The Girl Who Cried Wolf(51)

I’m about to shout something at her until she asks me, ‘What if Michael saw you? He is so happy, Anna. This is not just about you, please try to remember that.’

I open my mouth but then close it abruptly as I see his Jeep pulling into the lay-by, Izzy’s concerned face peering from the window beside him. I have just enough time to whisper angrily at my mother, ‘If it’s not just about me, Mother, then why do I have to carry the damn thing?’

Despite me asking everyone to say nothing of my current state, over the first trimester of pregnancy I receive visits from two very excited parties. The first little excursion to the freak show is partaken by Michael’s parents, and the second by my overjoyed grandparents.

‘I’m sorry, darling.’ Michael laughs at my cross face a few weeks later as Caroline and his father pull up outside Elm Tree. ‘They knew something was going on and I had to tell them!’ He leaves me to get changed as I sigh despondently.

I am beyond tired. My breasts are swollen and sore and I have mood swings Joan Collins would be proud of. New Year resolutions forgotten, I almost murdered my mother when she bought a baby book ‘to help to prepare me.’ They were all squashed together cooing over pictures, and unable to suppress my curiosity I walked casually past the chaise longue and peeked over their shoulders. The picture of a baby at eight weeks nearly floored me and my worst fears were confirmed that he or she would be an alien. My only ray of light at this point was that I could defer the rest of my A Level studies for at least another year. A nagging part of me ached for the days when those exams were all I had to worry about. When had I been so discontent?

I shake my head at the thought, reminding myself that had I not fallen ill, I would not have met Michael. This was his baby, and he was so happy I desperately tried to go along with their charade as best I could.

I resisted the urge to cause another scene and crept hastily back up to my room. I had already attended a health check with a specialist in maternal-foetal medicine, and had stubbornly refused to look at the screen after she pointed out his features and all I could see was a Space Invader. Michael’s eyes had never left the screen and when he finally met my eyes, he mistook my tears for ones of joy.

I was barely pretending to be in any way enthusiastic about a single aspect of my pregnancy, but they were all treating me with gloves and putting my depression down to ‘hormones.’ I called one expression they were all equally fond of the ‘hormone eye roll’, which came into play after one of my frequent outbursts.

I look at Michael’s family and feel utterly distraught that I need to confront them so miserably. I even decide not to wear my wig hoping it will wipe the smiles off their faces as I slowly descend the stairs.

It does not.

***

Michael tries to hold me in bed one night and I resist the urge to shrug him off me. ‘Anna, tell me what is wrong. How can you be so unhappy when we are going to be so blessed? Are you really just scared or is there something you should tell me?’

I know that this is my chance to open up to him completely, as he has avoided this conversation at all costs so far. I want to tell him that I am not scared, I am terrified beyond recognition. The last time something was growing uninvited inside me it nearly killed me, and I had spent the worst days of my life inside that hospital. For almost twelve weeks I have had to return every fortnight, each time hating myself for hoping that during a scan my baby’s heartbeat would not echo around through the room as it always did. I want to tell Michael how my heart had lifted during my first appointment as a doctor had told me to be prepared that the pregnancy might not survive full term. That our illnesses and treatment may have prevented a healthy conception and a hospitable environment in which it may grow. She may have thought my eyes had widened in dismay rather than optimism.

‘Anna, did you hear me?’

Of course I can’t speak such atrocities, to a man who has brought me so much happiness and unconditional love. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep as he moves away from me.

I am sixteen weeks pregnant and the little seed determinedly and stubbornly grows within me.





Chapter Fifteen:


Remember Me


I am reaching the end of my third trimester and everyone tells me I am blossoming. It is the eleventh of September and the baby is due in two weeks.

I have tried to mask my worries and fears, and although Michael does not press me, we both feel an ever extending gulf between us. I never thought I would feel so separate from this man I loved so dearly and I could not help but blame the entity growing inside me.

I cannot bear to look at my body as I feel ridiculous, and when I was in a particularly self-deprecating mood one morning, I stripped down to my underwear to critique more closely the damage caused by pregnancy.

My arms and legs were still thin, but every finger and each ankle were puffed and swollen. I had breasts beyond recognition, filled to bursting with milk in a manner that repelled me, with dark brown, saucer-like circles around each nipple. From my protruding belly button to my groin, a dark-shaded line had formed and I looked as though I had swallowed a space hopper. The baby moved and kicked inside me, making me breathless and uncomfortable, and for the best part of nine months I felt I had had no energy at all.

Izzy walks into the room to find me sitting at the base of the bed in my dressing grown, crying into my hands.

‘Anna, what’s wrong?’ she asks me in exasperation, and I have no doubt she will have executed the hormone eye roll.