“Even kids with two parents can get pregnant.”
“I know, but when we talked about her life, and the support she’d need to get through his loss—he felt so guilty about leaving her, you know, she was only ten and he knew how she would suffer. Can you imagine? She was just skinny arms and legs, and this huge bushel of mad red hair, and all sunshine and energy. He said it was like throwing a beautiful, porcelain plate high in the air—you can see it flawless and unbroken as it arcs upwards and descends, right until the moment you know is coming when it hits the ground and smashes. And he was going to be the one to hurt her like that. He was so angry he’d never see her grow up. And you know, we’d talk about what she’d be, who she’d become; we’d try and imagine it together, and I promised I’d do my best to protect her and give her a good life.”
James did not, in this instance, think that a father’s death years ago offered sufficient excuse or explanation. He never usually acknowledged her daughter’s bad behavior, but with this silence, he now judged, he had also let Daniel down. He had pragmatic feelings about Daniel. He rarely chose to think of him at all, and when he did it was as a vague, benign presence, abstract as an ancestor, and with this unthreatening distance between them the two men could and ought to be brothers in arms. He imagined Daniel’s love for Julia as his own—epic and sweeping as the prairie, broad and generous as the pale sky above it. When he thought of Julia he always saw this same image—vast, open spaces; the pallor and splendor of soothing, infinite skies. He would take care of her. He would not let her be bullied by an unhinged, manipulative teenager. A teenager whose attack had wounded his son as collateral damage. He could give voice to none of this. Instead he said, “You have given her a good life. You are giving her a good life.”
“Maybe, but seriously, I considered making it through secondary school without an illegitimate pregnancy as the bare minimum.”
“No one, no one could love their daughter more than you love Gwen. And we will all get through this together and be fine. It’s horrible, it will be horrible for both our kids, and then it will be over. We found out early, which makes everything vastly less complicated.”
Julia tucked her legs up beneath her and began biting the nail of her little finger. “What exactly will they do?”
“You never had one?”
“No!” She looked scandalized. “Why, did you? I mean, did you ever get someone pregnant by accident?”
“No,” James admitted. “My knowledge is purely professional. Pamela had one, just before we started dating, in fact. She was characteristically robust about it. I don’t think she was entirely sure who had helped her into her condition in the first place, which would make imagining an alternative outcome more abstract. Hard to picture a baby’s face if you’re not sure which dude it might resemble.”
“That’s the bitchiest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” said Julia, briefly cheered.
“Well, there you go. I’m allowed a slip every now and again where my ex-wife is concerned. I should call her but, Christ, I really can’t deal with her tonight. And I don’t want him to hear it first from her on the phone. Or she’ll tell Saskia, or arrive on our doorstep or— I just don’t want to handle it right now.”
“So, what will they do?”
“If she’s right about her last period then it’s very early, she won’t need a surgical abortion and can do it with mifepristone. It blocks progesterone, which then makes the uterine lining break down. Then she’ll go back for misoprostol, which causes contractions, bleeding, and everything hopefully passes out after that. It’s not a party, I will tell you, but it’s pretty quick, they’ll give her pain relief and antibiotics, and if all goes smoothly, that’s it, just a checkup and then back to normal. Codeine, hot water bottle, good TV, distraction.”
“Okay.” She nodded, her fingernail still between her teeth. “Can you imagine, just for a moment, if our children actually had this baby together?”
“Let’s not go there, it’s entirely insane. You would have a grandchild related to me and Daniel. And you and I would have a shared grandchild. It’s pretty fucked up. It might end up looking like both of us.” He raised her palm gently to his lips. “But you’re my family now. And that means any baby Gwen has, any time, with any man, is going to be our grandchild. It doesn’t have to— This isn’t . . . isn’t anything but an accident. Whoever our kids end up marrying and having children with, you and I are going to be a team and we’ll share all those grandbabies between us, and when it happens it will be awesome. We’ll look after them together and enjoy them and then give them back when they cry and go back to our gardening and our vacationing and—and shuffleboard. As long as Nathan doesn’t marry The Demon Barber of Seville we’ll be in clover. Give it a decade, decade and a half, and we’ll see what’s cooking.”
“I know. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” And then, to share her pain, to halve her responsibility, he offered a sacrificial lamb, an echo of the unreasonable resentment he knew she must harbor, “It’s my dumb son who knocked her up.”
“When can she not be pregnant again?”
“Pretty fast.”
“How fast? This weekend?”
“Not that fast. A week. Ten days, maybe.”
“I could literally strangle them both.”
“It’s a legitimate solution.”
She was silent for a moment. “Can we grow tomatoes, too, and basil? And olives, for olive oil.”
“Then I think we need a donkey to turn the press. Or a mule, whatever that may be; I don’t know, we didn’t have mules in Dorchester when I was growing up; they might be a form of female footwear. You’ll wear nothing but mules when you ride the donkey to press the olives. With our buffalo we’ll have an entire farm devoted to the Caprese salad.” He looked at his watch. “It’s two a.m., baby, let’s go to bed. This will still be godawful in the morning, I guarantee.”
She laughed, and his heart lifted at the sound, the promise of future recovery, the first new buds after a hard winter.
“Okay. Do you swear?”
“I swear. You’ll have hours and hours of misery and stress tomorrow. Days until it’s resolved. Let’s go to sleep now so we can really appreciate it in daylight in all its sordid glory.” He took her face between his hands and kissed her, deeply. “I love you more than anything, and I promise you we will put this right together.”
25.