No one would describe Edinburgh as a sweaty city but Hannah’s damp armpits said otherwise. It was somehow overcast and bright at the same time, high grey cloud adding a mugginess that weighed on her as she sat outside Söderberg with a double espresso and cardamom bun.
She spotted José and Olivia coming up Middle Meadow Walk from a long way away. She tried to judge their body language, Olivia was cajoling him along while he seemed reluctant to put one foot in front of the other. He was wincing and blinking as they reached her, she was upright, stoic, mouth pressed into a line.
Hannah stood and pulled out chairs. ‘Thanks for coming.’
José eased into the seat. ‘I’m not crazy, my mother had me tested.’
Olivia sighed as she sat down.
‘What?’ Hannah said.
‘It’s from The Big Bang Theory,’ Olivia said. ‘It’s supposed to be a joke.’
José stuck his chin out but avoided eye contact. She tried to remember the confident postgrad she’d met two weeks ago. It was easy to lose your grip on the world, she knew that well.
‘Did you get anywhere with my case?’ José said, sarcastic air quotes around the last two words.
Hannah looked at Olivia, who had worry baked into her face. She had bags under her eyes, and Hannah wondered if she was sleeping. The first trimester can be the worst, sickness, insomnia, worry. And José on top of that.
She turned to him. ‘Do you mean if I’ve found out who’s pranking you?’
‘It’s no one, is it? That’s what I thought all along.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘Just because I haven’t found any proof the messages are fake, doesn’t mean they’re real.’
José barked a laugh and looked at her for the first time. ‘Do you hear yourself?’ He turned to Olivia. ‘Can you hear what she’s saying?’
He prodded the table, which shook. ‘They’re not fake but they’re not real. You’re a scientist, you know that doesn’t make sense.’
Hannah thought about what Rose McAllister said. We’re asking the wrong questions. It had been on her mind ever since, maybe we’re always asking the wrong questions. Maybe we look for answers in the wrong places.
She turned to Olivia, glanced at her stomach. ‘How are you feeling?’
Olivia looked surprised, as if this shouldn’t be about her. ‘I’m OK.’
‘You look tired.’
Olivia touched the crucifix on her necklace. ‘I’m exhausted, tell the truth. The sickness is all day, every day. I feel nauseous at the smell of your coffee right now. Every time I walk past a restaurant I have to take a wide berth.’
Hannah leaned in. ‘Are you getting any support?’
Olivia’s eyes flickered as she threw a glance at José, who was staring at the table, running his finger through some spilled sugar. ‘It’s not easy, there’s so much going on.’
‘You need to take care of yourself.’
‘I know.’
‘I mean it.’
Olivia placed a hand on top of José’s to stop his finger wandering across the table. ‘But what about everything else?’
Hannah looked at their hands, the sticky spread of sugar, the seeds from her bun scattered amongst them.
‘I think you should have a memorial,’ she said, looking up.
They looked confused. José narrowed his eyes and shook his head. ‘For who?’
‘Your baby.’
Olivia put her hand on her stomach and her eyes went wide. ‘What?’
Hannah held her hands out. ‘Sorry, I mean your previous baby.’
Olivia’s hand went back to the crucifix. ‘The miscarriage.’
‘She was still a baby. It can help to acknowledge that.’
Olivia started playing with her earring. ‘I don’t know. Can you do that?’
‘Didn’t you get any advice when it happened?’
José watched the two women intently, as if this was a message he was trying to decode.
Olivia placed her hands on the table. ‘Not really. I mean, the miscarriage happened in the flat.’
‘But you went to your GP or hospital, right?’
Olivia’s eyes welled up. ‘I had to get a D&C, but I didn’t really understand. I was all over the place.’
Hannah reached over and held her hand. ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have to talk about this.’
José looked from Hannah to Olivia. ‘I think it’s a great idea.’
Olivia looked shocked at his voice. ‘What?’
He nodded hard. ‘We need to remember. We need to commemorate.’
He kept speaking but his voice was drowned out by two girls on skateboards zooming down the slope towards the Meadows. Hannah briefly thought of the skater girl that the Skelfs organised the funeral for recently, same age as her.
José finished talking and stared expectantly at them.
Olivia looked confused, placed her hands on her stomach, as if trying to shield her baby from this conversation.
‘I don’t know if this is a good idea right now,’ she said.
‘She was a girl,’ José said, oblivious to what Olivia just said.
‘What?’ Hannah said.
‘We talked about names,’ José said.
Olivia started to cry. ‘Don’t, José.’
‘It’s OK.’ He seemed suddenly lucid, as if this was a part of life he could deal with. ‘It’s good to talk about it.’
He turned to Hannah. ‘Rebecca.’ He put a hand on top of Olivia’s on her belly. ‘After Olivia’s grandmother.’
Olivia touched the crucifix and gulped. ‘She gave me this.’
Hannah heard strains of classical violin from down the road, a busker at the junction to the park. A girl younger than Hannah conjuring musical magic from thin air, messages from the ether.
‘We do it quite a lot,’ Hannah said. ‘Memorials for children lost through miscarriage. You should’ve had some advice from the hospital. It can help the healing, the distress.’
‘Makes sense,’ José said.
Hannah thought carefully how to word what she was going to say. ‘People can suffer in all kinds of ways with the psychological stress of these things.’
Olivia stared at her and Hannah wondered if she understood what she was saying. Hannah nodded at Olivia’s stomach.
‘And these things can rear up at any time, especially when you get pregnant again. It’s a crazy time, hormones, tiredness, emotional upheaval. All the unresolved feelings from before can take a toll on your mental health.’
Olivia nodded like she understood.
‘It’s a great idea,’ José said, sitting forward. His eyes were clearer than earlier. He touched Olivia on her shoulder. ‘We should remember Rebecca.’
Olivia wiped a tear from her cheek and nodded. ‘OK.’
‘As soon as possible,’ José said, turning to Hannah. ‘What do we do? Can we do it today?’
Hannah looked from him to Olivia, eyes wet, hands at her necklace. She nodded and Hannah nodded and José smiled the most genuine smile she’d seen since she met him.