She’d done something cowardly in her teens, that she’d always believed she would be punished for one day. And sitting in Myra Patel’s office, listening to her GP discuss the possible diagnoses, the prospect of a premature menopause had been both devastating, and yet somehow hideously fitting.
She placed her hand on her abdomen to try and contain the hollowness in her womb, and stop it seeping out and invading her whole body. ‘I’ve left it too late, Ruby. I’m not going to be able to have children.’
‘You don’t know any such thing. Not until you get the tests back. And even if it is premature menopause, a couple of missed periods isn’t suddenly going to make you infertile.’
She did know, she’d known ever since she was eighteen and she’d come round from the anaesthesia in the clinic to find Randall gone. She didn’t deserve to be a mother, because the one time she’d had the chance she’d given it up to please a guy who hadn’t given a hoot about her.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said, humouring Ruby.
‘Of course I am. You’re not allowed to go the full
drama until you get the results. Is that understood?’
‘Right.’ Her lips wrinkled, as she found some small measure of humour in having Ruby be the one to talk her off the ledge for a change.
‘Now.’ Ruby gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I want to know why you didn’t tell me about this? Instead of giving me all that cryptic nonsense about finding a guy to shag.’
‘I never said shag.’ Or at least she was fairly sure she hadn’t.
‘Don’t change the subject. Why didn’t you tell me about this before? Instead of running off to Bermuda?’
It was a valid question, because they’d always shared everything—secret crushes, first kisses, how best to fake an orgasm, even the disastrous end to her college romance with Randall, and Ruby’s rocky road to romance with the sexy barrister who’d rear-ended her car on a Camden street seven years ago and turned out to be her one true love. But Ella still didn’t know how to answer it.
‘I just couldn’t.’ Her voice broke, and a tear escaped. One of the ones she’d been holding captive for over a week.
‘Why couldn’t you?’ Ruby probed, refusing to let it go.
‘I guess I was feeling shocked and panicky and inadequate...’ She sucked in a breath, forcing herself to face the truth. ‘And horribly jealous. Of the fact that you have such a wonderful family and three beautiful children and I may never have any.’ She let the breath out. There, she’d said it. ‘I felt so ashamed to be envious of you. Because everything you have with Cal and the kids, you’ve worked for and you deserve.’
The self-pitying tears were flowing freely now. She brushed them away with the heel of her hand. Hoping Ruby couldn’t hear the hiccoughs in her breathing. ‘I couldn’t bear for this to come between us in any way.’
‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘Why?’ The question came out on a tortured sob.
‘Well, for starters, you don’t want Cal. He’s far too uptight and bossy for you. His insistence on being right about everything would make you lose the will to live within a week.’
‘Cal’s not uptight and bossy. He’s lovely.’ Ella jumped in to defend Ruby’s husband, whom she adored, if only in a purely platonic sense—because he actually was a little bossy.
‘Only because he’s got me to unwind him on a regular basis, and boss him about back,’ Ruby replied. ‘But more to the point.’ Her voice sobered, the jokey tone gone. ‘You don’t want my kids, you want your own. And if I deserve my little treasures—not that Ally and Max were particularly treasurable this morning when they decided to declare World War Three on each other using their Weetabix as nuclear warheads—then you certainly do.’
Do I?
The question echoed in her head, but she didn’t voice it, Ruby’s passionate defence counteracting at least some of the guilt that had been haunting her for over a week.
‘You’re going to make an incredible mum one day,’ Ruby added with complete conviction. ‘And, if you have to, there are lots of possible ways of achieving that.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You know, like artificial insemination, IVF, donor eggs, surrogacy, adoption, that sort of thing.’
Ruby’s matter-of-fact response shrank a little of the black hole in her belly. She hadn’t considered any of those options yet, the prospect of infertility too shocking to get past. But why shouldn’t she? If the worst came to the worst and Myra’s diagnosis was correct?
‘I guess you’re right, I hadn’t really—’
‘But frankly,’ Ruby interrupted, ‘I think we’re getting the cart before the stallion here.’
‘Excuse me?’