Page 7 of The Love of My Life
We all but gave up on conceiving. Three years of hopes raised and dashed, endless appointments with real doctors, witch doctors and everyone in between. We’d had every test known to man, but nobody could give me a concrete reason for my inability to get pregnant. The only thing they seemed to agree on, in the end, was that I was very unlikely to conceive naturally, if at all.
Eventually, we took out a loan and payed for an eyewateringly expensive ‘miracle IVF’ that Leo’s sister-in-law had had. It worked. Another part of my body might have been growing a low-grade cancer, but in my womb, a child was forming.
A second chance, I think now, reaching out a hand to check for the gentle rise and fall of my daughter’s ribs. Please, Dr Moru, give me a second chance tomorrow, so I can love my husband and daughter in the way I promised.
I will let him go, if I get the all-clear. No matter how hard, I will let him go.
Chapter Three
LEO
When Emma finally sleeps, I go back out to the shed. I pick up the notebook and hold it between two fingers, as if it’s a contaminant.
Her instinct was spot on: I have been writing her obituary. Sitting, scribbling on the tube, strangers trying to read over my shoulder. Writing late at night, when Emma’s gone to bed and it’s just me and John Keats and a black opening of fear.
I understand why she wouldn’t want me to do it, of course, but these words aren’t meant to be a betrayal. They’re meant to be something beautiful. A hymn to this woman I love so deeply, so completely.
The writing hasn’t just helped treat my mental state; it’s reassured me that there’s no chance Emma could ever be forgotten, or otherwise overlooked. That matters to me.
Do whatever you need to do for yourself, she said when she was first diagnosed.Join a support group, get a therapist. This is going to be every bit as hard for you as it is for me.
So I did what I knew, and it helped.
Back in our bed, one of her sleeping hands is outstretched to my side of the bed, as if her subconscious knew what I was up to but has already forgiven me.
Chapter Four
LEO
Next day
The news about Janice Rothschild’s disappearance comes in on a news wire soon after I reach the office.
I’m checking our competitors’ obituary pages when Sheila, my colleague, sounds the receptionist’s bell on her desk.Ding!She always does this when someone has died. Publicly, we all agree it’s a terrible practice; privately, we find it funny.
Ding!We all look up. ‘Oh, no.’ Sheila says. She’s staring at her screen. ‘Sorry, ignore the bell. Reflex action. But – oh, God.’ She picks up her mobile, checks for something, then returns to her screen.
We wait. Sheila does everything in her own time.
After a few moments she sits back and passes her hands over her face. ‘Janice Rothschild has disappeared. Just walked out of rehearsals for her play. Three days ago; nobody knows where she’s gone.’
Kelvin, my editor, says, ‘Really? What play?’
Even for Kelvin, whose emotional range is slim, this is poor. Janice Rothschild and her husband Jeremy are among Sheila’s closest friends: Kelvin knows that. We all know that.
Kelvin’s question is answered by Jonty, another colleague, whose emotional range is far too broad. ‘She’s rehearsingAll My Sons,’ he says. ‘I have tickets to see it in July. I absolutely can’t stand it, Sheila, please tell me you’re joking?’
Sheila massages her temples, ignoring them both.
‘This is awful,’ I say, quietly. ‘Sheila, I’m sorry.’
She ignores me too. ‘I – oh, God,’ she mutters. ‘Poor Jeremy. It says on the newswire that she’d seemed depressed in recent weeks but I ... I just can’t believe that. She’s always been so ... so fine.’
My editor remembers his job. ‘Very worrying indeed. But – ah ... Do we have a stock on file?’
A stock is a pre-written obituary. We keep thousands of them in our filing cabinets, but Janice Rothschild, who is only about fifty and without any reported health concerns, has not even made it onto our ‘just in case’ list. She’s in a BBC adaptation ofMadame Bovaryright now, for goodness’ sake – I watched it on Sunday evening. Emma went to bed soon after it started, saying she wasn’t a fan of Janice Rothschild, but I thought she was excellent.
Sheila leaves her desk to call Jeremy.
