He hung up and she sat for a long time holding her phone in the large, silent house. Her marriage was over and it was all her own doing.

*

Nina

Nina set their drinks down on the concrete island: water for her and a beer for Flynn. Summer was in full swing and the warehouse was hot and stuffy. She took a deep breath. She had thought about this so much; it had begun to dominate her every waking thought and eventually penetrated her subconscious ones too; she fell asleep easily, exhausted and overtired, but woke sweating, the following hours spent staring up at the ceiling, willing herself to find the courage she needed. She’d never wanted a baby. Had never pictured it as a moment in her future, not like she’d dreamed of her music being played on the radio, or a life filled with travel and adventure, or the patisserie being a success. She knew, close up via Carey, what it was like to raise a child, and that however much you wanted to believe having a baby wouldn’t impact your life, it would. If it doesn’t, you’re not doing it right, she thought. And if she was going to do it, she would fully commit. Put the expansion plans for the patisserie on hold, decline the coffee-table-book proposal her agent had received. Pivot. Pivot to mum and baby groups and roughly chopping cucumbers for a teething child, rather than the neat triangles that went into her popular watermelon and mint salad.

Luca and Kai, and even Flynn, were so excited, and she had been swept along with them initially, but then she started to think, I can’t have a baby for them. And I can’t have a baby for Joanie. Or Jules. Or anyone else. I can only have a baby for me. And the baby wouldn’t belong to her in any event. The baby would be a unique individual who would grow and move on and be their own person while Nina’s career, her passion, might never recover in the same way. How old would she be when she’d be free again? To travel to new places; to work the hours she worked now? She had found her passion and that was no mean feat. Be true to yourself, she whispered to the ceiling. She was certain it was the right decision, and she was sure she would have come to it sooner, had it not been for what happened in Paris. As the days and nights had ticked on, unyielding, so too had her resolve. She knew she wouldn’t change her mind. She had considered, briefly, asking Luca and Kai if they would adopt the baby but she knew she couldn’t watch her child grow from afar. What would happen if she disagreed with their parenting approach? Or if they decided to move, to Italy or Germany, taking her son or daughter with them? The potential for disaster, for heartbreak and chaos, was too high.