Lucy Gordon - The Pregnancy Bond

‘I admit I’m not certain,’ he agreed. ‘But I’m a doctor. You develop an instinct. My instinct says you’re pregnant.’

‘But I can’t be.’

‘Do you mean that literally? There hasn’t been anyone-?’ He paused delicately. ‘It would be understandable if you’d celebrated your new freedom-’

‘I did that, all right,’ she groaned. ‘I celebrated my new freedom with my old husband. But you don’t understand. I was pregnant before, years ago, and miscarried. Ever since then I’ve tried hard to start another child, but no luck. I simply don’t believe that it happened the one time I wasn’t thinking about it.’

‘But that’s why it happened. Doctors see it all the time with couples who’ve been childless for years, then they adopt and within six months the wife conceives. Having the adopted baby to love makes her relax, and when she stops being tense about it-’ he spread his hands in an expressive gesture ‘-it happens.’

‘But you’re only guessing,’ Kelly said with more firmness than she felt.

He took something from a cupboard. ‘Here’s a testing kit. Why don’t we talk again in a few minutes? There’s a bathroom through there.’

She clung to her belief in a mistake until the last moment, and then it felt as though she’d always really known.

‘I guess I should have trusted your instinct,’ she agreed, emerging and showing him the test strip. ‘Oh, this can’t be happening! Jake and I are finished.’

‘You don’t think he’d be pleased?’

‘He mustn’t know. He’s moved on. So have I.’

‘Have you?’ Dr Ainsley asked with raised eyebrows.

‘Yes. Even if I manage not to miscarry-oh, it’s complicated. Promise me you won’t tell him.’

‘Of course, but don’t forget he saw what happened just now. He may get suspicious.’

‘I don’t think so. Jake’s terribly good with facts but he doesn’t notice much about people.’

At home that evening she tried to concentrate on archaeology, but soon gave up. How could she think about ancient constructions when the entire construction of her own life was being turned upside down?

A baby, when she’d abandoned all hope long ago! Jake’s baby, when it was too late for it to save their marriage! Bitter, bitter irony!

She’d told Dr Ainsley that she couldn’t be pregnant, and suddenly she could see herself at eighteen, saying exactly the same thing to an exasperated Mildred.

‘Of course you could,’ her mother had replied. ‘That’s what I said, and I was wrong. I was only sixteen when it happened to me. You held out until eighteen. Well done, girl. You’re a credit to the family.’

‘Mum!’ she’d protested.

‘You’ve got to face facts. I suppose it’s Jake’s?’

‘Of course it’s Jake’s. I love him.’

‘Let’s hope you have more luck with him than I had with your father. Once he knew you were on the way I never saw him again.’

But Jake had been different. To Kelly’s incredulous delight he’d been overjoyed about the baby.

‘How fast can we get married?’ had been his first question.

‘Wait-wait-’ she said, half-crying, half-laughing with joy.

‘Of course we can’t wait. Let’s set the date now.’

‘But you haven’t asked me to marry you,’ she pointed out.

‘I’ll ask you later. Let’s get going.’

And before she knew it she was a bride, dressed in a neat blue dress that would be useful later. They married so quickly that her waist hadn’t even started to thicken.

Mildred was laconic and practical.

‘You’re a fool, girl. You got top marks in those exam results, and you could have done anything. Well, you’ve blown it and that’s that. I’d saved a bit of money to help you through college, but you’ll need it now.’

The cheque was generous, but Kelly didn’t read too much into it. Mildred was clearing her conscience, and it was no surprise when, a week after the wedding, she took off with a lorry driver and passed out of her daughter’s life.

She was too happy with Jake to care. Their first married home was two rented rooms, in which he wrote freelance pieces and she struggled against sickness. She became grumpy, but Jake could always laugh her out of her ‘down’ moods, and nothing could spoil her joy. She was carrying Jake’s child, totally in love, and passionately grateful to him for wanting her and their baby, even if she did suspect that it was the baby that was the main attraction.

He told her of his lonely childhood without brothers or sisters.

‘We moved around a lot with Dad’s job, so I never got the chance to make friends. I kept wanting my parents to have more children so that I’d have someone to play with. But they never did. Then when I was fourteen they died.’

‘So now you think you’re going to get someone to play with?’ she teased.

And he grinned and said, ‘Reckon that’s it.’

Now she was carrying his child again, as unplanned and unexpected as before. But nothing else was the same.

She wondered how she could have missed the clues. But years of failing to conceive again had convinced her that it wasn’t possible, so the signs had slid past unnoticed, or at least misinterpreted. The tetchy mood that she recalled from last time had returned, but she’d mistaken it for the strain of working so hard.

Here she was at the beginning of her ‘new life’, and suddenly she was back in the old one.

‘No,’ she muttered aloud. ‘I’ve played this script before and I’m not doing it again. I get pregnant, Jake does the decent thing, and I’m left feeling grateful. Not this time. No way. I’m a big girl now. I’ll look after myself and my baby without help from him.’

My baby! It had a melancholy sound. It should have been ‘our baby’. There were so many moments that she was going to miss: telling Jake that he would be a father at last, seeing his eyes glow with joy, sharing the birth with him.

She must forget about all those things, because Jake didn’t really want her. He’d wanted the glamorous creature of the party, but that hadn’t been the real Kelly. Even the pencil-slim figure would soon blur and thicken.

But for how long? Suppose she miscarried again? That, too, she would face alone if it happened. And it was better that way.

‘He needn’t even know I’m pregnant,’ she went on to herself. ‘I’ll say I have to work, and not visit him again. He’ll go back to Olympia and I-’ She pressed her hand over her stomach, the fingers splayed, and a smile came over her face.

Suddenly it hit her. She was going to have a baby, Jake’s baby, the child she’d waited, longed and prayed for, all these years. Her smile was not only one of tenderness. It was a smile of triumph.

This was the true beginning of her new life, not as the sexy imp who’d briefly captured Jake’s volatile fancy, but as a strong woman who could cope alone, depending on no man.

‘Who says it’s too late?’ she whispered. ‘It might be too late for us, but it’s only just starting for me.’

Next day she found Jake sitting in a chair by the window. He seemed stronger, but there was a tension about him that made conversation difficult.

‘Does the doctor think you’re any better?’ she asked.

‘I’m making progress. Slow but sure, that’s what he keeps saying.’

‘Good.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m fine. I got a good mark for my last essay.’

‘And your job?’

‘That’s easy.’

‘But for how much longer?’ he asked slowly.

Time seemed to stop. ‘What-do you mean?’ Kelly asked.

‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’

‘What? Jake, for pity’s sake-one little giddy spell-’