Read Online Almost Perfect by Dianne Blacklock - Free Book Online Page A

seven drug cycles, nine frozen ones, and a partridge in a pear tree, I’m still not pregnant. Clearly, I’m not meant to have a baby.’
    Doug paused. ‘So what are you going to do?’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜I’m wondering what your next step will be, now you’ve come to the conclusion that you’re not meant to have a baby. I assume you’ll be ceasing treatment?’
    Anna frowned. ‘I haven’t decided that for sure.’
    â€˜Then you’re not sure you’re not meant to have a baby?’
    â€˜Oh, I’m sure about that.’
    â€˜So why continue with the treatment?’
    She sighed loudly. ‘Doug, don’t.’
    â€˜Don’t what?’
    â€˜Double-talk me like that!’ Anna said, exasperated. ‘I’m not one of your clients.’
    Doug just sat there regarding her in that calm way of his. He didn’t say anything, so Anna had to.
    â€˜Okay, no decision has been made about anything.’
    â€˜Including the decision you’re not meant to have a baby?’
    â€˜Including that.’
    He allowed that idea to settle.
    â€˜How is Mac feeling about everything at the moment?’ he resumed after a while.
    Anna bit her lip. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered quietly.
    Again, Doug didn’t say anything.
    â€˜I don’t think he wants to keep going with the treatment,’ she blurted suddenly. Hearing it out loud was excruciating.
    â€˜Did he tell you that?’
    She shook her head. ‘He didn’t have to. There’s just some things you know, Doug. Intuition has its place. I know him. I’ve known him for over fifteen years. I can see it in his eyes. He’s had enough.’
    â€˜And how does that make you feel?’
    She focussed on a spot on the coffee table between them, breathing in and breathing out. When she went to speak, she found she didn’t quite have a voice. She cleared her throat. ‘Terrified.’
    â€˜Of what?’ Doug persisted gently.
    Anna sighed. ‘I don’t know how to describe it. The emptiness, I guess, the finality. The complete absence of hope.’
    â€˜So, while you continue with the treatment, you at least have hope?’
    â€˜That’s right, exactly.’
    â€˜And that keeps the terror at bay?’
    She shrugged.
    â€˜How long do you expect that to work?’
    â€˜Pardon?’
    â€˜I can’t imagine you could continue with the treatment indefinitely. There must be a point where you need to decide.’
    â€˜I guess I’m not at that point yet.’
    â€˜But Mac is, is that what you’re saying?’
    She nodded.
    â€˜So you want to hold onto the hope, so you don’t have to face the emptiness?’
    Anna stared into her cup. ‘Yes,’ she said in a small voice.
    â€˜Do you feel your life is empty now, Anna?’
    â€˜No, no, of course I don’t.’
    â€˜And yet you don’t have a baby now.’
    â€˜There’s still hope I may.’
    â€˜And that makes life bearable in the present?’
    She shook her head. ‘No . . . I don’t know, I don’t think my life would be unbearable. I love my work, I love Mac. It’s just, for seven years, longer, there’s been the idea of a baby, a family. I don’t know what it would feel like without that . . .’ Anna stared across the room. ‘You know what worries me lately? We used to look at our own baby photos andimagine how our baby would look. Blonde, blue-eyed. It sounds clichéd but it’s in the genes. Anyway, lately, I can’t do it. I don’t have a picture of my baby in my head any more. And I don’t know what happened to it.’

Nick
    â€˜Daddy, is this enough sprinkles yet?’
    Nick turned around to see his daughter upturning the whole packet onto the cake. ‘That ought to just about do it, Molly,’ he sighed, retrieving the near empty packet