‘Right, let’s read this.’ Felicity slunk on to the bed, next to Lisa, box and instructions in hand.
Lisa took the box and read thefront. ‘There should be two in here. Wait, are you?’
‘No, I am officially not, and as of yesterday my period came.’
‘So you thought you were. But Pete’s—’
‘Had a vasectomy, I know, but they can fail sometimes, and my period was late and I panicked.’
‘Blimey, why didn’t you say?’
‘I didn’t want to until I knew. I was basing it on a late period, Dr Google and the fact I was dizzyafter a run. It wasn’t exactly hard evidence.’
Hard evidence.Lisa thought about the case she was building in her own mind; that wasn’t exactly hard evidence either.
‘And … well … I was worried,’ Felicity confessed.
‘What were you worried about?’
‘Hurting you, because of … well, hurting you, and—’
‘Felicity Willis, you’re my oldest friend—’
‘She’s back with the insults.I’m only four days older than you.’
‘OK, you’re the friend I’ve known the longest, and I’m lucky to have you back in my life. If something is going on with you, tell me. I want to know.’
‘Sorry. It’s just after you told me about Pip … and, well, it wasn’t just that.’
‘So what was it?’
Felicity put the instructions to the pregnancy test down and looked directly at Lisa. ‘I was scared.’
‘Scared? Why would you be scared? You’re the best mum I know. How you manage with four—’
‘But that’s it, I manage four all day long. I manage the four of them, and sometimes …’
Lisa put her arm round Flick’s shoulder. ‘Sometimes what?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I can’t say it, especially not to you. You’ll think I’m horrible. I am horrible.’ Tears welled in Felicity’s eyes. ‘Sorry, thisis meant to be about you. Let’s do your test.’
‘Flick, don’t. Don’t shut me out. Tell me. I won’t think you’re horrible. I’d never think that of you.’
Felicity wiped her face and took a breath. Lisa noticed her hands were shaking.
‘Well, sometimes it feels too much. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed. Sometimes I want to only think about me. Isn’t that horrible?’ Tears rolled down Felicity’sface.
Lisa walked into the en-suite and got a wad of toilet roll and handed it to her as she sat back down next to her. ‘No. Not at all. I don’t have children and I think it is perfectly reasonable to feel that way sometimes. When I looked after your four over New Year’s Eve, I was bloody knackered. I have no idea how you do it every day.’ Lisa sat back next to Felicity and offered a smallsmile. ‘You obviously love them to bits; nobody will think badly of you for taking some time for yourself.’
‘When I thought there might be another … well, I thought … I felt like … do you remember at secondary school when we had that glass of water …’
Lisa had no idea what Felicity was talking about now, but stayed quiet to let her speak.
‘We kept adding spoonfuls of salt.’
Lisanodded, vaguely remembering that.
‘We kept adding more and more, watching it dissolve until it wouldn’t dissolve any more.’
