Catherine Miller - Waiting For You

‘Muuuummmmmm – I’m hungry,’ Hollie said, from the other side of the door.

‘Go play with your toys and I’ll make breakfast in a minute,’ Fliss said. Three Ellie. Four Ellie. She sped the next two up hoping the interruption wouldn’t interfere with her accuracy. Five Elephant. Six Elephant.

‘But Mummmmmmmmmm.’

Seven Elephant.

‘Hollie, I’m on the toilet. Now go and do as I’ve told you before Mummy gets annoyed.’ Eight Ellie. Her daughter hadn’t moved and was scraping about on the landing. ‘One...’ She started the countdown to the naughty step and wondered why Hollie would choose now to be disobedient. Nine Ellie. Was it nine? She’d forgotten where she was at. ‘TWO...’ The force in her voice was more effective this time and soft footsteps traipsed along the landing. Ten Elephant. It must be ten, right?

She pulled the stick out of the vase, popped the cap on, placed it on the side and wondered what to do for the next two minutes. She could go downstairs and make a start on Hollie’s breakfast, but then her daughter could do with learning a little patience. Besides, if she did that, there was no way she’d be back in time for an accurate result. All the packages said you had to disregard the test after ten minutes.

She looked at her watch. Time was standing still and Hollie was up to her familiar trick of doing as she was told for all of ten seconds. ‘I know you’re not in your bedroom, Hollie.’

Fliss fiddled with the door handle with the desired effect: her six-year-old daughter now running to her bedroom.

One minute and counting. Fliss should have waited for her husband, Ben, to be with her, but if she did that, well, she spent far too much of her life hanging round for him. Far better to quash her suspicions now before becoming convinced, only for her irregular period to arrive and crush her hopes. And it was only her that seemed to be crushed each time it happened. Ben often commented on how she should concentrate on the daughter they did have, not become obsessed by something that may never happen. That was the problem she’d found with Ben; he always wanted to get his point across but rarely listened to what she had to say. As her own unquenched desire wasn’t a strong enough argument, she started to point out Hollie’s recent behaviour in a bid to prove she needed a sibling. It would stop the only-child syndrome from developing. He batted her off with, ‘We’re still trying. If it happens, it happens.’

Fliss wished she could be so complacent about it. Like the two minutes she was waiting now; she could really do with having Ben’s cool attitude. Why did her entire life seem to pass by in a hurry right until she needed something to speed up? She glared at her watch as the final fifteen seconds strummed round in a slow and irritating fashion. As the last seconds closed in, Fliss looked for something lucky to hold on to. Hollie’s toothbrush with its princess handle glimmered at her and she grabbed it with her left hand. The ritual was getting stupid, she realised. She picked the stick up with her right hand and levelled it in front of her closed eyes. Could it be that perhaps this time it was going to be different? She visualised the two blue lines in her head. Positive thinking, that’s what would get her through. Believing, at some point, this would truly happen. She saw the positive result and imagined the way it would feel. She remembered the way it had felt when she’d found out about Hollie. Not-long-married, in their expensive, not-family-orientated flat, Ben and Fliss, being on the wrong side of thirty, had been eager to start a family. They’d never for a minute thought it would happen straightaway. When her period didn’t come they rushed to the chemist late at night; she peed into a small decorative bowl, held on to a plastic duck while they waited for the result and then there they were: those two solid blue lines. She’d wept tears of joy at the news then jumped (somewhat cautiously) around the flat blurting out ‘I’m going to be a mum!’, ‘You’re going to be a dad!’, and ‘We’re going to be parents!’ until she’d made herself dizzy and had to sit down, and still the news hadn’t sunk in.

That was how it was going to be this time. She’d call Ben straightaway; they’d both be bowled over by the news. He’d rush from London so they could celebrate and he’d take the rest of the week off so he could spend it with his family.

Quickly (because she’d learnt it was better that way), Fliss opened her eyes to see the results. Even though she knew that one line meant no and two lines meant yes, she still felt the need to double-check the instructions. One line. Negative.

She flung the test into the sink. ‘I knew I wasn’t.’ She said it accusingly to the stick responsible for delivering the blow. ‘Stupid me for even checking.’

‘Muuummmm, why are you stupid?’

Trust Hollie not to miss a trick. ‘Go downstairs, baby, and I’ll be there in a second. I’ll make you blueberry pancakes if you’re good.’

‘Ace!’

Hollie clattered down the stairs giving Fliss a moment of peace. She spent it clearing away the evidence. Vase emptied, cleaned thoroughly (in the hope she hadn’t ruined any future bouquet’s prospects), she threw the negative test into the bin in her bedroom and checked her expression to make sure the news hadn’t had an effect on her features. She pulled at the skin around her eyes in the hope of stretching some of the wrinkles out. Time was beginning to be cruel to her crow’s feet.

Bravado, that’s what she needed. She pasted a cheery smile on her face and told herself it didn’t matter. Next time it would be different. Surely she could get Ben to be true to his word and take some annual leave for her fertile week.

Downstairs, Hollie waited with her usual neediness. ‘Get a bowl out of the cupboard then, Hols.’

‘You said pancakes.’

Yes, if you were good, Fliss thought, but bit her tongue before starting a showdown. ‘Silly me, how could I forget. Get some cutlery for the table then, sweetheart.’ Her tone attempting to coax her daughter into doing as she was told.

The corners of Hollie’s mouth dipped and Fliss prepared to do battle armed with a bowl and whisk. It seemed impossible that her daughter was able to manipulate her in almost every way. She knew exactly how to press Fliss’s buttons and it was hard to admit that most of the time she gave in, just for an easy life. Ben didn’t help matters. He spoilt her on the weekends when they would all go and do whatever it was that Hollie wanted.

She took her frustrations out on the batter mix instead. It wasn’t fair to make Hollie responsible for the way the test had gone. The mood settling over them this morning was her fault, not her daughter’s.

By the time she’d poured a spoonful of mix into the frying pan, Hollie was busy laying cutlery on the table, taking her time over remembering what side the knife was supposed to go.

‘Delicious,’ Hollie declared when she took her first bite, giving Fliss a blueberry-stained grin.

Fliss’s mood softened at the sight and she tried not to worry about Hollie’s school uniform getting soiled. Ben was right: this was one of the moments she needed to appreciate being with the daughter she had.

***

An hour later and with Hollie packed off to school, Fliss should have been getting on with some work. With no current interior design projects, there was a 1950s cabinet waiting in her studio for its final sanding down before some upcycling touches, but instead she was in front of the computer seeking solace. Mummyto3boys would be online so she logged on to the Baby Making Forum.

‘Another BFN,’ she wrote on the Trying To Conceive board and surprised herself when she laughed at the abbreviation. When she’d first joined up she thought all the shortenings were for scientific names. It was only after spending a while lurking around the boards that she’d discovered they were anything but. BFN = BIG FAT Negative and every time she wrote it, despite what it represented, it still made her giggle.