‘I fell off the stupid bouncy thing, Auntie Lily.’
I pulled up a chair beside the bed and dropped down on to it.
‘I heard about that. Seems like a silly thing to do. Why did you do it?’
‘I fell off,’ she repeated with an exasperated sigh, as though I was the one who’d hit their head. ‘And then they had to do photos of my brains, but they don’t let you take them home with you.’
Trying very hard to suppress my smile, I looked over at Raegan. ‘Everything was fine,’ she mouthed silently. If you looked up ‘relieved’ in a dictionary, beside it would be a picture of my friend’s face right now. ‘They’re keeping her in tonight as a precaution, but we should be able to go home in the morning.’
Raegan gave out a long shaky breath. ‘God, Lily. This parenting lark isn’t for the fainthearted.’
I swallowed a giveaway gulp and hoped the ward was too dark for her to see the sudden flush that had rushed to my cheeks at her words. But fortunately, her focus was only on Polly right now. There’d be time enough to share my decision with her, but for now I was guarding it close, like the secret it still was.
They evicted me from the ward, in the nicest possible way, very soon afterwards. A fold-out sofa chair and blankets had beenprovided for Raegan beside Polly’s bed, and the best thing I could do was to get out of there and let them both get some sleep.
With Murphy safely tucked away beneath her unbroken arm, Polly was clearly struggling to stay awake.
‘I can come back in the morning, or meet you at your place if you like,’ I volunteered as I gathered up my bag and coat.
‘That’s okay. You’ve done more than enough,’ Raegan said. ‘I phoned Mum and Dad and they’re heading down at first light. They’re going to stay with me for a week or so.’
She reached across and brushed a straying strand of hair from Polly’s cheek. ‘It’ll be lovely to see Grandma and Grandpa, won’t it? They’ll make you feel better.’
Polly, who was definitely more asleep than awake, gave a wistful smile before murmuring softly, ‘So would a puppy.’
Raegan rolled her eyes, but interestingly her usual refusal was replaced with a far more hopeful ‘Let’s see, shall we?’
As I kissed them both goodbye, she whispered, ‘That kid’s got me wrapped around her little finger.’
I was smiling as I walked back to the car park, knowing Raegan wouldn’t have it any other way.
I phoned my parents when I got home, even though I’d only spoken to them two days earlier. Mum cried when I told her my plans, and my father’s voice grew so gruff it was almost indecipherable. Unsurprisingly he blamed it on a cold he was still trying to shake off, but I didn’t believe that for a moment.
Chapter Thirty Three
The white envelope was propped up on my breakfast bar. The late August sunshine was hitting it at just the right angle, making it look like my name was illuminated by a spotlight. The envelope felt heavy, even though I knew it probably contained only a single sheet of paper. It was nothing like the stationery I used to send out the Cupcakes and Rainbows invoices. But then you could hardly compare the resources of a humble cake catering company with an exclusive fertility clinic.
‘We will write to you each year to see if you would like us to continue to store your frozen sperm.’
‘We will. Always,’ Adam replied confidently, giving my hand a firm squeeze. The administrator sitting opposite us gave an understanding smile, looking at me with sympathy when my lower lip started to tremble.
‘And these are the forms I mentioned earlier,’ she said, speaking slowly and carefully, as though we might not have understood what she was saying. ‘Please take as long as you need to read them through.Signing them will allow your wife legal access to the frozen sperm in the event of ...’ She’d been doing so well up until that point, but she faltered at the last hurdle.
‘My death,’ Adam completed, so calmly that I almost smiled, not because it was anything other than utterly heartbreaking, but because here he was, trying hard not to make some poor, unknown woman feel bad. Because all of us sitting at that table knew that, as hard as Adam fought, there was a good chance he was going into a battle he wouldn’t win.
The drive home from the clinic that day was tough.
‘I wouldn’t want to use it if you weren’t here with me,’ I told the glass of the passenger window. It was the only place I could look where he couldn’t see the tears coursing down my cheeks.
‘Then don’t,’ Adam said, taking one hand from the wheel and finding mine. ‘We’re not committing to anything here. If all goes well with my treatment, we can still make babies the good old-fashioned way. What we’ve done today,’ he continued, his voice gentle, ‘is to set up an insurance policy should things not work out.’ He lifted my hand to his lips and grazed the knuckles with a kiss. ‘It doesn’t mean we have to stop hoping for the best.’
But of course, hoping for the best hadn’t worked out too well. And so now the clinic was writing to ask me the question Adam had already answered.
‘What if we never want or need to use it?’I’d asked him.
‘Then we just keep it. Doesn’t it have a really long shelf-life?’
Unbelievably, I’d laughed at that.‘I think you might be confusing it with frozen waffles.’
