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He throws his hands up and paces over to the window looking out at the perfectly landscaped lawns close to the house. I’ve not heard my father swear like this before; he’s always so upright and correct. “Not a responsible bone in his body—” He draws in a sharp breath.
“I think I bear some of the responsibility too,” I interrupt before he can get into one of his cold dismissals and says more things about Fabian that we can’t get over.
“Kate, howcouldyou?” my mother says, and I hate the sharp disappointment in her voice. “You’ve just started your residency. How could you do this? It’s soirresponsible. I thought we’d brought you up better than that. Where is your judgment? I just can’t understand how you could have got pregnant. It’s not like birth control is difficult.”
Ever the doctor. My God. I look at the perfect silk cream curtains, the huge patterned Turkish rug, and settle on the cat sitting peacefully on the end of the couch, oblivious.
“I was on birth control,” I say, pulling my breath up from deep in my body.
“Well, we need to get this sorted out,” my father says briskly as my mother opens her mouth to say more. “Ivan will sort her out.”
Ivan’s a doctor friend of theirs, I think.
“Sort me out?” I say, cold fingers of dread rippling through me. He’s talking about his grandchild here.
“Well, you can’t be thinking of keeping it,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Someone like that guy …” He swallows like he can hardly bring himself to say Fabian’s name.
“Fabian,” I interrupt tightly.
“He won’t stick by you, Kate. That isn’t how men like him operate. He has no proper job, clearly takes drugs. I mean just look at his behavior at Javier’s wedding.”
You mean that dreadful behavior where he told the truth, I don’t say. I’m gripping the edge of their perfect blue couch leaving imprints that I know my mother will smooth out as soon as I leave. Are they really suggesting …? I shake my head. There’s no point in a tit for tat. They have judged Fabian, written him off, when he’s responsible and kind, generous too. Every day he’s working on trying to get to the truth, exposing corruption and duplicity, in his small way trying to change the world, but they have a particular worldview, and it would be stupid to fight right now; that’s not why I came here. My head throbs; I wasn’t expecting a positive conversation, but I didn’t think they’d be quite as bad as this. I thought I could talk them round.
“Let me get this right? You’re suggesting I have an abortion?”
“Well, you can’t be thinking of keeping it?” my mother says, voice rising, as though it’s a foregone conclusion.
“This is yourgrandchild.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kate,” she says on a snap. “As you well know, it’s tiny at this stage.” She frowns at me, neck stretched forward like a peacock, and it’s a cold echo of what I said to Liss.
“I mean just look at this.” My father waves his arm around. “Why isn’t he here, with you, having this conversation with us? It’s just typical of guys like him. Anything difficult and you can’t see them for dust.”
He does stuff that’s way more difficult than this every damn day of his life. He never shies away from “difficult.” The words rush up my throat, and I choke them back down.
“I persuaded him not to come.”
Was that wise? Should he have been here and heard this, no matter what the fallout? I thought I could handle my parents on their own, but seeing their tight faces and the cold hard reality of what they are, I have to admit that a hand to hold would have been nice. Fabian’s a wild experimenter, and because of that I’m not asking him to step up, but we’re in this together, and I’ve no evidence he wouldn’t take on the responsibility. Ugh. Maybe I’ve got some of the same prejudices that my parents have.
“I’m glad I persuaded him not to come. Not in a million years would I want him to hear your condemnation of him, when he’s a good guy.”
My fingers curl into my palms. Why am I sitting here and listening to their prejudices? I could walk out now. I need to think about the life growing inside me and do what’s best for us. Warmth steals through my blood.My family with Fabian.
“You’re deluded,” my father growls. “By no stretch of the imagination, Kate, is he a good guy.” His lip curls, eyes narrowing. “I’ve had him investigated.”
I’m stare at him, frozen. “Investigated?” My mother nods, lips curving up, her gaze darting to my father.
“After the wedding when he was clearly drunk and threw those ridiculous accusations at me, I thought I should look into who was hanging around with my daughter. Well, I’ll have you know he’s a crook, Kate, he’s on the wrong side of the law. He’s not a ‘programmer,’ as he liked to describe it. This information is buried deep, but my investigator is a very clever guy.” He wags his finger at me. “You can’t hide this stuff from people who know what they’re doing on the internet these days. He’s done work for the Russians, illegal work, work that is treasonable, work that goes against everything this country stands for. He’s the worst kind of person … unpatriotic!”
I almost laugh at the relish in his voice, as though he thinks he could find out anything about Fabian that Fabian wouldn’t want him to know. As though I wouldn’t know what he does. Fabian has told me what he’s doing, despite a less-than-stellar upbringing when he probably should have learned never to trust anyone. How has he done that? Could I throw off the grip of my parents? What he puts his body through—it’s like he’s punishing himself. And there’s no way he’s done anything illegal with the Russians. He’s way too cautious about getting on anyone’s radar, he hides everything he’s done, and he’s certainly good enough to easily dodge anyone my father might employ to find out about him. Jo told me what he did to help sort a hack on Janus’s company.
“I know what he does, Dad,” I say, exhaling and leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees.
“Well, you’re even more stupid than I thought getting involved with someone like that. It’s like that damn art student all over again.”
“Euan. His name was Euan. Also a good guy,” I say, eyeing my father’s flushed face. A bitter aftertaste fills my mouth.
“Fabian knows exactly what you’ve done, Dad. He can pretty much hack into anywhere.” I see something flash across my father’s face before he tucks it away. Dammit, I probably shouldn’t have said that.
