Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts by Lucy Dillon Read Free Book Online Page B

went white on the wheel. She hadn’t let it show. She hadn’t wanted to spoil Kay’s moment, because she was happy for her, happy for anyone who was expecting a baby. In fact, she’d been the one to organise the collection and had bought the adorable sling she’d added to her own secret Mothercare wishlist.
    So how come it’s not me , howled the voice in her head, her mouth twisting with the effort of not crying. I’m only thirty, I don’t smoke or drink, I love my husband, we have sex at the right times, I take folic acid every morning, I don’t even drink bloody coffee any more! What’s wrong with me?
    Nothing, according to the doctors. Apart from impatience.
    ‘Mother Nature doesn’t like timetables,’ the doctor (Dr Carthy, not Bill) had told her when she went to ask for some tests. He’d been rather dismissive, as if she was one of those pushy women who try to schedule their designer kids around their new kitchens.
    It wasn’t a to-do list tick for Natalie: it was a rush of yearning that shocked her, that longing to hold her and Johnny’s baby in her arms. She felt as if the one thing missing now was their child, a melancholy ghost in their home. Natalie felt it so strongly she was almost embarrassed at how needy it made her sound.
    She hadn’t always been so broody. Up until her twenty-ninth birthday, she would have completely freaked out if the test had gone blue, but at some silent point something had clicked inside like a timed safe opening, and the yearning had rushed out, knocking her feet from under her with its irrationality. Now whenever she walked into Starbucks her heart flipped at the sight of the buggies and tiny feet in tiny socks. When the babies smiled up at Johnny – which they did, he just seemed to charm them somehow – Natalie’s stomach churned with broodiness and fear and frustration that those women had managed something she couldn’t. Might not be able to.
    Calm down, she told herself. Remember all the fantastic things you have to be grateful for: nice car, nice home, independence, holidays, eight hours’ sleep a night.
    Natalie drove past the first few houses on their loop, drives parked up with Zafiras and CR-Vs, the yellow ‘Little Angel on Board’ shining smugly in her headlights, and she ached. She could remember what her dad had said at the wedding, seven years ago that June: she and Johnny were a happy family waiting to happen. Both of them loved kids. Between them she and Johnny had five godchildren – everyone, it seemed, had babies these days, apart from them.
    Natalie reversed up their drive and parked. With anyone else but Johnny this would be a million times worse. He’d been so sensitive, right from the beginning, so optimistic and relaxed. At first, yeah, who wouldn’t complain about being dragged into the bedroom every thirty-six hours, but lately, when she’d started tensing up when they missed a ‘green day’ because of family visits or having a cold, he’d managed to keep a sense of humour about it all. If it wasn’t for Johnny, she thought, the whole process would be about as romantic as something from a vet programme.
    They’d tried minibreaks, and yoga positions. Natalie had signed up for acupuncture and thrown away Johnny’s favourite old pants. And yet nothing. Each month, when her temperature fell and the inevitable period came, there would be a bunch of flowers at work, or a special meal cooked in the evening, and Johnny’s anxious eyes checking her crestfallen face, when he thought she wasn’t looking. And she’d have to pretend that she didn’t mind, because she didn’t want him to think it was anyone’s fault, least of all his.
    It had been over a year. The next thing would be more tests. In case it really was someone’s fault. Natalie didn’t want it to get that far.
    What if it was her fault? What if she couldn’t give him the two point four children he deserved? What then for their marriage that everyone thought was so