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Anna comes home with me, fussing over me as she makes my favourite herbal tea and insists I stay on the sofa, feet up, a blanket tucked about me.
‘A week of bed rest is no bad thing,’ she says, ‘although I imagine it’s torture for someone who likes to be as busy as you.’
I am about to make a quip back when my face crumples. ‘Anna,’ I practically gasp, ‘I’m sorry. This whole thing with Jack… I’ve been so strange about it and I shouldn’t have been. I’m sorry.’ And then I am crying, from the emotion of it all – my mum’s surgery, the scare, Anna and me.
‘Oh Milly, I’m sorry, too.’ She hugs me and I press my cheek against her shoulder. ‘I never thought we’d fall out over a man.’
‘We haven’t fallen out, have we?’ I pull back to look at her anxiously. ‘I don’t ever want to fall out with you.’
‘And we won’t,’ Anna says firmly. ‘This thing with Jack… it’s not serious, anyway.’
‘But even if it was…’ I am feeling my way through the words. ‘Anna, you have the right to see anyo
ne you want. Love anyone you want. Marry them…’ But already my mind is racing ahead. If Anna and Jack marry, if they have babies… their children will be full-blooded siblings of mine. That is weird.
As if she can read my mind, Anna smiles and says gently, ‘Just because this is all a bit weird doesn’t make it wrong. Our situation is strange, Milly. We all feel that. We knew going in that it would be, at least a little. But it doesn’t have to define us or change anything. I don’t regret it, and neither should you.’
‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘I really don’t.’ I squeeze her hand, and Anna smiles. I am so thankful to be pregnant. I am thankful to Anna that she made it possible, along with Jack. And yet… she’s right. It is strange, and her relationship with Jack makes it complicated, whether we want it to or not. We all have feelings, instincts, and something about this situation goes against them. That truth is apparent, uncomfortable, but we can deal with it. We can live with it.
Like Anna said, the strangeness doesn’t have to change anything. I hold onto that like a promise, a vow I make to myself and to Anna, even if later I will question everything, and regret so much. Even if those promises will be broken, again and again, by both of us.
Twelve
Anna
A few weeks after Milly’s scare, we’ve got over that hump of awkwardness, and we’re back to our usual routine of texting and seeing each other every few days. Milly is still cautious, and Matt rightly wraps her in cotton wool, but we still manage to go out for drinks a couple of times and even a day shopping for maternity clothes. At nearly the halfway mark, she is finally starting to pop.
We spend a sunny Saturday afternoon at Clifton Village, with its independent shops and gorgeous Georgian architecture. It’s a warm, sunny day in mid-July, and everyone is out to enjoy the weather.
‘I don’t want anything too fussy,’ Milly says as she riffles through a rack of stretchy tops. ‘No bows and buttons, that kind of thing. They’d overwhelm me.’
‘How about this?’ I pick out a short-sleeved cotton dress in light blue, and Milly eyes it critically.
‘Yes, that might work.’
We continue to work our way through the racks, until Milly’s arms are overladen with outfits to try on.
‘How are things with Jack?’ she asks, her voice deliberately casual, as we head to the fitting room.
We haven’t talked about Jack in weeks, and I know it costs her something to ask about him now. ‘Good,’ I answer, because I don’t know what else to say, how many details to give. Jack and I have seen each other about once a week, either dinner or drinks, and while it’s been fun, it hasn’t progressed quite the way I hoped it would. Something about him seems closed off and elusive, as if he’s happy to keep things where they are, forever, and maybe he is. Maybe I should be.
‘Is it… is it serious?’ She tries to smile, and almost succeeds.
‘No, not really.’ I shrug. ‘I’m not sure Jack is interested in serious.’
‘And are you?’
Another shrug. The truth is, I’m not sure what I want. When I’m with Jack, I feel happy, but I’m also anxious. Relationships are hard work, always wondering what the other person is thinking or feeling, wanting to get it right, afraid I’m being too clingy, quiet, boring, whatever. Perhaps that’s not the way it’s supposed to be, but it’s that way for me, and I’m not sure I can manage anything else.
‘Well, be careful,’ Milly says, laying a hand on my arm. ‘I’m saying that for your sake, Anna. I’d hate for you to get hurt.’
Yes, and you’d also hate for me to end up with Jack. I don’t say it, of course, and I feel guilty even for thinking it. But I know Milly would rather Jack and I weren’t dating, and part of me can understand that. Not just because of the baby, but because she’s always had my undivided attention, my unwavering support. I’ve never needed much of a life because I can always help Milly with hers.
What would happen if I were the one getting married, having a baby? Both feel impossible, like mountains in the distance I am completely unequipped to climb, but longing shivers through me anyway. For the first time, I am daring to think about those things a little, to imagine wanting them.
A few weeks later, when the weather has turned sticky and overcast, Sasha returns to my office to discuss her sexual harassment complaint officially, nearly five months since she first poked her head into my office. It has been so long, I let myself forget about her; guiltily, I realise that it was a relief to do so. I should have tried harder to get her to tell her story. Now I try to welcome her warmly, offer coffee, pull out a chair.
She has brought her friend Leanne for support, and Lara informs me she is going to sit in on the meeting as well. It all has to be done by the book, everything noted down and recorded.
