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Life has taught Rebecca Welton that nothing ever goes according to plan. 

She had so many plans for herself from the time she was a teenager, a careful map created alongside Sassy, uni and a flat together afterwards and marriage to guys who were also best friends and having babies at the same time, in that far-off daydream world of teen girls before real life starts to unfold.

Some of those dreams do materialize: she and Sassy live together in London after uni, and Rebecca feels unstoppable for a while, in the way that rich girls usually do when they’re supported by their parents well into their twenties. But Sassy surprises her by finding a serious boyfriend soon after she turns 30, a guy called Darren who joke-flirts with Rebecca a little too much and isn’t particularly interesting, but he handles Sassy’s chaos with dignity and always pays for drinks, so Rebecca slowly accepts that he’s in her life to stay.

And so, in the biggest hit to their codependent timelines, Sassy gets married first and is pregnant a year later.

“This is so brilliant.” Rebecca laughs in delight when Sassy tells her the news. “You get to go through all the scary shit first, so I know what I’m getting myself into.” 

Sassy rolls her eyes. “I’m so glad my rapidly expanding and degenerating body will be of use to you.” 

Darren is surprisingly sweet, tearing up at the news and kissing Sassy all over her face. Despite his excitement, Rebecca soon realizes that the pregnancy is a point of pride for him, evidence of his virility, but he doesn’t quite grasp the reality of having a child.

Rebecca and Rupert announce their engagement soon afterwards, with a wedding date just two months after Sassy is due. Rebecca considers an earlier date — with Rupert’s money and connections, they have access to virtually any venue they want — but Sassy stops her.

“I have a very important job as your maid of honor,” she says solemnly. “And that includes getting wasted at your reception. There’s no fucking way I’m going to your wedding eight months pregnant.”

Rebecca laughs and hugs her. “I’ll take that under consideration.”

The later date ends up working better with Richmond’s football schedule anyway, so it stays. Rebecca is quick to remind Sassy that she didn’t actually have any say over the wedding plans, but Sassy just grins and winks.

As Sassy gets bigger and her body starts to change in countless unpredictable ways, Rebecca is there with her, asking for every detail. She doesn’t have a particularly happy pregnancy, with violent morning sickness and hypersensitive teeth and feet that swell two sizes bigger, but Rebecca is charmed anyway.

Pregnancy sounds horrible and wonderful and fascinating. She’s wanted to be a mother for as long as she can remember, always talking about when she has kids, not if, feeling calm about it, the only way she can understand people who believe in fate. Maybe she wants to make up for the ever-growing distance between her and her own mother, maybe she sees motherhood as the clearest way to make a mark on the world, to leave evidence of her life after she’s gone, and maybe she just wants to walk through the park with her child in a stroller, chattering at her and wearing a hat with bear ears on it. Maybe it’s all of those things.

“You are such a smug shit,” Sassy groans, only half-joking, when Rebecca shows up to her flat one evening with ginger tea and seasickness wristbands. She got the idea from an online pregnancy forum, though she doesn’t admit that to Sassy. “I’m vomiting so much I feel like I’ve been poisoned, and you think tea is going to help?”

She drinks the tea anyway, and says it does help a bit, although the seasickness bands are the best addition.

Rebecca is over at Sassy’s so much that Darren complains it’s like having two teenagers in the house, laughing at their own private jokes and excluding him. Rebecca feels guilty when she hears that, but Sassy clutches Rebecca to her and says, “My best friend is always welcome here,” in such a matter-of-fact tone that Darren can’t argue. 

“Besides, that’s my future godchild in there,” Rebecca adds for good measure, pointing at Sassy’s six-months-pregnant belly, expanding out of one of Darren’s t-shirts. 

He looks appropriately chastened.

As Rebecca’s wedding draws closer, she’s forced to spend less time at Sassy’s. She has to  finalize all the arrangements for the reception, trying to mediate opinions from both her mother and Rupert, both of whom come up with unpredictable additions to the guest list and the musicians and the food and every other infuriatingly tiny detail.

The biggest item on her to-do list before the wedding is to sell her London townhouse so she can move in with Rupert, a process that makes her more nostalgic than she bargained for. She bought the house in her late twenties, long before she and Rupert started dating, with a down payment gifted by her father and paying the mortgage herself with her salary as a curator at a modern art gallery in Soho. She was really fucking good at her job, at coming up with ideas for new shows and managing the more opinionated established artists while finding room for emerging talent.

The job was a natural extension of all the time she spent with her parents growing up, who were both private art dealers with close relationships with painters and photographers in the London art scene. As Rebecca was starting year seven, her mother took a lecturer position in art history at Oxford and moved the family out of London, but always keeping in touch with new work. They were so proud of her following her passion — or that her passion was the same as theirs, she was never quite sure — and are thunderously disappointed when she quits right after her engagement.

Rebecca struggles to justify it to them, and to herself too, but she knows that Rupert wanted her to work within AFC Richmond, to organize their charitable giving, and… presumably some other duties as well, but those have yet to come. For now it seems like she’s being seen and not heard, but she comforts herself that Rupert keeps telling her that he wants her to settle into the club first, and then she’ll have more responsibilities.

“It’s not like you were solving world hunger at that tiny gallery, darling,” he laughs. “You’re much more useful to me at the club.”

She feels appeased at that, at first, with Rupert promising her she’d be more than a WAG, but she’s still “settling in.” She’s barely been able to get into the charitable donations books, which are a mess. It’s a work in progress, but her light work schedule means she can spend as much time as she wants with pregnant Sassy while Rupert is busy in meetings.

She’s desperate to see her best friend as much as possible because she knows the days when it’s just the two of them are numbered, no matter how much Sassy assures her that nothing will be different.

And just like that, things do change, when Rebecca gets a phone call from Sassy late one night just after midnight.

“Is everything all right?” she asks with alarm. 

“Nothing to worry about,” Sassy assures her. “But since you’re so interested in every facet of my experience, I thought you’d like to hear that I’ve been trying to fall asleep for two hours, but babygirl here has decided it’s the perfect time to do acrobatics, and she’s giving me heartburn.”

They started out referring to her future child as baby girl, two words, and then they started to run into each other. Sassy and Darren decided on the name Nora, with help from Rebecca, but Sassy doesn’t like using a real name for someone who isn’t born yet, thinks it’s bad luck somehow, so babygirl it is instead.

“That sounds awful.” Rebecca creeps downstairs and settles onto the living room sofa so she doesn’t wake Rupert. 

“And somehow you still sound wistful. Don’t worry, your time will come, but I promise I’ll do my best not to gloat.” 

“I don’t want to be awake with terrible heartburn. Obviously,” Rebecca tries to explain. “I just find it all fascinating, how different every woman’s experience is.” 

“I know, I know, the miracle of life,” Sassy recalls drily. 

“You love my optimism, though. You’d be having such a shit time without me.” 

“I suppose so.”

“There’s no way in hell Darren would listen to you talk about your extra-thick leg hair for fifteen minutes. That’s why I’m here.” 

Sassy cackles. “That’s true. I reserve that for you and my mums’ yoga class.” 

Rebecca feels a prick of hurt in her chest.

“Anyway,” Sassy continues. “I wanted to tell you that Darren and I had a big talk today about what we’re going to do after the baby’s born.”

“What you’re going to do?” Rebecca tries to focus. “What do you mean?”

“Er, where we’re going to live,” she clarifies. 

“You’re not staying in London?”

“You know I’ve talked about moving out of the city.”

“Yes, but — I thought that was a while off. Maybe not until she starts school.”

“I did think that at one time. But my mum has been pushing me to move back to Oxford, so she can help out.”

“You and your mum do nothing but fight with each other.”

Sassy sighs deeply. “That’s not true.”

“I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but that’s what you’ve said to me.” Rebecca tries to walk herself back a little.

“You’re right. But being pregnant has made me contemplate what it means to be a mother, all that bullshit, and I think she just wants to do the right thing. I can’t blow off my own mum, it would feel like... I dunno. Like I’ll be screwing over my daughter at the same time.” 

“And Darren is okay with this?”

“He’s relieved that we would have built-in childcare. He’s overwhelmed at the thought of being responsible for an infant, and so am I, to be honest.”

“Has he ever even held a baby before?” Rebecca plays with a string from her pajama top and watches the top of her finger turn red. 

“Yes, he has.” Sassy’s voice is tight. 

“Well, I’m always here to look after her,” Rebecca offers feebly.

Sassy sighs again, but more gently this time. “That’s not the same, and you know it.”

“Right, well.” Rebecca tries one last tactic. “What about work?”

