“And don’t worry about Sarah. It’ll blow over,” he called over his shoulder as he left and she continued to stare at the space where he’d been.

She hadn’t argued with Sarah, in fact she’d hardly said a word once they’d settled in their favourite cafe. No sooner had the waiter taken their order than her friend had burst forth with news that had cut Kate much deeper than any squabble. Sarah had announced she was pregnant. Kate knew shock must have registered on her face before she’d made the obligatory congratulatory noises. Evidently Sarah and her husband Rick had been going through IVF. Kate had been stunned by that. She and Sean couldn’t have children and neither could Sarah and Rick, until now.

Her best friend had supposedly decided against IVF as had Kate and Sean. Aside from the cost and the intrusion, it hadn’t been such a hard choice for Kate. She’d never felt the maternal tugs at her heartstrings that many of her friends talked about. When she nursed their babies she was always relieved if she managed to last five minutes without making the often-squirming bundles cry and then she happily handed them back.

But still, it had sent Kate’s world spinning to see her close friend, the one she’d thought understood and even shared her lack of interest in having a child, bursting with excitement with the news that she was well on her way to producing a baby and after only one round of IVF. A procedure she hadn’t even mentioned she was having. Kate had been stunned, shocked and, if she was honest, hurt. Now she and Sean would be the only childless couple in their circle of friends.

She knew Sean would say it didn’t matter. He had enough nieces and nephews he adored but Kate was already an outsider. She’d only moved to the district six years ago to live with Sean. It was a small community, not unlike the one she’d left: conservative, not always tolerant of newcomers and differences. Some of the older members of the community had been asking them for years when they were going to have a baby and there were others who thought it; she could tell by the way they skirted around the topic when it was raised.

She and Sean had had tests early in their marriage. He’d been keen to start a family then and she’d gone along with it without thinking it through. He’d been worried when no babies came; she’d been secretly relieved. The results showed his sperm had low motility and her womb was tilted. Not a total disaster, the doctor said couples had overcome those odds before, but conceiving a child would be more difficult. As Sean joked, put his slow swimmers in her lopsided pool and there was trouble making babies.