Not My Daughter

feel more hopeful than I have in a long time. I feel buoyant, the bubbles fizzing through me. I am finally beginning to believe that this is going to happen. As we drink, I catch Anna’s eye and, over the rim of her glass, she smiles at me. It’s all going to work out. Everyone is going to get the happy ending we’ve all been trying for.

Later, after Anna and Jack have gone and Matt is loading the dishwasher, I walk up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek against his shoulder.

‘Thank you,’ I say quietly. ‘I know you’ve had concerns.’

‘I still do, but not enough to keep us from trying this. From making you happy.’ He turns around so he can give me a proper hug, resting his chin on top of my head. ‘When I talked to Jack, he seemed so okay with it, it made me think it doesn’t have to be as complicated as I first thought it was.’

I remember Anna’s smile. ‘I don’t think it does.’

Matt tips my chin up with his finger and gives me a kiss. ‘Just think, Mrs Foster, this time next year we could have a newborn baby upstairs, wailing away.’

‘Or peacefully sleeping.’ The possibility causes a thrill to run through me, so visceral I nearly shiver with the delight of it.

This time next year. The words feel like a promise.

I had no idea they would one day be a threat.

Six

Anna

‘Are you comfortable?’

The nurse smiles at me as I adjust my position on the examining table. ‘Yes, I think so.’

It is six weeks since we all had dinner at Milly and Matt’s, and it has been a roller coaster of emotions, thanks to the injections of hormones I’ve had to take every week. Milly has had to take them as well, and several times we’ve been at the clinic together, laughing at how ridiculously teary we were because of it all. It has felt unnervingly intimate, doing this together, bringing us even closer.

Besides the excess emotion, I’ve also had headaches, mood swings, and despite my daily running, I’ve gained half a stone, all of which are apparently normal side effects of the cocktail of hormones I’ve been taking.

It’s all worth it, though, as I keep telling Milly, because she is still so anxious that this is proving too high a cost for me, that somehow she will owe me more than she can repay, even though I tell her, I promise, it isn’t like that. It’s never been like that.

The reality, though, is that it’s all a bit more invasive than I expected. Besides the hormones and the scans and the medical screening, I also had to have counselling, to make sure I was all right emotionally. It felt like a test I had to pass, navigating questions about personal beliefs and feelings, unsure what the right answers were, although the psychologist assured me there weren’t any.

It also felt revealing. She asked about family, romantic relationships, and earlier pregnancies, and that’s when I lied. It was instinctive, a basic need to protect myself. I wasn’t about to spill my secrets to some stranger, not even for Milly’s sake. And it wasn’t relevant, anyway. Or so I believed.

So now I’m here, lying on a table, about to be sedated. My lower belly has felt tender and swollen for the last few days; the only way to describe it is ripe.

In three days, Milly will have the embryo transferred to her waiting womb, and in another twelve she will be able to take a pregnancy test. But whether she is pregnant or not, my part will be over; the eggs retrieved today will be used in any further IVF attempts. After today, my job is done, and yet this feels like the beginning.

‘You have someone to drive you home?’ the nurse asks, and I nod. Milly has promised to come for me after school finishes. I’ve taken the afternoon off work; Lara wasn’t pleased, but I hardly take any holiday so she couldn’t do much about it. As I left during my lunch hour, I saw Sasha again, smoking furiously outside and looking rather miserable. She has not been in touch since our meeting six weeks ago, although I sent her a couple of emails encouraging her to reach out.

As I walked past her I gave her a fleeting smile, but I didn’t have time to talk before my appointment at the clinic. As I headed towards the car park, she called out to me.

‘Hey, can I talk to you sometime, after all?’

I half-turned, keeping my smile. ‘Of course. I’m out this afternoon, but why don’t you come by next week?’

Sasha nodded rather grimly and again I wondered what she had to tell me.

Now I push thoughts of Sasha away as I lie back and the anaesthetist begins his work, fitting a tube into the canula in the back of my hand. The nurse pats my leg.

‘Could you please put your feet into the stirrups?’

It’s an obvious request, and yet an unexpected, visceral response rushes through me. Panic. It feels shocking, the suddenness of it, the way my breath hitches and my mind blanks. The stirrups… the needle poking into my hand… the way the doctor adjusts the bright light so it’s aimed right between my legs… suddenly I am eighteen again. Eighteen and so very alone.

The nurse touches my shoulder, her eyes full of concern. ‘Are you okay, Anna?’

‘Y-y-y… yes.’ I realise I am shaking. There is a metallic taste in my mouth, and the vinyl table beneath me feels slippery and cold. The nurse advised me to keep my socks on because the stirrups were cold, and inside the thin cotton my cold toes clench and curl around the metal. I try to breathe in and out, evenly, but I still feel faint. My body trembles. If I turn my head, I feel as if I could be back in that other office. I would see the technician at the ultrasound machine, the screen angled away from me so I wouldn’t see the tiny image curled up on it. The not seeing has tormented me as much as the seeing would have, if not more. What if…?