“One of the therapists in my practice knows of an open posting for a primary-grade psychologist a twenty-minute drive from my parents’ house.”

“And Darren?”

“He said he can sort something out.”

“Wow.”

“How… how are you feeling?” Sassy asks nervously. “I don’t want you to be pissed off.”

Rebecca takes a deep breath. “I’m fucking sad is what I am,” she says, her voice trembling. 

“I’ll only be an hour away. And I’m not moving yet.”

“When would you go?”

“After babygirl is born, definitely. Maybe after your wedding?”

“Right,” Rebecca says, her voice small.

“Are you really all right?”

“No. I don’t know,” she admits. “I’m just sad. But I know that I don’t get a say in your family life.”

“That’s not true,” Sassy says forcefully. “You’re going to be godmother!”

“You know what I mean. I can’t make you stay.” 

“I won’t be far away,” Sassy repeats.

“I’ll come visit.” Rebecca summons the strength to sound more optimistic than she feels. 

“I’ll make you visit.”

They sit in silence for a bit.

“I’ll let you go to sleep now,” Rebecca says. 

“All right. Talk to you tomorrow?” Sassy asks, her voice tinged with worry.

“Of course.”

After she hangs up, Rebecca lies on the sofa and tries to stop the tears from coming. They stream down her cheeks anyway, dark pinpricks on the plush oatmeal-coloured upholstery. Rupert doesn’t stir upstairs even though he’s a light sleeper, and she’s grateful for that, not in the mood to be consoled halfheartedly by her fiancé who never much liked Sassy anyway.

When she eventually drags herself back upstairs, her face is blotchy, and she settles into bed, unsteady, taking deep breaths to calm down. Rupert sleeps soundly next to her, and she hates him, briefly, for being so calm while she’s so lonely.

The next morning, as expected, Rupert’s response to Sassy’s move is not comforting; he’s purely glad.

“That means I don’t have to share you any longer,” he says, kissing her forehead.

Despite herself, Rebecca feels a burst of love. She has been spending a lot of time with Sassy — she can’t remember the last weekday dinner she and Rupert ate together. And shouldn’t she want to spend more time with her future husband? Sassy and Darren are burrowing down into their own family unit, as married couples do, and now it’s her turn to do the same with Rupert, who loves her, and is marrying her in just a few short months. There’s no reason for her to feel so alone when she has company for life. 

She and Sassy will be fine; even though they’ve lived within walking distance of each other since uni, cell phones exist for a reason, and she can get on the train anytime she wants to, and she’s going to be such a kickass godmother that other parents will be jealous.

+++++

Nora is born on a rainy Thursday morning, and Rebecca goes to the hospital that afternoon with a bag full of all the shitty takeaway food that Sassy desperately wants. She sits in a comfy chair with a sleeping Nora in her arms, smiling down at her for what feels like an hour. 

“She’s perfect,” Rebecca whispers.

“She is,” Sassy agrees, exhausted, fighting to keep her eyes from closing.

Rupert’s assistant sends flowers to Sassy’s house, but Rupert doesn’t congratulate her personally, and he certainly doesn’t propose going over to her house to meet Nora. He smiles indulgently at Rebecca’s stories, but turns stony when she presses him about trying for a pregnancy of their own.

“Now isn’t a good time, darling,” he repeats every time she brings it up, citing his work at the club and charity board commitments and refusing to hear the reasons why they need to get serious soon. Rebecca is thirty-four, which means she isn’t out of time yet but could benefit from some careful planning, as her gynecologist cautioned her while citing horrible figures about fertility decline that she hopes are just used as a scare tactic.

So she waits six months and broaches the topic again, and waits and tries again. Rupert keeps brushing her off, but never gives a firm no, always keeping the embers of her hope just barely alive. It’s never clear exactly what he’s waiting for, but he turns cruel when she asks him about it, telling her to stop whining, to be grateful for all the money he lets her spend. In his worst moment, he tells her that she would be a terrible mother, that he can’t allow her to bring a child into this world.

But that was only one time, and he was drunk after a tough Richmond loss, and she was asking for too much. He didn’t mean it, and he made her breakfast the next morning, so she could tell he felt guilty about what he said.

She stops talking about children quite so often, but she never stops thinking about being a mum, about seeing the world for the first time through her little one’s eyes.

+++++

Sassy moves back home to a town right outside Oxford, but Rebecca keeps her promise and goes to spend time with her and Nora as often as she can. She drops in on her parents occasionally, to make sure they don’t feel neglected, but those visits are mostly obligatory, so that Deborah doesn’t find out that Rebecca is constantly in town and never stops by. There’s always a risk that Sassy’s mum might tell her.

By the time Nora turns two, Rebecca has a schedule down: every couple weeks she’ll attend the home football game to put in the face time that Rupert and the press require, and then drive out to Sassy’s house to spend Saturday night and all of Sunday. She doesn’t want to overstay her welcome, but Sassy is always glad to see her, and Nora is always bursting with new stories to tell or games to play.

“Do you think Darren resents that I’m here so often?” Rebecca asks one Saturday night after Nora is asleep in her brand-new toddler bed. She and Sassy are watching some shitty reality television show while folding laundry.

“Oh God, no,” Sassy assures her. “He loves the excuse to go to the pub on Saturdays.”

“I don’t want him to think I’m kicking him out of his own house. Because he can hang out with us if he wants to.”

“I spend every night with him. I need some alone time with you. And anyway, I really hate most of his friends.” 

Rebecca cuddles into Sassy’s shoulder. 

“Okay. Good.”

She has a guest room that’s essentially just for her; Nora has learned that, on nights when Rebecca puts her to sleep, her godmother will be there in the morning too, just across the hall from her own room. Nora has just reached the age where she can occupy herself for a bit when she wakes up instead of calling for her parents, creating intricate worlds with the stuffed animals piled on her bed, or building and destroying towers of blocks, or one time, taking all the shirts out of her dresser and seeing how many she can put on at once. Sassy always says she doesn’t care what Nora gets up to, as long as she gets to sleep for an extra hour or two. 

And it is always Sassy making those proclamations; as much as Darren was excited about the pregnancy, he looks to his wife as the authority figure with every decision related to Nora. Rebecca isn’t sure if it’s a gender thing, or just that Sassy is the child psychologist in the family, but Darren is a passive father. He’s happy and jokey with Nora for a few hours at a time, taking her to the park or the zoo or to run errands, but he’s never in charge of the little things, of knowing when her doctor’s appointments are, what her favourite snacks are, and which sounds on the noise machine will put her to sleep fastest. 

Rebecca feels a little resentful on Sassy’s behalf, for all the extra weight she has to carry, but she still melts every time she sees Darren kiss Nora goodnight. Deep down, she keeps thinking about Rupert, who would never carry a giggling toddler around on his shoulders, or spend two hours building the perfect pillow fort. She’d spent so much time fantasizing about being a mother, but even after she and Rupert got together, he never figured prominently in her plans. There was always a blurry, vague father in the background, but never a fully-formed man. She’s not sure what this means, if it’s an indictment of Rupert’s character, or just the way her imagination works.

Rupert rarely spends time with Nora, and never comes along on her weekend visits. The last time he saw Nora, when she and Sassy came into London for a visit, he seemed genuinely perplexed about how to talk to her. He patted her on the head in a strange hello and stayed in the garden for only a few minutes before claiming he had to do some work. Sassy opened her mouth to say something, probably to remind Rupert that her daughter wasn’t a dog, but she stopped herself. Rebecca tells herself that his behavior was only due to his strained relationship with Sassy, and wouldn’t apply to all children, but she doesn’t have a lot of other examples to reassure her.

She tries not to think too hard about it.

But for now, she has Nora to occupy her time. She’s become accustomed to waking up on those Sunday mornings to the sound of Nora’s little feet in the hallway, coming to open her bedroom door. 

“Aunt Reb?” she asks, sometimes shy, sometimes demanding. “Can we snuggle?”

And Rebecca hauls her and her stuffed animal of the week up onto the bed and cuddles with her as the sun streams in through the window, her heart full. Her favorite mornings are the ones where Nora falls back asleep, and she can listen to her breathe in and out and marvel at the tiny angel person who chose her warm bed over Sassy’s. Sometimes Sassy wakes up and crawls into Rebecca’s bed too, and the three of them lie there in a warm pile as they doze for another hour. 

Darren takes a photo of the three of them cocooned under the white duvet and Rebecca sets it as the lock screen on her phone for a full year.

Rebecca’s visits grow less frequent as Nora gets older and suddenly boasts a dizzying agenda of weekend activities and play groups, but she still stays over at least one weekend each month.

