Page 82 of The Half Sister

‘I’m going on my own,’ she says, stepping into a maxi dress.

‘This is crazy,’ he says, with both hands on his head. ‘What are you doing?’

Honestly?She doesn’t know. All shedoesknow is that she needs to be as far away from Matt as possible right now.

‘You can’t do this,’ he barks. ‘You have no right.’

‘I haveeveryright,’ cries Kate, knowing she’s gone too far down the rabbit hole to back out now. ‘I don’t even know if I want you in this flat. I most certainly don’t want you anywhere near that hospital.’

‘But we’ve waited so long for this,’ he says, as tears spring to his eyes. ‘It’s what we’ve been dreaming of, planning for...you can’t just shut me out.’

‘I can do what the hell I like,’ barks Kate as she storms around the bedroom, throwing things she doesn’t need into her oversized handbag.

‘I won’t let you do this,’ says Matt. ‘I won’t let you ruin this moment, because we will never get this time back again and we’ll regret it for the rest of our lives.’

‘Well you should have thought about that...’

‘Please Kate,’ Matt begs, taking hold of her arm. ‘I’ve driven through the night to make sure I could get to the hospital in time.’

She shakes him off as she heads for the door.

‘Please, don’t do this. Let me come with you.’

‘No,’ she chokes.

It feels as if she might break in two as she slams the door shut.

33

Kate

As soon as Dr Williams sees her, his smile dissipates and he looks around, confused.

‘No Matt?’ he asks, clearly surprised. Him and her both. If someone had told her a month ago she’d be attending this scan on her own, she would have laughed in their face. It wouldn’t have seemed remotely possible – not after everything she and Matt had gone through to get here. But that was before Jess turned up.

For some reason, Kate feels obliged to pretend to Dr Williams that everything is fine and dandy in her world. As if, innotdoing so, she would be letting him and his team down. They’d all worked so hard to get her pregnant, having been convinced that she and Matt as a couple were worthy of their time and expertise, that she couldn’t bear to tell him that they weren’t.

‘Something came up at work,’ she says, furiously batting away the tears that are so close to falling.

He looks shocked and Kate feels immediately guilty, though she can’t determine whether it’s on behalf of the doctor or Matt.

‘Knowing Matt, I presume it must be extremely important, as I can’t imagine he’d miss this for all the tea in China.’

Kate smiles tightly.

‘Anyway, it can’t be helped,’ he says.

A sense of unease swirls in the pit of her stomach, as she remembers Matt’s words.We will never get this time back again and we’ll regret it for the rest of our lives.

‘Are you excited?’ he asks, as he leads her down the corridor towards the by-now-familiar ultrasound suite.

I was, she thinks.More than you could ever know, but without Matt, it suddenly seems futile, as if none of it is really very important anymore.

‘Of course,’ she says instead. ‘I can’t wait.’

He smiles broadly. ‘Okay, so you know the form.’

Kate slips off her ballet pumps as he rolls a sheet of what looks like oversized kitchen towel down the length of the narrow bed.

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