The Year of Taking Chances 5 (Chapters 12 – 19)

SPOILERS!!!

Gemma is still struggling at home. Spencer is cantankerous and angry all the time, and when she talks to Caitlin about it, she says that maybe he has post-concussion syndrome. Yet, when they go for a check-up and Gemma mentions it, Spencer gets furious with her. He isn’t helping when Gemma tries to economise because money is tight. The company Spencer was working for when he had the accident has gone bust, so the money he was owed is gone, and he doesn’t try to claim compensation. William, her thirteen-year-old son, is also a struggle. Since Gemma told him that he couldn’t go on a trip to Normandy with his class, he is openly hostile to everything she does. Now Gemma is the one trying to get some money in. He makes some clothes to neighbours and thanks to Harry, she has a job in the pub that belongs to his father. His family doesn’t appreciate her working there; Will feels embarrassed about it, Darcey says she is going to miss her, and Spencer disapproves of it because he thinks all the customers will be leering at her. Gemma turns a deaf ear to the three of them because they need the money, and if she doesn’t do anything, they will be losing their house.

Saffron is also struggling with her situation. When talking to Max doesn’t work, she decides to write a letter to him, and she tells him about the pregnancy and the scan. Yet, Max doesn’t reply to her letter and is not in the clinic when she goes for her scan. I have the feeling that somehow Max didn’t get his letter and is in blissful ignorance. When Saffron goes to the clinic, she is told that there is a possibility that her baby might be born with Down syndrome because of her age and the measures of the fetus. Now Saffron has to get another test in four weeks, and she is really scared. So to get away from her problems, she decides to rent the cottage where she stayed on New Year’s for a while. There she reconnects with Gemma, and the two women share their woes. Gemma tells her about Spencer, and Saffron talks to her about the pregnancy and her fears for her baby. I think it is good of Gemma to offer her some moral support, which is what Saffron needs.

As for Caitlin, she still has a crush on Harry, so she decides to take some action. She calls him with the excuse that she needs to have her cooker repaired. When the man is in the house, Caitlin keeps fantasizing about him, but his fantasies stop short when he tells her that he is going to have a baby. His ex-girlfriend found that she was pregnant, and from what he says and how he says, it is clear that he is not very happy about it.

When Harry leaves, Caitling keeps thinking about a comment he made about the hundreds of photographs of babies that Jane must have kept. Caitlin starts looking through her mother’s albums, but she can’t find any pictures of her as a baby. The pictures only show when she was a toddler, and in one of them Caitlin looks terrified and uncomfortable while Jane looks at her with utter devotion and love. Caitlin unsticks the picture from the album, and on the back in her mother’s writing there is a message: June 1st, a special day!!! Caitlin remembers all the June 1st that her mother celebrated as the family day because it was a good day to celebrate they were together, and now she remembers when Jane was dying that she tried to tell her something which she thought she should have told her before. Caitlin has a bad feeling about it, and I think what Caitlin fears is that she was adopted and her mother never told her about it. In any case, whether she is adopted or not, that doesn’t change the fact that Jane and Steve loved her very much, but I understand that she might be hurt that her mother never told her about her real origins.

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