A helpful reminder to stay focused, really. Fertility clinic appointment tomorrow—my journey starts here.Myjourney. Am thinking of Red, hugging her knees on her B&B bed, agonizing over how to tell Toby about the baby, wondering what he’ll say, what it’ll mean for their relationship, and am reminded of exactly why I didn’t want to hand that kind of power to a man.
Sunday October 5th 2025
Currently on the crack-of-dawn ferry to Guernsey. Feels very wrong watching Ormer shrink away behind me. The reverse of my first entry in this diary, the first day of my new life. Which is ridiculous! I’m not leaving, nothing is coming to an end. Just have an appointment—an exciting one. I guess being here on the deck is reminding me how much Ormer feels like home now. Don’t ever want to have to leave.
On the way back now, and my head isfullof that awful anxious white noise feeling, but let me try to write a bit about what happened in Guernsey.
It was so busy and hectic after life on Ormer. Cars seemed to be traveling at a hundred miles an hour, and the shop fronts seemed so bright and garish, the other boats in the harbor so gigantic. Actually totally…hated it. The air tasted sour and nasty to me, and the trees dotting the roadside looked like over-pruned imitations of real ones. God knows what I’d think of London these days.
The fertility clinic was up the hill, about a twenty-minute walk. It was cool inside. There were lots of plants around, the kind with little gray pebbles inside their pots.
“Could you fill out this form for me, please?” the receptionist said.
Name.
Address.
Previous address.
GP’s address.
National Health Service number.
Stared down at the form and realized how delusional I’ve been.
Those tests back in London were in my old name.Everythingwas in my old name. I can play at being Charlie Jones in the strange world of Bramblebay, Windward Ridge and the Pirate’s Den pub, but outside of the dreaminess of Ormer’s little bubble, there’s a system. We have to identify ourselves somehow.
What will I put on my child’s birth certificate?
What will I say when she asks about my life before she was born?
What will I tell her when she questions where she’s from, when she wants to know about the Joneses?
It hit me right there in the clinic. Becoming Charlie Jones was only ever a fantasy of a life, and I want more than that. I want afuture.
Still on the ferry back to Ormer, out on the uncomfortable wooden benches on the deck with my back to everyone so nobody can tell I’m crying half the time.
Just rang Brianna.
