After the End(99)

I have a sudden memory of Blair at ten years old, hair flying out behind her as she bumped up the curb on the bike she’d borrowed from her brother. So much has happened in both our lives—would we be the same people if we hadn’t lost our children?

After dinner we walk to the El and my hand finds Blair’s. It’s soft and warm, but it feels strange in mine, it doesn’t find its place instinctively. I feel as though I’m playing a part—Look how much better I am, see how I’m over Pip!—and I listen to Blair talk and feel myself pulling away, retreating into myself.

As we round the corner onto Sangamon, Blair stops walking. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say automatically. I keep walking, because sometimes it’s easier to talk when you don’t have to look at someone. I sigh. “Your hand feels wrong.”

“I’ve got another one.” She jazz-hands them both at me, then stops when I don’t laugh. “Max, I’m not chasing you down the aisle. We’re on a date. We’ve had a nice evening, a lovely evening—at least I’ve had a lovely evening—and now we’re walking to the El. That’s it.”

“Being with someone else . . . I feel like I’m cheating on her.”

“Even though she’s seeing someone?”

“How do you know that?” The line for the El crosses the end of the street, and I can hear the rumble of a train approaching.

Blair looks uncomfortable. “Your mom told me, I guess. Sorry. We weren’t talking about you. Much.” She tries for a grin, but it doesn’t quite happen.

“I feel like such a shit, Blair.”

“Because you’re out with me? Because I honestly don’t think Pip would mind. If anything, I think she’d be—”

“No, this isn’t about Pip—I feel like I’m being a shit to you.” I stop walking and turn to her, my hands on her shoulders. “I really like you. I really, really like you. I’d like to see where this goes. But however much I try, I still love Pip.”

“Of course you still love Pip. I’d be worried if you didn’t.” She smiles. “When Alexis was born, I thought I’d never have a second child. How could I, when I’d already poured all my love into my first? But then I had Brianna, and then Logan, and I realized something they don’t teach you in biology.” The train thunders above our head, a blur of light and noise and screeching brakes. Blair takes my hand and places my palm flat against my chest. “The heart stretches.”





forty-six





Pip


   2016


I press the button and wait for the lift. The Clubhouse is only one floor up, but the last few weeks of my pregnancy have been blighted by pelvic pain, forcing me to bring forward my maternity leave by a fortnight. Today is my last day at work, and any hope of knocking off early disappeared when my supervisor appeared, carrying a large cake box and looking harassed.

“Can you take this up to the Clubhouse? God knows how it ended up down here, but there’s a private party missing their cake, and somehow I’m the one getting it in the neck.”

No doubt everyone else had suddenly been “too busy,” I think now, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. The smell of sugary icing from the box in my hands makes my mouth water. If the Clubhouse isn’t busy, sometimes they’ll let us grab something to eat when they refresh the buffet. My stomach rumbles at the thought, but when I reach the lounge I don’t recognise the girl on reception. She smiles with relief, no doubt having got it in the neck herself for the missing cake. I go to leave it on her desk.

“Sorry, would you mind taking it through? I can’t leave reception.”

I am fast losing patience. There must be a hundred people on duty today, yet somehow the massively pregnant one ends up running errands. I am definitely not leaving here without a sandwich for the drive home.

The Clubhouse has different zones, separated by partitions that give the illusion of privacy. At the back of the room I hear a buzz of conversation, and I make my way through the rest of the lounge, where couples and solo travellers sit in relative silence, reading, working, eating.

What am I supposed to do with this cake, anyway? They better not be expecting me to serve it, as well. But when I walk behind the partition the first person I see is Jada, still in her uniform, but holding a glass of champagne.

“Oh!” I hold the box in front of me. “Do you know anything about this cake?”

She grins. “I do, as it happens. I ordered it.”

I’m slow to catch on—too busy thinking that if she ordered the bloody thing, the least she could have done was get it to the right place herself—so that when I see Ethan, and Marilyn, and then—the cheek of it!—the very supervisor who sent me up here in the first place, I still don’t realise what’s going on, until . . .

“Surprise!” Everyone holds up their glasses, and I look up to see a banner strung along the partition, saying Congratulations! Jada takes the box from me, and opens it, and I gaze down at the most beautiful cake with pink frosted roses and It’s a girl! iced around the edge.

“It’s my cake?”

“It’s your baby shower!”

Everyone laughs, and someone hands me a glass of sparkling elderflower, and then it’s all kisses and handshakes and Hope it all goes well.