Jane wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about Jakey...you know how much I loved him. I was such a mess afterward.”
Annie felt like screaming, Don’t you say his name! But she bit her tongue. Jane had been a brilliant godmother, visiting every week, taking hundreds of adoring pictures.
Jane sniffed. “It must have been horrendous for you. I can’t even imagine it. But what happened with us...it was an accident, and I didn’t mean it. I just fell in love. I know that was selfish. I just loved him so much. I fell so hard and I didn’t know what to do.”
“You’re happy? The two of you?” It would be three soon. She wondered if they were using Jacob’s room. Painting over the stencils she’d done of happy ducks and teddies.
Jane hesitated, then nodded guiltily. “I think so, anyway. I mean, I’ve been sick and knackered...” She stopped herself, as if aware of who she was talking to. “I’m sorry. I guess you don’t want to hear it’s hard being pregnant.”
“I remember.” It was hard having a baby, too. It was easy to forget that sometimes, so deep was her longing to have Jacob back. It felt like a betrayal, to even remember the feeling of walking around this very room with him, screaming in her ear, depositing snot and tears all over her, as 3:00 a.m. turned into 4:00. A deep sorrow came over Annie. “It wasn’t your fault, what happened to Jakey. But, Jane—I think it was the final straw, what you did. The final thing that broke me.”
Jane made a noise, a sort of ugly snort, and Annie saw she was crying, her face screwed up. Her own river of tears was shifting, moving dangerously under the ice. But no, she and Jane weren’t going to cry in each other’s arms, and they weren’t going back to being best friends. “I’m so sorry,” Jane said in her strangled crying-voice. “I miss you so much. I did such a terrible thing.”
Annie’s heart was so heavy it felt like a full bucket of water. “I better go.” She couldn’t stay here any longer, in this lovely house that was once hers. It was all so bloody unfair. Jane had her house, her husband and now a baby. And Annie had...nothing. For a second she imagined another world, one where Jane was pregnant with someone other than Annie’s ex-husband. How happy Annie would have been for her. The loss of it—not just Jacob but Jane, and this baby to come, too—squeezed her heart in its fist. Could she imagine a time when she was part of their life? Went to the child’s birthday parties, sent gifts?
She looked up at the ceiling. “Are you using...will you be using his room?”
“There’s nowhere else.” Jane was biting her lip. “I’m sorry. We’d have moved except for, you know...house prices and—”
“It’s okay.” Of course they’d use it—where else would they put the baby?—but all the same it hurt. It stung like an open cut.
As Annie went to the door it suddenly opened with a scrape, and standing there was Mike. He held the key in midair, almost comically, his face an O of surprise. Annie quickly took in that he, too, had aged—his hairline was farther back, and his stomach larger under his polo shirt and jeans. “Annie?” His hands were full of Waitrose bags-for-life. So he’d finally started remembering to bring them.
“Hi, Mike.”
His head swiveled to Jane. “Babe, has she...?”
Babe. That was like a blade in Annie’s stomach. She watched them have a quick silent conversation, the kind she used to have with him.
Did she cause a scene again?
No, it’s fine.
Annie couldn’t face another emotional showdown. She forced her mouth into a smile, or at least a pointing-up direction. “I need to go. Thanks for chatting to me, Jane. Con—” The word thickened in her mouth. “Congratulations. Bye.”
She left them standing in the doorway, soon to be a little family of three, and as she walked down the path she heard Mike say, “There’s some madwoman singing along to the Grease megamix in that car over there.”
DAY 29
Have a Facebook cull
“Good for you,” Polly said as Annie presented her phone, a little sulkily, for inspection. “Both of them gone?”
“Both of them.” But it didn’t feel good. She’d been friends with Jane since long before the internet, before periods and boys, before either of them could even tie their shoelaces. And now she’d erased her for good. Annie couldn’t help feeling it might have gone differently, if she’d given it another year or two. Maybe if Polly hadn’t pushed her into going before she was ready...but no. Those bridges were on fire, people screaming and jumping off them into the raging water. There was no point in what-ifs.
Polly squeezed her arm as they sat in the hospital café. “Come on, I’ll buy you a cake. Do you think Dr. Q would like something for when he’s done his run? I saw him earlier, going around and around and around the hospital. He’s, like, really fit.”
Annie frowned. “Polly.”
“It’s just cake.”
“Sure it is. Anyway, any more cake and I’ll develop type 2 diabetes and then I’ll be in here with you and you won’t be able to play that cancer card anymore.”
“Fine, fine. Let’s get out of here. I spy Dr. McGrumpy and I need to avoid him. He said I needed to get a white stick, my eyesight is so bad! Can you imagine? Me with a white stick. I’m not blind.”
Annie saw Dr. Max at the counter, queuing for what looked like a triple espresso, and she waved. She found herself wondering idly if he was on Facebook.
DAY 30
Listen
Annie took a deep breath. She’d rewritten the email five times now and it was getting ridiculous. It was only seven words. Why not just click Send? But what if the recipient laughed, or ignored it, or forwarded it to everyone else? Her hand hovered on the mouse, paralyzed. What would Polly say? Something meaningless about it having to be dark to see the stars, no doubt. A lot of these inspirational sayings were about astronomy for some reason.
She sighed and clicked. Would you like to have lunch today? Then she stared down at her desk, the bottom dropping out of her stomach. This would be awkward. What would they even talk about? Assuming she said yes. She probably wouldn’t. But when she risked looking up, Fee was nodding enthusiastically back at her.
*
“What a nice idea, Annie. I always just eat at my desk and work through.”
“I know. But we’re not paid for that, are we.”
“You’re right. And I didn’t know this place was here.” They had Styrofoam cups of coffee and bacon rolls, and were sitting on the metal chairs outside the park coffee kiosk. Fee closed her eyes against the weak spring sunshine. “This makes me feel better. Thanks, Annie.”
“Is everything...everything okay?” she asked timidly. She didn’t want to pry, but Fee hadn’t been herself recently. She hadn’t tried to get them all to do karaoke for at least a month.