Soon after Nora turns five, Sassy asks Rebecca to stay with Nora for a full weekend while she and Darren go up north for a family wedding. Richmond is playing away at Sunderland, so she can get away with spending both Saturday and Sunday with Nora. She is genuinely invested in the team’s performance, and watches highlights of the matches she doesn’t attend, but having to appear in person is always a performance, when the press could catch her looking bored or angry, and she hasn’t quite gotten the hang of it even after years of being married to Rupert.

Rebecca arrives mid-morning on Saturday and Nora is still in her pajamas. 

“We’re running a little behind,” Sassy apologizes. “But you have all the emergency numbers, my mum is around if you need her, your mum is around too, and there’s plenty of food in the fridge that you don’t have to cook.”

“We’ll be fine,” Rebecca promises as she gives Nora a hug hello. “We’re going to have fun, aren’t we?”

“Can we go to the aquarium?” Nora almost screeches with delight at the idea. “I want to see the octopus again!”

“Of course we can. We’ll do anything you want this whole weekend! It’s just you and me.”

Nora runs off to find her picture book on octopi and starts to prep Rebecca before they see them in real life.

“Will you give Mummy a big hug? I’m going to miss you tonight,” Sassy says. “I’ll call you before you go to sleep so I can say goodnight.” 

Nora says a half-hearted goodbye before getting back to her octopus book; Sassy is much more upset about their two-day separation.

“I love you,” she says as she wraps Nora in a hug and kisses her on the forehead. “Go say bye to your father.”

After Sassy and Darren leave, Rebecca helps Nora pick out an appropriate aquarium outfit involving sparkly blue leggings and they head out into town.

The day is filled with Rebecca overindulging Nora, buying her all the treats and toys Sassy usually says no to, including a giant stuffed octopus from the aquarium gift shop. When they get back, they spend the afternoon in the garden with the makeshift football goal Darren made, playing keepaway and trying to score from increasingly silly spots. Nora is surprisingly quick and more nimble than she’d expect a five-year-old to be, dodging Rebecca more often than she’d like to admit.

Rebecca wonders if any of the Richmond players would help her with her footwork. She can certainly keep up with Nora, but her competitive streak runs deep, and she wants to get better. She feels she ought to, as the wife of a club owner, so she's never embarrassed.

When they head back into the house, Rebecca has grass stains on her jeans and sweat stains on her t-shirt, and she can’t remember the last time she was this happy.

After dinner and bathtime, she and Nora cuddle in together for bedtime stories. 

“I love when you read to me,” Nora says sleepily.

“You do?” 

“Mummy and Daddy never do the funny voices, but you always do.” 

Rebecca tries to tone down her grin. “Thank you for telling me that.” 

Nora is restless when she tries to go to sleep, even though Rebecca has offered her water, stuffed animals, the noise machine, and her night light both on and off.

“I think what would help,” Nora says, in her sweetest, most practiced asking-for-shit voice, “is if I slept in your bed with you.”

Rebecca sighs. Sassy warned her that Nora might try this, and told her she must put her foot down, or else Nora would never be able to fall asleep in her own bed and everyone would be annoyed. She’s not used to saying no to Nora’s pleading eyes, though, and she folds in less than a minute.

“All right,” she allows. “Just this once, though, because your parents aren’t home and we’re having a special sleepover.” 

Nora catapults herself out of bed in excitement and gallops into Rebecca’s guest room, diving onto the bed. Rebecca follows behind with Nora’s pillows and the noise machine to make sure she actually falls asleep.

“You’re not going to be scared of falling asleep in a different room?” she asks.

“No,” Nora insists. “You’re here to keep me safe.” 

She’s very good at getting people to do what she wants. Rebecca turns out the lights and climbs into bed next to her, pretending it’s her bedtime too, hoping that will make Nora go down faster. 

“Will you scratch my back?” Nora asks. “It’s very soothing.”

Rebecca stifles a giggle at that — she must be parroting Sassy — but starts to rub Nora’s back, feeling her little shoulders relax and her breath start to even out.

“Goodnight,” Rebecca whispers. “I love you.”

In the morning, they eat breakfast outside in the garden, as Rebecca reads the newspaper and Nora looks at the pictures from yesterday’s football games in the sports section.

“Aunt Reb?” Nora asks between bites of toast. “Are girls allowed to be on your football team?”

“Not on the Richmond team,” Rebecca answers. “But lots of other clubs have women’s teams that play every week, just like the men do.” 

Nora looks confused. “I’ve never seen girls playing football on TV. Mummy and Daddy only watch the boys.”

Rebecca tries to figure out how to explain the relative popularity of the men’s and women’s leagues, but she doesn’t need to because Nora decides on a solution.

“You should make a girls’ team for Richmond. Then they’ll be on TV, too.”

“That’s a great idea,” Rebecca smiles, wondering how many years of investment she’d need to put in to develop a Richmond WFC. “I know some people I can talk to.”

When Sassy and Darren arrive home, Nora is snuggled on the couch next to Rebecca, watching TV. Nora whines and moans as she gives Rebecca a final hug, and Rebecca’s whole body feels heavy as she gets into her car, Sassy and Nora waving goodbye from the front stoop. The drive home feels lightning fast, and she circles her neighborhood three times before actually parking in her driveway. She looks up at the single light Rupert has on in his study, not wanting to walk into her quiet, still house.

“Hello, darling,” Rupert calls when she finally forces herself out of the car and through the front door. “You’ll never guess who I heard from today.”

“Who?” she asks weakly, but she doesn’t wait around to hear the answer, dragging herself up the stairs. She wants to be back in Sassy’s house with toys strewn around the first floor and cozy, overstuffed sofas and signs of life everywhere, not in her modern minimalist house that Rupert furnished, all glass and sharp edges, nowhere suited for comfort except the bedroom, sort of, on some days.

She hates coming back from Sassy’s to her real life.

+++++

The week of Nora’s sixth birthday party arrives, and she’s beside herself with excitement, FaceTiming Rebecca every day to tell her all about the face painting and balloon animals and real, live Princess Elsa that are going to be at her party, dancing around outside the phone’s frame and singing songs from Frozen completely off-key.

“Wow, you’re not holding back at all this year,” Rebecca tells Sassy after Nora has collapsed on the sofa, tired out from all her dancing. 

Sassy shrugs, looking guilty. “I figure this is the first birthday party she’ll actually remember when she’s older. And I’ve been working a lot lately, so we don’t get the afternoons together like we used to.”

“So you’re layering over the problem with extra cake and an Elsa impersonator?”

“Exactly. When she resents me later in her life, at least I’ll be able to point to one success story.”

Rupert walks in as Rebecca is finishing her call.

“Is that Sassy?” He sounds annoyed. “I can always tell by the way your voice changes.”

“Changes how?” she asks, but he doesn’t have time to answer before Sassy interjects.

“Hi Rupert. I can hear you.”

He just shakes his head and walks over to the bar cart in the corner of the room, pouring himself a whiskey.

“Anyway, I should go.” Sassy angles the phone towards Nora. “I have to put this one to sleep before she gets a second wind.”

Rebecca says her goodbyes and blows her air kisses, deflating a little when she hears the now-familiar disconnect sound. She turns towards Rupert, now settled in his favorite armchair.

“What do you mean, I have a certain voice when I talk to Sassy?” she asks again.

He’s silent for a moment as he searches for the right words. “I suppose I can only describe it as desperate.”

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“Oh, surely you do. You want her life so badly.”

“Well, yes,” Rebecca says slowly. “I want to be a mother, as you very well know.”

“So badly, it seems, that you continue to invite yourself to Oxford week after week, without Sassy asking you there herself.”

He’s just upset because she’s missing a home match to be at Nora’s party, even though match days are non-negotiable to him, never mind the fact that she’s not on the payroll and has no actual obligation to attend. Sassy apologized for the scheduling conflict, but swore up and down that accommodating the schedules of twenty children was the most complicated thing she’d done all year.

“I’m Nora’s godmother. I don’t need a hand-embossed invitation to spend time with her. That’s not how family works.”

“Ah, but you’re not actually family, are you? You’re just her pseudo-aunt.”

“I don’t know where the fuck this is coming from, but nothing you’re saying is true.”

“Hey.” Rupert stretches out a hand to placate her. “There’s no need to get angry. All I’m saying is that Sassy might be letting you think she needs you more than she does.”

“And why would she do that?”

“It isn’t obvious? She feels bad for you. She doesn’t want you to be embarrassed.”

