VISITING

Maurice’s question broke through the glaze of horror in his mind. They were looking quizzically at him. Had he missed something? Apart from a nine-month pregnancy?

“Sorry.” He sucked in a deep breath and swallowed hard. “I was just thinking how great the three of you look together.”

Ingrid laughed. “Time you found yourself a wife and started a family, Micheal.”

Join the club. They all said that. Once they were caught in the family trap, it was as though anyone who was free of it was an offensive reminder of what they’d given up. The hell of it was he might very well have a child somewhere on this ward, a child whose mother had decided was better off fatherless than having Micheal in their lives.

“Aren’t you thirty-something?” Ingrid persisted.

“Darling, I’m forty,” Maurice reminded her. “Age has nothing to do with it. If I hadn’t met you, I’d still be a freewheeling bachelor like Micheal.”

Micheal didn’t want to be a freewheeling bachelor. He wanteded Lucia. He didn’t care if she came