,’ she gulps between her fingers. ‘I really didn’t want to fall apart. I’m trying not to. It just keeps hitting me, over and over, a shock every time.’

‘You don’t have to be strong all the time,’ I tell her gently, and Milly does not reply. I reach over and touch her arm. I want to make this better for her; I want to solve it, the way Milly does so often with me. How many times has she brainstormed with me, found solutions? You want to meet more people? Let’s join the gym. You don’t like your boss? Let’s look into changing jobs. The gym worked out, the job change didn’t, but Milly is always about answers. Without her, I’d just stay in stasis. ‘There must be some way forward,’ I tell her, injecting a Milly-like note of determined optimism into my voice. ‘Some kind of IVF… there are so many fertility treatments these days…’

Milly shrugs, dropping her hands from her face. ‘Dr Finlay mentioned the possibility of IVF with an egg donor, but that seems a bit weird, you know? I just place my order for an egg, from someone I’ll never even know? Beside

s, the waiting list is something like two years minimum, and it’s incredibly expensive if you do it privately.’

I try to dredge up everything I know about egg donation, which is very little. ‘Still, you’d get to carry your own child.’

‘Someone else’s child,’ Milly interjects, and I shake my head.

‘It would feel like yours. You’d be the one growing a baby, giving birth. Really, donating an egg? It’s practically like giving blood.’