“So, what, I’m spending too much time with Nora?” 

“If it were me,” Rupert says simply, “I’d feel suffocated.”

Rebecca’s hands start to shake. “Well good thing it’s not you, then,” she says, keeping her seat on the couch, hoping she can get him to leave with the sheer force of her glare. 

Eventually she succeeds.

On the morning of Nora’s party, Rebecca lies in bed until she’s almost running late, waiting until she hears Rupert leave the house for the Richmond match. Her brain feels foggy, like she didn’t get enough sleep, even though she’s been in bed for almost twelve hours. 

After an extra cup of tea to wake herself up, she grabs the stack of presents sitting by the front door and gets in her car, turning the radio on loud to accompany her.

Rebecca can hear the sounds of squealing children before she even parks in front of Sassy’s house. Nora is in the front garden with a couple of her friends and some scattered parents, but she stops her play when she sees Rebecca get out of the car.

“Aunt Reb!” she shouts as loud as her little lungs will let her. “You’re here!” She comes flying in a flurry of color, launching herself into Rebecca’s arms wearing a blue Elsa dress, a red Ariel wig, and a generic purple princess crown.

“Hi, angel,” Rebecca says, breathing in Nora’s strawberry-scented shampoo. “Happy birthday!”

“Now that I’m six, I’m the oldest of all my friends,” Nora informs her solemnly. “Everyone else is still five.”

Rebecca nods indulgently, as if Nora has accomplished some impressive feat. “And what game are you playing here?”

“It’s called the unicorn game. My friends and I made it up and it’s really fun. I’m a unicorn, but there are also lions and tigers, and we have to stay safe.”

Rebecca can’t help but smile at the incomprehensible description. “I believe you. You go have fun, yeah? I’m going to find your mum.”

“Okay, bye!” Nora is off and running again towards a tree that might serve as home base, or a safe deposit for treasure, no more encouragement needed. 

Rebecca slips into the house and follows the sound of adult chatter to the kitchen.

“Stinky! Hi!” Sassy greets her from the table, where she’s assembling a layer cake. “I’d hug you, but I’m all covered in frosting.” 

She turns to the two other women sitting with her, one of whom is chopping carrots and the other of whom is pouring pretzels and crisps into various bowls. “This is Rebecca, my best mate from school, and Nora’s godmother.”

“You’re the famous Aunt Reb, then?” the woman called Rachel asks. The other woman, Julia, nods in recognition. 

“That would be me,” she acknowledges with a mock bow. “Nice to meet you both.”

“They’re both mums of Nora’s friends from nursery,” Sassy explains.

“And what about you?” Julia asks, having finished with her pretzel pouring. “Do you have any little ones of your own?”

“Oh,” Rebecca breathes out as she takes a seat. “No, not yet. I just have Nora to spoil rotten right now.”

Sassy shoots her a sorry grimace, though Rebecca should have known the question was coming. She’s not usually in social situations where children are assumed — even with Nora, it’s usually just her and Sassy and Darren if he can be arsed to join them, and at the football club, children are usually regarded as an inconvenience for others to take care of. But of course a group of young mums at a child’s birthday party would ask about her kids.

“I have two,” Julia continues, though Rebecca hasn’t asked. “My son is out there with Nora right now, screaming his head off, and my daughter is only fourteen months, so I left her at home with my husband.”

“My daughter is out there too,” Rachel finishes. “Isabella and Nora have been inseparable for years. I take full responsibility for taking them to see Frozen and creating this monster.”

“Oh, don’t apologize, I love singing Frozen with her,” Rebecca jumps in.

“That’s because you don’t have to hear it every waking hour,” Julia says with a roll of her eyes.

“Rebecca here has a great voice.” Sassy tries to redirect the conversation. “Like, proper talented, could have been a professional singer if she’d wanted to.”

“Stop it,” Rebecca dismisses her. “You always oversell me.”

“Well, at any rate, she can crush all of us in karaoke.” 

“I haven’t done karaoke in years,” Rachel groans. “I’m always so busy with Bella.”

The conversation turns back to children and the demands of their new primary school and the parents’ association and the newest highly breakable, highly coveted toy. Rebecca gets up to wash the cake pans so she has something to do, standing at the sink and eating the leftover chocolate buttercream frosting from the mixing bowl until it’s clean.

She should be upset that the conversation is exactly the same whether she’s participating or not, but she feels wistful instead, wanting so badly to be part of the petty annoyances over a new food her child won’t eat, figuring out where to sign up for the best swim lessons, bitching about saggy tits and a stubborn five kilos of extra weight.

As more of Nora’s friends arrive, the next hour is chaotic with children playing and fighting and popping balloon animals and grinding pretzel dust into the carpets. 

The girl in her twenties playing Elsa arrives soon after and introduces herself to the adults as Lizzy. Sassy sets her up in the back garden with her props and costume changes and a picnic blanket for the children to sit on as they watch. After some arguing and a lot of excited squealing, all the kids are sitting cross-legged, ready for Elsa’s grand entrance, with the adults standing around the garden in clusters. Just before Sassy gives the ready nod, Nora turns around in a panic. 

“Aunt Reb?” she calls, her voice high. 

“Yes, love?” Rebecca takes a couple steps towards her. “Elsa is almost ready for you!”

“I want you to sit with me!”

Rebecca grins automatically and looks to Sassy for approval, who waves her hand in a get on with it gesture. “All right, I’m coming over.”

After pulling Nora into her lap and rearranging the seating positions to make sure everyone can see, the show starts. It’s basically a twenty-five minute recap of the movie, heavy on the key Elsa scenes, which Lizzy reproduces impressively while playing all the parts, ending in a big performance Let It Go. Rebecca is impressed with her adaptability and range, and most of the kids are responsive, singing along or asking each other questions. Nora, on the other hand, grows more and more quiet as the show goes on, cuddling into Rebecca so that part of her face is hidden. Rebecca knows this means Nora isn’t happy, but she can’t exactly ask her about it while Elsa is miming her run across the icy fjords to her (imaginary) sister. 

The show ends with applause and cheering from the kids, and Elsa kneels down in front of Nora to ask if she wants to sing Let It Go one more time together. Nora stays quiet, so Rebecca tries to nudge her to stand up.

“She’d love that, wouldn’t you, Nora?” Rebecca tries to apologize to Lizzy with a smile. Nora stands up cautiously, but instead of taking Elsa’s outstretched hand she makes a break for it instead, zooming towards Sassy who is standing by the back door.

“Mummy!” Nora cries, burying her face in her mother’s stomach. “It’s not fair! She didn’t do the whole movie!” 

Sassy puts her arms around Nora and guides her inside before she starts wailing again. The adults laugh in a smug, knowing aren’t kids so picky? sort of way, but Rebecca is still sitting in front of Lizzy, mortified.

“I’m so sorry,” she babbles. “I’m not sure what she was expecting, but you did such a wonderful job, even with the kids talking over you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lizzy says with a self-deprecating shrug. “You wouldn’t believe the range of reactions I get from birthday children. This one was tame. At least she watched the whole thing.”

“Well, thank you so much for coming. Let me go grab Nora’s mum to make sure you’re good to go.” Rebecca groans as she uncrosses her legs and stands up, her body stiff.

In the house, Nora is in the middle of a full-on tantrum, though luckily it’s not audible from the garden. She’s sprawled facedown on the pretzel dust-saturated carpet with Sassy rubbing her back. Rebecca knocks on the door frame to announce herself, and Sassy turns to give her an I’m in deep shit look.

“This was my birthday and I wanted to hear all the songs,” Nora sobs.

“I know, darling. I said this would be a little different from the movie, but I should have told you more. That was my fault,” Sassy says, grimacing for Rebecca’s benefit. “But she sang your favorite song.”

The tears continue.

“What if we watch the movie together tomorrow?” Sassy bargains.

“I want to watch it now!”

“You can’t do that, love. I know you’re sad, and that’s okay. But all your friends are outside, and they don’t want to see you cry. Do you want to eat your birthday cake now?”

Nora still isn’t happy, but she starts to calm down at the mention of cake.

“I thought the show was really good.” Rebecca tries lamely to console her.

“You’re a better singer than she is,” Nora insists with an impressive eye roll, getting worked up again. “It’s not fair,” she wails into the carpet again.

“Stinky, can you just go back outside?” Sassy asks desperately. “I can handle it here. There’s an envelope with money for Elsa on the kitchen counter.”

