The Mothers’ Club. Strictly members only, Lexi thought. Her hand trailed to her stomach: Admittance coming soon.
She wondered what sort of mother she’d be. When she pictured this baby, she saw herself outdoors, walking, the baby strapped to her chest in a sling. They would take long strolls in all weathers, pointing out the small things they passed – ducks gliding along the river, a squirrel in a high-up branch. She realised how much she’d enjoy the company, someone to share her day with.
She tried to picture their home in London, with its huge sash windows and sparkling granite surfaces, filled with baby paraphernalia. She added Ed into the scene, placed him kneeling on a rug, smiling over their baby, who’d be cooing on a play mat. The image felt faint, too distant to reach. She tried to zoom in, see Ed’s expression. But she couldn’t make it out. Was he happy? Bored? Impatient?
The first prickling sensation of panic travelled across her skin. She knew this feeling. Had known it all her adult life: a sensation of the walls closing in, stealing the light, the air, her breath. Trapping her.
Her previous relationships had never lasted more than a few months – because as soon as the other person became emotionally invested, wanted her to commit, this feeling of suffocation closed in. She’d begin thinking about all the things that irritated her – building a case file against the poor, unsuspecting man. It was all there, waiting. The negative energy building and building, until she just had to release it by breaking up with them. It didn’t matter what they said, how much they cried; she needed to shift them. Afterwards she’d feel the huge emotional relief that it didn’t take up her headspace anymore. Then came the partying, the huge blowouts. Over and over, a little cycle of love affairs gone wrong.
She’d hoped that with Ed it would be different. It had been. It was. Until she’d taken that pregnancy test. Standing on the plush carpet of their bedroom, she’d felt the slam of fear as the blue cross emerged. A relationship could be ended. A marriage could be unravelled legally. But having a child with someone was a forever-tie.
There. That must be the precise root of her anxiety, she thought. That’s what she’d struggled to verbalise to Robyn and Bella. The pregnancy heightened everything, sealed her decisions. Knowing she could walk away was her emergency button: she wasn’t planning on pressing it, but it was reassuring to know it was there.
She already had a mental file of Ed-irritations standing by. She didn’t like the way he showered twice a day – it seemed particular. He couldn’t laugh at himself easily. He could be surly with restaurant staff. The problem was, Lexi couldn’t tell if these doubts were real and worth listening to – or if they were merely her old patterns getting to work on sabotaging her happiness.
She didn’t need to see a therapist to know where her fear of commitment stemmed from. When Lexi was thirteen, a woman had come to the door one spring evening, when the wisteria was in full bloom. It was one of her mother’s tracksuit days and Lexi had wished it weren’t. She watched from the stairs as her mother spoke to this petite, red-headed woman, her lips full and bowed like a heart. Her mother’s voice was thin and taut, and she kept touching her hairline, where her hair hung lank and unwashed.
The woman on the doorstep claimed that Lexi’s father hadn’t paid maintenance for the past year. ‘Sadie’s eleven now. She’s starting secondary school. There are things she needs.’
She expected her mother to say there’d been some mistake, but instead she’d said icily, ‘You’ll have to discuss this with Eric. He’s racing in Argentina right now.’ Then she’d closed the door.
‘Who was that?’ Lexi asked from the top of the stairs.
Her mother swung around, startled, face bloodless. ‘No one.’
‘Dad has … another daughter?’
Her mother stood pin-straight, her chin lifted, mouth tight. Lexi scanned her expression, searching for an emotion she could recognise. After a long silence, her mother simply said, ‘Yes, he does.’
Lexi felt an explosion in her head. Another daughter! My half-sister! Sadie … Sadie … ‘Does he see her?’
‘No.’
‘So what, he had an … affair?’ The word felt strange, dramatic. Something she heard on television shows, not in her life.
‘Not an affair, Lexi. Many.’ She’d smiled, a cold, awful smile that chilled Lexi to the bone. Then her mother retreated upstairs and Lexi didn’t see her again until the following day.