What Does It Feel Like?

by Sophie Kinsella

“What does it feel like to have five children?” people ask, and all she can say is, “The same as having one child, times five.” The work is multiplied, the worry is multiplied, the joy is multiplied, the love is multiplied.

Of course she works hard—but she’s also constantly aware of the good fortune she’s had. She’s lucky to have met Nick. She’s lucky to have been fertile and had children. She’s lucky that she’s able to write. She’s lucky her brain came up with the right idea at the right time and she was able to write Hey Big Spender.

Wait, I’ve got an idea.” Her face brightens. “You print me out the words of all the carols and I can relearn them by Christmas.” “Of course. Good idea. I’ll give you a printout,” says Nick. He’ll give her the printout he’s already given her and that she’s discarded in frustration three times now, sitting up in her hospital bed, wailing, “I can’t learn these sodding carols!”

If you glanced in through the window, you’d see a normal, happy family, gathered around a Scrabble board in the kitchen, all laughing, with not a care in the world. She knows she’ll plummet in spirits again—they’ll all plummet in spirits again at some time. But right now she’s smiling and her family are laughing and it’s all right. Just for now, it’s all right.

I cycle through denial, despair, shock, grief, and then sometimes ridiculous happiness. I appreciate small pleasures so much more than I did, but then along comes the brutal knowledge again. Sometimes I contemplate dying and leaving my family and I can’t bear it. I wait until the house is empty, then cry ugly sobs, inconsolable, loud, keening and wailing, punching the bed with ineffectual, powerless fists…. “Oh, up and down,” says Eve after a long pause. “But, you know. It could be worse.”

“Maybe I don’t want a bucket list at all. I think what I want is just to live like we do anyway—you know, do our work and go for walks and watch Come Dine with Me—but have a slightly nicer version of it. Normal but better. Call it ‘Normal plus.’ ”

“You know what else is ironic?” says Nick. “What?” “You hate spoilers in books and films. We both do. But when it comes to this, all we want, above anything else, is a spoiler. We desperately want the doctors to give us the spoiler, but they can’t, because they don’t know either.”