Rebecca nods and slips away, feeling useless. She’s not the person Nora runs to when she’s sad, and she can’t even comfort her without making things worse. She stands around blankly for a few minutes before remembering to hand off the money to Lizzy. Once those goodbyes are finished, though, she turns around and pretends to need something from the kitchen, staring at the photos of Nora on the fridge as she tries to control her shaking shoulders, the ringing in her ears.

Nora and Sassy walk in at that moment and Rebecca jumps in surprise, wishing she’d done a better job hiding. 

“Did you get the —” Sassy starts to ask before seeing Rebecca’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Rebecca says hastily. 

Sassy opens her mouth to argue, but Nora tugs at her hand, still grumpy. “Mummy, you said it was time for cake.”

“Right, yes, I did,” Sassy says. She puts her hand on Rebecca’s arm and says, “Whatever it is, we’ll talk about it later.” 

“It’s not — it’s no big deal. Rupert and I had a silly fight last night and I was thinking about it again, that’s all.” 

Sassy narrows her eyes, trying to decide if she should believe the lie, but submits to her wriggling daughter. She gestures at the fridge Rebecca is still standing in front of and says, “I just need to take the cake out of here.”

All the guests are summoned inside to sing happy birthday, but Rebecca takes the opportunity to slip out into the garden so she can breathe, wondering if she’ll feel this alone at all of Nora’s future birthday parties.

Richmond win their match against Chelsea in overtime, so Rupert is in a good mood when Rebecca gets home. He calls out a hello as she walks into the kitchen to put a few pieces of leftover cake in the fridge.

“How was the party?” Rupert asks as he wanders into the kitchen.

Rebecca stiffens at his footsteps. “It was fun,” she says brightly, inwardly furious that she’d fought with him about attending the party only for it to be awkward and overwhelming.

“I’m glad you had a good time,” he says, the previous night's argument apparently forgotten.

“I listened to the match highlights on the drive back. What a close call.”

Rupert goes into an extended summary of the game, the second-string keeper’s two miraculous saves and the yellow card given to the cocky Chelsea defender everyone hates, and Rebecca nods and smiles, putting in no more effort than necessary.

“What’s that?” he asks suddenly, pointing to the cake she’s holding in its clear plastic container. 

“It’s from the party. Nora’s cake.”

“Did Nora make that by herself?” he asks with laughter in his voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many types of sprinkles combined together.”

Something in her snaps at the malice in his voice.

“No, Sass made it. Who the fuck cares? It’s a child’s birthday cake. She was happy.” 

Rebecca puts the cake in the fridge, letting the door slam a little too loud. She walks into the living room, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet under her on the sofa.

“Did you tell Nora I said happy birthday?” Rupert asks as he follows Rebecca from the kitchen.

“No,” she shrugs. “You never told me to. I didn’t know you cared, since you were so upset that I chose to skip the Richmond match.”

“I thought Sassy was a bit inconsiderate on the timing, that’s all.”

“You also told me that Sassy didn’t actually want me there. That I was only a pity invite because she thought I needed some joy in my sad, miserable, childless life.” Rebecca takes a deep breath to stop her tears from progressing.

“I don’t know where you’re getting all that from,” Rupert says, his brow furrowing. 

She opens her mouth to protest, her jaw tight.

“But since you’re upset,” he adds, “Let me take back everything I said. I should have kept my thoughts to myself.”

He doesn’t say that he was wrong, that of course Sassy loves Rebecca and wants her around. Just that he made a mistake in sharing his thoughts with her.

“Right,” she nods. “Well, I should go have a shower. I’ve been shepherding sticky kids around for the past few hours.”

Rupert’s eyes flash as she doesn’t accept his apology, but she can’t bring herself to care. Once she’s locked herself in the bathroom, she sits on the cool tile floor, waiting to summon the energy to get undressed. She digs her phone out of her jeans pocket and scrolls through her photos from the party, Nora grinning next to her school friends like she’s never been happier.

+++++

Rebecca paces outside the entrance to Rupert’s office, where she’s set to meet with him and their accountant for their annual financial planning session. His assistant just told her that Rupert is on another call, so she scrolls aimlessly on her phone for a bit, feeling vulnerable waiting for him to finish up. She always feels odd sitting on the sofa opposite his assistant, like she doesn’t actually belong there, her presence in his office always mediated by someone else. 

As she’s scrolling through her email, she gets a text from Sassy.

Haven’t seen you in almost a month. Can you come visit this Sunday? Nora is asking about you.

Rebecca locks her phone without responding. She’s been struggling since Nora’s birthday party, feeling like she’s not really useful anywhere in her life, floating through her work calls and plans for a new charity event and the last two football matches, both of which were hard losses. She’s talked to Sassy and Nora a few times on FaceTime, and once when Sassy called to scold her for spending too much money on Nora’s birthday gifts. But she can’t stomach the thought of a visit quite yet, even one that’s just her alone. She has a vision of everybody in her life flying past her, of Nora growing up and starting secondary school and marching on without her, and she can’t shake the feeling that Nora would be just as happy without her.

Rupert opens his office door just then and waves her in.

“Hello, darling,” he says, giving her a cold, emotionless kiss on the cheek for the benefit of his assistant. “Thanks for coming in earlier than we planned.”

I didn’t have anything else going on, is what she wants to say but doesn’t. She just smiles and sits at one of the chairs across from his desk. 

When John the financial planner arrives, he goes over the typical rundown of their investments and equities and Rebecca nods slowly through it, though she knows she won’t remember the details later with the mood she’s in.

“How would our forecast change,” she asks suddenly, “if we were to have children?” 

She’s never actually asked about this particular detail. Rupert has more money than any person could spend in three lifetimes, so she’s not concerned about the typical school fees and childcare she’s heard Sassy talk about. But if she wants to have a baby, she needs to start speaking it into existence.

Rupert puts his hand over hers and squeezes a bit harder than necessary to get her to shut up. “Now, Rebecca,” he warns. “That’s not something we’ve decided on yet.”

“I know,” she protests. “But it’s still an important question.” 

John looks uncomfortable at the tension and stares into the tumbler of whiskey Rupert offered him when he came in. 

“Rebecca’s right. What I often recommend is restructuring some of your investments, and setting up a trust in the child’s name,” he says after a moment, continuing to sketch a typical financial plan.

Rebecca nods eagerly as Rupert’s fist stays clamped over hers. 

“I need my hand back to take notes,” she says, smiling sweetly at her husband as she opens her phone to write down John’s advice.

Another text comes in from Sassy as she’s opening her notes app.

Nora keeps asking to show you the new moves she learned at football practice!

Rebecca minimizes the notification, but she feels a thrum of baby-related hope in her chest for the first time in years. 

The hope is short-lived, however. After John leaves, the mood turns dark quickly and Rebecca forgets why she felt so happy in the first place.

“You embarrassed me,” Rupert says with clenched teeth.

“How?” she asks, trying to sound more confident than she feels. “By asking a hypothetical question?”

“By misleading John about our family.”

“You always say it’s not a good time for children, but there’s never actually a good time. You just have to do it. Sassy said that —”

Rupert sighs heavily. “Do you really think I want to hear anything Sassy told you right now?”

“I just wanted to —” she says before he cuts her off again.

“And why is Sassy’s word your Bible when you haven’t seen her in weeks? My God, the hold she has over you.” 

Rebecca blinks rapidly, trying to understand the swerve in the conversation. 

“I’m being serious right now,” she says, looking to make sure the door is closed so his assistant won’t overhear. “You’ve always pushed off having a proper talk about children, always giving me just enough to stay satisfied. You’ve said that I’m still young, that we could go to doctors, that I would get what I wanted in due time.”

“You want the honest truth?” Rupert asks, impatient.

“Of course I do.”

“I don’t want children. Never have, never will.”

“No,” Rebecca whispers, beads of sweat forming under her arms. “You can’t be serious. I’m forty years old, and you asked me to wait for you. If I’d known that I would have —”

“What? You think you’d really leave me?”

“I could leave in a second.”

Rupert doesn’t seem threatened; he just grins, his teeth bared like a wolf’s.

“You’d leave and do what? You have nowhere to go.”

“I could go stay with Sassy.”

“Could you really? After you’ve been avoiding her for weeks?”

“She would understand. She’d forgive me,” Rebecca says loudly, mostly to convince herself.

“So what you’re saying is, she pities you so much she’d forget how horrible you’ve been.” Rupert’s voice is smooth as ever, dangerous.

Bile fills her mouth, bitter and metallic. “Fine. I’d go to my parents, then. My mum is always asking me to —” 

She’s not sure how she was going to finish the sentence, but she doesn’t have to because Rupert doesn’t let her. 

