Ghosts

by Dolly Alderton

“It’s true,” I said. “If you’re a woman in your thirties and you want a family, you’re at the behest of the impulses of flaky men. They make all the rules and we just have to obey. You’re not allowed to say what you want or what has upset you because there’s always this undetonated bomb underneath the relationship that goes off if you seem too ‘intense.’ ”