Not My Daughter

‘Seriously.’ I stared her down, my heart thumping. ‘I get that you’re a bit of a personality at Qi Tech, Lara. You’re your own thing, and so people put up with you. But in today’s climate? Today’s viral climate? I could get you fired.’ The words came out of me low, deadly and completely serious.

She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes narrowed to dark slits, her crimson lips pursed. ‘If anyone’s going to be fired,’ she said in a deceptively pleasant voice, ‘I assure you, it’s you.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so, Lara. In fact, I’d think very carefully about Sasha’s complaint. Because it won’t be her head on the chopping block if this all comes out, if the media gets hold of it. It will be yours.’ And then I turned and walked away from my boss, and went to the toilets, where I promptly threw up from nerves.

I knew it was all talk on my part. I couldn’t get Lara fired. In fact, I’d just about fired myself, and the blow came two weeks later, when Lara called me into a meeting with Qi Tech’s CEO. The company was being reorganised, and my position was no longer needed. I was offered a standard severance package, enough to manage for a few months, at least. Lara requested I clear out my desk immediately, ‘to make things easier’.

‘So is the whole company being reorganised?’ I asked her as I took down my photo of me and Milly, and another one of her parents. ‘Or just HR?’

Lara didn’t even look at me as she answered. ‘You knew this was coming, Anna. You can’t threaten me and expect to keep your job.’

‘No, you’re the only one who can make threats.’ I spoke wearily, too worn out to pursue it.

I see Milly a few days later, and it occurs to me, as we sit in her living room sipping herbal tea, that I hadn’t texted her right away about being fired, as I once would have. At least, I think I would have, but I’m not sure of anything anymore. Did I ever tell Milly what was really going on in my life? Did she ever want to know?

‘You left?’ Her eyes widened as she looked at me, hands laced over her lovely big bump. ‘Why?’

‘Well, technically, I was fired.’

‘Fired? Oh, Anna…’

‘It was over a sexual harassment case. I wasn’t willing to let it lie.’ I pause, waiting for her to ask more. Why not, Anna? What happened? Do you want to tell me more? What can I do to help?

But she just shakes her head slowly and says, ‘What will you do now?’

‘Update my CV, I suppose. Possibly retrain. I got a fairly good severance package, at least. Who knows?’

‘Well, at least you have some time, with your severance pay.’ Milly sighs and stretches her arms over her head. ‘Can you believe how big I am? I feel like a house.’

I stare at her for a moment, amazed that my news is being brushed over so quickly. I’ve been fired, and it warrants only two minutes of conversation. But perhaps it has always been this way, and it’s just that I’ve never minded. Perhaps it’s not fair of me to start minding now. And so I tell her she looks beautiful, and ask about her birthing classes, and nod and smile and sip my tea. But in my head I’m miles away. I’m barely listening at all.

With more time on my hands, I spend it with Jack. I help paint the upstairs of the house in Stroud, and I sit with him in the empty sitting room, drinking wine and eating takeaway, unable to keep from the temptation of imagining how life would be if this was our house, our life. Trying not to want it too much, because as lovely as Jack is, I’m still not sure how serious about me he is. He’s never said and, true to form, I’ve never asked.

October becomes November, the days dark and cold and empty. Jack goes back to France for a few weeks, and as he doesn’t ask me to go with him – I was hoping, just a little – I stay behind and brush up my CV.

I stop by Milly’s, and listen to her talk about Braxton Hicks and the Bradley method of breathing during labour. I know so much about pregnancy and birth, I could write a manual about it. The Best Friend’s Guide to Pregnancy. Surely it would be a bestseller.

I send out my CV and don’t get any responses, and Jack texts to say he has to be in France for another week. I feel as if I am waiting for my life to begin, my real life, the one I’ve missed out all along, but I don’t know what it is. What am I waiting for? A job? A husband? A baby?

Then one morning, when the rain had finally stopped and the wintry sunlight made the frosted grass shimmer, Milly rings me.

‘Anna?’ Her voice wavers. ‘I’m in labour. My waters just broke, and Matt’s gone to Gloucester for a training day.’ Her voice wobbles, then breaks. ‘Please, can you come?’

Fifteen

Milly

It’s funny and wonderful how, in the moments that matter, your friends will be there for you. Even if things have felt awkward and stilted. Even if you think you might need to say sorry, although you’re not sure for what. Even though.

And when I feel those first contractions tighten around my belly with an alarming amount of pain, and then a gush of fluid, I know only two things: I want Anna, and she will come.

‘Have you rung Matt?’ she asks as we drive to the Royal Infirmary.

‘I’ve left three voicemails, but I think his phone is switched off.’ My voice high and thin with panic. ‘I thought the risk of preterm labour was over. I never thought this would happen so early…’ Too early. Six weeks is premature, maybe even dangerously so, but I can’t let myself think that way.

‘Do you think they’ll give you that drug to stop the labour?’

‘I hope so.’ But the contractions are coming with fierce regularity, and have been now for over an hour. What if they can’t stop it? ‘If only Matt left his phone on…’