“Your mother will have you back in my arms in two weeks. That’s the way she’s always operated with your father. Why would she tell you to do anything different?” 

“I don’t — that’s not —” Rebecca hates how powerless he makes her, how she freezes up during arguments and doesn’t feel in control of her own body, like she can’t think or yell or run while he’s glaring at her, every word perfectly sharpened to cut deep.

“You have no one,” he says triumphantly. 

“That’s not true,” she bursts out. She has names on the tip of her tongue, other football families, friends who are patrons of the same charities as she is, people from the club.

“Everyone would side with me if you left. You’d be a bitter, washed-up society wife who was never expected to amount to anything. You’d be alone, and you’d be miserable.”

At that, Rupert stalks past her and out the door, leaving Rebecca to sink down to the carpet, silent sobs wrenching her apart.

+++++

Rebecca runs into Roy Kent in the car park one evening as she’s walking to meet her driver. Roy is a new transfer from Chelsea, and she’s not entirely sure what to make of him yet, but she likes his no-bullshit demeanor and the fact that he calls her Rebecca. She asks all the players to call her by her first name, but so far no one has actually done so except for Roy. The others call her Mrs. Mannion without fail, and though she liked the ring of importance it had when she was first married, now it makes her feel like she’s vanishing behind Rupert. 

“Rebecca,” he nods at her, an uncharacteristic grin on his face, his phone open in his hand with a wall of blue text bubbles. 

“Hi, Roy.” She stops when she ordinarily wouldn’t. “What are you so happy about?” 

He touches his hand to his cheek, as though he hadn’t realized he was smiling. “My sister’s pregnant. She just went into labor.”

Fucking Christ. “Wow! How exciting!” she manages.

“Well, she didn’t just go into labor,” he corrects himself. “This fucker decided to wait until training was over for the day to call me because she knows we have a big match this weekend.”

“And she didn’t want to make you choose between training and the baby?”

“I’d have left in a fucking second, whenever I got the call.” Roy looks genuinely angry at the implication.

Rebecca nods. She’s not sure if that’s true, since the accepted excuses for missing training are very few and very specific, but she appreciates his conviction anyway. 

“Well, congratulations to her. I hope everyone’s happy and healthy.”

“Thanks. I’m headed to the hospital now. Just waiting for my taxi.” 

Rebecca reaches out on instinct and rubs his arm. “Good night, Uncle Roy,” she says, her throat raw with emotion.

He nods at her, looking a mixture of happy and terrified. “I think that’s my car.” He points past her and hops in, raising one hand in a goodbye.

She slides into her own car, which has been idling at the ready, and looks out the window to hide the tears welling up in her eyes, her chest tight. Everywhere she turns, she meets someone else with a happy baby. She shouldn’t hold a grudge, but the tiniest part of her does anyway, adding layers to the armor she needs to get through each day.

The next time she sees Roy is at the clubhouse a couple weeks later on his way to physiotherapy. 

“How’s your sister doing? And the baby?” Rebecca can’t help herself from asking. 

Roy seems surprised she remembered, but touched. “They’re both doing really well, yeah. It’s fucking crazy how small babies are.”

“It really is.”

“My sister named her Phoebe. And she wants me to be the godfather.”

“That’s a big responsibility,” Rebecca says, swallowing down guilt. She’s only seen Nora twice in the last few months, including one time when Sassy brought her into London for a visit.

“Yeah. In my family, it means I have to take care of her if my sister fucking dies or something.”

“Wow.”

They stand in silence a moment longer.

“Well, I do need to get going,” he says, pointing at the physio room. 

“Right! Right. See you later.” Rebecca waves him on his way.

She runs into him again one night after she stayed late at work, squatting in Higgins’ office, half-planning an upcoming charity event and half-staring blankly at her laptop screen. She’d thought all the players were gone, but Roy is still in his training clothes, so he must have stayed late to do extra drills. He’s a little sweaty, and his shirt is clinging to his chest in just the right way. 

Roy nods at her when he spots her down the hallway.

“What have you got there?” he asks, pointing to the fifth of whiskey she stole from Rupert’s bar cart on her way downstairs. It’s more than half-empty but has a few solid pours left.

“I needed a drink. And it seemed more efficient to take the bottle,” she says sheepishly.

He makes a face of approval and she feels oddly proud.

“Do you want some?” she offers, suddenly wanting nothing more than to sit for a moment with this strange, gruff-soft man.

“Sure,” he shrugs. “Can’t turn down a free drink from the boss.”

“I’m not exactly your boss.” 

Roy ignores her and leads her into the locker room. They take a seat on one of the benches, legs angled towards each other. 

“I’ve never actually been inside here before,” she says as she uncaps the bottle. 

“Really?” Roy takes a look around, as if trying to see it through fresh eyes. “Sorry if it smells like feet.”

It does smell a bit like feet, and that distinct ripe male sweat, but she doesn’t mind. It reminds her of her school days playing field hockey.

“Drinking from the bottle okay with you?” she asks, lifting it to her lips and swallowing twice.

“Of course.”

When she hands Roy the bottle, he raises it to her in a toast and takes a pull, humming appreciatively at the quality. 

They pass the bottle back and forth in a friendly silence. The whiskey hits her fast, making her feel warm and happy. She hasn’t eaten much since breakfast, and it’s been dark for a couple hours already. She kicks off her heels and lies down on the bench to savor the buzz, her feet planted flat and knees pointed towards the ceiling in a triangle. She has a sudden flashback to year eleven, to lying drunk in strange places with Sassy. 

Roy looks at her for a long moment; she can feel the weight of his gaze. Slowly, he runs his thumb over the knob of her ankle and down around the outside of her foot.

“Do your feet hurt?” he asks, tracing the shape of her toes. 

“They do most days, yeah.”

“That’s shit.”

“It is,” she agrees companionably. But she likes the extra layer of distance she gets with her four-inch heels.

She tentatively stretches her feet into Roy’s lap and he crosses his legs to make a little basket for her. 

“So.” She gestures around the locker room, whiskey sloshing against the side of the bottle. “Is playing for Richmond everything you hoped it would be?” 

“It’s been good so far.” He grabs the bottle back from her and takes a swig. Hesitates for a moment. “Been having some knee pain, though.”

From the way he’s avoiding her eyes, suddenly very interested in the names printed above each locker, Rebecca can tell he’s worried.

She casts about for anything that might be encouraging. “Would surgery help?”

“It’s not serious yet. But it just… it feels different from the normal aches of a new season. Like I’m slowing down.”

“That’s shit,” she says, not wanting to overreact, hoping he doesn’t think she’s being flippant.

“Thanks.” He seems to mean it. “I try not to think about it.”

She takes a last sip of whiskey and gives the rest to Roy to finish. Her lips are numb, a sure sign that she’s drunk. She feels a new warmth in the room, an openness that she’s been missing.

“I really want to be a mother, and I don’t think it’s going to happen,” she says, her voice trembling. She hasn’t said it out loud to anyone yet, didn’t have the energy for the reassurances that there was still time, that she and Rupert could come to a compromise, as if having a child were akin to a business deal.

“Fucking hell,” Roy breathes. “I’ve been telling you all about Phoebe.”

Rebecca almost smiles at that; he’s told her only that Phoebe exists and that he’s her godfather, though she supposes that is a lot for Roy.

“Is it —” He weighs his question. “Is it a medical issue?”

“No. It’s just not the right time.”

He grabs her hand and pulls her up to a sitting position so he can look at her properly. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. He doesn’t question her or try to negotiate. “I’m really fucking sorry.”

It’s his earnest eyes that break her open, and she’s crying like she hasn’t in front of another person in years. He rubs her back, slow and steady, and he doesn’t tell her that it’s going to be okay. He just whispers “I know,” and folds her into a hug until she can catch her breath. 

“Jesus Christ,” she says when she can speak again, forcing her voice to be light. “What a fucking mess.”

Roy must sense that she doesn’t want his pity because he just smirks and says, “You’re a little snotty.”

He turns to his locker to look for tissues. He doesn’t have any, but produces a handful of crumpled (but clean, he assures her) takeaway napkins from the pocket of his leather jacket. She gets up to look in a mirror but loses her balance, forgetting about all the whiskey they just drank. Roy catches her arm before she actually falls.

“Might want to go home barefoot,” he says gently, nodding at her shoes next to the bench.

“I think I will,” she agrees before she goes off to make herself presentable again.

“Do you need a ride home?” he asks once she’s gathered herself and fixed her smudged makeup.

“Oh, no. No,” she protests too quickly. “Thank you, though.”

“You sure?”

