Page 33 of A Secret at the Cottage by the Loch

‘AUNT ANNIE’

1791–1875

Liz stopped at Annie’s stone, which was also engraved with a rose.I wonder why she was ‘Aunt Annie’,she thought. The rose was a nice touch. And, she had lived for a long time, given the period in history and the likelihood of disease.

Liz walked past some family burials, not wanting to linger at the stones that listed children in their graves at a young age, of which there were surprisingly many. She realised she was looking for other women’s stones: women who had been buried alone.

Dark,she thought.Is this because this is how you see your future? Buried alone, perhaps after being found because your ten cats are making a racket?Liz smiled to herself.Maybe,she thought.Maybe these are my people, now.

But it was more than that, she realised. There was something sad about the lone women in this graveyard who were afforded such little acknowledgement. Aunt Annie was a little different: Liz got the feeling that Annie had been much loved.

She looked at some more: there were fourOLD MAIDSthat Liz could find in the graveyard: Muriel Peabody, Elspeth Anderson, Felicity Black and Evelyn McCallister.

Of course, Liz reflected, being an “old maid” meant you hadn’t married, but it also meant you hadn’t had children. She thought about how she would feel if, in death, she was defined only by her childlessness, and a wave of sadness passed over her. How awful that was! How awful to look ahead and see herself alone, as Muriel had been, in old age.

Liz had no way of knowing whether any of these women were spinsters by choice or not. Of course, if they had chosen not to tie themselves to a family, she understood.

She had made herself stop thinking about the baby game show; she had stopped thinking about herself as a competitor for some unlikely chance at that sepia-tinted, nostalgic future photo of herself and a child. When the thought threatened to make a reappearance, sometimes when she was at home, alone, at night, she locked it away in a box in her mind.

We’re not thinking about that anymore,she told herself, firmly.

Instead of being sucked back into that old train of thought, Liz got out her phone and took some photos of the women’s gravestones. She didn’t quite know what she was going to do, but she knew that she didn’t want Muriel Peabody, Elspeth Anderson, Felicity Black and Evelyn McCallister to be forgotten. At the very least, she could find out more about them for her own satisfaction.

If they hadn’t had children, Liz wanted to know why. She wanted to know these women’s stories: who were they? Who had they loved? Where had they lived, and what secrets and sorrows did they each hold? No one could be adequately summed up by their epitaph, it was true, but simply printingOLD MAIDon each of their graves wasn’t enough. They were human beings: each had lived a full and interesting life, of that Liz was sure.

It felt important to Liz that she know more about these women, if only to prove to herself that her own life was still important in the light of her own infertility. She had to believe that, if her lifelong goal wasn’t going to come true, that it wouldn’t become the thing she was judged on by the rest of the world, or, worse, that she measured herself against and was found wanting.

The gravestones were a sign, Liz decided. If this was her new life, and if children weren’t part of the picture, then she owed it to herself to come to terms with her new truth, no matter how difficult it was. In which case, she also owed it to these four women to be known as more thanOLD MAIDS.

Muriel, Elspeth, Felicity and Evelyn wouldn’t be forgotten; at least, not to Liz. She felt hopeful about her new life in Loch Cameron, and part of that hope was connected to those women. If Liz could make a new life, then so could they, even so long after they’d lived. Their legacy was in Liz’s hands, and she felt good about telling a different story for them. She was starting to feel good about her new life, overall. Day by day, a brighter sliver of light lit up Liz’s darkened life, and every day she felt just a little happier.

EIGHTEEN

Liz held the letter in her hand and stared at it uncomprehendingly.

It had arrived the day before, but she’d been busy at work and hadn’t even looked at her mail until this morning, when she was eating breakfast in the sunny kitchen of the cottage. She’d eaten half a piece of toast and was sipping a cup of tea as she opened the envelope. Life felt good, today. It had been feeling a little better every day since she’d been in Loch Cameron.

The letter was from the IVF clinic. She blinked as she recognised the logo on the top of the letterhead, remembering that she had had a frantic day of notifying all her contacts and accounts of her new address in Gretchen’s cottage before she’d moved.

Dread roiled in her stomach. She didn’t quite know why; the IVF clinic contacting her wasn’t a bad thing. Perhaps it was because she’d been enjoying not thinking about her fertility for the first time in what felt like forever.

She focused on the letter, reading it with a sinking feeling.

The clinic was writing to remind her that she was able to take one more round of IVF, if she wanted to. The doctor had advised that much more beyond one more might not be worth it, and then, of course, she and Paul had broken up. She had discounted the idea of any more rounds.

Liz stared at the letter. She had known another round was an option, of course, but getting the letter and seeing the information in black and white – a reminder of everything she was trying to forget – was still a shock. But it was the last paragraph that had really made her tense.

She had spent weeks slowly unwinding in Loch Cameron; enjoying her new job, discovering the women’s graves in the village cemetery and thinking how she might rewrite their histories a little. It was nice to have something else to focus on rather than the possibility of a baby. She had been slowly healing, trying to forget Paul; trying to reconnect with herself.

Now, somehow, all of that fragile peace had been swept away.

It wasn’t the clinic’s fault. They were doing what she’d asked them to do. It was Liz. Had she changed, somehow? She didn’t know. But since she’d had some time out of the fertility game show she had competed in so fiercely, she’d started to… heal.

In the final paragraph of the letter, the clinic added that it also provided sperm donation services and was available for consultation.

Sperm donation?

Liz continued to stare at the piece of paper in her hand until she realised that her tea was dripping from the cup; she was holding it at an odd angle. She swore, got up and poured the rest of the cup in the sink, wiping her robe with a tea towel.

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