‘Okay, an inflatable dinghy.’
‘Not that either!’ she said.
‘Seriously though, why carry on with a job which will just wear you out and which doesn’t even pay that well?’
‘It might not be a huge salary, but it’s better than nothing,’she said. She kept to herself that she would miss the camaraderie of her work colleagues. It had been fun this evening at the pub after their shift when they’d all had a jolly good grumble about how impossible it was to reach their daily targets.
‘But we have my salary,’ Rick said. ‘It’ll easily stretch to cover us both.’
‘And don’t forget the baby,’ she reminded him.
‘How could I?’ he said happily. He then pointed the remote control at the screen and paused it. ‘Why not stop working and enjoy some time at home preparing for our Little Bug? You could decorate the nursery and start buying all those things we’re going to need.’
‘Don’t you think it might be tempting fate to prepare so soon?’
He put the remote control down and put his hand to her neck. He gave the four-leaf clover necklace he’d given her a little tug. ‘That’s why I gave you this,’ he said. ‘To bring us extra luck. And didn’t you just say how lucky you were?’
Thinking that sometimes luck wasn’t enough, Willow was about to sit up, when he held her down.
‘But it would help the odds enormously in our favour if you didn’t go out drinking with your mates and keep it from me,’ he said.
She frowned. ‘I thought that was forgiven and forgotten?’
‘I’m just reiterating the point that it was irresponsible of you, and if anything was going to tempt fate and make something go wrong, that’s just the kind of thing that would. By the way, did you take your vitamin D tablet today and the folic acid supplement?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I took them both after I was sure I wasn’t going to be sick again this morning.’
He stroked her cheek. ‘Poor Willow,’ he said. ‘Hopefully you have only another couple of weeks of morning sickness to get through now.’
‘It feels like an eternity,’ she said before yawning hugely.
‘Come on,’ he said, switching off the telly. ‘Time for bed. It’s our big day tomorrow – ultrasound scan day!’
Alone in the bathroom while brushing her teeth, Willow wondered how she might react tomorrow morning when she saw their baby for the first time. She knew from everything she’d seen online, and from the grainy photo her friend Lucy had shown her, that at fourteen weeks, there really wasn’t that much to see.
Lucy was four weeks ahead of Willow and was as pleased as punch about being pregnant. Willow still hadn’t confided in her that she too was expecting. She was finding it harder and harder not to share her secret, but she’d promised herself that she would keep quiet for as long as she could in the hope that her sister might suddenly announce that she and Tom were going to be parents. To ensure she didn’t accidentally blurt anything out, she had deliberately avoided responding to most of Martha’s messages or phone calls. When she felt she had to reply, she kept it short and sweet.
In the last week or so there had been nothing from her sister, which was both a relief, and a concern. Was Martha okay? But to ring and ask might result in Willow blabbing that she was really sorry, and she really didn’t mean to do it, but she was pregnant. She could picture the scene all too easily. More easily than imagining the small life growing inside of her.
Nobody knew better than Willow that secrets could be a burden.Some, though, were easier to keep, not because they were insignificant, but because they were just too awful to think about. Those were the ones you could lock away so deeply you could almost kid yourself they didn’t exist. Almost.
Keeping her pregnancy secret was one of the reasons why she had drunk the wine she had at the pub with Stefan and the others after work; she hadn’t wanted to rouse their suspicion. Also, more than anything in the world right then, she had wanted a glass of white wine. She had practically had her tongue hanging out on the way to the pub, such was her eagerness. It would be just her luck to crave wine while pregnant and not something normal like pickled onions or coal! She smiled at the thought. Which was a mistake as frothing toothpaste then dribbled down her chin, giving her a small white beard.
Wiping her face and making sure nothing was out of place on the shelf above the basin, and that the sink wasn’t speckled with toothpaste, she joined Rick, who was already in bed.
‘You know what we haven’t decided,’ he said, ‘is what we say when we’re asked tomorrow if we want to know the sex of our child.’
Lucy and Simon knew they were expecting a boy and had already given him a name – Milo – but Willow wasn’t convinced it was a good idea.
‘I want to keep it as a surprise,’ she said, sliding in beside Rick. She loved the expensive Egyptian cotton bedlinen he bought, it was so much nicer than her cheap Ikea sheets and duvet covers. He had the linen laundered every week and she could forgive him all his finicky ways for the pleasure this wonderfully extravagant luxury gave her.
‘But it could be a surprise tomorrow,’ he said.
She smiled indulgently at him. ‘You’re so excited, aren’t you?’
He smiled back at her. ‘Nothing wrong in that, is there?’
‘Were you like this as a boy? Did you find your presents and sneakily open them before your birthday or Christmas Day?’
