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whether we could afford it or not – though I’m not sure we could –
I reckon using a surrogate could cost tens of thousands of pounds. I’m not sure it’s legal here to pay someone, I think you have to go to America. But, anyway, it just doesn’t
feel right, using another woman’s body like some sort of incubation chamber.’
    Cath is disappointed, but she understands. She’s not happy with that idea herself.
    He pulls her towards him on the sofa to give her a hug. ‘I’m sorry.’
    She snuggles into his chest for solace, inhales the scent of his sweatshirt: it smells of Rich himself. She strokes the velvety fabric; she likes this top, it makes him especially cuddly. Before
them the fire is burning low; it could do with another log. The casserole should come out of the oven, too. ‘It’s just I love you . . . ’ she says, lifting her head. Next is the
hardest bit to say. But she’s brought the discussion this far; she has to. ‘And I don’t want to deny you the chance of becoming a father—’
    ‘But you’re not—’
    ‘ – just because I can’t have children,’ she finishes.
    ‘I’ve had time to come to terms with it – all the time you’ve been ill, you know.’
    ‘But still, you’re younger than me, you’re healthy.’ Does she really need to point this out? ‘I just don’t think it’s fair . . . ’
    He pulls away from her. ‘What are you saying now? That I should leave you and go off with someone else? Hell, Cath, you’re my wife and that’s it. Or perhaps you’d like me
to?’ His lips form an angry line.
    ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ She is floundering, still trying to get a handle on the issues herself. Still, at least he’s made her stop crying. ‘No, I was talking
about us having a child, silly.’
    ‘Oh.’ A tad sheepish. ‘But how?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ She throws up her hands. ‘I just wanted to bring it up, because I haven’t. Not since I was ill. It’s not been something I’ve been able
to really think about again till now. I thought I might die, for Christ’s sake, so I was kind of focused on that. But I didn’t. I’m still here. And I know my insides have been
blasted by effing chemo, but you never know, with modern medicine . . . Perhaps when we get home we could explore some of the options, rather than write it off completely?’
    Rich sighs, and reaches to pull her close again. ‘It’s only I don’t want you to get your hopes up.’
    ‘I know, I know.’
    He strokes her hair. ‘You’ve been through such a lot already.’
    Cath knows he’s right, and that he’s trying to protect her. But she feels tears prick behind her eyes again; in her heart, she knows those are not good enough reasons not to try.
    ‘It’s just I want to be a mum,’ she says.
    *  *  *
    Rich’s mind is buzzing. Cath went off to sleep almost the moment her head hit the pillow, and she’s curled up beside him, like a child exhausted by emotion.
Meanwhile he is still trying to get his head round their conversation that evening.
    Everyone says how brilliant he’s been about his wife’s illness: what a rock, a treasure. Only last week her mother, Judy, said, ‘Cath couldn’t have got through it without
you,’ which was over the top, Rich reckons. He might have helped make the experience a little less awful, but her getting through it was down to the doctors and Cath herself. He was simply
there. As for being rock-like, he often felt more like a piece of jelly, though he never said so. With Cath all over the place – despairing one moment, defiant the next – the last thing
she needed was to see how distraught he was too.
    In truth, beneath his calm exterior, he has spent much of the last two years terrified. Terrified of losing her, terrified of hearing the words ‘there’s nothing more we can
do’, terrified of mishandling the situation or asking the wrong questions, terrified of saying inappropriate things to her family, terrified of letting