2022 WATTYS SHORTLISTED || After being forced into a marriage by her devoutly religious parents, Aspen's husband is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, and she must find her purpose as well as fight feelings for her husband's nurse. || Aspen Wat...
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"Look! Look! It's a girl!"
Summer thrusts a black and white ultrasound of her eighteen-week foetus into my hand, her beaming face almost as bright as the sun. The flat looks almost as if I never lived here: though the furniture is the same, though the kitchen is the same, Summer has made it her own in the past two months and it makes me smile. I notice a few photos of Joel dotted around, but not too many. She seems to be moving on all right, I think.
I stare at the scan photo and internally sigh. The first one with Gabriel, I was so distraught that I didn't enjoy it. We never even keep a scan photo because we knew we were going to have him adopted. There was nothing but devastation at every scan, every midwife appointment, every time they listened to his perfect little heartbeat, every hard kick and roll he did in my stomach. It was horrifically bittersweet. I wanted to enjoy it, and I told myself after each event to savour the next time I experienced it, but when it happened, I couldn't. My heart closed up.
"Amazing," I say, grinning at her. I put the photo back on the worktop. "All is good, right?"
"Yeah, all perfect. I decided against the amnio-thingy. The midwife talked me through the test for Huntington's and I just... I don't think I want to know. I absolutely know I wouldn't terminate if the baby has it. Selfish, I know. But I want this baby no matter what, and there's a small chance the test could bring a miscarriage. I think... I think I've made the right decision. They spoke to me about it at the twelve-week scan, and then again at the gender scan. I just... I don't know. I feel happy without knowing."
"Summer, if you're sure about it, you don't need to justify it, sweetheart. If you wouldn't terminate if the baby has the gene, and you don't want to have the test, then don't have it. You need to do what's right for you. If my situation has taught me anything, it's that people need to let people choose what to do with their own lives," I say.
She grins. "True. I'm comfortable with my choice. It's a high risk, but it is what it is."
"There you go. Don't feel guilty."
"Thank you," she says. "What's happening about Nick's sister's birthday? Are you... are you meeting him?"
I told her about it over text the other day. Somehow, we've stumbled into something akin to a friendship. I remember Joel telling me how when you make friends, you tell them things, meet up and enjoy each other's company. I'd never had that until him, and as I grew my independence with him, I never wanted it with anyone but him because he didn't judge me. Yet, now he's gone, I've found myself in that with his girlfriend. It's weird when I think about it, but I seem to find it natural with Summer.
"I don't know, he phoned his mum and she's meeting him tomorrow for lunch to discuss it. He really wants me there, and I want to be there for him, but I just... I don't know if it's too early."
