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brochure, really looked, and, as she seemed to be doing rather a lot lately, tried to keep the tears from coming. ‘It’s for over-fifties, for widows, divorcees. It’s not a meeting thing,’ Rose said primly. ‘They just sort out the accommodation, it’s company…’

      ‘It sounds wonderful,’ Alison said.

      ‘I want my life back too.’ Rose was the one crying now. ‘I want to do the things that I always said I would.’

      ‘And you should.’

      ‘There’s a cancellation,’ Rose said, and Alison realised then that her mother wasn’t just thinking about it, she really was going to do it. ‘But I’d have to go in three weeks. I’ve got enough annual leave stored up.’

      ‘Go for it,’ Alison said, and kissed her mum.

      ‘You might need help with the flat and—’

      ‘Mum!’ Alison kept her voice light but firm. ‘You have to go.’

      And they spent an hour looking on the computer at all the places Rose would visit, all the things she would finally do, and Alison was pleased, more than pleased for her mother, but there was a hollow sadness there too. The conversation, the row that she had staved off for so long—now, she wished she could have had it sooner, because now everyone was moving on and she was the one who was…

      Stuck.

      She tried to reframe it, tried to rephrase it.

      Pregnant, with a mortgage.

      She tried and she tried and she tried once again, but no matter how she tried, as she walked into her new home the next day, there was only one other word she could think of—trapped.

      Was it wrong to feel trapped?

      Was trapped even the right word?

      There was another word there, an emotion there that she didn’t want to examine, so instead Alison slapped orchid-white paint on the walls and felt like the worst person in the world, because this wasn’t how it was supposed to be, this wasn’t how she was supposed to feel.

      Except she did.

      She stared at what was going to be her study, and even that had been a concession, a trauma course instead of a journey, but now even that was looking impossible.

      A nursery.

      She’d laughed when the real estate agent had said it, he had been so completely off track, yet just a few weeks later that was exactly what it was about to become.

      And she stood in the little room and tried hard to picture it.

      Staggering in for two a.m. feeds.

      She actually could, she could see herself all dishevelled and exhausted and stressed, just like Shelly, could see a pink, screaming baby and a lonely flat and a fridge stuck with postcards from Daddy.

      Or worse, far worse for Alison, would be the sight of Nick in the doorway, unshaved and annoyed, and trying to snatch some sleep because he was on call, and just so removed from his own dream.

      She slapped the paint onto the wall.

      She’d rather, far rather, far, far rather, do it alone.

      Which she did.

      She got the main bedroom done, and the kitchen and all the lights were blazing until late in the night. And despite what she’d said, a part of her hoped for a knock at the door, for the space she’d insisted on to be suddenly filled, but Nick had clearly taken her at her word.

      The smell of paint made her sick, so late in the evening she walked the short walk home, along the foreshore, and she couldn’t help what she did next. Maybe she was a stalker, but she took a little diversion past where Nick was staying and the lights were off and, yes, he could be out, but there was something about an empty home, and Alison knew then he had gone. She took a deep breath and thought about the little bean-sized thing in her womb, the baby he had unwittingly left behind.

      ‘Can you do me a favour?’ Her voice was a bit shaky and she should perhaps have apologised to Ellie for ringing her so late, but she was frantic.

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘Can you tell me your Facebook password?’

      ‘It says never to reveal your password to anyone.’ Ellie laughed and then promptly revealed it. ‘Don’t you want him to know you’re watching?’

      ‘You know me too well.’

      There was a pause, a tiny pause. ‘You know that he’s…’ Her voice trailed off and Ellie sat in silence on the phone as Alison, with a few short clicks, found out Nick was in New Zealand.

      ‘Are you okay, Alison?’

      ‘I’m fine,’ Alison said, then relented, admitting a little of her truth. ‘It just hurts more than it should. I mean, I knew it wasn’t for ever, I knew it could only be short term.’ She couldn’t believe he’d gone. Okay, she’d asked him to, but he really was, grinning from the top of a rock in his profile picture, like that cat that had got the cream, and here she was, feeling as if she was on the top of a rock, but without the safety harness.

      She waited till her mum went to bed then sat with a big mug of tea, and it felt different clicking on his profile without Ellie over her shoulder, peering into his life and scrolling through to find out more about the man she loved.

      He was more social than her by far.

      There were school friends, friends from med school and not just cyber friends. They were in his life, joking with him to get a job, asking when he’d be back, missing him at football and concerts and nights out, and that was aside from family.

      And there was Moira.

      Missing him already and she’d added a kiss.

      And she hoped to catch up with him in Asia.

      And there was Gillian, who still messaged him—pretty, funny and patient.

      His status was single.

      And that hurt.

      So too was the fact he never mentioned her—that their ride to Palm Beach, their one massive row was just described as ‘an interesting day’.

      There was a life and a family and friends and a whole world waiting for him on the other side of the world, and on this side there was Alison and the little bean-sized thing growing inside that she was trying to get used to.

      And maybe she really was a stalker, because she scrolled through Ellie’s friends and then Nick’s and there was no sign of Amy.

      And then he updated.

       Back from sampling local delights. Great to meet cousins—loving it here.

      This probably wasn’t the best place to announce a pregnancy, so she contained herself and clicked off and then she went up to bed and lay with her flat stomach and tried to be nice to it.

      ‘We’ll be okay,’ Alison said, in a voice that didn’t sound entirely convinced.

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      ALISON was sensible.

      The world should have been back where it had been two months ago, except a blond English doctor had upended her life and now she somehow had to put it back.

      She chose not to tell her mum, because she didn’t want Rose not to take her trip.

      But she took folate and saw her GP and then later an obstetrician, who scanned her and told her she was ten weeks pregnant, and she was about to correct him, because Nick had only been gone for two weeks, then remembered that it was dated from the start of her cycle.

      And she

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