Page 27 of The Life We Almost Had

‘How do you know why I can’t fall pregnant? How do we know?’ She wrenched the steering wheel and violently we left the road, bumping down a rutted track into a clearing in the forest. It was pitch black under the towering trees. She turned to me, but instead of fury in her face, there was nothing but sadness. ‘How do we know?’ she asked again, this time quietly.

‘We’ll know tomorrow.’ I was thinking of the appointment again with the fertility specialist.

‘I’m so scared.’

‘Anna, I—’

‘Shh.’ She unclipped her seatbelt and awkwardly climbed over the centre console, onto my lap. She kissed me. I held her face between my hands and kissed her back, hard. She undid my belt. I lifted my hips to slide my jeans down before I unbuttoned her shirt, running my hands up her thighs, under her skirt. My fingers feeling how much she wanted me.

This. This was what I had longed for.

Feeling desired. Needed. Feeling the way we used to feel before we relied on an app to tell us when we should touch each other.

This was what I had missed.

Her.

Us.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon and my mouth still tasted like something had died in it. Our appointment was in fifteen minutes.Anna should be here by now. Her school day finished at three.

Where was she?

I checked my phone again but she hadn’t messaged. Another five minutes passed and I was wondering whether I should book us in when I saw her running towards me.

‘Are you—’

‘Let’s get inside,’ she said breathlessly.

We told the receptionist we were here and were told to wait on hard grey chairs that matched the grey walls and the grey floor. It looked like the place dreams came to die.

‘Good day?’ I wanted to distract Anna from her thoughts. I wanted to distract myself from my thoughts.

‘Not really.’ She tucked a curl behind her ears. ‘You know I was worried about Jemma?’

‘Yes.’ Jemma was one of Anna’s Year Eleven pupils. Anna had noticed she’d become withdrawn and was worried she might be being bullied.

‘She asked to see me after school today, that’s why I was late. She’s pregnant.’

‘Oh, Anna.’

‘She wants me to help her arrange a termination.’ Her voice was flat, emotionless, but I knew how twisted up inside she was.

‘Mr and Mrs Curtis?’ We were summoned into a room.

We sat down. Anna’s hand slipped inside mine.

‘Hello,’ said Dr Bowman. ‘I have the results of your laparoscopy, Anna. We suspected from your heavy periods and the pain you experience that your failure to conceive—’

‘Failure?’ I couldn’t help blurting out as Anna’s fingers tightened around mine.

‘Sorry. Lack of success conceiving over the past eighteen months might be due to endometriosis and the results confirm that it is. Do you both understand what endometriosis is?’ He paused.

‘Yes,’ said Anna at the same time I said ‘kind of’.

‘It’s when the lining of the uterus – the endometrium – grows elsewhere, such as in the fallopian tubes or ovaries. The lining breaks down but, unlike the cells in the womb that leave the body as a period, it has nowhere to go.’

‘And this has prevented Anna falling pregnant?’

---