The End of Men(101)

“You’re looking well,” Amanda says, as we hug and settle ourselves at the table. I regale her with the story of the book launch and am greeted with a very Glaswegian response. “Mixing with the high and mighty in literary circles,” she says with a raised eyebrow. “I always knew you’d go far.”

“Says the famous doctor.”

“Famous? Fuck off.”

“You’re the most famous doctor in the world.”

Amanda smiles ruefully as she sips her wine. “I think the grand Nobel Prize–winning Dr. Lisa Michael might claim that particular title.”

“Well, I don’t envy her. I don’t envy her callousness.”

“I envy her bank balance,” Amanda replies with a laugh.

The waiter comes to take our order and I realize, with a happy look around the bustling restaurant, how glorious it feels to be having dinner in a nice dress with a friend in a restaurant. Amanda, far from being angry, was more understanding than I could have hoped after my meltdown at Heather Fraser’s house. She found me, sitting by the sea across the road, furiously bargaining in my head with a man who I’ve never met and who will spend the rest of his life in prison. “What’s done is done,” she said softly, and for a moment I hated her for her acceptance and then I stopped. I stopped and I thanked her. I told her it was hard to imagine it all could have been different and I had the first truly honest conversation I’d had since I lost my family about what it means to be alone. To feel alone, and to realize it didn’t have to be this way. But it happened, and there is no changing it.

I’ve realized I can never be friends with Phoebe again. A part of my heart is broken but the chasm between us is too great. It isn’t her fault her family didn’t die, just as it isn’t mine that Anthony and Theodore did, but it is too painful to watch her life carry on as it did before. I love her but I can’t do that to myself. When I met Amanda, I desperately needed a friend who shared my experiences, and happily so did she. Now, I look forward to our meetings for days. Amanda comes to London on medical business, I travel to Scotland for research and sometimes we meet in the middle, walk in the Lake District, talk, cry and laugh. Amanda understands loss and grief and rage. She understands it all.

A question occurs to me that I’ve meant to ask Amanda for a long time but have never been able to. I’ve tried to read articles about the mortality rate but struggled to get past the fear of what I might find out, what it might tell me about things I could have done to prevent Anthony’s death.

“Why is the mortality rate so high?”

“The virus causes a massive spike of white blood cells. It mimics an extreme form of leukemia. That’s why it kills you so quickly; your body can’t do anything with that number of blood cells.”

“Are they in pain before they die then? Because we always give cancer patients morphine when they’re . . .”

“A bit of discomfort,” Amanda says. She’s lying. I know it and she knows but I appreciate this small kindness nonetheless.

She rarely brings up her husband. “Do you want to remarry? Have more kids?” I ask her.

“I’m forty-five, the latter’s not fucking likely.” I start to apologize, but it’s a compliment really. “No,” she says softly. “I couldn’t go through any more loss. I couldn’t bear it. It broke me losing the boys and Will. I can’t face that again.”

“Love’s always a risk though, isn’t it?”

“It is, and not one I can withstand anymore. I don’t know how some women did it; falling pregnant during the Plague, not knowing if they’d have a boy or not. One Spanish woman, devoutly Catholic, got stranded while on holiday in Edinburgh. She gave birth to three boys who all died. Three. They didn’t believe in contraception.” My mind reels at the idea of that much loss, but I understand. I understand the desperation. “She was one of the first women we inoculated with the vaccine when we finally scraped together enough money for it. She has a baby girl now.”

“That’s lovely,” I say, but I’m biting back jealousy and the hot sting of shame that follows it.

“How’s the . . . ?” Amanda gestures and I know this is so I can easily wave away the topic if I don’t feel like talking about it.

I feel my forehead instinctively creasing into a frown of concern. “I find out tomorrow about the last round of IUI. Fingers crossed,” I add helplessly. My first two rounds of IUI didn’t work. If I’m not pregnant now, right this very second, I will never have another chance.

“Good luck. Just remember, fertility is a game of fortune and chance. It’s not a moral failing.”

I smile at the instruction not to view a potential emptiness of my body as the failure it feels like. “I’ll let you know once I get the results of the blood test.”

“Did you know you wanted another one? Straightaway, I mean?”

“Yes but I didn’t let myself. It took a few years. I had to forgive myself. It wasn’t my fault they died. Even if I gave it to them, it wasn’t my fault. I had to understand that before I could try again.”

“Truer words never spoken. Would you want to meet someone? You’re not even forty.”

I shake my head, the feeling resolute. “I’ve thought about it a lot and I just can’t imagine it. I had a great love, the greatest love. That’s more than most people get in a lifetime. There’s no following that up.”