Page 1 of The Midwife By the Sea

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The butterflies in Esther’s stomach weren’t just somersaulting, they were looping the loop like she was upside down on a gravity-defying rollercoaster. Nerves, excitement and the question of whether she should even be doing this were all colliding as one, when she came out of the cubicle, set the testing stick down on the edge of the sink and covered it with the instruction leaflet so that she couldn’t see the result.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Her best friend, Danni, who’d just emerged from another cubicle, was standing behind her, asking the same question that had been echoing in Esther’s head. She stared at their reflection in the mirror, trying to work out if she knew the answer.

‘I know Joe should be the first one to find out if I’m pregnant, but I’m just not sure I can put him through another negative test.’ Esther shook her head, still uncertain whether she was trying to convince herself or Danni. ‘And if it’s positive, he’ll be far too thrilled to care that I told his sister before I told him.’

‘Of course he will, but you do know I’ll have to tease him about it, don’t you?’ Danni grinned. ‘There’s nothing I like better than getting one over on my big brother.’

‘I can only imagine what you two were like as kids!’ Esther laughed, some of the tension draining from her body. It would be okay, whatever the outcome of this test, she knew that. Not many people got as lucky in life as Esther was. She was married to the best man she knew, who spent his life supporting people with incredibly complex mental health issues, as head of the mental health team at St Piran’s Hospital. She had a career she loved too, as the most senior nurse within the hospital’s emergency department. It was a demanding job, made slightly easier by the fact that she got to work side by side with her best friend of well over a decade, who was now her sister-in-law too. Danni was a consultant, and the two of them had helped countless patients and their families through all kinds of trauma, which meant there was no one she’d rather have by her side when she took yet another pregnancy test.

‘We might like to give each other a hard time, but we never really fought, because we always had to be there for each other when no one else was. I couldn’t imagine life without Joe.’ Danni smiled into the mirror again, but Esther hadn’t been able to stop tears from blurring her vision and suddenly Danni had taken hold of her shoulders, turning Esther to face her. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, Essie. What’s the matter? Have I said the wrong thing?’

‘It’s me who should be sorry; I’m just being stupid.’ She gave a shuddering sigh, still desperately trying to hold back the tears she wished she had far more control over, and ran a hand through her short blonde hair. ‘Here I am, not sure if I’ll ever even have one baby, and I’m already panicking about not being able to give that non-existent child a sibling. See, I told you I was being stupid.’

She tried to laugh, but the sound was painfully hollow, and Danni clearly wasn’t buying it. She was almost ten inches taller than Esther and the hug between them should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. For years they’d been as close as any sisters could hope to be, and Danni was the one person, apart from Joe, who Esther didn’t have to put on an act with. There was no need to pretend she was okay about the fact she’d been trying for a baby for well over a year with no sign of a positive test.

‘You’re not stupid. Of course you want all of those things, and I can’t imagine how tough this is for you.’ Danni was still holding her tight, the two of them standing outside the row of cubicles in the toilets closest to the hospital restaurant, with the pregnancy test still covered up on the sink beside them. They’d gone as far away from A&E as possible, instead of using the staff toilets there, where someone they knew might walk in and become another person who found out whether she was pregnant before Joe did. Maybe she shouldn’t look at the result at all, because right now she was filled with hope. This month felt as if it could be the one, but if it wasn’t, all those fragile flickers of hope for the future would be stamped out again. She wasn’t sure if she could stand that. In the end it was Danni who finally took a step back and released her. ‘I just wish there was something useful I could do to help.’

‘Just being here helps more than you know.’ Esther squeezed her hand. ‘Not to mention the fact that you never minimise how devastating the last year has been by telling me what hard work having a baby is. Did I tell you that one of the agency nurses overheard me reorganising the appointment with the fertility specialist, after Joe booked to take me to Florence for a long weekend? She said I should count myself lucky that I still get to take off on holiday whenever I like and that I should seriously consider whether I actually want to have kids, because… and this is a direct quote… “they take a wrecking ball to your body and your bank account.”’

‘I hope you gave her all the horrible jobs for the rest of the shift.’ Danni raised her eyebrows.

‘Oh, don’t worry, I did, and fate seemed to be smiling on me when one of the next patients to come through the door had an abscess on his left buttock that would have given Vesuvius a run for its money.’ It was Esther’s turn to grin for a moment, but then she let go of a long sigh. ‘Maybe that’s why I haven’t fallen pregnant; I’m too horrible to deserve a baby.’

‘Don’t be daft, you deserve this more than anyone I know, and you and Joe are going to make fantastic parents.’ Danni hesitated for a moment and Esther couldn’t help picking her up on it.

‘Why do I feel like there was supposed to be a “but” at the end of that sentence?’

‘All I was going to say was maybe you shouldn’t check the test right now. Maybe do the test again the next morning you’re off work, instead of having to go back straight after your lunch break. This just feels like it’s putting extra pressure on you.’

‘I get the logic of that, I really do, and part of me doesn’t want to find out, because if it’s another negative test, it’s going to crush the dream I’ve been carrying around that this month might finally be the one when it works. I’m not sure I can allow my hopes to get any higher by waiting even longer, if they’re just going to be dashed eventually anyway. The further the fall, the harder it is when you hit the ground. I’ve been trying to keep those hopes in check ever since my period was late, because I’ve been here so many times before, but I just can’t seem to do it. Something about this month just feels different and I need to know before I drive myself completely mad.’

