As she passed the telephone onto Ginny for her nightly catch-up with her mother, Lucy remembered an article she had read that said it takes half of the amount of time that you are in a relationship to get over someone. Lucy surmised that she had a little under six months until she would truly be feeling fine. It was June now, so that gave her until November. She took out her phone and put a reminder alert in her calendar for the 13thNovember:By today you will feel normal.Giving herself a deadline made her feel strangely better, as though she had something to work towards. It was helpful to believe that these feelings of utter despair would not stay with her forever. She clung to the old Persian saying that ‘this too shall pass’ and repeated it to herself daily, like a mantra, over and over again.
Tor sent her a card which she had blu-tacked to the wall above her bed. It said:
God only ever has three answers to our prayers:
1) Yes
2) Not right now
3) I have something better in mind.
When she read this she felt empowered. It wasn’t a yes for her and Alex, and that wasn’t going to happen again in the future, of that she could be sure. So God must have something better in mind for her. Lucy was going to find out what it was; she was going to take control of her life and her circumstances for once and for all.
After two weeks had passed, she had phoned her boss and asked her if she could take two more weeks of annual leave before returning to work. She was thankful that she had only taken five days for Sicily and that she had plenty left. It was a quiet time of year in the office as everyone wound down for the summer, and so her boss didn’t mind her taking all her holiday in one fell swoop. She knew it meant she would be manning the fort in July and August as the rest of the troops set off for family holidays overseas.
In the next couple of weeks she intended to come up with a plan for the next phase of her life. She thought about her future and what she wanted. At this point in time she had reconciled herself with the fact that she wasn’t going to find someone to share her life with. She longed more than anything for the kind of unconditional love and security that only a family could bring. Her mind kept on returning to the same thing, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute. It was so clear to her. She wanted a baby. Her whole body ached with the desire to have a child. She had been ready for years, just waiting for the right man to come along so that she could start a family. The realization that was beginning to dawn on her, as clear as day, was that she was no longer willing to wait. She knew that she was going to try and have a baby on her own.
Lucy sat down one evening with her parents and waited for them to help themselves to the shepherd’s pie that was fresh from the Aga. As they sat down at the table she broached the subject, unsure of how they might react.
‘Mum, Dad, I want to talk to you about something,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ said Ginny. ‘Go ahead.’
‘I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about my future, and I think I’ve come to a decision about what I need to do.’
‘About returning to work, you mean?’ asked Ginny, mid-mouthful.
‘No, not work related. I know my job isn’t the best in the world but it’s not that that’s really upsetting me.’
‘What is it, darling?’ asked Gus, pouring them all glasses of red wine.
‘Well I know that I’m still getting over Alex, there’s no denying it. But I’ve been thinking about what has upset me the most about our break-up. The loss of Alex, yes, but also the loss of everything he represented, everything he offered. I realize now that what upset me most about him leaving was the prospect of having a family being ripped from my grasp.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Ginny, putting down her knife and fork to give her daughter her full attention. ‘What can you do about that?’
‘Well these days there are options to a single woman of my age,’ explained Lucy. ‘Lots of people do it.’
‘Do what exactly?’ asked Ginny, looking somewhat alarmed.
‘Have a baby by themselves,’ said Lucy, determined to maintain eye contact with both her parents.
‘That’s the most ludicrous idea you’ve ever had!’ said Ginny.
‘Ginny! Just let her explain. Go on, love,’ said Gus.
Lucy felt a pang of love for her gentle father, always calm, always supportive, even with something that Lucy knew would be far outside his comfort zone.
‘The thing is, Mum, I know it sounds ludicrous, but I cannot imagine a future without any children. What will I do when I am your age? Who would be there for me? Who would I talk to? Life would be so empty and unfulfilling without children. I really can’t imagine it and I know that I will do anything to stop that from happening,’ explained Lucy.
‘I can see that life would be pretty different if we hadn’t had you and Ollie,’ acknowledged Ginny, ‘but being a single mother all alone, are you sure that is better?’
‘I have never been more sure about anything in my life,’ said Lucy, determined to convince them, and herself, that she was doing the right thing. They spent the rest of the evening talking about it and, though initially extremely suspicious of the whole idea, Ginny began to come around when she realized how deadly serious she was about it. They both acknowledged that she could keep on waiting for the next couple of years to meet someone, but that by then it could be too late for her to conceive. She would be forty in four years’ time. It was a risk that she just wasn’t willing to take any more.
She was pleased that her brother Ollie, whom she had been Skyping regularly, backed her decision. The free spirit that he was, he told her that the modern family unit was as varied as could be, and that he knew she would be a fantastic parent, which was all a child needed.
She spoke to Claudia and Tor for hours, discussing the pros and cons, the minute details and contemplating thousands of possible scenarios that may happen along the way.
‘I don’t know, Luce, what’s so wrong with not having kids?’ asked Claudia. ‘I’m not going to!’
