‘I don’t want to. I told you that.’
‘Yes, but why not? Your family is great, Milly—’
‘I know they are.’ I sound irritable, but I can’t help it. I’ve already had this conversation with Anna, and I don’t want to have it again, even though that’s not fair to Matt. I know how great my family is, and that is not the point here. ‘Look, I know it might seem like an obvious choice, but it just isn’t for me.’ I take a deep breath and then blow it out. ‘I’m the one who knows what it’s like to be adopted, okay? And I don’t want that for my child.’
‘But why?’ He looks bewildered, as well as a little disappointed in me, as if I’ve said something unkind. Perhaps I have. ‘You had an idyllic childhood, and your parents adore you…’ Unlike his, who are generally indifferent and wrapped up in their own lives. Genetics don’t count for much there. I know that, and yet… I still want my own child. I want to rest my hand on my swelling bump. I want to give birth. I want to hold my baby in my arms and know it came from my body, if not my blood.
‘I never said they didn’t adore me. That’s not the point.’
‘Then help me understand what is.’
I fold my arms, tap my foot. I feel edgy now, as if my skin is prickling all over. This is how I always feel when I talk about being adopted. Over the years, I’ve learned to mask it – cue the breezy smile, the brisk brush-over. I’m adopted, but my family is great. I’m adopted, but my parents are wonderful. I’m adopted, but… That’s how it goes. That’s how it always goes. The never-ending caveat that I’ve always been aware of.
‘Do we have to talk about this now?’ I ask, trying to soften my voice. ‘Because it feels like a different discussion. What matters to me right now is that I might still have a chance to be pregnant. To have my own – our own – baby. Can you understand that, Matt? Can you understand how important it is to me?’
My voice rings out, and Matt sighs. Somehow, we’ve started arguing and I don’t even know how we got here. I left the wine bar feeling so optimistic, so hopeful, and now this. I wanted Matt to fall in step alongside me, catch my excitement, even if we needed to be cautious, but as usual I’ve raced ahead and he can’t catch up.
‘I don’t know that I have any objections,’ he says after a moment. ‘I just want to think about it very carefully. There are a lot of emotional repercussions, Milly. For us, as well as for Anna. We can’t go into this with our eyes closed.’
‘I know that.’
‘In some ways I think an anonymous donor would be better.’
‘But there’s no waiting list this way, and Anna has great genes.’ I try to take a lighter tone, to defuse some of the tension. ‘She’s gorgeous.’ Anna has never made the most of her beauty, but the truth is, she’s stunning – tall and blonde, with sea-green eyes and perfect curves. The opposite of me in fact, as I’m small and dark and skinny, with pale, freckly skin that burns if I step into sunlight for a millisecond.
‘That’s hardly the point.’
‘What is, then?’
‘How Anna feels about us having her baby—’
‘Matt, it really isn’t like that.’ I have to believe that, or this whole plan falls apart before it’s even started to be stitched together. ‘It’s an egg—’
‘And whose sperm?’ he asks quietly. ‘Mine?’
I feel jolted, as if I’ve missed the last step in a staircase, a sudden whoomph. I haven’t thought about that aspect, and in a painful flash I realise just how many things I need to consider. I can’t rush ahead with this, as much as I want to. ‘I don’t know,’ I admit.
‘Because, frankly, I’d find it a bit weird, if my sperm is combined with Anna’s egg.’ Matt folds his arms. ‘Sorry if that’s not how you want me to feel about it, but I do.’
I nod, realising that’s how I feel too. I know it weakens my whole it’s-only-an-egg argument, but it’s still a deep-seated feeling, ingrained and instinctive. I know it doesn’t entirely make sense; it’s not as if anything physical or even emotional will have happened between Matt and Anna, and yet I can’t escape the offensive and uneasy feeling that it will be their baby. Not ours. Not mine.
‘I understand that,’ I say slowly. ‘I feel the same.’
Matt leans forward. ‘Then you understand that we need to think through this carefully. Not just start tossing test tubes around.’
I start to respond, but then my face crumples and I bring my hands up to hide my tears.
‘Oh, Milly.’ Matt reaches over and pulls me into his arms. I rest my head against his shoulder and let the tears come, even though I don’t want them to.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say through my snuffles. ‘I know I’m rushing ahead with this. I hadn’t even thought about it until Anna offered, and it felt as if she was throwing me a lifeline. We’ve been stuck on this hamster wheel of waiting, always waiting, and being told just to relax, and now we find out that it was going to do bugger all, all along.’ The words burst out of me, along with the anger. It’s so unfair. ‘If we’d started earlier… if Meghan had run some tests earlier…’ Bitterness corrodes every syllable. If only. If only.
‘We don’t know what would have happened,’ Matt says, sounding so frustratingly reasonable. I want him to be angry right along with me. I want him to feel. This whole process – the ups and downs, the uncertainty, the endless waiting, he’s taken in his stride, unruffled, practically unconcerned. Tonight was the first time he has shown a proper emotion about anything fertility-related – and it was frustration with me. ‘There’s no guarantee,’ he continues in that same calm voice, ‘that it would have happened that way at all.’
‘But it might have.’
‘Yes, it might have.’ He sighs and strokes my hair. ‘But there’s no point in wondering what might have happened, because it hasn’t. We’ve got to deal with the here and now.’
‘Exactly.’ I ease back, wiping the tears from my cheeks. ‘Which is what I was trying to do.’ I didn’t mean to get back to this point so soon, honestly I didn’t, but here we are. ‘Please, Matt. Can’t we at least look into it together? See if it might work for us?’