Contents ( 47)
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Olive
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Two
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Part Three
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
Prologue
Editor’s Letter
Published 18 January 2020,
from issue #24 of .dot magazine
‘The Mother of all Choices’
by Olive Stone
I am the same age as my mother when she had me. Thirty-three. If I turn my face a certain way in the mirror, I can see her looking back at me – we have the same chin, thick dark hair, and a mole more or less in the same place above our lip. But I am miles away from who she was then. We might look the same, but in all other ways we are not. I was told when I was little by my grandmother, Pearl, that when you turn thirty, you are suddenly gifted a new kind of respect for yourself. ‘You will care less, as if by magic, my dear,’ she would say. ‘Being young is terribly confusing. Quite awful really.’
It’s true that as you grow older, you know yourself better. You leave bad parties slightly earlier. But then, the downsides: your bones are slowly beginning to disintegrate, a natural decline in bone mass, though consuming vegetables, protein and collagen might help. You start to realize exercise is no longer about vanity, but necessity. Your metabolism changes too, sadly starting to slow down. You start to realize you ‘should’ go easier on the cheese boards, but you won’t because brie is everything. Then there are the hangovers! Drinking two bottles of Prosecco doesn’t feel like having a beaker of lemonade any more – it fizzes and pops and aches in your head the next day; but fortunately you have more willpower now to ‘get on with it’. Rumour has it your libido changes too; it ebbs and flows and tends to dry up a bit, and of course you’ll start noticing a few more lines on your forehead and around your mouth that seem to be slightly more prominent than before, but you also think it looks cool. A sign that you know more stuff. You might feel the need to chuck out your entire wardrobe and start again, to reflect a new chapter in your life, a new confidence, a new relationship with your body. You slip into your new skin like a snake who’s finally come home. On the whole things start to seem easier and plus, you have a bit more cash now. This is everything grandmother Pearl foreshadowed.
And then bam – even though I should have seen it coming – babies are suddenly on the brain. There is an abrupt tap on the shoulder from friends, family, society and suddenly it’s the number one topic of conversation. Babies. Babies. Babies. When. When. When.