Now, even though motherhood still wasn’t in her plan, Deb felt more aware of her loss. The operation had been a huge gain – she had regained her health, her body, her energy. It had been a success, and she was so, so happy that she’d done it. But, now that her uterus had gone, there was no going back. It wasn’t like a vasectomy, which could be reversed. This was final.
After she’d had the hysterectomy, her mum had dropped round some magazines for her to flick through. They weren’t theones she would usually read: in fact, they weren’t what Janice would usually read, either, but her mum had explained that she’d “borrowed” them from the hospital waiting room.
So, Deb had flicked through them, looking disinterestedly at articles on autumn fashions from two years ago, at recipes and real-life stories.
One article had drawn her attention. It had been a collection of inspirational real-life accounts from women with fertility problems who had all had babies with the help of IVF, herbal medicine, having faith against the odds, surrogacy, adoption, and a variety of other methods.
Reading the article, Deb couldn’t help wondering where the woman was who either didn’t want children at all, or for whom none of these things had worked. The header to the piece read:
what would you do for a baby?
Six women told us how they achieved a woman’s greatest goal – becoming a mum.
What about the ones that don’t?Deb had thought. She was absolutely supportive of any woman who wanted to have a child, and she knew what barriers could stand in the way. She admired all the women that she read about in the article, and was happy for them, that they got what they wanted.
But, having a baby was not every woman’s goal. It had never been hers, particularly.
Did it make her less of a woman, though, now that she couldn’t have one anymore? She knew, intellectually, that it didn’t. A woman was more than the sum of her physical parts. But Deb also worried that, maybe, other people would see her differently when they knew she couldn’t have children. Theywould think less of her, somehow. The memory of the article nagged at her.A woman’s greatest goal.
If that wasn’t her goal, was that wrong in some way?
‘That is ridiculous, Deborah,’ her mum interrupted her. ‘Youare a catch. And, so what if you aren’t able to have a baby the normal way anymore? You could still adopt, or use a surrogate, if it came to it. But, take it from me, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, because you know I love you very much. But, having a baby isn’t the main aim of life, and frankly it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Other things are just as important. I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you.’
‘Wow. Thanks.’ Deb shook her head, knowing that her mum meant well, but that she could also be hurtfully blunt sometimes.
‘Deb. You know I wouldn’t change a thing, having you,’ Janice sighed. ‘But all I’m saying is, you are not worthless or less of a woman, just because you can’t now grow a baby in your uterus. And I somewhat feel that if you’d been so desperate to do it, you would have at least tried before the age of thirty-eight.’
‘But… I didn’t meet the right person,’ Deb protested. ‘It’s not as easy as that.’
‘Life is as easy or difficult as you make it.’ Janice tutted, and Deb knew that she’d never get her mum to change her mind now: she had launched into her personal philosophy of zero-tolerance-for-excuses-and-pure-unfettered-independence. Deb knew that Janice had learned this from her own mother, Grandma Elsie.
Deb’s grandma had tried to insist that people call her Elise, because it was classier, but everyone ignored that, and called her Elsie. Even after she’d changed her name by deed poll in her fifties. This was something that Deb had only found out when Grandma Elsie had died, and she and her mum were going through her papers. In retrospect, Deb thought how cross she would have been if she had wanted to be known by anothername and everyone had ignored her wishes. Still, it was too late now: Elsie was long gone, though her legacy remained strong.
Grandma Elsie had died when Deb was in her teens, but it was obvious where Janice had got her fierce independence from: it seemed that it ran in the family. As if every woman in the Sutherland family had inherited a ramrod of steel for a spine, and an imperious raised eyebrow to be directed at any and all perceived wrongdoing.
‘Life is not a birthday party. It’s tough. You’ve got to be tough to get through it,’ Janice lectured.
‘I know, Mum,’ Deb sighed. The thing was, Deb didn’t always want to be tough, or think of life as a battle to be fought every day. She wanted some lightness in her life too: some joy, some love, some ease. Was that really so much to ask?
‘I wonder if you do know. God knows I tried to teach you, like Grandma taught me. Be thankfulshewasn’t your mother,’ Janice exhaled, half-crossly.
‘I loved Grandma,’ Deb replied, truthfully. She had. Grandma Elsie had had that same complete stubbornness as Janice, but Deb had always thought that she also had a flair of whimsy that was absent in her daughter, shown by that more poetic, dreamy name.
Despite all of her family, and most of her friends, continuing to call her Elsie, Grandma had known who she was, and she wasn’t afraid to change it, so that, at least legally, she was who she wanted to be. Deb had always respected Grandma Elsie’s oddly tenacious grip on her dreams. Even though the world around her hadn’t agreed, she had made her dreams a reality.
‘I know you did. And I’m glad. But, remember that how she was as Grandma, with you, was different to how she was as Mum, for me.’ Janice sounded distant. ‘All I’m saying is, you don’t know everything about her.’
‘You’ve got to respect the way that she lived her life, though,’ Deb insisted. ‘She was independent, and with the name thing, she changed it legally, despite the fact that everyone refused to call her Elise. In her mind, she was Elise, and that was all that mattered.’
‘Poppycock.’ Janice sniffed. There had always been bad blood between Janice and Grandma Elsie, and Deb had never known why. Both of them had refused to talk about it, but there was always an atmosphere when they were both around. Deb had preferred it when it had just been her and Grandma. ‘I couldn’t respect that woman. Such vanity.’
‘She was your mum,’ Deb said, appalled at Janice.
‘She was damaged,’ Janice replied, crisply. ‘She had no business bringing up a child.’
They’d talked about Grandma Elise – which was how she had wanted to be known, and Deb thought it was respectful of her to call her Elise rather than Elsie, even though she was dead now – many times over the years, and Janice had told Deb that Grandma Elise was an unhappy person. She had been made to leave her home when she was young, and she’d never got over it. Janice had intimated that other things had happened to Grandma Elise afterwards, but she’d never said what. When Deb had asked, Janice had said,too much water under the bridgeorthere are some things that should be forgotten.
Once, Deb remembered vividly, she had been ten, and they’d been on their way home on the bus from Grandma Elise’s flat. Janice had been at work – she worked at the supermarket then, stacking shelves. It had been the summer holidays and Deb had been spending every day with her grandmother.
