The Secret of Happy Ever After Read Online Free PDF

shop, bonding over the hundred and one reasons childbirth didn’t make you instantly more valuable, understanding or wise.
    For Michelle, the assumptions people made concerning her lack of children were annoying: the local businessmen insinuated that she was ‘one of those strident career women’, and the businesswomen thought she had it easy. Anna’s grumbling, however, had been more of a defence. Being a mother-and-yet-not-a-mother was the worst of all worlds, when she longed for her own baby but instead felt she had to appear extra grateful for Phil’s ‘bonus children’.
    ‘Wow,’ said Michelle. ‘That’s your main focus for this year? I mean, it’s a great one to have, but . . . nothing else? Not, find a new job? Or redecorate?’
    Anna shook her head. ‘I’ve been waiting long enough already. It’s the only thing I’ve really wanted, since I was little, to have my own big family like the Waltons or the Marches. I used to nag my mum about when I’d get brothers and sisters.’ She bit her lip. ‘I once asked her whether they’d only wanted one child, and she said, no, they’d have loved to have had a houseful. It must have broken her heart hearing me playing with the cats and pretending they were babies.’
    ‘Take it from me,’ said Michelle, ‘you wouldn’t have wanted brothers.’
    ‘I wouldn’t have minded,’ said Anna. ‘I had imaginary brothers, imaginary sisters, horses, dogs . . . the lot. I don’t think Chloe and Becca and Lily know how lucky they are.’
    ‘So why didn’t they have more?’
    ‘They left it too late. Apparently there’s a history of early menopause – not that Mum knew then. She basically told me to get on with it, so it’s always been part of my plan.’ Anna played with her wine glass. ‘It was one of the things Phil and I agreed when we got married, that we’d give the girls time to get used to everything, but we’d definitely start trying for a baby of our own on our fourth anniversary – which is next month.’
    ‘Blimey,’ said Michelle. ‘So I need to start stocking babygros with literary quotes on them for September, then?’
    Anna grinned and raised her crossed fingers.
    ‘Is Phil prepared for all this?’ Michelle raised her eyebrow again, and Anna knew what was coming. ‘If he’s too knackered to walk Pongo, how’s the poor man going to cope with baby- making , let alone the rest of it? He’ll have to start pulling his weight. You’re working harder now than you were when you had a full-time job.’
    Michelle’s typically generous Christmas present for her best friend had been a voucher for ten hours’ ironing, five dog-walks and a whole spa day with her – but she’d made sure Phil had been there when Anna opened it. Phil had had the good grace to look shifty, and when Michelle had gone home, he’d offered to match all the hours. But that wasn’t the point. He’d got her a new iron. The last few years it had been tissue-wrapped silk undies.
    ‘Well, Sarah’s contract’s only for two years,’ said Anna. ‘She might even be back before the baby comes, so we might not have the girls living with us.’
    ‘That wasn’t what I asked.’
    ‘Phil knows how important it is to me. It’s important to him too. It’s not that I don’t love his kids, because I do, very much. But I’m not allowed to love them unconditionally, if you know what I mean. Our own baby will be as much part of me as—’
    She stopped herself, and flinched awkwardly. ‘Don’t repeat that. Actually, forget I even said it. It’s one of the great unmentionables.’
    ‘You can say anything to me, you know that,’ said Michelle. ‘Who am I going to tell?’ she added, with a self-deprecating nod at her empty sitting room.
    ‘Phil made a promise that we’d try for a baby this year,’ said Anna, ‘and one thing I have to say about Phil, is that he always keeps his promises. It’s a dad thing, apparently.’
    As she heard her own words, Anna felt a