Iain loves me and I love him. And we can make this work. I’ll only need to take a year off after I graduate and then I’ll get a job. Iain will be able to support us in the meantime, and then when I start work we’ll get someone to look after the baby. So please don’t think we haven’t thought this through.

She could hear, even all these years later, the confrontation in her voice but also, underneath it, the fear. She remembered hoping that the more she talked, the more she might come to believe the things she was saying. It had been true that she and Iain had discussed it, true that they had a plan which, on paper at least, seemed entirely achievable. It was true that she loved Iain. And yet, even as she had stood there, challenging her mum to contradict her, she had not been able to turn off the anxiety, flickering like a faulty lightbulb at the back of her mind, that history was repeating itself: that, just like her mum, she was giving up on her ambitions because of an unplanned pregnancy.

But you’re so young, Jess. And Iain . . . I know you think you love him, but the age difference . . . When you’re forty, he’s going to be on the brink of retirement. What’s that going to be like for you? What will it be like for the baby?

Her mum’s questions had reverberated in Jess’s head but she had been unable to produce any answers. Why can’t you just be happy for me? You’ve never liked Iain—why can’t you just admit it? You’ve never given him a chance.

That’s not true, Jess. It’s not that I don’t like him. I just worry—you must be able to understand why. He’s old enough to be your father.

Jess had experienced then a feeling that defied a single adjective, that seemed to compound all the anger and resentment, fear, and grief that had simmered inside of her for more than a decade. I’m almost twenty-one, for God’s sake. I know what I’m doing. It’s not as if I’m a child.

There had been another, unspoken, sentence that Jess had allowed to hover in silent parentheses, knowing it would be a cheap shot. But in the end she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

It’s not as if I’m as young as you were when you got pregnant with Lily.

She remembered how her mum had looked at her with such sadness, regret, and longing, and how Jess had known instinctively that this was another of those moments when the ties that bound them slackened and pulled in different directions, to which they must both, gradually, become accustomed. But each time it had happened before, Jess had not been consciously aware of the adjustment until after it had been made. This time, it was as though she was watching it happen and there was nothing she could do to stop it.