The Sisterhood by Emily Barr Read Free Book Online Page A

school when I was drinking and slacking my way through an English degree. She had known from a young age what she wanted to be when she grew up, and as soon as she graduated, she was a doctor. I still had no idea what I really wanted to be.
    Dr Grey fixed me with her dark eyes. She had, no doubt, planned her own conceptions.
    'So,' she said. 'I repeat. How do you feel about it?'
    I sighed. 'I don't. I've been going out of my way not to think about it for quite some time. But it seems that my legs have walked me here and I suppose I have to face it. Sometimes I think, oh, a lovely baby to dress in cute little outfits — it'll be like a lovely doll, or a kitten. Other times ...' I tailed off, then made myself continue. 'I was in the bookshop the other day,' I said, fiddling with a paperweight on her desk. The paperweight was a gift from some pharmaceuticals company, emblazoned with the name of a drug I had never heard of. 'And I found myself sitting on the floor reading baby books. Looking at diagrams. But you can't buy pregnancy books if you're not even sure if you can go through with it. A month ago I thought I didn't have a maternal bone in my body. A week after that, I felt desperate for a baby. I don't know if I can do it on my own. I'm getting old, and this is probably my last chance.' I passed the paperweight from hand to hand, staring at it. 'I do Google searches for all the things that can go wrong,' I told it. In my peripheral vision, Dr Grey was shaking her head, about to say something. 'I know,' I told her. 'This morning I learned about Edwards Syndrome. It's that phrase they use, "incompatible with life". It sounds innocuous at first, and then you realise what they're saying. How can I not want the baby and be scared of Edwards Syndrome at the same time?'
    'Very easily. You're confused.'
    'Yes.'
    'So the first thing you do is you stop Googling. Are you still taking the temazepam?' I shook my head. 'Well done. When was your last period?'
    I didn't ask her whether there was a chance that I could have conceived before my last period, because I didn't want to hear her answer. I told her, and she gave me a due date in the middle of August. A part of me was thrilled. I had never expected that I would utter, or want to utter, the words 'my due date'. As Dr Grey said the words, 'August the seventh,' my abortion receded over the horizon. I strongly believed in abortion on principle, but right now, it was not looking like an option.
    Suddenly, I was staring at the prospect of single motherhood. I cast around wildly for a support network. My father would help. He had brought me up on his own, and he was a shambling mess. If he could do it, then so could I. He met Sue when I was twelve, and she was slightly more clued up than he was. She would, in fact, be a far greater help than he could possibly be. I had friends with children, though they had all become more distant as their worlds and mine diverged over the past ten years. At the moment, of course, most of them were clinging to Steve, hoping to make him an Elton John-style godfather to their babies. But some of them would, surely, let me back into the fold, if I had a child.
    I knew the internet was full of baby websites, because a couple of my colleagues monopolised the computer room whenever they got the chance, posting messages about night feeds and hilarious comments their toddlers had come out with. I might be able to get on the internet and find some new friends. This was London: there were other women out there in my situation, more or less, and I ought to be able to find some of them.
    Dr Grey was looking at me sympathetically. 'Come back in a week,' she said. 'I don't think you're ready for me to refer you anywhere. You're only seven weeks. You've got time to make your decision.'
    I looked at her.
    'Do you know something weird?' I asked her, feeling dizzy and terrified.
    'What's that?'
    'There's only one thing in the world that I want less than to have a baby,