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CHAPTER 25
Struggling up aisle to the back of the plane, Felicity sighed with relief when the rest of the row was empty. Once settled, she ripped out the blanket and mask from its plastic packaging, shoved the mask over her eyes, dragged the blanket up to her chin and curled into a ball.
Before long the mask was soaked. Salty wet with the tears she’d fought back for the last twenty-four hours.
She kept whispering to herself,it’s going to be okay.It won’t always feel this yukky. This horribly tragic. Even if right now it felt like a storm raging through her. And she would soon be home. Well, notsoon,interminable hours stretched ahead of her. But at the end of it she’d be back with Evie and Felix and Digby. Back to a new term of sweet-faced kindy kids and her class planning and her craft projects.
The safe, the very familiar.
Late into the night in that Bondi backpackers she’d turned her options around and around in her head. She’d switched her phone to airline so she wouldn’t be tempted to answer Oliver’s calls. And yes, she had concluded that Leonie was most likely twisting the truth. She may not have known Oliver long, but once the shock wore off, Felicity trusted him more than that.
He was honourable, that much she knew.
But there was one thing she couldn’t get around, no matter how she tried. A barrier she couldn’t overcome.
Oliver wanted kids. Shedidbelieve Leonie on that.
And supposing, just supposing, despite the tyranny of distance, that their holiday love affair had started to blossom into something more.
She’d have to speak those three horrible words.
I am infertile.
For the past two years she’d pushed that fact away… even believed she’d accepted it. All the attempts with Mitchell to have a baby. The way sex became mechanical and timed to her temperature and she’d rush back from work and so would he, until gradually they stopped touching in between. And how his disappointment was etched across his features as each month inevitably passed.
All the tests. His sperm count. Her egg viability. The inevitable conclusion drawn by their obstetrician.
“I’m afraid the ones we’ve tested have no chance of fertilising. I suspect this has come about from your chemotherapy, though we can’t ever be sure. We can harvest, and try to improve their viability. Or use donor eggs with Mitchell’s sperm.”
Mitchell had held her hand, pretended it didn’t matter. But when they’d talked it through, he’d admitted, yes it mattered. She knew how much he wanted to be a dad. He was heading towards forty, for heaven’s sake, the clock was ticking.
They’d done three rounds of IVF before she knew this was all wrong. Not because of the poking and prodding—she’d endured much worse—but she’d realised that although she loved Mitchell, she wasn’t in love with him anymore. And to continue on this journey… to keep trying with him… instinctively, she knew it was wrong.
She’d been the one who made the decision to end their relationship. Sure, Mitchell was upset, but he saw the sense of it. He’d met someone within a few months. Ruth, her name was. Felicity had never met her. They’d agreed that was for the best. And they had a kid now, Mitchell had let her know, but he’d been considerate enough not to send photos. She had, of course, sent congratulations. And she had, she really had beensohappy for him.
She’d let it fade, fooled herself she’d moved on, went on holidays and had fun and learnt new things to forget that she’d always felt like she was meant to have a big family, that there was all this love inside her she wanted to share, that would likely never be her destiny.
She refused to be defined by what the cancer had robbed her of.
Until…
Until now.
Because she’d gone and fallen in love. She honestly hadn’t expected to, and certainly not like this, in the most impossible of circumstances, with this impossibly beautiful man who she had no doubt she wouldn’t have anything in common with once the crazy attraction wore off. A man with a passion for folding his clothes and colour-coding his paperclips… and kissing her wrist.
A tiny sob escaped into the horrible airline pillow.
Oh sure, she could have gone to him and said…what?
“I know we haven’t discussed meeting up again, let alone a future together, but just for the record, I can’t have kids, so… you know, do you want to stick around? Give this long-distance thing a try or bail now, patch things up with your ex… or better still, find someone completely new with wonderful fertile ovaries.”
The thought made her bury her head once more in the hard little airline pillow.
A voice trilled, “The fish or chicken, ma’am?”
Oh, fuck my sodding life.
* * *
