Her Motherhood Wish. Anne Fraser

company and was put on the fast track. It meant we spent little time together, but we were happy. Richard, as expected, shot up the corporate ladder. I got a job at the hospital and I guess we continued as before. We moved to San Francisco when Richard was promoted to CEO of his company.

      ‘Then it became time to think about having a family. We had just started trying when Richard started getting these headaches. At first we put it down to pressure of work—he was busier than ever—but the headaches kept getting worse.’

      David’s eyes were fixed on hers, his head tipped slightly to one side. She could see that his neurosurgeon brain was way ahead of her, but he said nothing. It was almost uncanny how still he was. Up until now he had been a mass of restless energy despite his evident exhaustion. This was no doubt the kind of focus he brought to surgery.

      ‘Eventually I persuaded him to see someone. You can imagine the number of tests he had to go through. And then, finally, the results.’

      Her breath hitched as the memory of the pair of them sitting in the surgeon’s consulting room—the pity in his eyes as he’d told them his diagnosis. Imprinted on her memory was the look on Richard’s face. First the confusion then the disbelief.

      ‘He was diagnosed with a brain tumour.’

      David shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry.’

      ‘It was the fastest-growing kind. I knew that Richard had a year, two at the most. I didn’t want to tell him the prognosis, but he made me. Richard was the kind of man who had to know exactly what he was dealing with.

      ‘I wanted to put having children on the back burner so we could concentrate all our energy on him—but Richard was determined to store sperm. He wanted to believe that he would be the person who survived the cancer but he knew that the chemo would make him infertile. So that’s what we did. We stored his sperm before he started treatment for his tumour.’ She shivered and smiled grimly. ‘As you can imagine, those were dark and difficult days. It didn’t help that Richard wasn’t the easiest of patients.’

      She looked out of the window. Although over four years had passed since they’d learned of his tumour, it was almost as if she was back in that dark, dark time.

      ‘Against the odds, he went into remission. The chemo shrank the tumour and he was well enough to return to work, as I did. But he was still desperate for us to try for a baby. I guess he suspected it was our only chance of having a child together.

      ‘I went for IVF—not the most pleasant process, as you can imagine—but the first cycle didn’t work. Then Richard got sick again so naturally we put the IVF on hold.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘He died six months later. That was three years ago.’

      Something shifted behind David’s eyes but Olivia was too caught up in her story to finish now.

      ‘A few months ago, I decided it was time to move on with my life.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘We had four frozen embryos left. I didn’t want to wait until I was in my forties to have a baby, so I went ahead with IVF, using one of the embryos we still had stored.’ She tried to keep her voice matter-of–fact, as if she was talking about someone else and not herself. She wasn’t going to share her loneliness since Richard had died, or the empty, crushing disappointment she’d felt when the first attempt at IVF had failed. Neither was she prepared to share her constant yearning to hold a baby in her arms and her fear that the second attempt would fail too—especially not with someone who was, after all, a stranger.

      But, strangely, David didn’t feel like a stranger. Nevertheless, she’d already said too much.

      ‘So voilà! I’m pregnant,’ she finished. ‘Nineteen weeks and counting.’

      ‘And you’re doing this on your own?’

      ‘And why not? Thousands of women do.’

      ‘I don’t envy you. My friend’s baby might weigh only a few pounds, but there’s no mistaking who rules the roost in that house.’

      Embarrassed that she’d been talking as if she were a leaky bucket, Olivia changed the subject.

      ‘What about you? I assume by the way you’re talking that you have no children of your own.’

      ‘Good God, no!’ He looked so shocked she almost laughed. ‘Children and I don’t quite … go together,’ he said. ‘And if I ever doubted it, after a couple of weeks at my friend’s place, I sure know it now.’

      ‘But you must have children as patients?’

      ‘That is entirely different. They’re not mine. I don’t have to deal with their crying and constant demands. Children and I are not for each other. Don’t get me wrong, little Alice is the cutest thing ever, but the best thing about her is that she is not my responsibility.’

      ‘Perhaps when you meet the right woman?’

      He looked bemused. ‘What is it with women? You all seem to think a person can’t be normal if he or she doesn’t want children.’ He pulled out his wallet and when Olivia made to do the same he shook his head. ‘My treat. You were good enough to give me a lift. It is the least I can do.’ He yawned. ‘But you’ll have to forgive me, if I don’t get to bed soon, there’s every chance I’ll be spending the night with my head on this table.’

      ‘Come on, then, I’ll run you home. And since I have to go in to work for a couple of hours tomorrow morning I’m happy to give you a lift—if you like?’

      He smiled. ‘I’d appreciate it. Don’t worry about picking me up, though. I’ll come to you.’