Page 27 of Good Sisters

‘No, but we’ve talked about it and we hope to, down the line.’

‘How can you have a baby with no sperm?’ Tom asked. He’d just had the birds and bees talk in school and thought he knew it all now.

‘We can buy it.’

‘You can buy sperm? Like in a shop?’ Tom was blown away. ‘Mrs Kelleher never told us that.’

‘No, dork, in a sperm bank,’ Leo said.

How did Leo know so much about obtaining sperm?

‘Or you just get a guy friend to jerk off in a cup and then you use a turkey baster,’ Luke added.

‘Luke!’ I choked on my wine.

‘What? That’s what people do.’ He shrugged.

Were they teaching this in school now? Did they show you how to put a condom on a banana and then how to put sperm in a turkey baster?

‘What’s a turkey basher?’ Tom was all about the sperm info.

‘Baster, you dork. It’s like a – a thingy.’ Luke clearly didn’t have a clue either.

‘It’s the long plastic tube thing with the red squidgy blob at the top that I use to pour gravy over meat,’ I explained.

Tom looked appalled. ‘What do you do with it? Do you squirt sperm over the woman with it?’

‘Jesus, no!’ This conversation had taken a crazy turn.

‘Mother of God.’ Dad was stunned, and I couldn’t blame him. ‘Is this what passes for table talk, these days? And with children?’

‘They don’t actually use a baster, Tom. The medical term is ICI, Intracervical Insemination. You use a syringe to inject sperm near the cervix.’ Christelle never minced her words.

‘Isn’t it sore?’ Tom looked traumatized.

‘That’s gross,’ Leo said.

‘I’m never having kids,’ Liam said.

‘Harry,’ I hissed, ‘this is not nice dinner conversation. Do something.’

‘I am well aware of that,’ he whispered. ‘Give me a minute. I’m trying to get my head around Christelle and Kelly having a baby.’

‘How do you get the sperm into the syringe? It’s, like, really narrow.’ Leo was all about the detail.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ Dad muttered.

I stood up and shouted, ‘Who’d like dessert? It’s pavlova.’

The triplets jumped up and raced to the counter to fight over who got the biggest slice, followed closely by Tom.

Dad came over to me. ‘I think I’ll head off before I get accused of being a bigot, a misogynist or just outdated. I’m not able for any of this.’

‘Come on, Dad, stay for dessert. I’ll make sure the conversation stays light. It’s so great to have you here.’

‘No, sweetheart, honestly, I’ll head off. I’m tired.’

I walked him to the door. ‘Are you okay? I know you miss Mum. It’s so hard.’

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