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THE SIXTH SUMMER – 2016

She watched, drying her hands at the small bathroom sink, as the tiny plastic window flooded with moisture, sending a stream of pink across the paper inside. Holding her breath, she watched the line form – the first one strong and definite, the second only a possibility, a ghost, merging from white to a splash of pink; then as soon as she thought she’d seen it, it seemed to disappear, and once the two minutes were up, she was left – as she always seemed to be – with a negative test.

Was she even ovulating? Strange, when she’d paid no attention to her period, her cycle before, it had seemed to be a reliable, predictable thing. But now she was starting to question whether everything was working and – if it was – whether it was working well; it seemed her body was refusing to play ball.

‘Come back to bed!’ Tom groaned from the other side of the wall.

‘Just a minute!’ she said, trying to keep her tone upbeat as she slipped the test into the bin and covered it with loo roll, somehow ashamed of having him know about her body’s failure. She opened the door and stiffly climbed beneath the covers, feeling his relaxed warmth against her pale skin.

He kissed the back of her neck. ‘I love it when you’re all cold,’ he said, wrapping his legs around her.

She tried to laugh. ‘Yeah,’ she managed.

She could feel the heat of him, the hardness of him against her and felt her body respond. As they made love, she tried to get into the moment, but her mind kept travelling back to the wrapped test in the bin – and when, afterwards, he made a joke about ‘making babies’ she felt a flicker of anger and had to swallow it down. It had been a year. Surely the time to joke was over?

Just relax , she told herself. Relaxing was important too.

It was late morning by the time they left the hotel room, holding hands along the Champs-élysées, as they had last year and the one before that. The sun beamed down, its heat radiating from the pavements; everything felt sticky and uncomfortable. But she breathed it all in, tried to lose herself in Paris as she’d always been able to.

It worked, after a fashion. She stood for a photograph at La Défense, using the enormous archway as a frame and flinging out her arms to strike a pose, then shared it on Facebook with some cheery comment about the holiday.

They sat afterwards at a cafe, sipping overpriced but deliciously cool white wine.

‘Just think,’ he said then. ‘Next year, we could be here with a little baby carrier. Or an enormous bump.’ He looked at her, his face bright.

‘Stop it, Tom,’ she found herself snapping.

He set his glass down then. ‘Come on, Soph, why shouldn’t it happen for us? The doctors said you were still fertile.’

‘I know,’ she admitted, her hands worrying at the stem of her wine glass. ‘It’s just… you read stories, don’t you? About infertility.’

‘Correction,’ he said, sitting forward, ‘ you read stories. And you’re always going to find those worst-case scenarios if you look for them. Yes, it’s really shitty for some people when they start on this road, but it doesn’t mean it has to be for us.’

She nodded. ‘It’s just terrifying.’

‘But it doesn’t have to be,’ he said, squeezing her hand.

She nodded.

‘Want to talk about something else?’ he suggested.

She smiled then. ‘You read my mind.’

It was still dark when she woke in their bed, feeling sticky and warm and desperate for a wee. She crept again into the en suite and, feeling vaguely ridiculous, pulled another ovulation stick out of its packet, knowing exactly what Tom would say if he knew what she was doing and at what time of the morning. Only the instructions said it should be the first pee of the day – she was just trying to be thorough.

Sitting there, holding the little white stick, watching again the tiny window flood with pink-tinged moisture, she felt exhausted. She set it down on the edge of the vanity unit, flushed the loo, then stood looking at herself in the mirror as she washed her hands. Twenty-six had come from nowhere and while she knew her parents would laugh at the idea, she’d begun to feel suddenly old. People were talking about ‘quarter-life crises’ on YouTube and she wondered whether that was what she was feeling.

Teaching, while rewarding, had taken its toll on her health, although she’d never admit as much to Tom. She knew, if she did, he’d insist she give up work and tell her that he could support her. Which he could, she knew. But she also knew that she’d probably take him up on the offer – and then what? Who would she be then?

She’d always associated the sense of dissatisfaction with which she’d grown up with the fact that her family hadn’t had money. That everything was always hard-won. That she had to strive for more to get what she wanted. That restless energy had always been channelled into her studies, then her work; now, she supposed, glancing at the stick, she was probably transferring the feeling again to the fact she wanted a baby.

Tom, conversely, always seemed happy with what he had. Never really looking forward, but able to do what she never could: stay in the moment and make the best of now. Did that come from his upbringing too, she wondered? He’d never known to yearn for things, so had never developed that sense of wanting something just out of reach all the time. Or were they just different – different needs, wants, desires?

Then her eye caught the stick and her heart pounded. There were two lines. She had to remind herself, for a moment, that this wasn’t a pregnancy test, but an ovulation test. It wasn’t any guarantee of a baby.

But it was a sign her body was working as it should, and that they had as good a chance as anyone of becoming parents.

Slipping the test into the bin, she left the en suite and climbed into bed, nudging Tom to wake him, then kissing him deeply. His arms wrapped around her, first lazily, then hungrily. And she felt her mood shift as she allowed herself to be gathered up with it.

But later, as he slept and she lay on the cusp of sleep, her mind buzzed with it all – replaying worries she’d had time and time again. Stories she’d read about other women. What if she couldn’t have children at all? Would Tom feel the same way about her? What if she got pregnant then miscarried? What if they had to wait through months – maybe years – of uncertainty without any clear answers? She wished in some way she could fast-forward this year, move the time on so that she at least had some sort of certainty – knew whether she’d end up being a mum or being someone who never quite got there.

She was a fixer. In the past, when she’d come up against a problem, she’d dealt with it in a practical way. When she was short of money, she’d taken on extra pub shifts. When she’d worried about exams, she’d simply studied harder, completed past papers until she was sure she could succeed.

But there was no practical solution to this. No way of knowing whether they’d be the lucky ones to whom it all came easily, or whether she’d still be waiting this time next year.

Beside her, Tom snuffled in his sleep and she looked at him. Half jealous of his deep rest, half resentful. Because he never seemed to worry about anything, but that meant in some ways, she did the worrying for both of them.