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I don’t need complication. I need to earn enough to get Isobel back. I might not be able to bring her parents back to life, but I can still raise her right. Make up for the hell she’s been put through because of me.
5
The line on the test gets thicker by the second. “No doubt about it.” I wave the test back and forth as if I might erase the line through shaking it. “I’m fucked.”
“You were fucked.” Maddy puts an arm around my shoulder. “Hence why you’re pregnant. I’m sorry, hun.”
“Not your fault.”
“It is. I shouldn’t have sent you those messages. Shouldn’t have gone on vacation. I could have cockblocked him before he got into your pants, sent the son of a bitch packing before he ghosted you like that.”
“It was the first vacation you’ve had in two years. You really think you shouldn’t have gone?”
“Hell, yeah. Look what happens when I go away. Never happening again, I’ll tell you that.”
“You can’t base your plans on my mistakes.”
“Not your mistake. He was the one who didn’t wear a rubber.”
“And I didn’t ask. Takes two to tango, Maddy. Shit, what do I do now?”
“Well, stop waving that about for a start. I could do without getting showered in your pee.”
I realize I’m shaking the test harder than ever. I put it down on the edge of the sink, backing away from it like it’s an exploded bomb.
We go back through to the lounge together. I sink onto the sofa, put my head in my hands and let out a long groan that’s been weeks in the making.
“I knew it,” I say. “I knew it would be positive. One-night stand, middle of my cycle. How could I have been that stupid?”
“Because he got you drunk,” Maddy says, sitting down next to me, brandishing a tub of ice cream that seems to have appeared from nowhere. “I already knew. You want to know how?”
“How?”
“This tub was still in the freezer last week.”
“So?”
“So you’re like clockwork, Clarissa. When mine hits yours is the next day. When I get cramps, you get them the next day. Same every month. That’s when the ice cream gets eaten and here it is, as untouched as my flaps since I got back.” She winces. “Sorry. Not the time. What’s the plan?”
“What do you mean? What plan?”
“Well, first you need to decide if you’re keeping it or not.”
I shake my head. “After what mom said to me, there’s no way I’m getting rid of it.”
“Noble but are you sure?”
“What do you mean? Of course I’m sure.”
She puts an arm around my shoulder, snuggling me toward her, sliding a crochet blanket over me at the same time. “I mean that just because she told you that you were a failed abortion doesn’t mean that you’re an immoral vacuum for considering it. You’re not your mother.”
“You sure about that? Baby out of wedlock after a one-night stand. All I need to do now is marry the father and bring the kid up so Catholic she’s scared of crosses in Tic-tac-toe and I’m exactly my mother.”
She sighs next to me. “One, it was an arranged marriage. She didn’t exactly have a lot of say in it. Two, you came out all right, didn’t you? Got out of the mafia, same as me. We’re doing okay. Not drinking every night. Haven’t got a trash can full of bloody Kleenex from all the nose candy.” She turns my head so I’m looking at her. “You are not your mother. You are not your father. You are your own person and you can make your own decisions. So I ask you again, do you want to keep it?”
“I do,” I reply. “I want at least some good to come out of this shitty situation. Hell, maybe I can bring her up right. Prove them both wrong. Show them I’m not useless.”
“Her? You think it’s a her?”
