“Then tell me, Juliet. Tell me about you and Mum. Not just about the stupid pony party, but what was really going on. Why do you think she didn’t want you?”
Juliet stared down at her mug of tea. “Because she told me,” she said, and she didn’t sound angry, only tired.
“Told you?” Lucy repeated “Like, actuallysaid—”
“Yes, Lucy. She said, and I quote, ‘I never wanted you.’ Satisfied?”
Lucy didn’t know why she was surprised. Their mother had shown just how insensitive and cruel she could be on many occasions, and yet . . . she’d still been their mother. Amidst all the awfulness and disappointment, there were a few happy memories from her childhood. She could picture her mother dancing around the kitchen after she’d sold a sculpture, and once they’d emptied a gallon of strawberry ice cream straight onto the table and sculpted it into funny shapes before digging into the mess with two spoons. A few times Fiona had sat by her bedside while Lucy had gone to sleep, usually talking about the art world, which had mystified her as a child, yet she’d just been so pleased to have her motherthere.
Yet now it seemed as if Juliet had no happy memories at all. “When did she say that?” she finally asked.
“When I pushed and pushed her to name my father. I came over to see you both in the States. I was twenty.”
“That visit,” Lucy remembered. “You left so suddenly—”
“I didn’t feel much like staying, after that.” She bent her head towards her mug, closing her eyes as the steam from the tea hit her face. “I don’t know why it shocked me, to have her say it. She’d certainly shown me every day of my life.” She opened up her eyes, looking up to give Lucy a bleak smile. “Honestly, I don’t even know how I survived my childhood. She must have fed andbathed me as a baby, kept me in nappies. But I can’t imagine she did it happily.”
“Why do you think . . . ?” Lucy began, and then stopped. The question she’d been about to ask wasn’t exactly sensitive. Juliet, however, guessed it anyway.
“She had me? Kept me, even? I have no idea. I wish she hadn’t. I’d probably be less screwed up if I’d been adopted.” She rose from the table and dumped her tea in the sink. Her sister was clearly angling to end their cozy little chat, but Lucy wasn’t going to give up just yet.
“You’re not screwed up, Juliet.”
“No?” She braced her hands on the sink and stared out the window at the sheep fields, the dirt track twisting between them. “Maybe no more than the average person, I’ll grant you,” she said after a moment. “But it’s enough to be going on with.”
“And this idea for a baby?” Lucy ventured. “What’s that about?”
“What do you think it’s about? My biological clock is ticking. I’m thirty-seven with limited fertility—”
“Limited fertility—,” Lucy began to ask, and Juliet pressed her lips together in a line.
“I’ve only got one Fallopian tube, and endometriosis besides,” Juliet said, and turned around. “No matter how I go about trying to get up the duff, it’s not going to be easy.”
“You could adopt,” Lucy suggested, and Juliet just shrugged. “How come you only have one Fallopian tube, anyway?”
Lucy didn’t think her sister was going to answer, and now that she thought about it, the question had been rather personal.
Then Juliet said tersely, “I had an ectopic pregnancy eleven years ago. The tube burst then. It was lucky I got to keep both my ovaries.”
Lucy stared at her in shock. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment.
“Surprised, eh?” Juliet cracked a small, bleak smile. “What about? That I could have been pregnant, or that I had someone in my life to make me pregnant?”
“Well, both actually,” Lucy admitted, not quite joking. “Were you . . . was it serious?”
“It bloody well was. I almost died.”
“I meant . . . the relationship?” Although after this conversation she was going to Google ectopic pregnancies, because she really didn’t know anything about them, except that they were dangerous. Obviously.
“Oh.” Juliet shrugged. “Not really. Sort of. I don’t know.” She let out a sudden, harsh laugh. “He was married. Not to me.” She raised her eyebrows at Lucy. “Now you’re really surprised.”
“Well . . .” Okay, yes, she was. For a lot of different reasons. “Tell me about it,” she said, and Juliet laughed again.
“What is there to tell? He was married. I knew he’d never leave his wife.”
“Was this here—”
“No, in Manchester, while I was working for a big hotel. He was in management there.”
