‘Well I don’t need a plan, J.’

‘Is there any way we can compromise on this?’

‘How? I feel like you’re putting me in a corner.’

‘And you’re putting me in a corner too,’ Jacob whispered. I’d never seen him so frustrated. We were both trapped. Flies stuck in a sticky web.

‘Either one of us makes a huge sacrifice, or …’

We both knew what the ‘or’ was, but neither one of us had the guts to say it out loud. That would make it real. We didn’t want it to be real, neither of us. The ‘or’ was a horrible, horrible thought. ‘Or’ meant the end.

‘Olive. You’re the love of my life. For nearly ten years. Please, I can’t bear this.’

I burst into tears.

I hugged him close to me.

I got mascara all over his white shirt.

We both shook silently in each other’s arms.

We had always compromised and negotiated, and we had always solved things. Got to the bottom of a problem, together. We knew how to sort things out. We were good at it. But this wasn’t a situation where we could meet halfway. In short: we were fucked.

In the middle of the night, around 4.30 a.m., I got up and went into the bathroom and sat down on the bath mat next to the tub. I didn’t know what to do, so I went online and posted on an anonymous forum: ‘I don’t want kids. My boyfriend does. Any advice?’

The replies came in thick and fast:

Answer 1: Good job you’re not married. You should tell him before you say ‘I do’. Otherwise that is very unfair.

Answer 2: Set him free. Leave him.

Answer 3: Wow you need to separate immediately. You’re wasting his time babe.

Answer 4: Tell him the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God.

Answer 5: You must let him go so he can be a father asap.

Answer 6: Maybe you could adopt a puppy instead.

I voluntarily hit my head on the side of the bath. I can still remember the hollow thudding sound it made.

‘You OK in there, Olive?’ Jacob asked through the locked bathroom door.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’m not.’

Part Three

‘I don’t know how I’ll feel about it when I’m eighty and I don’t have any children and grandchildren. I don’t know if that will make me happy, or sad.’

Donna, 49

28

2019

It’s Friday evening and I spend an hour at hot yoga to calm down from the week and sweat it all out. I have to admit that I love having the time and freedom to do anything I want to, whenever I want. Doing yoga in a hot room, practically a sauna, with strangers (including an old man in his Speedos) isn’t something I thought I would enjoy – but I really do. The teacher is telling me to let go of all my pointless thoughts, to let them swim away like little fish. But I’m struggling to concentrate on ‘being zen’ with all the drama that is going on with my friends. I leave the class early and a few of the keenos give me a dirty look for disturbing their downward dog. Just as I’m arriving home from yoga, sweaty and pleasantly sleepy, I put my keys in the lock and my phone beeps with a message. It’s Dorothy Gray.