EVERYTHING WAS FINE until the following Monday, when Bailey was having her usual chicken salad with Joni after the yoga class.
Joni had been a bit quiet all evening, looking worried.
‘Is everything OK?’ Bailey asked.
‘Ye-es.’
But she didn’t sound too sure. Bailey reached across the table and squeezed her hand. ‘What? You’ve had a fight with Aaron? It happens. One or both of you is being an idiot, one or both of you will apologise and it’ll be fine.’
‘It’s not that.’ Joni bit her lip and there were tears in her eyes. ‘Bailey, I don’t know how to say this—I mean, it’s good news, but I also know that …’
At that moment Bailey knew exactly what her best friend was going to tell her. And, even though it was ripping the top off her scars, no way in this world was she ever going to do anything other than smile—and she was going to try and make this easy for Joni, because she knew exactly why her best friend was worried about telling her. ‘Joni, are you about to tell me something really, really fantastic—that you and Aaron are going to be …?’
The sheer relief in Joni’s eyes nearly broke her.
‘I’ve been dying to tell you since before the wedding, but …’
Yeah. Bailey could remember how it felt. The moment she’d suspected she was pregnant, the moment she’d done the test and seen the positive result, the way Ed had scooped her up and swung her round when she’d shown him the test stick. The sheer joy and happiness of knowing that they were going to have a baby, start their own family … She’d managed to keep the news to herself for four whole days before it had been too much to keep it in any more; she’d sworn both her mum and her best friend to total secrecy and had burst into happy tears when she’d told them. And whilst Ed had been worried about her jinxing it by telling everyone too early and not waiting until the twelve-week point was up, she’d been so happy that she just couldn’t contain her news any longer.
Maybe Ed was right—maybe she had jinxed it by telling everyone too soon.
She pushed the thought away. Not now. This was about her best friend’s future, not the wreck of her own past.
‘Oh, Joni, I’m so pleased for you.’ And she was, she really was. Just because it had gone bad for her, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t appreciate anyone else’s joy. ‘That’s fantastic news. How far are you?’
‘Ten weeks. I went for the dating scan today,’ Joni said almost shyly.
‘Good.’ So Joni definitely wasn’t going to go through the pain and fear of an ectopic pregnancy. Bailey almost sagged back in her chair in relief. ‘So do I get to see a photograph, then?’
‘Are you sure you want to see it?’
At that, Bailey got up, walked round to the other side of the table and hugged her friend. ‘Don’t be so daft! Of course I want to see the scan picture—I’d be really upset if you didn’t show me.’
Joni blinked away tears. ‘Sorry. I just didn’t want to bring back … you know. And I’m being so wet.’
‘Hormones,’ Bailey said with a grin. ‘You’ll be crying at ads with puppies and kittens in them next.’
She sat down again as Joni reached into her bag for a little white folder and handed it to her. She studied the ultrasound photograph. ‘You can see the baby’s head, the feet, the spine—this is incredible, Joni.’
‘And the heart—it was amazing to see the baby’s heart beating.’
Bailey hadn’t even got to do that bit, so it wasn’t as if this was bringing back memories; it was more the shadow of what might have been. And she wasn’t going to let any shadows get in the way of her best friend’s joy. She was fiercely determined to share that joy with her.
‘Bailey, there’s something else I wanted to ask you,’ Joni said. ‘Will you be godmother?’
‘Of course I will! I’d be utterly thrilled.’ Bailey blanked out the fact that she’d wanted Joni to be godmother to her baby, too. ‘So that means I get to do all the fun things, all the cuddles and the smiles and the messy toys, and then I hand the baby back to you for nappy changes and the night feeds. Excellent.’
She could see in Joni’s eyes that her best friend knew exactly how much effort this was costing her and how much she was holding back, but to her relief Joni didn’t say it. She simply smiled and said, ‘Bailey Randall, you’re going to be the best godmother in the history of the universe.’
‘You can count on that,’ Bailey said. ‘And you can still do yoga during pregnancy, though maybe …’ She took a deep breath. ‘Maybe you need to switch to a water-aerobics class, one of the special antenatal ones. And I’ll do it with you for moral support.’
She meant it, she really did—even though it would be hard seeing all those women with their bellies getting bigger each week and trying not to think about how that hadn’t happened for her.
Joni reached across the table and squeezed her hand. ‘I know you would. This is yet another reason why I love you. But I’m not going to make you do that. I’ll stick to yoga—I’ll talk to Jenna before the next class and ask her where I need to take it down a notch.’
Bailey kept it together at the restaurant, but all the way home she could feel the pressure behind her eyes, the sobs starting down low in her gut and forcing themselves upwards. Once her front door was closed behind her, she leaned against the wall and slowly slid down until she was sitting with her knees up to her chin and her arms wrapped round her legs. Then and only then did she let the tears flow—racking sobs of loss and loneliness, regrets for what might have been.
She didn’t hear the doorbell at first. She was dimly aware of a noise then recognised the sound. Who was it? She wasn’t expecting anyone. She scrubbed at her face with her sleeve and took a deep breath. Right at that moment she wished she hadn’t cut her hair short, because then at least she could’ve hidden her face a bit. As it was, she’d have to brazen it out. She opened the door just a crack. ‘Yes?’
‘Bailey, are you all right?’
‘Jared?’ She frowned. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘We have a meeting to discuss Darren, remember?’
She remembered now. Joni’s news had knocked the meeting completely out of her head.
She couldn’t let Jared see her in this state. ‘Can we do it tomorrow?’
‘Are you all right?’ he asked again, and this time he pushed the door open. He took one look at her and said, ‘No, you’re not all right.’ Very gently, he manoeuvred her backwards, closed the door behind them and cupped her face between his hands. ‘You’ve been crying.’
‘Give the monkey a peanut,’ she muttered, knowing that she was being rude and unfair to him but hating the fact that he’d caught her at a weak, vulnerable moment.
But he didn’t pay any attention to her words. ‘Come on. I’ll get you a drink of water.’ He put one
