LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes,’ Kate said, and replaced the phone in its cradle.

      ‘Mike?’

      He glanced up at Fran and got straight to his feet, one look enough to know something was going on. ‘What is it?’ he asked, his chest tight with dread.

      ‘I don’t know. Kate’s coming to see us. She’s got our results.’

      He felt his heart lurch and went over to her, gathering her in his arms and hugging her tight.

      ‘We can handle this, Frankie,’ he said softly. ‘Whatever it is. Come on, let’s go into the house and wait for her. I take it she’s coming here now?’

      ‘Yes. She said she’d be ten minutes. Mike, I feel sick.’

      ‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

      She would have fallen down without his support. They left the door open, standing there in the kitchen facing it, him behind her, his hands on her shoulders, steadying her, and so when Kate came in they couldn’t see her face because the light was behind her.

      ‘Well, I’ll get straight to the point,’ Kate said. ‘It wasn’t the news I was expecting to give you, but we aren’t going to be referring you for the IVF programme.’

      ‘No!’ Fran wailed, her knees threatening to buckle, and she felt Mike’s arms tighten round her.

      ‘Fran, no,’ Kate said hurriedly, and Fran couldn’t work out why on earth she was smiling. ‘It’s not bad news! You can’t have the IVF because you don’t need it. You’re pregnant, Fran,’ she said, and her smile widened. ‘Congratulations, both of you. You’re going to have a baby.’

      Fran stared at her for an age, numb with shock, and then with a fractured little sob she turned and fell into Mike’s waiting arms …

      They talked for hours.

      Once Fran had stopped crying, of course, and they realised that Kate had left.

      She was sitting on Mike’s lap, one arm round his neck and his hand resting lightly over their baby, and she said softly, ‘It’s going to be OK this time, Mike. I feel so different. Much sicker. I thought it was just fright, but of course it isn’t. My period is two days overdue, and I feel really different. And tired, but I thought that was just you keeping me awake half the night.’

      He chuckled and tilted his head back, smiling up at her tenderly. ‘You’re to take care of yourself,’ he said. ‘Nothing silly. No unpasteurised milk or soft cheese or any of the other things—and no cheesemaking either. I can do that with a bin bag on my foot. And I’m sure Kate will give you a huge list of dos and don’ts.’

      ‘I’m sure she will.’ His hair had flopped forwards, and she lifted it back with her fingers and smoothed it out of the way so she could see his eyes. ‘I don’t want to tell Sophie yet, though,’ she said, not wanting to acknowledge the possibility of failure but all too aware that it might lurk round the corner for them. After all it had before, twice.

      ‘It’ll be fine. Third time lucky, Fran,’ he murmured. ‘But I agree, we won’t tell her yet. We won’t tell anyone. Not till you’re past the three-month mark.’

      ‘I lost both the others at eight weeks,’ she reminded him sadly.

      His arm tightened. ‘I know.’

      ‘Three weeks and five days to go.’

      ‘We’ll make it,’ he assured her, his voice quietly confident. ‘And even if we don’t, we’ve still got each other. As far as I’m concerned, that makes me the luckiest man alive. The rest is just the icing on the cake.’

      She rested her head against his and sighed. ‘I’m so lucky to have you,’ she said softly. ‘Have I told you recently how much I love you?’

      He chuckled. ‘Only about ten times today, but feel free to do it again.’

      The phone rang, and she hung on to his neck and reached over, grabbing it from the charger without leaving Mike’s lap. ‘Hello? Oh, hi, Ben. Yes, he’s here. I’ll hand you over.’

      She gave Mike the phone, and after a brief conversation he hung up and smiled at her. ‘The valuer’s been.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘If we’d ended up having to go the IVF route, we’d have had more than enough, but Joe and Sarah can do their kitchen, and Mum and Dad can change the car. And we can put the money on one side and spend it on something later. We’re going to make it this time, Fran,’ he said with conviction. ‘I know we will.’

      ‘We can spend it on the nursery,’ she said, allowing a little bloom of hope. ‘The house could do with a bit of decorating, and the heating’s not great.’

      He laughed. ‘Don’t get too carried away,’ he said, and then kissed her. ‘Time for bed?’

      ‘Sounds good,’ she said.

      He lay watching her sleep, a little knot of fear in his chest. They had to make it. If she lost this baby …

      Then he’d cope, he told himself firmly. If Fran had the courage to do this, then he had to find the courage to support her if it all went wrong. And they’d have the money put on one side for the IVF, should they need it. Please, God, it wouldn’t be necessary …

      Fran thought The Day would never come.

      That was how she’d started thinking about it—with capital letters, because it seemed so huge, so important, so very far away that somehow nothing else would do.

      Her pregnancy was a nightmare. Not because anything went wrong, because it didn’t. She got through it, day by day, hour by hour, focusing on the end, planning for the magical day when she could bring her baby home, but somehow not daring to believe that it would ever happen.

      The eight-week deadline passed.

      Safely.

      She gave a shaky sigh of relief when she reached nine weeks and realised she was probably over that hurdle. The next danger point was twelve weeks, and she got through that, too.

      Then she had a scan—an image of her baby, just a tiny curl of a thing, but with an unwavering heartbeat.

      ‘Oh, Mike,’ she said, clinging to him and staring mesmerised at the screen, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. So she did both, and so did Mike, and they were given a photo to keep.

      Their first, in the album she started with a trembling hope.

      Then at twenty weeks she had her second scan, and another photo for the album.

      ‘Do you want to know what sex it is?’

      She looked at Mike for guidance, and he shrugged, passing the ball back to her.

      ‘I don’t care, so long as everything’s all right,’ he said, and she smiled.

      ‘No, then,’ she said. ‘We’ll wait and see.’

      And then she kicked herself, because they started decorating the nursery, the little room off their bedroom that had always been the nursery, where Mike and Joe had slept for the first year of their lives, where their father, Russell, had slept, and so on back for generations. And because they didn’t know the sex of the baby, they didn’t know what colour to paint it.

      ‘Yellow?’ Mike offered. ‘That’s sunny and sort of neutral.’

      ‘It makes them look jaundiced,’ Fran said doubtfully, and he chuckled.

      ‘Not daffodil yellow. Something softer. A pale creamy primrose?’

      So that was how it ended up, a lovely soft colour, and when she was thirty-six weeks, they bought a cot. They didn’t assemble it, though. It was as if, by tacit agreement, they didn’t want to push their luck. So it stayed in the room, propped

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