Maddy’s Christmas Wedding (Little Duck Pond Cafe #37)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Later, I took a bunch of flowers over for Ellie, arriving just as she was closing up the café and bakery for the day.

‘For the blooming mum-to-be!’ I announced, pulling them out with a dramatic flourish from behind my back.

Ellie grinned from ear to ear. ‘Aw, thanks so much, Maddy. They’re absolutely gorgeous.’

‘You deserve them.’

She laughed. ‘Well, I’m not sure about that. I haven’t done much yet. I’ve still got six months to go.’

‘I know. But after what you’ve been through to get here. That must have been so hard.’

She looked sad. ‘It was. The IVF treatment was so gruelling mentally and physically, and then we’d have the awful anti-climax of it not working. Again. But then somehow, miraculously, we got pregnant naturally. Goodness knows how, when we’d been trying so hard before. But hey, I’m not complaining.’ She smiled. Then her brows drew together. ‘Are you all right, love? You look a bit pale. You did have a good time when you were in Lapland, didn’t you?’

I let out a long sigh, not knowing where to start.

‘Ouch, it’s like that, is it?’ she said, concerned. ‘Come on. Sit down and tell me. Shall I get us some coffees? Tea? Something stronger?’

We settled on me trying her rhubarb and ginger gin and Ellie drinking elderflower cordial, and as the deliciously chilled drink trickled down my throat and warmed me inside, I felt myself start to relax for the first time in days. It felt so good to think I could unburden myself with Ellie, knowing she would feel what I’d been going through, even if Jack hadn’t really understood. You couldn’t beat a chat with one of your besties to make you feel better . . .

‘But you’re going for a test, aren’t you?’ she said urgently after I’d told her everything. ‘I mean, if it were me, I’d have booked to see the doctor the instant I found out.’ She was gazing at me with such a worried expression and my heart sank.

More pressure!

It was all right for Jack and now Ellie to say, just go and get tested now. But they weren’t having to prepare themselves to feel devastated if it turned out to be bad news.

‘Yes, of course I’m getting tested. It’s just . . . it’s scary, you know?’ I said, sounding more impatient than I meant to.

‘Of course it is,’ Ellie soothed. ‘Crikey, I know how stressed I got when we were waiting to see if the latest round of IVF was successful. It was torture. I wanted to know. But on the other hand, I didn’t, because that might mean that it had failed again.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry, that was so insensitive of me, talking about that when you’re . . . well, when your world has been turned upside down. I blame my hormones.’

I shook my head. ‘Not insensitive at all. You’ve every right to talk about the IVF. It’s been a major part of your life.’

‘It sure has.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I can’t believe your hen party was marred by Marcus’s news.’

I groaned. ‘The flights over there were full of noisy, excited kids and it was torture,’ I confessed. ‘When we got off the plane in Helsinki, all I wanted to do was turn around and fly back home. I even went to see if it was possible, but all the flights to the UK were booked solid.’ I smiled, remembering. ‘I think Fen spotted me at the customer service desk but she never mentioned it.’

‘And even though you were feeling so bad, you still didn’t tell the others?’

I shook my head. ‘Not until the last day. I was Facetiming Jack and he was going on about how much he was looking forward to us going to Lapland together and taking our kids, and after he went, I just . . . broke down. And that’s when I told everyone.’ I gave a bitter laugh. ‘I think I managed to completely ruin their experience of the Northern Lights.’

‘You’re far more important than a light show, Maddy, however stunning it might have been,’ she murmured. ‘Look, why don’t I come with you, love? When you make your appointment with the doctor? If Jack’s not back by then, I mean.’

I looked at her, tears pricking my eyelids at her concern, and I realised that yes, I desperately did want her there. Ellie would be better support than Jack, really – not because he wasn’t supportive because of course he was. But Jack was too close to the subject matter. There was far too much riding on it for him as well.

Ellie would keep me calm and she’d be able to think straight because her emotions wouldn’t be overriding her logic, like they would with me and Jack. She might actually be able to make sense of what the doctor was telling me, because right now, I doubted I could trust myself to follow the story in a three-year-old’s picture book!

So I said in a very small voice, ‘Yes, please, Ellie. I’d love you to come with me.’