“My driver is on his way,” she insists, even though he’s not, and she’ll have to call him and wait. 

Roy looks like he knows she’s lying, but he nods anyway.

“Right. Well, let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.”

He squeezes her hand and walks out of the locker room, stopping at the door to look back at her.

“What?” Rebecca asks, uneasy.

“Nothing,” he says, his eyes shining with something indecipherable. “Get home safe.”

+++++

Rebecca avoids Roy after that night, and he seems to understand. When their eyes do meet during the days she has to be at the clubhouse, he just nods in greeting. 

She keeps dodging Sassy’s calls, for reasons she’s not prepared to explain, which just compounds her shame cycle of avoidance. As she should have expected, Sassy finally shows up at the house one afternoon. Rebecca finds her sitting on the front steps, looking determined, when she arrives home from a gym session with her trainer.

“Hi, Sass,” Rebecca says cautiously.

“Oh, you’re alive, are you? In one piece and well enough to go for a workout?” Sassy says, gesturing at Rebecca’s all-black leggings and top. 

“Um,” Rebecca says brilliantly. “Yeah, I am.”

“Right. I just wanted to check for myself, because the only reason I could come up with for you to blow me off so spectacularly is if you had recently been in a car accident or something.”

“I’m not blowing you off,” Rebecca tries to protest.

“You’re right. You’re blowing off Nora, and that’s what really makes me fucking mad.”

Rebecca sighs. “Do you at least want to come in? It’s going to rain any minute.”

“Whatever you want.”

They walk into the living room Rebecca hates, and Sassy sits on the sofa with one foot tucked under her, not bothering to take off her boots. 

“You’ve been avoiding us for months, and I deserve to know why.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” Rebecca repeats. “I’ve just been busy.” 

“Oh, of course. So busy being the club owner’s wife. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

“Don’t be a bitch.”

“I’ll be a bitch for exactly as long as I need to be. Until you tell me what’s going on with you.”

“You’re not exactly making me want to confide in you,” Rebecca says, her voice hard.

“I just think you could have an actual job that you’re actually good at.” 

Rebecca knows what Sassy means — she misses working at her old gallery, and she misses her art world friends — but she’s not in the mood to be generous. 

“Are you done criticizing my life choices?”

Sassy scrubs her hands over her face. “Sorry. Forget I said that. This isn’t how I wanted this conversation to go.” 

“How did you want it to go?”

“I’m worried about you, Stinky.” Sassy’s voice gets low and serious. “I feel like you’re slipping away from me.”

“You’re being so dramatic.” Rebecca tries to laugh.

“When I do manage to get you on FaceTime, you never talk for longer than fifteen minutes, and you’re always distracted. You’ve been weird for months, since Nora’s birthday party. Even she’s started to notice.”

“What did she say?”

“She misses you, a lot. She keeps asking if she did something bad.”

“Oh,” Rebecca breathes. “You told her it’s not her fault, right?”

“Of course I did,” Sassy says impatiently. “But she’s not going to believe me until you come for another weekend.”

Rebecca closes her eyes. She can’t go to Sassy’s and live her fantasy life when she has to come home and deal with the fresh wound of separation all over again. Not when Rupert has assured her she’ll never have the family she wants. It would be pure masochism.

“I don’t know when I can visit next.”

“Fine. We’ll come back to that. Will you at least tell me what happened at Nora’s birthday party? When I found you in the kitchen and you were white as a sheet?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please don’t lie to me right now.”

“It was — I just, I dunno.” Rebecca tries to start a sentence that makes sense. “Seeing all of the kids there with their parents, it made me feel like I didn’t belong. Like all of you have this life that’s separate from mine.”

“Well, yes, that’s always been true. And you have a separate life that doesn’t include me. What exactly was it that made you freak out?”

I felt like you didn’t want me is at the tip of her tongue, but she can’t admit that.

“I just realized that I didn’t want to be around those parents who can only talk about their kids,” she says instead. “Who don’t have a life apart from them.”

Sassy looks hurt. “You can be whatever kind of mum you want to be.”

Rebecca feels a lump in her throat and tries, unsuccessfully, to swallow it down. “That’s the point. I’m not going to be a mum. Rupert doesn’t —”

“I’ll kill him, I swear to God. I’ve always been civil for your benefit, but now I have no reason to be.”

“You’ve never been civil,” Rebecca reminds her. She parrots the same line she gave to Roy. “It’s just not a good time right now.”

Sassy doesn’t accept that as easily as Roy did. “That’s exactly what you’ve been saying for years, but it was never final. Why is it different this time? What, did he say he wants you all to himself or something?”

“No.” Rebecca shakes her head. That’s something that newly married Rupert would have said, but at this point he’s given up on pretending. 

“Then what was it?”

Rebecca recalls the fight in Rupert’s office, his words echoing in her ears. You have nowhere to go. The fight before Nora’s birthday party. If it were me, I’d feel suffocated.  

“He’s my husband. He’s my family. We came to an agreement.” 

“Okay, this robot Rebecca is fucking scaring me.”

She doesn’t say anything in return.

“Well, anyway, I don’t understand why that means you can’t come see Nora. She asks about you like every single day. I don’t expect you to hang out with my mum friends, but Nora misses you.”

“Sassy.” Rebecca says weakly. She just wants to crawl into bed. “I can’t come see her. Not right now. It just makes me too sad. It’s everything I’ll never get to have.”

Sassy’s eyes turn dark and she gets up to leave. “I know you’re hurting, but if you don’t snap out of this soon, Nora is never going to get over it.”

After the front door shuts behind her, Rebecca lies on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling and picking her cuticles to shreds. The guilt about avoiding Nora eats away at her stomach, but she tells herself that she only needs another week to be strong enough. Next weekend, she’ll be able to see her, she’ll be able to handle the come-down afterwards.

As it happens, Rebecca doesn’t go see Nora the next weekend, or the weekend after. Sassy starts leaving her voicemails every few days, alternately apologetic and pushy: 

I’m sorry for guilt-tripping you. I’ll give you some space.

I just want you to be happy, and I can see that Rupert isn’t doing that.

I’m going to keep calling until you pick up. You can’t avoid me forever. You’re my best friend and I’m not going to let you drop off the face of the Earth. 

It’s late and Nora can’t sleep and she’s been asking for her Aunt Stinky.

Rebecca deletes the messages without responding.

+++++

She starts researching IVF treatments, fantasizing about what she could do if she weren’t married to Rupert, going on deep dives into forums filled with women who are over 40 and trying to conceive. She reads blogs written by women who have had multiple children through IVF, and others written by women who haven’t been successful yet but are still trying. She starts checking the sites every few days for updates, obsessed with the prospect of good news but rolling her eyes at the well-wishers commenting under every post, even though she’s just as invested as they are. 

She clears her laptop history every few days, just in case Rupert needs to borrow it, so he doesn’t see just how many blog posts she clicks through every day. There’s a single mum in her early thirties who is pregnant with twins, and Rebecca finds herself thinking about her at odd hours of the day: will she be alright after giving birth? Are her parents and friends around to help? She’s worried about this woman, but she also feels weak by comparison.

She goes to the gynecologist for her annual checkup and asks casually about her fertility, if she could hope to get pregnant in the future. They’re questions she’s asked before, but she knows the answers change as she gets older; she’s almost 41. The doctor reads off some numbers from her bloodwork, says her FSH is a little high, but nothing to worry about yet.

“It really depends on the quality of the eggs you have left,” the doctor says as she flips through some paperwork. “I’ve seen a lot of women get pregnant naturally. Some need IVF. I usually tell women to try on their own for six months and come back to see me if they’re not successful.”

Rebecca nods as though this is useful information, as though she has a partner who wants to debate the merits and pitfalls of IVF, as though she can actually imagine a future in which she’s pregnant. In years past, this news would have made her hopeful, but she feels weighed down by it now, the knowledge that she’s wasting valuable time with a husband who has no interest in children.

When she gets home, she crawls into bed instead of going to a keeping-up-appearances lunch she has scheduled with the head of the children’s literacy charity she’s a patron of, scrolling through mummy blogs on her phone until she falls asleep for three hours with the shades open and her jeans still on.

As the weeks pass, she imagines leaving Rupert idly, in much the same way she imagines what her life would be like if she’d said no to the first date with him, a morbid curiosity but with no heat behind it, because that would require energy she doesn’t have.

She tries going to the club more in an effort to stay busy, to have some form of social contact. Higgins keeps asking her out to lunch and she finally accepts, grateful to have something regular on her calendar.

