The First Time Mums’ Club

Ellie shrugged, reverting to acting like a child. Sometimes when she and Zoe were together she found herself behaving as she would’ve done at eleven years old, having her annoying fourteen-year-old sister around.

‘How comes you slept on the sofa and not in the spare room?’ Zoe peered at her over her coffee cup.

Ellie avoided eye contact. ‘I was watching a film and I must’ve fallen asleep.’

‘Fair enough. So, I’ve been thinking. We need to sort a plan out so that we know what we are doing and how we are going to do it. First things first, you need to tell Chris.’

Ellie groaned and dropped her head back so that it rested on the back of the sofa. ‘Not this again.’

‘Come on, you owe it to him to tell him. What have you got to lose?’

‘Err, let me think. My best friend, my job, my freedom… my sanity!’ She listed them on her free hand, one finger at a time.

‘Oh you’re such a drama queen. You will not lose your sanity and the rest we can sort out. You can’t just hide away at my place and pretend nothing is happening. You need to go and see a doctor, get the ball rolling with a midwife, put things in place ready for when the baby comes…’

Ellie felt her chest tighten listening to all this talk about the baby. ‘Look, I haven’t even decided what I am going to do yet. There’s no point in involving Chris in this until I know what I am doing.’

‘What you are doing? Ellie, you’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’ Zoe eyed her suspiciously and Ellie had to turn away again.

‘I don’t know what I am going to do. I need time to think. It’s all happening too fast and I’ve got work appointments next week to sort out and I need to do a new order for this film I am doing next month and –’

‘Ellie, I am afraid that’s life. When shit gets thrown at you, you have to suck it up and deal with it. Not brush it under the carpet and hope that it will go away. And this definitely won’t go away; this will become more and more prominent in your life, so you need to work out what you are doing. I will help you. You don’t have to go through this alone, but you do have to tell Chris.’

She knew she had to tell Chris, but she was so scared of losing him. ‘Zoe, what happened between me and Chris – it was a mistake. A huge mistake that should never have happened.’ And it shouldn’t have happened all the other times too. What was she thinking? Nobody can have a sexual relationship without the possibility of it getting complicated. She wished she had learnt this lesson before she got pregnant.

‘But it did!’

‘Don’t I bloody know it!’

There was a long pause, where both girls didn’t know what to say next. Ellie thumbed the mug and stared down into the shiny brown liquid. She knew her sister would be like this. Maybe, subconsciously, that’s why she came up here. She needed her sister to take control of the situation and tell her what she needed to do. This is exactly what she did when their mum died. She pulled Ellie back onto the straight and narrow and yet here she was again, nearly ten years later, and asking her sister to do the same. Would she ever learn? The thought of her being such a burden weighed down in her stomach and she felt guilty. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, taking another sip of coffee.

‘What are you sorry for?’ Zoe had now leant back and had her feet up on the coffee table, her long legs bare, with just a small pair of bed shorts on.

‘For always being such a mess. For always relying on you to pick up the pieces when I make a mistake… for being a crap sister.’

‘Don’t be silly, you aren’t a crap sister.’

‘I bloody feel like one. It’s never the other way around, is it? It’s never you coming to me and needing help to sort your life out. You’re so confident and clever and… just… Zoe. You never make mistakes; you never do anything wrong.’ Zoe looked away from Ellie and seemed a little uncomfortable. She was playing with her cup and looked awkward. ‘What’s wrong?’ Ellie asked, eyeing her sister suspiciously.

‘Nothing.’ She didn’t look at her.

‘Well, it doesn’t look like nothing.’ Ellie nudged her with her foot from under the cover.

‘Ellie, everyone makes mistakes. Even me.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? You’re Little Miss Perfect, you don’t make mistakes. Everything seems to fall into your lap and you make things happen.’

Zoe turned her head to look at Ellie, her expression more serious than she had been for ages. ‘Everything doesn’t just fall into my lap. I work bloody hard for everything that I have.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just saying, some people are really lucky in life and others, well, others seem to get all the bad luck. Like me.’

‘I get bad luck too. I have my moments of weakness and I do things wrong. It’s not what happens to you in life; it’s how you deal with things. That’s the difference.’

Ellie eyed her suspiciously. Zoe looked uncomfortable, sad. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

‘What do you mean?’ The colour had drained out a little from her face.

‘You’re not telling me something. Why do you keep saying how you aren’t perfect, how you get things wrong?’ She paused, but didn’t drop her gaze. Zoe, however, wouldn’t look at her. ‘Zoe? What aren’t you telling me?’ she pressed.

Zoe exhaled and shuffled in her seat, turning round to face Ellie front-on. ‘Listen, I don’t want you to get rid of the baby. I think you will regret it for the rest of your life.’ She looked away. ‘I did.’

Ellie felt her stomach flip. The air suddenly became tight and she felt her throat close slightly with anxiety. ‘What do you mean, ‘you did’?’

‘Ellie, things happen in life that you can’t control and sometimes you have to make a decision based on what you can control.’

‘I don’t understand.’ She kind of understood, but she didn’t want to.

‘I have been pregnant before.’ The silence in the air that followed this revelation was both uncomfortable and strange. Zoe looked back up at her. ‘I didn’t have a choice. It was a volatile relationship and I had got myself into a situation I couldn’t get out of. And then I found myself pregnant.’

‘Shit,’ Ellie whispered as she reached across the sofa and held Zoe’s hand.

‘I couldn’t bring a baby into that environment. I had spent months gearing up to leaving him because he was,’ she swallowed, ‘he was physical with me.’

‘Zoe…’ Ellie breathed out. She felt distraught for her sister, but underneath a bubble of anger was beginning to brew.

‘It’s fine. I’m not with him now.’ She tried to laugh, but it came out strained.

‘So you got an abortion?’

‘I’m not proud of my decision and I regret it every single day. But I just couldn’t bring a baby into that. I was worried sick that he would hurt the baby and then I would be the worst mum in the world because I couldn’t stop it happening.’

‘Oh Zoe, why didn’t you tell me?’

She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. I didn’t want anyone else to know. I was ashamed of being so weak to let things get to that stage.’

‘It’s not weak, Zoe. For Christ sake, it’s him who should be feeling shitty, not you!’ She felt the anger building. ‘Who was he?’

‘It doesn’t matter –’

‘It does bloody matter; he deserves to be in prison for what he did.’ Her voice was shaky, but controlled. For now.

‘Ellie, it doesn’t matter. It was years ago and I’m okay. He can’t hurt me any more; I’m a different person to who I was back then. I’m stronger.’

‘When was it?’ She shuffled in her seat, still making sure she held Zoe’s hand, not letting go of her. She never wanted to let go of her. She should have been here for her when it happened and she didn’t think she could ever forgive herself for not.

‘Not long after Mum died.’

Ellie gasped, feeling the tears spring to her eyes.