London, United Kingdom (England and Wales)
Day 1,568
It’s one of the great blind spots of the medical establishment that the waiting rooms for fertility clinics are so often shared with maternity outpatient clinics. Who thought it would be a good idea to put the heavily pregnant women, with their swollen lips and ankles and tired, happy, anxious faces among the fragile, infertile, hopeful masses?
Before the Plague it was ill-judged. After the Plague, it makes me feel murderous. The sight of all these couples makes me want to bark, “Stop looking so happy.”
But that would be rude and quite possibly get me chucked off the waiting list and I don’t need to deal with any additional stress as I’m meeting Phoebe after this. So, no wailing in the waiting room. There’s a delay, of course. I remember this well from my months of treatment when Anthony and I attempted to have a second child—fertility drug after fertility drug with lists of side effects longer than I could bear to read. The clinics were always running late; they told me the appointment and testing would take an hour but I’ve scheduled two and a half in my diary. I forgot to bring a book this time, a rookie error. I have to ration the amount of daydreaming I allow myself. It’s precious but dangerous. From the moment I received the letter three weeks ago informing me that, subject to passing a medical assessment and interview with a consultant, I have a place on the program, my imagination has been in overdrive. I can almost reach out and feel the joy of a positive pregnancy test, of shopping for a new onesie to bring the baby home from the hospital in, of a baby.
The best way to bring myself down to earth from these dreams is to think about the practicalities. How will I do everything I did before, alone? Looking after a newborn, working full-time, raising a child, being the only breadwinner, being the only parent. It sends a cold dread into the pit of my stomach. I think, with longing, of the Dutch Matron system that is working so well in the Netherlands. There was a documentary about it on the BBC. They interviewed the Dutch prime minister. Single women with children, if they wanted, were placed in zones, grouping the women together to create formal support networks. Each ward is made up of between four and six families. The women take turns staying home to take care of the children; a few months of the year at home, the rest of the year working full-time.
The reporter had asked, “But what if the women don’t want to go to work?” The prime minister had smiled ruefully and said, “What we want and what we can do don’t always match up.” There aren’t enough humans in the world anymore. It sounds amazing in theory, although the thought of not doing my job for months at a time doesn’t appeal. Maybe I could see if there are any women in Crystal Palace who work different times from me who could share childcare, it could work if I really like her and—
“Catherine Lawrence?”
The nurse’s voice jolts me out of my planning. She shows me into a room where I’m poked (blood test), prodded (ultrasound of my ovaries), weighed and measured until I feel more like a specimen than a person. I peer at the screen as she does the ultrasound praying there aren’t any spots of endometriosis or cysts rudely squatting on my ovaries that would render me ineligible.
I’ve only just gotten my jeans back on when I’m being whisked into the office of Dr. Carlton, a young-ish, handsome-ish, tall-ish, brown-haired man whose face I know I will forget the moment I leave the room.
“Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Lawrence,” he says, flicking through what I imagine is my file on his computer.
“Thank you for having me,” I reply awkwardly, sounding like I’m at a tea party, not a medical appointment. “Also, please call me Catherine.”
“Catherine, I can see here that you had one child, Theodore, in 2022. I’m sorry to hear about—”
“Yes, thank you,” I say, hurrying this painful part along.
“Then you tried for another child but had unsuccessful treatment here. Two rounds of Clomid?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Oh God, this is when they’re going to tell me I’m excluded because of my stupid broken ovaries and stupid broken womb that won’t just grab on to a fucking fetus when it’s offered one.
“Your husband made an IVF consultation appointment for you in October 2025 but, oh yes. That appointment was canceled. Can you tell me why?”
I didn’t know Anthony had made an appointment. He never told me, oh God, he must have canceled it after I told him I wanted to try naturally for a little while longer. Dr. Carlton is looking at me expectantly. I remember what Anthony told me about IVF policies. As soon as you fall pregnant naturally, they define you as being fertile even if you have a miscarriage, and you go back to the beginning of the list. He has given me a gift. My lovely Anthony has somehow given me this gift from the past, an opportunity to rewrite my history of infertility.
“I fell pregnant,” I say quietly, before clearing my throat. I feel as if I’m committing a crime.
“You miscarried?” Dr. Carlton says in a medical “Oh, I am sorry” tone. I nod, not trusting my voice not to give me away.
“It’s quite common,” he goes on. “I had a number of patients who miscarried as the Plague caused, well . . . Grief can be very tough on physical health.” He smiles at me in what I’m sure he hopes is a reassuring way but I’m fixated on trying to see any suspicion in his expression. Don’t see through me. Believe me. “Well, your test results are all good, from what I can see. We’ll confirm that there are no issues with your blood tests in the next few days but you’ve always had normal hormone levels so I’d be surprised if there are any problems. Pending confirmation of the blood tests, you should be accepted.”
I burst into tears, which is clearly such a common occurrence that Dr. Carlton doesn’t bat an eyelid. He simply passes me a box of tissues, murmurs something incomprehensible and finishes writing up my notes.
“We’ll be in touch in the next few days and, if everything is confirmed, you’ll be eligible for three rounds of IUI. It’s a wait of several months, I’m afraid, but we’re working our way down the list.”
I thank him and try to pull myself together. I remember how much I loathed seeing crying women leaving the consulting rooms when I was in waiting rooms, during those awful months trying to conceive. It felt as though the sadness and bad fortune was contagious. Get away from me, I would think uncharitably. Don’t infect me with the curse of infertility.
