Susan Wiggs - Just Breathe

“A lovely, moving novel with an engaging heroine…Wiggs’s talent is reflected in her thoroughly believable characters as well as the way she recognises the importance of family by blood or other ties.”

— Library Journal on Just Breathe [starred review]

“An emotionally wrought story that will have readers reaching for the Kleenex one moment and snickering out loud the next.”

— Publishers Weekly

“Wiggs is one of our best observers of stories of the heart. Maybe that is because she knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book.”

— Salem Statesman-Journal

“Delightful and wise, Wiggs’s latest shines.”

— Publishers Weekly on Dockside

“The perfect beach read.”

—Debbie Macomber on Summer by the Sea

“A human and multilayered story exploring duty to both country and family.”

—Nora Roberts on The Ocean Between Us

www.mirabooks.co.uk

In memory of Alice O’Brien Borchardt—gifted writer, cherished friend.

You live in the hearts of those who loved you.

It took a special effort to bring this book to publication.

I gratefully acknowledge my fellow writers for their gifts of friendship, humour and patience in reading my early drafts: Anjali Banerjee, Kate Breslin, Carol Cassella, Lois Faye Dyer, PJ Jough-Haan, Rose Marie Harris, Susan Plunkett, Sheila Rabe, Krysteen Seelen, Suzanne Selfors and Elsa Watson.

Heartfelt thanks to Greg Evans, creator of the comic strip Luann; to former fire captain Tom McCabe of the Kern County Fire Department—a real-life hero; and to Glenn Mounger, international man of mystery.

And, as always, thanks to the team of experts who make books happen—my agent, Meg Ruley, and Annelise Robey of the Jane Rotrosen Agency; my editor, Margaret O’Neill Marbury, and Adam Wilson of MIRA Books; and to Donna Hayes, Dianne Moggy, Loriana Sacilotto and so many others for making this business a guilty pleasure.

After a solid year of visits to the clinic, Sarah was starting to find the decor annoying. Maybe the experts here believed earth tones had a soothing effect on anxious, aspiring parents. Or perhaps that the cheery burble of a wall fountain might cause an infertile woman to spontaneously drop an egg like an overly productive laying hen. Or even that the soft shimmer of brass chimes could induce a wandering sperm to find its way home like a heat-seeking missile.

The post-procedure period, lying flat on her back with her hips elevated, was starting to feel like forever. It was no longer standard practice to wait after insemination but many women, Sarah included, were superstitious. They needed all the help they could get, even from gravity itself.

There was a quiet tap on the door, then she heard it swish open.

“How are we doing?” asked Frank, the nurse-practitioner. Frank had a shaved head, a soul patch and a single earring, and he wore surgical scrubs with little bunnies on them. Mr. Clean showing his nurturing side.

“Hoping it is a ‘we’ this time,” she said, propping her hands behind her head.

His smile made Sarah want to cry. “Any cramps?”

“No more than usual.” She lay quietly on the cushioned, sterile-draped exam table while he checked her temperature and recorded the time.

She turned her head to the side. From this perspective, she could see her belongings neatly lined up on the shelf in the adjacent dressing room: her cinnamon-colored handbag from Smythson of Bond Street, designer clothes, butter-soft boots set carefully against the wall. Her mobile phone, programmed to dial her husband with one touch, or even a voice command.

Looking at all this abundance, she saw the trappings of a woman who was cared for. Provided for. Perhaps—no, definitely—spoiled. Yet instead of feeling pampered and special, she simply felt…old. Like middle-aged, instead of still in her twenties, the youngest client at Fertility Solutions. Most women her age were still living with their boyfriends in garrets furnished with milk crates and unpainted planks. She shouldn’t envy them, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself.

For no good reason, Sarah felt defensive and vaguely guilty for going through the expensive therapies. “It’s not me,” she wanted to explain to perfect strangers. “There’s not a thing wrong with my fertility.”

When she and Jack decided to seek help getting pregnant, she went on Clomid just to give Mother Nature a hand. At first it seemed crazy to treat her perfectly healthy body as if there were something wrong with it, but by now she was used to the meds, the cramps, the transvaginal ultrasounds, the blood tests…and the crushing disappointment each time the results came up negative.

“Yo, snap out of it,” Frank told her. “Going into a funk is bad karma. In my totally scientific opinion.”

“I’m not in a funk.” She sat up and offered him a smile. “I’m fine, really. It’s just that this is the first time Jack couldn’t make the appointment. So if this works, I’ll have to explain to my child one day that his daddy wasn’t present at his conception. What do I tell him, that Uncle Frank did the honors?”

“Yeah, that’d be good.”

Sarah told herself Jack’s absence wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. By the time the ultrasound revealed a maturing ovarian follicle and she’d given herself the HCG injection, they had thirty-six hours for the intrauterine insemination. Unfortunately, Jack had already scheduled a late-afternoon meeting at the work site. He couldn’t get out of it. The client was coming from out of town, he said.

“So are you still trying the old-fashioned way?” Frank asked.

She flushed. Jack’s erections were few and far between, and lately, he’d all but given up. “That’s not going so hot.”

“Bring him tomorrow,” Frank said. “I’ve got you down for 8:00 a.m.” There would be a second IUI while the window of fertility was still open. He handed her a reminder card and left her alone to put herself back together.

Her yearning for a child had turned into a hunger that was painfully physical, one that intensified as the fruitless months marched past. This was her twelfth visit. A year ago, she never thought she’d reach this milestone, let alone face it by herself. The whole business had become depressingly routine—the self-injections, the invasion of the speculum, the twinge and burn of the inseminating catheter. After all this time, Jack’s absence should be no big deal, she reminded herself as she got dressed. Still, for Sarah it was easy to remember that at the center of all the science and technology was something very human and elemental—the desire for a baby. Lately, she had a hard time even looking at mothers with babies. The sight of them turned yearning to a physical ache.

Having Jack here to hold her hand and endure the New Age Muzak with her made the appointments easier. She appreciated his humor and support, but this morning, she’d told him not to feel guilty about missing the appointment.

“It’s all right,” she had said with an ironic smile at breakfast. “Women get pregnant without their husbands every day.”

He barely glanced up from checking messages on his BlackBerry. “Nice, Sarah.”

She had touched her foot to his under the table. “We’re supposed to keep trying to get pregnant the conventional way.”

He looked up and, for an instant, she saw a dark flash in his gaze. “Sure,” he said, pushing back from the table and organizing his briefcase. “Why else would we have sex?”