Sassy keeps calling for a while, but even on the days Rebecca wants to pick up the phone she feels like she can’t, that too much time has passed and she’ll never be able to repair their relationship. That Sassy will be furious with her, or tell her she’s being stupid, and that Nora will always feel wary around her. It’s been almost a year since they last saw each other.

On Nora’s seventh birthday, Rebecca opens FaceTime on four separate occasions to call her, but she never hits send, her hand shaking as it hovers over her phone. Sassy doesn’t call either, not that Rebecca expected her to, but part of her hoped that maybe she’d get an angry voicemail. Or a disappointed one. Anything to remind her that Sassy and Nora are thinking about her.

The fog lifts occasionally and she has a good month or two, when the weather is warmer, during the football off-season when she doesn’t need to attend inane events with Rupert, and can just sit in the back garden with a book that she pretends to read. The months stretch into years of sameness, just her and Rupert in that dark house. 

Slowly people stop coming to visit her, after she’s ignored calls and texts and invites for tea from all her third-tier friends. She loses almost everyone except for Higgins, perhaps because he’s one of the only people who know what Rupert is really like, who doesn’t make her explain when Rupert doesn’t want her to do something; she can just say “He wouldn’t —” and Higgins nods and moves on to a new topic. He has a mess of children, from what she gathers, but he seems to intuit that it hurts to hear about them, so he directs the conversation elsewhere, about art and music and nerdy stories from his uni days.

She’s nowhere close to happy, but she’s getting through each football match and cheering extra-loud for Roy Kent and cycling through some of Richmond’s poshest lunch spots on the club’s dime.

And then one day, the tabloids publish the news that Rupert is cheating on her with what seems like every available twenty-year-old model in London, and she feels properly angry for the first time in years, a rage so hot it sustains her through the separation and the divorce proceedings, makes her feel alive again, if only to feel pain. She loses Higgins temporarily but wins the club in a miraculous feat of strength from her lawyer, and she starts to remember who she is again.

+++++

Rebecca takes time to get her bearings, and Sassy surprises her by showing up to that random hotel in Liverpool and pulling her to her feet, with pity and support and a dose of tough love. She starts to spend time with Nora again, in short visits with Sassy and then a long weekend just the two of them in Richmond. She and Nora start to figure out how to be around each other again, what to expect from each other, and they slowly settle into an old pattern, except now it’s Nora who comes to her for the weekend.

One night, Rebecca and Nora are watching the end of a dumb horror movie, so low-budget that it’s more silly than scary, talking through most of it. Rebecca isn’t sure why but it feels like a good time to ask about something that has been eating away at her for years.

“Can I ask you a question you may not want to answer?” 

The laugh fades quickly from Nora’s eyes, but she nods.

“What did your mum tell you about why I stopped coming over?”

Nora bites her lip, deciding how much she wants to say. 

“Not too much, at first. She said you still loved me, and that it wasn’t because of anything I did.”

Rebecca nods. That’s the best she could hope for, probably.

“I missed you a lot. I remember crying at one of my birthday parties because you weren’t there.”

Rebecca reaches for Nora’s hand, wanting so badly for her to stop but knowing that she needs to get through this. She’s made jokes about Rebecca disappearing, always quick to cover the pain like Sassy does, but they haven’t discussed anything in detail.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she says, freezing up. She has apologized so much at this point that the words have lost their heat, but she feels like she has to keep saying it anyway. She hasn’t heard a lot from Nora, though, always waiting until she’s ready to talk. Sassy keeps telling her to give Nora space to figure out how she feels.

“I know. You’ve been trying to make it up to me for the past few months.”

“I would deserve it if you were angry with me forever,” Rebecca whispers.

“I’m not angry anymore, not really. I’m just sad for all the years we lost. Because when I got older, like a year ago, Mum told me a little more. I think it was after she went to visit you in Liverpool. She sat me down and said that you were married to a really shitty man who made you believe that you didn’t belong anywhere. And that you wanted to be a mother so badly, but he didn’t want to have any children, and you had to grieve on your own for a little bit.”

“Wow.” Rebecca wipes tears away. “I guess that’s one of the benefits of having a psychologist for a mother.”

Nora nods. “It’s annoying most days. But it has helped me.”

Rebecca pulls her close. “I’m glad you told me that,” she whispers. “And I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I am too,” Nora agrees.

The next morning, Rebecca is reading the news in bed when Nora shuffles in, holding her pillow. 

“Hi Aunt Reb,” she mumbles. “I wanted to see if you were awake.”

At that very moment her eyes are wide and pleading like they were when she was a kid, and Rebecca’s heart feels warm as Nora crawls into bed with her.

“Your bed is so comfortable,” she says as she burrows under the covers. “I’m going to fall back asleep.”

“That’s all right,” Rebecca smiles, reaching over to smooth Nora’s hair behind her ear. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

+++++

When Rebecca starts seeing Ted, after they’ve gotten through her scheming and his PTSD and their respective divorces, she’s finally with a man who values being a father above all else. He talks to Henry nearly every day, and he’s at his most happy and calm when Henry is in Richmond visiting during his spring and summer holidays.

He even embraces Nora like his own family when she comes to visit, taking her out to lunch when Rebecca is busy, listening to her favorite bands so they can talk about music, mediating arguments between Nora and her mother, because Nora thinks he’s more neutral than Rebecca.

When Ted moves into her house, Rebecca worries about a rift in her lovely routine with Nora. But she wakes up that first morning to the smell of eggs and bacon and goes downstairs to find Ted teaching Nora how to make the perfect breakfast sandwich, which includes a hot sauce she’s never heard of that he had shipped in from Kansas.

“I think I’ve spent more quality time with you in the past six months than with my own dad,” Nora jokes as she sits at the island, sandwich in hand.

Ted just looks at her for a long moment with a mixture of affection and sympathy. 

“I’m real glad I have someone to teach all my best cooking tips,” he says eventually. “Rebecca here refuses to go near the stove.”

“That’s not true,” Rebecca protests weakly, but she accepts Ted’s offer to make her a sandwich instead of doing it herself, making herself a cup of tea and taking the seat next to Nora.

“I love seeing you around Nora,” Ted says one evening a few weeks later as he pours them both a glass of wine, winding down after putting Nora on the train back home. 

“How am I different?” Rebecca asks, suspicious. She’s been burned by the answer to this question before.

“You’re brighter. Happier. A fuller version of yourself.”

“You think so?” Her voice is shakier than she expected.

“I absolutely do.” He sounds so confident that her heart stutters a little bit, happy for everything she has now but mourning the lost years it took for her to get there.

“I always wanted to be a mum.” 

She’s told him the truth already in fits and starts, that she’d wanted children and Rupert said no, that she started pulling away from Nora soon afterwards, that the news of Bex’s pregnancy sent her into bed for days.

“And I still do,” she admits, almost too shy to say it out loud, but she knows that Ted is the right person to tell. She’s still getting used to revealing the quiet parts of herself, getting used to his open arms and willing heart, but she’s learning.

Ted wraps her in a tight hug and holds her for a minute. “Is that something you want to talk about?” he asks.

Rebecca pulls away. She’s having trouble following. “What do you mean?”

“I know some folks from Henry’s school who went through the adoption process. I’m sure it’s a little different here in England, but we could check—”

“Wait,” she interrupts him. “You want to adopt a baby together?”

“Well, only if you want to,” he says, starting to look nervous. “I always wanted to have more children. It didn’t happen for me and Michelle, but Henry should have someone who will really understand when he complains about his dad.”

She smiles at him, tinged with pain, hearing the ever-present note of guilt in his voice, that no daily FaceTime date or flight across the Atlantic can fix.

“But more importantly,” he adds, “You should get to be a mother the way you’ve always dreamed. I want to see you bright and glowing every single day, and I want to be part of that with you.”

In the last few years she’s found the strength to let go of the image she’s always had of being pregnant. She no longer feels that same pull to carry a child herself, but she still wants the rest of it, to be a mum.

She sinks down onto a chair as she processes. It’s so easy for her to picture a future with Ted as her co-parent, with loud giggly bathtimes and proper Sunday dinners and a U5 neighbourhood football team and very serious discussions of children’s films.

He’s offering her everything she’s always wanted but had tucked away in a dark secret corner of her heart, afraid of asking for so much love. But Ted is offering her all of that on his own, because he wants it too, and she’s overwhelmed with gratitude that she made it here, to this house on this day with this man who is a mirror of her in so many ways. Their relationship is like nothing she could have planned for herself, but she’s changed profoundly by it.

“You really want to do this?” she confirms.

“Of course.”

“Well then,” she grins. “Nothing could make me happier.”