I pick it up and place it in the palm of my hand. It’s not mine.

I return it to his room and put inside his bedside drawer.

Out of sight, yet not out of mind.

Only I can change that.

Nineteen

The respite from sickness was short-lived. I’m diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum—extreme morning sickness. In the short-term, it makes me feel better that what I’m experiencing is normal. I’ve canceled even more work as I try to make it through each day until midafternoon, when I seem to get a few hours of blessed respite. Nothing helps. Not the dry cookies, nor the toast and ginger recommended. Nothing.

I faint one morning, after a particularly bad bout of sickness. As I come round, I hear Stuart ringing for an ambulance. Consequently, I am hospitalized for forty-eight hours as a precaution, feeling the weakest I ever have.

Trapped in a hospital bed, alone with my thoughts, it is paranoia’s gift. Unwelcome memories visit. When Nina was pregnant with Felix, I told her how lucky she was.

“It’s more than I deserve,” she said.

At the time, I interpreted it as a meaningless, throwaway comment. I assumed she felt bad because I wasn’t in her position. Now, though, my mind keeps taking me back there. Around the same period she said, “Be careful what you wish for.”

I can’t help but feel that those words apply to me now. I should be planning our wedding. We’ve given notice to the register office. We had to prove that we were legally allowed to marry (of course) but because Stuart has been married before, he had to produce documentary evidence that his marriage had ended. In this case, Nina’s death certificate. It’s things like that that hit me hard, make me want to look at myself in the mirror and give myself a good talking-to.

My first ever therapist had her consulting room near Stuart’s office. Whenever I hit a really low point, I’d sometimes walk past her building as it calmed me, thinking about old sessions, reminding me how far I’d come from my darkest days when suicidal thoughts could, at times, seep into my mind. I (eventually) came to believe that even though I had found my school years anxiety-inducing and needed Nina to feel safe, it didn’t make me worthless. For a brief while, I even stopped endlessly reading fertility issues online.

On one occasion, I bumped into Stuart in a café. It was busy, and we ended up sharing a table, even though he’d asked for his brie-and-bacon baguette to be wrapped to go. I think he sensed my desperation or had noticed my red eyes. (I’ve always wished I could be the sort of person who can cry and still be able to venture out in public without giving myself away.) We ate our sandwiches and drank a coffee. We talked about Nina and how we’d all get a date in the calendar soon for dinner, the four of us.