“The thing is,” she began.

She knew what she was about to say was unbearably cruel, but she said it anyway:

“I’ve changed my mind.”

CHAPTER 24

She changed her mind. She just went right ahead and changed her mind.

“I’m sorry, Cat.” Gemma looked across the table at Cat with wide-eyed sincerity. “I’m really, really sorry.”

Cat almost laughed because she’d known this could happen. Maybe she even knew all along that it would happen.

But she’d given her every possible chance.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” she’d asked, again and again.

And again, again, Gemma had replied, “Absolutely sure! Deep down in my heart sure.”

When Gemma had first suggested the plan, Cat had agreed in an almost lighthearted, fantastical way. It hadn’t seemed possible that Gemma could really be pregnant, sitting in Cat’s kitchen, in her cut-off shorts, looking normal and skinny. It felt like a game, an abstract distraction. It was the same as when she thought about the idea of going to a sperm bank. Yes, she was sort of serious, sort of very serious, but did sperm banks actually exist outside of comedy films? Did they have ads in the Yellow Pages?

Imagining Gemma’s baby in her arms helped her to stop thinking about Dan and Angela—and Angela’s hair and Angela’s br**sts and Angela’s underwear.

It helped her to walk by parents pushing their strollers, without wanting to stop and scream with savage rage at those smug, carelessly happy women, What makes you so special? Look at you! You’re not that pretty or smart! How did you manage to have a baby? When I can’t? When I’ve somehow failed to achieve this basic boring thing!

It helped her to sleep. It helped her get up in the mornings.

And that was why the violent opposition from Maxine and Lyn was so hurtful. They reacted as if it were all Cat’s idea. As usual, evil Cat was exploiting fragile, helpless Gemma.

They never once said, We understand why you want to do this.

They didn’t seem to notice that it was a miracle that Cat was still functioning, when she felt like she’d been fragmented into a million pieces. They weren’t incredulous, like Cat still was on a daily basis, that Dan had actually gone, that he woke up in some other woman’s bed.

Her hurt gave her a petulant resolve. Why not, after all? Why shouldn’t this work, if Gemma wanted it? Why not?

She worked for hours on the second bedroom, painting the walls a buttery yellow. While she was scraping and painting, her mind was peacefully blank.

The nursery was beautiful. Everyone said so.

Just yesterday, she’d bought a white cane chair with blue cushions and put it by the window, where you could see the magnolia tree. She’d sat there in a pool of morning sunshine and imagined giving the baby its bottle and considered the possibility of happiness.

It was going to be her and the baby against the world. Just the two of them.

And now Gemma changed her mind.

All that softness and sunshine had been snatched away, and Cat was back out again in that bland wasteland of memos and office cubicles and divorce proceedings and nobody waiting for her to come home.

Better to have stayed cold all along than had this taste of warmth.

Cat sat there in the noisy restaurant with her head pounding from champagne, a huge nauseating triangle of chocolate mud cake in front of her, and for a few seconds she felt nothing, and then it came, all at once, a tumbling toxic torrent.

It was basic, childish disappointment.

It was “Ha ha! Who looks like a fool now!” humiliation.

It was the smug lift of Lyn’s eyebrows.

It was tomorrow. And the day after that.

It was because fourteen-year-old Cat Kettle would have thought she was a loser.

Whatever it was, it sucked her down into a wailing vortex and afterward she never remembered how she came to be standing up, or what she was saying, or what she was holding in her hand until she threw it, screaming, “You have both f**king ruined my life!”

And then:

One day you’ll go too far, Maxine always said.

She’d gone too far.

The fork protruding embarrassingly and impossibly out of Gemma’s belly.

Blood!

Her first thought was, sweet Jesus, I’ve killed her.

And then, I’m going to be sick.

A roaring in her ears.

She was on the floor, with the most tremendous pain thumping down one side of her face and into her ear and something metallic filling her mouth.

Olivia was crouched down beside her, “It’s O.K. You fainted. You all right? You hit your chin pretty hard against the table.”

All around her, Cat could see the backs of people’s legs. Their table was surrounded by a frenzied group of arguing strangers.

“Be calm! Tell her to be calm! Sweetheart, be very, very calm!”

“The ambulance is coming. Shhhh! Is that the siren I hear?”

“Has anybody called the police? Because I saw it! That was assault!”

“Did you hear? They’re sisters! Unbelievable.”

“Have I killed her?” she wanted to ask, but her mouth was full of marbles.

“Everyone is freaking out!” Olivia said happily.

“Um, Lyn?” It was Gemma’s voice. She sounded perfectly alive, vaguely concerned. “I think, maybe, I just had a contraction.”

Olivia’s mouth dropped comically.

The crowd seemed to sigh and sway with the horror of it. Cat watched a pair of masculine shoes begin to shuffle discreetly away from the table. Then she heard Lyn, her voice slip-sliding into uncharacteristic panic, “Is there a doctor here?”

Cat prayed: frantically and obsequiously. Please, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Mother of Mary, all of you, I’m begging you, don’t let the baby die!

“I’ve got my first-aid certificate,” offered somebody.

“She doesn’t need to be resuscitated,” said somebody else.

“Of course I’ve never had a contraction before,” continued Gemma thoughtfully. “So, how would I know?”

“Helsh me up,” mumbled Cat, tasting blood. Olivia pulled on her wrists and heaved her to her feet.

“Here comes the boss.” Olivia appeared to be having the time of her life. “Oooh! She’ll be going ape shit over this! Afterbirth all over her floorboards.”

It was the same elegant, all-in-black woman who had so graciously offered their table at the beginning of the night. She now gave Cat a look of appalled disgust and used the back of her hands to firmly flap the crowd back to their seats. “Could I ask everyone to move? The ambulance is on its way.”