Issy explains, twisting her silver ring around her finger. ‘I wasn’t up for talking about it and I’d have only felt guilty if you’d seen me pigging out. All I needed was a wallow and a sugar kick – you know how it is sometimes. Look, I’ll go and get another box of chocolates now if you want. If we mix them in with what’s left it’ll be fine.’
‘It’s not about the chocolate!’ My nerve endings are tingling, and not in a good way. ‘If you’d told me what was the matter, I could have done something. I could have helped. There was no need for you to be cooped up alone in your room all day when I was here, willing to listen.’
Issy smiles sadly and it breaks my heart. ‘But what could you have done, Mon? Nothing. All I needed was a duvet day and to stuff my face. I had a sleep, had a cry and then pulled myself back together. It was no big deal.’
‘I could have listened,’ I insist. ‘Even if that’s all I could have done, I could have listened.’
‘But I didn’t want to talk,’ Issy answers patiently. She speaks slowly and deliberately, as though explaining something to a small child. Maybe the teacher in her is coming out too, it’s obviously a quirk of the trade. ‘It was too raw. It’s nothing personal against you, but it was easier for me to hide away and cry it out. I needed to get my own head around it, that’s all. Anyway, everything’s fine with Penny now. It was just a scare.’
A wave of sadness floods through my body, as though my blood’s running cold in my veins. There’s nothing Issy wants more than to find the love of her life and start a family, and the news that her little sister is having a baby had hit her hard. That Issy hasn’t got a partner at the moment is irrelevant, the maternal instincts are still chewing away at her. The constant pressure from the glossy magazines she greedily devours doesn’t help either, what with their never-ending reminders of ticking body clocks and staged photos of celebrities parading their precious new arrivals around the flawlessly landscaped garden of their luxury mansions. I can only imagine how hard Issy finds it having such a desperate longing within her but being unable to do anything about it. It seems terribly unfair.
When Penny announced she was pregnant it had come as a shock to everyone. She’s only seventeen, and a young seventeen at that. There had been no talk of a boyfriend, no late nights, no tell-tale signs of illicit secret liaisons. She’s doing well at college and keeping on top of her studies – everything had been pootling along the same as it always had.
Then one blazing hot day at the start of the summer holidays Issy had received a phone call from a terrified Penny crying that she didn’t know what to do, that her parents were going to kill her when they found out she was pregnant. She was already four months gone by that point, the hint of a bump just beginning to show on her tiny, child-like frame, and Issy had been torn between the need to support her sister and the all-encompassing desire to give in to the internal pain that demanded she shut down and hibernate.
But Issy’s too kind-hearted a person to hold a grudge and when that natural mothering instinct kicked in, it kicked in hard. She’d gone with Penny to break the news to their parents, who hadn’t managed to hide their initial distress and disappointment. She’d taken her to the GP, who confirmed the pregnancy and attended the first hospital appointment, where the trainee midwife had taken three vials of blood, and a scan which showed that, yes, Penny was eighteen weeks gone already. The radiographer had said he was ninety per cent sure the baby was a boy. And Issy had smiled along, excited about the prospect of becoming an aunt, even though every one of these steps served to remind her of what she didn’t have.
Then last weekend Penny had been passing clumps of dark-brown blood, convinced she was having a late miscarriage because she didn’t have what it took to be a good mother. This was the call that had pushed Issy to attempt to eat her way through a tin of chocolates designed to keep a family’s sweet tooth in check for a month.
‘You’ve been incredible. More than incredible. You’ve been the best sister Penny could have wished for,’ I assure her, although I’m scared I’m going to cry. I can feel those first tell-tale prickles. It reminds me of the time I had acupuncture for sciatica, the little needles making pinching sensations, but this time it’s in my eyes rather than my legs. I concentrate on breathing in through my nose, not wanting my sadness for Issy to show. I can’t break down. I’ve got to step up and be strong. ‘And you’re going to be the best aunt too. When that little lad arrives, he’s going to want for nothing.’
‘He deserves the best,’ Issy says vehemently, ‘and between us we’ll make sure he gets it. Penny’s going to go to special classes that prepare teenage mums for motherhood – how to change nappies and make up bottles and all that practical stuff – and Dad has put in a request to reduce his hours at work. He’s going to look after the baby two days a week so Pen can continue with her A levels. It’s not ideal, but we’re making the best of it.’ A glimmer of something that looks like sadness passes over her face, before Issy literally snaps herself out of it, closing her eyes tightly together and when they pop open again they are a fraction brighter than they’d been only moments before. ‘She’s not the first seventeen-year- old to get pregnant, and she won’t be the last. It is what it is.’
‘She’s lucky to have such a supportive family. My mum would have gone apeshit if I’d got pregnant at Penny’s age,’ I say, imagining how horrified mum would’ve been if Justin and I had announced an unplanned pregnancy at seventeen. ‘Who am I kidding? She’d go apeshit if I got pregnant now without a ring on my finger first.’
Issy sniggers. ‘Well, we all know how much your mum loves a wedding. Anyway, keep taking those little round pills every day and you’ll be fine. No babies for you anytime soon!’
‘I’d need to have sex to run the risk of pregnancy and there’s no fear of that,’ I say glumly. ‘I don’t think there’ll be anyone in the near future either. I’m just not ready to put myself out there again. The thought of getting naked in front of a stranger fills me with dread. I don’t want some random guy looking at my wobbly bits and judging me! I’m going to have to wait until Justin gets back and see if he wants to work things out.’
Issy wrinkles her forehead in disagreement. ‘You’ve not got any wobbly bits, except the bits that you want to wobble.’ She jiggles her ample bosom to clarify her point. ‘And you’re utterly gorgeous. Any bloke in his right mind would kill to be with you, but for some crazy reason I don’t understand, you don’t see what everyone else sees.’
‘You’re only saying that to be kind.’
‘It’s the truth. You’re right – I’d say it even if it wasn’t because I love you – but it is.’
‘I’ll pay you later.’ I laugh, embarrassed. It’s hard to take compliments, especially now when I’m feeling so dejected, but at least it shows Issy isn’t deliberately shutting me out. That’s a small blessing.
However, I’m glad when the timer buzzes to indicate the pizza needs rescuing from the oven. Grabbing the oven gloves, I quickly whip out the pizza stone, noticing the cheese topping starting to turn a burnished crispy brown rather than the stringy golden goo we love.
‘Phew, that was close,’ I add, nodding towards the pizza.
‘What time’s Connie coming?’ Hope calls through. She’s in the lounge watching Coronation Street, and I can see her through the open doors. She’s propping up an enormous stack of cushions behind her, trying to get comfortable.
‘She texted to say she was leaving work quarter of an hour ago, so she should be here any minute. Just in time to grab a slice of pizza,’ I answer as I rummage around the cutlery drawer for
