He had been so distant recently. After the last baby. What was it? The sixth? Or was it the seventh? By this point I had lost count. I didn’t mean to. The last three came and went so quickly I had simply lost track. I named them in the beginning. But he said I was ridiculous. If the babies were being stubborn, though it pained me too much to even admit it, at least I would be able to offer my husband something else in the way of homely wife skills until we were blessed with the gift.

I thought we would be able to have dinner parties; I would cook for all his work colleagues and people would say, ‘Oh yes, that wife of yours, she sure can cook. You’ve got a good one there.’ Then eventually the gaping hole in our marriage that should by now have been filled with the joyous manic messiness that children bring, wouldn’t seem so empty and obvious.

He came from a large Irish family. His parents were waiting to be grandparents again. I knew that I alone would never be enough for him. He needed me to have a child. I would start with the cooking. Show how I could be a good wife.

Then keep trying for the babies.

A miracle was sure to happen.

5

DAISY

People think we married too soon. Maybe we did. But when we found out I was pregnant, it felt like the right thing to do. Only time would tell. Maybe we should have done it the other way around and found out more about the other person before we committed our lives to one another.

I will always remember the night I first laid my eyes on Ben, in the club on the quay in town. I had seen him arrive while I was dancing wildly, then suddenly I was enjoying the sensation that he was watching me too. I couldn’t stop looking at him as he made his way to the bar. Our eyes locked for a moment, and he smiled a bashful smile right at me before lowering his head. But after I went to get more drinks, the place where he had been standing had become a gap slowly filling up with more sweaty bodies.

It became an urgency, the desire to find him. How was it possible to have such a connection with someone from so far away, with no words?

I was so hot I felt I needed some air. But then suddenly he was behind me.

‘Are you leaving?’ I heard the voice as I headed towards the main exit. The bass from the club was a dull thud from behind the double doors as we stood, just the two of us in the foyer. I stopped, turned and smoothed a stray piece of hair against my head and raised my eyebrows. There he stood, tall, thick dark hair that hung around his ears, a hint of a stubble. He was still wearing his black leather jacket. It was old and battered but it suited him, like it was made for him.