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“So, you’re saying if you could go back in time, you would choose the same?” I demanded, furious and unwilling to back down. “You would have aborted Darren?”
“Maybe not Darren, but definitely him,” Teddy spat out, and if any other father said that to his son, I was sure there would be eruptions, but Joey didn’t bat an eyelid at his cruelty. He was used to it.
“Kind of like what your mother should have done to you, Teddy?” I heard myself hiss.
“Aoife!” Mam gasped, tone shocked. “We don’t speak to people like that.”
“People, no,” I agreed. “But he’s not people, Mam.” I glowered around the table at each one of our parents and said, “It doesn’t matter what any of you think. I don’t care if you agree with my decision or not. I’m sorry, Dad, but that includes you. Joey and I talked about it, and we’re keeping our baby.”
“Are you sure?” Marie choked out, looking devastated.
“Yes,” I narrowed my eyes and growled. “The only thing I’ve ever been surer of is your son.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Marie sobbed, dropping her head in her hands. “This is a mistake.”
“We’ve all made mistakes,” Mam offered, trying to be the voice of reason. “Not one person sitting at this table is perfect, and I, for one, think it’s very admirable of our children to stand over—”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, woman, get a grip, will ya?” Teddy snapped, slamming his fist down on the table in annoyance. “There’s nothing admirable about two teenagers shacking up to play house. You want a preview of how it goes, take a good fucking look at us.”
“Don’t raise your voice to my wife,” my father warned in a deathly cold tone of voice. “And her name is Trish, not woman.”
“Well, knock some damn sense into her,” Teddy argued, looking at my father like he couldn’t understand why he was letting my mother lead the conversation. “Because her head is in the clouds if she thinks this can work.”
“Knock some sense into her?” Dad’s face reddened. “A bit like—”
“Steady up, Tony love,” Mam interrupted, offering my father a knowing wink from across the table. “We’re here for our daughter, remember?”
With a pained sigh, my father offered her a loving nod and unclenched his hands from the edge of the table. “So, you’re keeping the baby.” He looked to me and Joey for confirmation.
We nodded in unison.
I presumed that to my father, we looked like a duo of nodding seals. Or a couple of deer caught in headlights.
“Fine, I accept this as your decision, and I respect your willingness to go ahead with your plan,” he replied after a long pause of silence. “But you both need to be aware that at the end of this pregnancy, there will be a child to care for, and this child will bind you together.” Blowing out a heavy breath, he added, “A child is not a relationship that you can walk away from, or a marriage that can be dissolved. This is a lifetime commitment. You’ll forever be entwined in one another’s lives. That baby will need the both of you for the rest of your lives. Together or apart. The baby will need its mother and father in equal measures.”
“Right now, you’re both eighteen and in love,” Mam offered up. “But you won’t always be young, and you might not always be in love either.”
“If you are, then fantastic, you have nothing to worry about,” Dad chimed in, giving my mother a knowing smile. “But if you fall out of love with each other, if you grow apart, are you sure you’re both ready to deal with the consequences?”
“I’ve loved your daughter for six years,” Joey finally broke his silence by saying. “I can easily love her for another eighteen.”
Goddamn…
My heart skipped in my chest.
He wasn’t trying to sound sweet.
He was trying to sound convincing.
Still, I was ready to jump his bones.
“Love?” Teddy sneered. “You think loving each other is all you need to make this work?”
“It’s half the battle,” my mother replied in a curt tone.
“It’s bullshit,” Teddy argued, dismissing her, making it clearer every time he opened his mouth that he did not care for a woman’s opinion on anything. “I’ll tell ya something, Tony,” he continued, looking to Dad instead. “Your wife might have rose-tinted glasses on, but I know deep down you can see this for what it is. A fucking shitstorm. That boy of mine is in no position to raise a baby. He’s on a fast track to nowhere, and if you don’t want that young one of yours following after him, then you’ll put her on a boat to England and have her cut ties with him.”
“She’s not going to fucking England!” Joey spat out as he erupted on his father. “And you’ve got a lot of fucking nerve to sit across this table from me offering up fatherly advice and accusing me of not being able to raise a child.”