I don’t know if I’m going to have another baby but for the first time in so long, I am making steps toward a new life. A different life, and yet in some ways the same as the life I lost. It feels fitting that in this mix of uncertainty, hope, nostalgia and fear, I’ll be meeting Phoebe for the first time in years. When I think back to the last time I saw her in person—just a few days after Halloween, around the time the Plague started—it feels so distant, I was almost a different person. I was a mother, a wife, a busy academic. Now I’m a widow, a childless mother and desperately trying to chronicle how the world has changed.
I walk through Brockwell Park, heading toward the bench we’ve agreed on as our meeting place, not far from the café, and overlooking a welcome expanse of green. Phoebe is already there. My first thought is that she looks older. Of course she looks older; it’s been over four years since I last saw her. We are older. Her hair is the same though. Light brown lightened by the same highlights she’s had since university. She’s wearing a dark green dress, her favorite color. I realize with a jolt that she’s wearing more makeup than I usually see her in and that it’ll be because she’s nervous. Gone are the days of cackling into wineglasses as one of our husbands asks us, smilingly, to keep it down, and discarding bras as soon as we get to the other’s house and talking so much at a restaurant that we blow the candle out by accident.
“Hello,” she says, nervous and standing up.
“Hi,” I reply, taking the lead and drawing her into a hug. I’m so starved of touch that it feels almost godly to hug someone now. She holds me tightly. She still smells of the same scent she’s always worn: Cinema, by YSL. Its familiarity brings me to tears.
“Oh, Cat,” she says. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too,” I reply, choking back sobs. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t,” Phoebe says. “It’s all, it’s all just. God, it’s just been so shit. We’re all doing our best.”
This is a very Phoebe thing to say. To try to excise my guilt and remind me that we’re all doing our best is so wonderfully her.
“Tell me about everything,” Phoebe says and I tell her as much as I can. I can’t go into the painful details about the awful days of Anthony’s and Theodore’s deaths. Talking about it still feels like being flayed, and Phoebe loved them too. I can’t bear to see her sadness about them on top of my own. But I tell her about the fertility clinic and the project I’m working on, recording the stories of the Plague. I tell her about the routines of my new life.
I ask the question in return and, as her face flushes with something like embarrassment, I realize for the first time how difficult this is going to be. Phoebe’s perfume still provides primal comfort and I know every freckle and plane of her face. I know every boy who broke her heart before Rory and how she feels about mothering and friendship and life. But she has a family and I don’t.
“Rory and the girls are doing well,” she says quickly. “Rory’s job thankfully has continued without too much disruption. Even after a pandemic, London still needs accountants. I miss my dad a lot even though he died before all of this started. It’s been, yep.” She pauses and my cheeks burn. I’m not the only person who’s experienced loss.
“Evie and Ida miss you, so much,” she says.
I miss them too, although I haven’t allowed myself to think about them properly for a long time. Phoebe’s gorgeous little girls. I was the first person outside of their immediate family to see both girls, in the hospital when Phoebe was still gray with blood loss but dazed with joy. Evie’s my goddaughter. Until all of this, I was a devoted godmother, taking her out to the park or down to the river on her own so we could spend time together and give Phoebe a break. I religiously provided birthday and Christmas presents. I think she probably just hopes they miss me, but it feels nice to be missed. To be wanted.
“Do you want to come to the house? Briefly, maybe? To see them?” The hope in Phoebe’s voice is so strong it overrides the voice in the back of my head that says, “This is too much, too soon.” I want to see Evie and Ida. I want to be the kind of woman who can do this normal thing of spending time with my friend’s family, a family to whom I used to be so close that they felt adjacent to my own.
We talk about everything on the walk over to Phoebe’s house in Battersea. Everything from the films we’ve been watching to the annoying neighbors who blast loud music every day at 7 a.m., ruining Phoebe’s mornings. We talk about the birthday present she needs to buy for her notoriously awful sister-in-law and the restaurants we’re excited to go back to once they open.
We arrive at her house and I desperately want to go home but I also want to see the girls. Post-Plague life is a lesson in contradictions. Phoebe lets us in the house and the cries of, “Mum, Mum, Mum” quickly hush while Evie and Ida hang back, behind Phoebe, eyeing me warily.
“Hello,” I say, horrified by how nervous they seem around me. I shouldn’t be surprised. Evie was only a toddler when I last saw her and Ida was ten months. They don’t know me.
“You might not remember me, I’m Catherine. I’m friends with your mum.” I stick with the present tense. Any explanation of our complex history is best left unsaid. Phoebe magically whisks us all through to her huge kitchen, where Rory is sitting at the dining table on his laptop.
“Oh,” he says, shocked when he sees me. “Lovely to see you, Catherine.” He recovers quickly and his face resumes its usual placid expression. Let’s just say that no one has ever been surprised when Rory says he’s an accountant.
I sit down with Rory and the girls at the table. Phoebe puts a cup of apple-and-berry tea in front of me and I talk to the girls, hearing about dolls and school and games they’re going to play in the garden. I’m in the room, listening and nodding, but simultaneously my mind starts floating above my body watching the scene play out. Huh, so this is what it’s like to have a six-year-old. This is what it’s like to have two children. This is what it’s like to have a life that’s intact. The disassociation continues until I realize Phoebe’s called my name three times and everyone’s looking at me.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Phoebe asks and it takes every ounce of my will to say, with a smile, “That’s so kind, but I’m going to head home. It was lovely to see you all.” I dispense brief hugs to Evie and Ida, wave to Rory and hug Phoebe tightly.
“Thank you,” Phoebe whispers into my hair as she holds me tight.
I don’t have it in me to say anything back to her. I’m trying so hard to be the right sort of woman in this nightmare, and today I managed. I pushed aside jealousy and bitterness. I was kind and open and brave. But my poor, broken heart didn’t need to see what it’s missed out on. It didn’t need to see that at all.