2017
When Jenny spotted Laura coming towards them along the street, she looked different somehow. It wasn’t just the obvious pregnancy bump emerging from the front of her open coat. It was her thin, pale face, and the way she walked, slowly, with her head down, as if she was finding something vaguely fascinating about her own feet. She wasn’t looking radiant or blooming or any of that stuff. Not like a woman who had finally achieved her life’s dream. In fact, she just looked small and lost, and defeated.
Jenny rushed forward and flung her arms around her. ‘Oh, Laura. It’s so good to see you.’
‘You too.’
‘Are you okay? We’ve all been so worried about you.’
Laura looked past Jenny at Beth and gave a little wave. ‘Hi, Beth. I didn’t know you’d be here as well.’
‘Sorry about that.’ Jenny linked her arm through Laura’s and started to lead her towards the door of the pub where they had agreed to meet. ‘I just thought …’
‘Safety in numbers? Or that it would be easier for two of you to grab me if I tried to run away again?’
‘No. No, not at all. But you’re family, aren’t you? Or as good as. And I thought, hoped, that if we both came, you’d feel more … well, loved, I suppose. And missed.’
‘Right.’
They found a table in a corner and took off their coats.
‘Wow! It’s real, isn’t it?’ Jenny gazed at Laura’s unfamiliar shape in awe. ‘You really are having a baby!’
‘Of course I am! Did you think I was lying? Or that it was just wishful thinking?’
‘Sorry. Course not. It’s just so lovely to see, after all the previous … Oh, you know what I mean. Let me get everyone a drink. White wine, Beth? And …’
‘No alcohol for me, obviously. Just an orange juice, please.’
Jenny went to the bar. There was a queue, but leaving the others alone together for a while might not be a bad idea. Beth could be very persuasive when she wanted to be. And someone had to persuade Laura to come home, for Ollie’s sake, before he drank himself into a hospital bed, or worse. If only Laura’s new no-alcohol rule applied to him!
When she returned to their table, they were talking about something totally different. A book they had both read, and the TV adaptation of it that had got them both swooning over the leading man. Jenny put the drinks down in front of them and waited for a lull in the conversation.
‘Oh, it’s so nice to be back together,’ she said, taking a sip. ‘It’s just like old times.’
‘No Nat? Kate? I’m surprised you didn’t hire a minibus and bring the whole family.’
‘Don’t be daft. Mum’s gone off somewhere herself for a few days anyway, so she doesn’t even know we’re away from home. And Nat’s up to her eyes in wedding planning. Oh, I do wish you’d come, Laura. We’d all love you to be there. You do know where it is, don’t you? And the date?’
‘Of course I do. Unless she’s done a massive u-turn, the details of this wedding have been set in stone for what seems like years! But … oh, you know. It’s still weeks away. A long way off. Anything could happen. You didn’t tell her, though, did you? Nat? About finding me?’
‘No. Poor girl’s got enough to worry about.’
‘Is that what I am?’ Laura cut in. ‘Just another thing to worry about?’
Jenny put her hand on Laura’s. It was surprisingly cold. ‘Well, we have been worried. All of us. You’ve no idea how hard I had to work to track you down. Finding your aunt, and then twisting her arm to get even a hint of where you might be.’
‘So, why did you?’
‘To start with, it was just curiosity. To find out where you’d gone and to make sure you were okay. But then, when I dragged it out of you about the baby … that changed things. And the truth is that I brought Beth with me because … well, if I couldn’t get you to come back home, then I hoped maybe Beth could.’
‘I haven’t said anything about coming back home.’
‘No, I know. But now you’re having a baby – Ollie’s baby – I thought maybe you would. Or at least think about it. Babies need two parents; parents who stick together whatever life throws at them …’
‘Of course they do. And you know about that more than most. But this is different.’
‘Is it?’
‘You haven’t told him, have you?’
‘Ollie? No. It’s been hard not to, though. I haven’t told anyone at all, not even Beth until this afternoon. I promised I wouldn’t, so I won’t.’
‘So, why haven’t you told him yourself?’ Beth had been saying very little up until now, but she’d finally asked out loud what Jenny had been dying to ask ever since she’d first found out, although she wouldn’t have chosen to come out with it quite so bluntly. ‘Only, I do think he has a right to know, don’t you? Unless he’s not the father, of course.’
There was a stunned silence, broken only by a strangled sob coming from somewhere deep down in Laura’s throat. ‘Is that what you think of me, Beth? Really?’
‘I don’t know what to think, actually. I thought you left because you couldn’t give him a baby, and now here you are, clearly several months gone – which is what you both said you wanted so much – and you’re cutting him out of the equation altogether. It doesn’t make any sense to me.’
‘Beth!’ Jenny turned towards her sister and tried to stop her from saying anything else, but it was too late. Laura was already up and shoving her arms down the sleeves of her coat.
‘I shouldn’t have come,’ she said, pushing through the gap between them as best she could, one hand protectively covering her bump. ‘I knew you wouldn’t understand. Any of you.’
Jenny followed her out into the street. Pregnant women not being the fastest of movers, she wasn’t too difficult to catch up with.
‘Laura. Wait!’
‘What for? I came because I thought it might be good to see you, and maybe to try to explain. I didn’t expect you to start ganging up on me.’
‘That’s not what we’re trying to do. Honestly. Come back inside, Laura. Please. We’ll go easy on you, I promise. And I do keep my promises, as you well know. If I didn’t, it would be Ollie standing here right now, pleading with you. Not me.’
Laura hesitated for a moment, but Jenny could tell she had given in. In fact, there seemed very little fight left in her at all.
‘All right. I’ll come in, but that doesn’t mean I’m coming back home, or telling Ollie. Not right now, anyway. Just because you make all these rash promises doesn’t mean that I have to, okay?’
Jenny slid her arm through Laura’s. ‘Of course you don’t. Whatever you want is fine by me. But I do want to hear all about junior here. Boy or girl? Due date? Possible names? Everything. Wow, Laura, I’m going to be an auntie, aren’t I?’ She laughed. ‘That sounds really funny, doesn’t it? Auntie, aren’t I! But I am. Going to be an auntie. Auntie Jen, the practical one, that’ll be me, opening it a savings account and buying it sensible shoes. And Auntie Beth can take it partying and do its hair, and Nat can … oh, I don’t know, take it for wheelie spins in her chair! It’s going to be just great.’
‘Slow down, Jen. This baby isn’t even born yet, and on my past record it still might not be.’
‘But you’re six months gone. You won’t miscarry this one. Not now. You’re home and dry!’
‘If only I could believe that, but there’s