‘Maybe.’ Ellie smiled.
‘Well, if it counts for anything, I love him!’ Maggie chipped in, who’d just returned from smoking a cigarette in the garden. ‘He can hold his own with us lot, he’s down to earth and funny, and he’s not intimidated by you. He’s a keeper in my book.’
‘Do you love him?’ asked Pam. ‘If he’s your DNA Match then you must be in love with him. That’s how it works, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘I do love him.’
‘Well, that’s reassuring to hear,’ came Tim’s voice from behind. ‘Because I’m kind of nuts about you too.’
Chapter 51
MANDY
Mandy stared at the sepia-coloured three-dimensional image of the child she was carrying.
The sonographer passed her two printouts to keep, one for herself and one for the baby’s grandmother, who’d been with her in the room for the twelve-week scan.
‘It looks like a tiny kidney bean but with the face of an alien,’ Mandy joked as she showed the photos back at Pat’s house.
‘It’s not an alien, it’s my grandchild,’ said Pat, who for a moment sounded hurt.
‘She was only kidding, Mum,’ said Chloe. ‘Look at it, it’s so cute! Did you ask if it’s a boy or a girl?’
‘No, I’m happy to wait.’
‘It’s a boy,’ Pat added. ‘I can feel it in my bones; Richard is having a son.’
Six months earlier, and much to Pat and Chloe’s tearful delight, Mandy had accepted Pat’s offer. Mandy hadn’t enquired about the legalities of how Pat came to be in charge of Richard’s DNA, although she had hired a lawyer to deal with it, signing various forms filled with legalese and jargon she didn’t understand. She was too giddy with excitement and trepidation at the prospect of what was to come to consider its lawful validity.
Pat paid for Mandy’s pre-insemination check-up at a private fertility clinic in Harley Street where there were endless tests: Mandy underwent a hormone profile, and blood, ultrasound and STI checks along with measures she could barely pronounce like a hysterosalpingogram and hysteroscopy.
A fortnight later, when Mandy was ovulating, a doctor had placed a small sample of Richard’s sperm into the neck of her womb and sent her home to let nature take its course. When her period arrived three weeks later, she had sobbed so much. The thought of not having Richard’s baby after having made the decision was too much to bear. She cursed herself for letting herself get her hopes up.
The following month she returned to the clinic for a second attempt. And before Mandy had even peed on the home pregnancy test stick and watched the blue cross form, she knew. She had fallen pregnant. The symptoms mirrored her first two pregnancies: from the first morning, she awoke with a queasy feeling and then the pressing need to vomit. As she sat on the cold, slate tiles of her bathroom floor clenching the test, she thought about the miscarriages she had had with Sean and prayed that history would not repeat itself, that it would be third time lucky.
Truth be told, Mandy wasn’t sure how she should be feeling. She was aware she should be delighted and excited, yet fear was the only emotion coursing through her veins, and as hard as she tried not to, she couldn’t stop weeping.
The first person Mandy had called with the good news was Chloe, who she’d grown close to like a sister. She wanted Chloe to be by her side when she told Pat.
‘As I’m going to be a grandma, you can call me mum if you want,’ Pat had suggested through her tears. Mandy smiled politely but it didn’t sit comfortably with her. They were close, but she wasn’t sure if she was there yet.
Now she was without the day-to-day grind of work in a job she’d grown to loathe, Mandy spent more time in the company of Pat and Chloe. Pat was still on compassionate leave from her work in the accounts department of a supermarket, and with Chloe living just a few streets away from her mother, the three women spent many of their days and evenings together.
Mandy often stayed the night at Pat’s house, although she was no longer consigned to the spare room, having been offered Richard’s bedroom instead. It was in his bed, surrounded by his smells and his invisible presence, that she was able to sleep the night through. And it was also a place where her dreams of Richard remained unsullied by the reality of her situation.
With her first trimester complete, Mandy felt more confident in telling her friends that she was expecting. But she had no idea how she was going to break the news to her family. It was her fault that they’d been estranged for so long and she didn’t know how to seal the rift.
She was caught off-guard, however, when her doorbell rang and she saw Paula and Karen’s faces.
‘What’s going on?’ began Paula before she’d even walked through the door. ‘You never answer our calls, we get a text from you once in a blue moon and you haven’t spent time with your nieces and nephew in weeks.’
‘Is this Richard knocking you around?’ asked Karen bluntly. ‘You can tell us if he is and we can help you. You don’t have to stay with him just because he’s your Match.’
‘No, no, look, I’m sorry, I know I’ve been a bad sister and aunty, it’s just that it’s been a … peculiar few months.’
Mandy ushered them inside and into the lounge. They sat next to each other on the sofa with puzzled expressions, fixated on their aloof sister who paced the length of the carpet.
‘What do you mean by peculiar?’ Karen asked. ‘What’s going on? Mum’s worried about you. We all are.’
With no words to describe what had been going on, Mandy simply hitched up her jumper to reveal a small but noticeable baby bump. Karen and Paula reacted just how she thought they would: they let out high-pitched squeals and jumped up to hug and squeeze her.
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ shrieked Paula.
‘And is everything all right with the baby?’ asked Karen.
‘After the last two miscarriages I wanted to make sure I got through the first three months OK. And yes, Karen, the baby’s fine. It’s growing at a healthy rate and everything looks good.’
‘And what does Richard think? Are we finally going to meet the father-to-be?’
‘Where is he?’ Paula turned her head to peer into the kitchen and dining room.
‘I think you need to sit down again,’ began Mandy calmly.
‘Don’t tell me the little shit’s done a runner? Kaz, didn’t I say that’s why we haven’t met him? He’s dumped her. How’s that even possible? I didn’t think you could get binned by your Match?’
‘No no, he hasn’t dumped me. Richard doesn’t know about the baby because … because Richard is no longer with us.’
Mandy’s sisters frowned and looked at each other, unsure if they understood her correctly.
‘So he has left you?’ said Paula.
‘No, I mean he has left us in another way.’
‘What other way is there, other than he’s dead?’ asked Karen.
Mandy said nothing.
‘Oh.’ Karen’s face fell.
‘Your boyfriend died and you didn’t say anything?’ Paula said quietly. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’
Mandy took a deep breath before she explained. ‘Richard was never my boyfriend …’ she spoke slowly and deliberately ‘… because he and I never met. Soon after I found out I had a Match, I learned he’d been killed in a hit and run.’
Karen stared at her with a concerned expression, then reached for her hand. ‘Then how are you pregnant, hon?’
‘I’m not mad, Kaz, and this isn’t a figment of my imagination. Richard had cancer when he was a teenager so he stored his sperm in a fertility clinic bank. I’ve been getting to know his family over the last few months and his mum asked me if I’d consider having his child using his sperm.’ As she spoke, Mandy realised how ridiculous it sounded. If only they could understand, she thought.