Page 60 of A Merry Little Christmas

Nell felt tears prick at her eyes.

‘At twenty-eight weeks …’ He covered his eyes with his hand. ‘You know what I’m going to say.’

‘She lost the baby?’ Nell said softly.

He nodded. ‘No warning, no reason, just … I still can’t talk about it, and this happened in September.’

‘Of course it’s still raw and fresh in your mind. I’m so sorry, Woody.’ She reached for his hand and held it tight.

‘Our first concern was Jenny. It was terrible for her, physically and mentally. It was her first experience with surrogacy. She’s vowed never to do it again.’

‘Poor Jenny, she would have felt the weight of your grief on top of her own.’

He smiled sadly. ‘We did everything we could to avoid that, but it was inevitable.’

‘And since then,’ Nell probed. ‘What are your thoughts now? Or is it too soon?’

‘This is where the problems began.’ Woody pulled a face. ‘I think we need a break from it, but Spencer was straight back on the case looking for another potential surrogate. His way of coping is to move on and try again. But not me. I feel the same as Jenny. Surrogacy was great until it wasn’t, and meanwhile there are hundreds of children on adoption lists hoping for a better life than the one they’ve had so far. And Spencer and I can offer that, Nell. Yes, I know the adoption process is rigorous, but it would be worth it. We’d be getting our family, and making a life-changing difference to a child who needs a loving home.’

Nell’s heart ached for him. She knew the pain of longing for a baby, but what Woody and Spencer had been through was in another league. To have seen your living, breathing baby on the screen of a scanning machine only to lose it must have been unbearable.

‘So if Spencer wants to go with surrogacy and you want to adopt, where does that leave you?’ She nudged him gently to continue, even though it was clear now why they were having some time apart.

‘When we were pregnant, he and I were united in our family plans. Now our dreams have diverged, we’re on different paths and we can’t find our way back to each other. I’d given up my job, ready to look after the baby full-time. My boss is hoping to have me back, but how can I return to work, knowing that everyone feels sorry for me, knowing that I should be on parental leave? Spencer is adamant that he wants a child to be biologically ours, but there are so many more important aspects to parenthood than sharing DNA. I’m ready to take on a nurturing role, I want to give a child a home; Spencer wants to procreate. So I’m here to figure out what I want my future to look like and to get some perspective on our marriage, decide what’s most important. With Jenny, we thought we were out of the danger zone for miscarrying; next time around I’d never be able to relax for a moment. But because I love Spencer so much, the only way I can see this ending is if I’m the one to compromise.’

‘Relationships only work if there’s an element of compromise on both sides,’ Nell began. ‘Maybe you need to be honest with him … Oh.’ She stopped mid-sentence, realising that honesty was something she hadn’t afforded her own marriage.

‘Wow.’ Woody peeled away from her, and looked deep in thought. ‘Maybe you’re right, I think I’ve been too scared to voice my truth, not wanting to drive a deeper wedge between us. I just need to come up with a way of broaching it.’

‘Honesty should be easy, shouldn’t it?’ said Nell in a small voice. ‘But sometimes it’s the hardest option.’

Woody picked up on her tone and eyed her curiously. ‘So what about you? You said your story was about babies too. Are you ready to talk?’

She nibbled her lip, nervous suddenly. Woody’s problems were not of his making, whereas she’d got herself into this mess.

‘A problem shared, remember,’ he prompted.

‘I haven’t been honest with Olek,’ she blurted out in a rush. ‘It started a year ago when I was secretly trying to conceive without telling him. I told myself it didn’t matter, he’d be happy if I got pregnant, but I should still have been open about it. Then, when nothing happened, we were both tested …’

She shouldn’t have told a virtual stranger things she hadn’t been able to tell even her closest friend, but it felt so liberating to hear herself speak about the matters which had been churning away like acid in her system for the past few weeks. And Woody, bless him, listened with nothing but compassion and kindness in his eyes.

‘I know there are much worse things happening to other people in the world,’ she said, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘I know I’m lucky in so many ways, but I always assumed that one day I’d have a family of my own, and now that it turns out that I can’t, I can’t focus on anything else. I’m trying to be happy for Merry, but it’s so hard when she seems, at best, so blasé about it, and, at worst, grumpy and ungrateful. I’d imagined us both having babies at the same time, and them growing up together. Instead, she’s entering this new phase of life and I’m being left behind.’

The booze was taking effect on her, smoothing the sharp edges off the day, and she was feeling nicely fuzzy. She sipped her vodka, savouring the cherry sweetness before the hit of alcohol.

‘I’m just so sad,’ she said.

‘Of course you are. That’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever heard.’ Woody reached for the tissue box on the table and took one for each of them. ‘And I know how much pressure this sort of thing puts on a couple. I hope you and Olek can support each other through this tricky patch?’

She mopped her eyes. ‘We can’t because I can’t talk about it. And I can’t talk about it because I told him a lie, the lie has snowballed out of control and now I don’t know what to do about it.’

Woody chewed his lip. ‘As you just said, honesty is usually the best policy.’

Nell pressed a hand to her forehead; it was getting more difficult to focus now, she was quite tipsy. ‘I was trying to do the kindest thing. There’s no obvious reason why I can’t conceive, I’m healthy in every way. It’s Olek who’s infertile. The doctor said it was unlikely that he’d ever have been fertile, and I panicked.’

‘But I thought Max was Olek’s son.’ Woody’s jaw dropped.

Nell nodded gravely before letting out a loud hiccup. ‘Olek thought so. Olek thinks so. Now I’m not convinced he can be. But I do know that he must never find out.’