Daughter, though, that was nice if people thought that. For a long while she did assume she’d end up a mum. It was just what happened at some point as you grew into an adult. Except if you didn’t have a husband or steady bloke and you were getting on, your eggs drying up, biological clock running out of tick, as the breakfast shows said; then it wasn’t something that just happened, it was something you had to decide on doing and then spend a bunch of money and time on trying to make happen. That or screw every bloke who looks at you sideways, lying that you’re on the pill or stabbing pinholes in the condoms. She’s heard of women who went about it that way. It was a nasty approach, for sure, but she understood it. People with thousands of dollars for donor implantations and all the rest could afford to be honest and ethical. The likes of Nic needed to be sneaky sometimes.

Anyway, she’d thought about it on and off. Then noticed she only thought about it when one of those segments came on the telly or one of the mags ran a story telling her she should be thinking about it. If she clicked the channel over or flipped the page the thought dissolved. So it didn’t happen and she didn’t make it happen and here she is, old enough to be a grandmother (to a baby, thanks very much) and without much prospect of that ever happening.

When Lena has kids (if, Nic corrects herself, while still believing when) they would practically be her grandchildren, wouldn’t they? Just as Lena is practically her daughter, has been from the minute she was born right through to this week, when she’d sat in the hospital with such dedication and care that onlookers like the tea lady assumed they must once have been of the same flesh. The flesh was irrelevant. Lena was her own child in every way that mattered.

Yeah, bullshit, you sad old cow. If that were true, Michelle wouldn’t have been able to take her away for all those years.

Her store manager calls in the afternoon. (Is it afternoon? She keeps dozing off and when she wakes the light and noise are the same as when she fell asleep.) Lena has apparently spoken to him already and explained Nic’s condition, and he’s calling to tell her not to give work a second thought until she’s back on her feet. She’s hardly taken a sick day in all these years and has a bunch of annual leave accrued, if it comes to that. They can talk about putting her on reduced duties when she’s ready.