‘So you’ve had symptoms?’ Danni’s tone was gentle and Esther nodded, wondering if she could actually say the words out loud, in case they somehow jinxed things. But she told Danni almost everything, and she needed to see the expression on her friend’s face, to prove to herself that she wasn’t grasping at straws.

‘My boobs feel like I’ve put stinging nettles in my bra and if anyone comes within a couple of feet of touching me, I want to karate chop them in the neck. Then last night I got up for a wee, not once, not twice, but three times! So, either I’m finally growing a baby in here, or my bladder has shrunk to the size of an egg cup.’

‘It certainly sounds like there’s something going on, but you really don’t have to check the test now if you don’t want to. I can throw it away and I promise I won’t look either.’

‘No, I’m going to look, putting it off won’t change anything whatever the result.’ Esther drew in a long breath. ‘Is it time to check yet?’

Danni glanced at her watch and nodded. ‘It should be ready.’

‘Okay then, here we go.’ Esther’s hand was already shaking as she reached forward to uncover the test, willing the digital display to spell out one word: Pregnant. She didn’t care if the number underneath was as little as one to two weeks, she just needed to see a positive pregnancy test for the first time in her life.

When she saw what it actually said, the pain was so acute it was hard to believe it hadn’t come from a physical blow. Not pregnant. She’d seen the words so many times before and yet the power they had to puncture her heart never lessened. They grew more devastating each time and she could barely breathe, the sound of sorrow that came from deep within her as involuntary as it was raw.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Danni sounded distraught too as she reached for her again and Esther wanted to allow herself to be comforted, but fight or flight seemed to have kicked in and she was already moving towards the door that would take her back out onto the hospital corridor. It was as though running away and leaving the test behind, still on the side of the sink, would mean those words weren’t true.

‘I’ve got to go. I need to get out of here.’ Her voice was shaking almost as much as she was, and Danni was still trying to reach out for her.

‘Let me come with you. We can go somewhere and I can call Zahir and tell him that some kind of family crisis has come up and that he needs to arrange cover. You can’t go back to work like this and I can’t leave you.’

‘I just need to talk to Joe.’ Tears were streaming down Esther’s face now and suddenly she knew she needed to be with her husband. She hadn’t wanted to burden him with another negative test, but she wasn’t going to be capable of keeping this to herself, even though she already knew that nothing he said or did was going to magically make this any better. Nothing could. She didn’t just want to run out of this room, she wanted to outrun the body that was failing her month after month, but she couldn’t. Even as Danni called out again, begging to at least be allowed to make sure that Esther got to Joe okay, she couldn’t stop. She had to keep moving, or she might allow herself to think about the possibility that this was always going to be the outcome, and that was something she just couldn’t face. Not now, not ever.

Hope had been sitting on the lid of the closed toilet seat for what felt like an eternity, but it must have been less than ten minutes. She’d nipped into one of the toilets at the far end of the row, just before the two women had come out of cubicles farther down the line and begun their conversation. It had been such an intimate moment as they’d clearly waited to discover the result of the pregnancy test one of them had taken. She hadn’t wanted to make any sound in case they realised someone else was there. Thankfully she hadn’t even really needed a wee, she’d just gone in as she was passing, in case her shift got busy and she didn’t have time to stop. The last thing she’d wanted to do was cause anyone any discomfort by letting them know that their very personal conversation had inadvertently been overheard, even before the obvious devastation of the woman who’d just rushed out, slamming the door behind her. Hope was still trying not to make any noise, barely even breathe, and considering whether she could just stay here until the other woman left too, to save causing any more upset, no matter how unintentional, but then she heard the sobbing start and she just couldn’t sit there and listen while another woman stood outside alone, in so much distress. She wasn’t wired that way, she never had been, and helping other women when they needed someone most was all she’d ever wanted to do.

She’d known she wanted to be a midwife from the moment she’d accidentally happened across an episode ofOne Born Every Minute, long before, at the age of fourteen, she’d finally heard the full story of her own arrival into the world. She’d always known she was adopted, so much so that she couldn’t even remember her parents telling her, and theywereher parents in every sense that mattered. David and Alison Masterson had three biological children – Hope’s sisters – and she’d never felt any less a central part of the family than her siblings. If anything, she’d felt even more special as a result of having been adopted. She’d been chosen, and her sisters, as much as she loved them, had far more boring backstories than she did. The four of them were all different enough physically for Hope not to stand out in that sense, even with the halo of chestnut-brown curls that made her look positively cherubic in the many childhood photographs displayed around the house. All four girls had been so well supported by their parents and given every opportunity to succeed. Annie was at medical school, Tabitha was a curatorial researcher for the National Museum Cardiff and Bea was studying for what were fully expected to be straight As in her A levels. Hope could have chosen any career, but she’d never wavered from her choice, and she still felt, even now, that she’d been born to be a midwife. So there was no way she could even consider sitting it out, waiting for the woman outside the cubicle door to leave, telling herself this was all just someone else’s problem.