“I’m thinking of studying,” Lissa says, “thinking of making some changes in my life.”

“Oh?” Hannah brings herself back. She remembers then. “Didn’t you see Nath at the library? Ages ago? I’m sure he mentioned something about it.”

Lissa nods as a thin stream of smoke leaves her mouth.

“Something about a PhD?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“What would you want to do with it?”

Lissa shrugs. “I’m not sure. I’ve been doing some reading.”

“Really, Liss?” Hannah pulls her coat close around her. “If I had a pound for every overqualified person with a PhD who applies for an internship . . .”

Lissa gives a brief laugh. “You’d be rich. I know.” She turns to where the intermission crowds are making their way back inside. “We should go back.”

“Would you mind . . . ?” says Hannah. “I’m really tired. Do you mind if I don’t?” She wants to keep herself close. She wants to go home. She doesn’t want to spill a drop.

Lissa takes a quick last drag, then throws her cigarette over the wall. “Sure,” she says. She leans in, a quick hug. “You look after yourself, Han.”

Hannah walks towards the steps, up Waterloo Bridge. She waits for her bus. Thinks of the river beneath her, fast-flowing, thinks of its course—out through Wapping, out beyond the Thames Barrier, out, out, sweet- and saltwater swirling as its wide mouth meets the sea.

AS THE DAYS go on she can feel it, she is sure of it. Traction. A catching. The points of light have buried themselves inside her and taken root. Her breasts are heavier. There is fullness inside her that was not there before.

“It’s happening,” she says to Nathan over breakfast, on the morning of the eighth day.

He reaches over and takes her hand. He is smiling, but it does not reach his eyes.

“What?” says Hannah. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I just—don’t want to get my hopes up.”

“Really? Why?”

“Hannah, please.”

“I’m telling you.” She grips his hand. “I can feel it. It’s happening. I know.”

ON THE AFTERNOON of the eleventh day, when she goes to the restroom at work, there is a trace of blood in her knickers, tiny, but there.

She looks away. Looks back again. She wants to scream, but she tries to breathe.

It is nothing. It is normal. She goes back to her desk and googles “blood post IVF.” Her search leads her to the message boards, where she reads the blood could be a good thing—implantation bleeding. Meaning she is right, and they are burying themselves inside her, those twin points of light.