‘I can’t imagine the stress.’
‘One day they came to see Dad and me. I remember, it was in the depths of winter, Zach was on leave and they showed up when it was hailing but I knew, watching Tammy come down the front path, I knew it was good news. She was pregnant. They’d kept it to themselves but they’d been through IVF using a sperm donor and for them it had worked on the second attempt. They were ecstatic. And so were we. I thought my brother had too much pride to use another man’s sperm the way he talked about it when they found out the problem lay with him, and it did take him a while to get his head around the idea, but he’d have done anything for Tammy. And now they have two beautiful little girls who are their whole world.’
‘You were donating sperm,’ she said, finally understanding.
It felt oddly liberating telling someone who wasn’t a member of staff at the clinic or someone looking for advice or sharing an experience. ‘After what my brother and Tammy went through and then Orla falling apart when she lost the baby, I went online and did some reading – actually, a lot of reading. One day I saw a Facebook post with a link to a story about a black market for sperm – I assume the algorithms or whatever they are had interpreted what I’d been searching for online and so filled my newsfeed with more of the same or similar. It was as creepy and distressing to read as it sounds, by the way, but it also went on to say how desperate some couples or single women become that they end up using these places. There’s a real shortage of medically screened sperm in the UK and I thought about Zach and Tammy, knew they’d gone down the right route but wondered what would’ve happened if they hadn’t been able to. Before I could think too much about it, I was on the phone and had arranged an appointment at a clinic to go and discuss it. I wanted to do something to help.’
‘And that’s where you were this morning.’
‘Yes. For the last time. I’ve made all the donations; today was the final one. All that’s required of me now is to return to the clinic in six months for a follow-up. I’ll have a couple of tests and if the doctors are happy with the results of those, they’ll use the samples that were frozen along the way.’
She took a moment to digest everything he’d told her. ‘You know what you’ve done is incredible, don’t you?’
‘Not the way my last girlfriend reacted,’ he said. ‘She acted as though it was a little perverted, what I was doing. I mean, the process of donating is something we don’t need to go into detail about, but at the end of the day, it’s all pretty clinical when you’re there.’
‘She’s the one with the problem, Linc. You know that, right?’
‘Of course.’ He raised his eyebrows and made her laugh.
‘You’re a good man.’
Her eyes had filled with tears and he reached out to stop one that almost overflowed. ‘Again, I know.’
This had her laughing until she asked him seriously, ‘How you feel about maybe having biological children running around out there someday?’
Her choice of words felt good to his ears – biological children, because they wouldn’t be his, he was doing this for others. ‘I’m fine with it. And I’ve already given my family and medical information as well as writing a bit about myself so that if the donor-conceived child wants to know more information, they can find out once they’ve reached the age of eighteen.’
‘It’s such a selfless thing to do.’ She looked out to the water. ‘You’ve been surprising me ever since you arrived in the Cove.’
‘No more so than that first morning, eh?’
When her phone pinged and she glanced at it, she gasped. ‘I have to go! That was Celeste.’
He grabbed his bag as she started to walk away.
‘She has a spa appointment and I promised I’d be back at the bakery in time,’ she called over her shoulder.
They walked as quickly as they could across the uneven sand and towards the steps that would lead up to the track.
‘Celeste has picked up a lot of slack for me lately…’ The words came out staccato as she broke into a jog, then walked when it got steep, then tried to jog again as they reached the final piece of track. ‘I’ve booked her a spa appointment this afternoon as a thank you,’ she puffed.
When they finally reached the end, ready to cross the road to the bakery, he stopped her. ‘Jade –’
‘Don’t say anything.’ She reached a hand up to his face, touching his cheek tenderly.
She had a habit of cutting him off when he ventured towards asking her out. Should he be done with it and take the hint?
‘We’ve shared a lot today.’ She took her hand away and smiled although turned her head towards the bakery more than once, eager to go and relieve Celeste of her duties. ‘Could we leave it there, let things settle down?’
‘I know how I feel.’
The way she looked at him told him she knew it too. ‘Give me some time.’
How long? he wanted to ask. ‘I can do that.’
‘I’ll see you soon then.’
‘Yeah,’ he sighed. ‘See you soon.’
