Page 55 of Lessons in Life

‘What, you’ve all gathered here to wait up for me? Just so you’d know I was home safely?’

‘Mum,’ Sorrel suddenly blurted out. ‘I’m pregnant.’

There was silence in the room as the three of us kept our eyes on Mum, waiting for her response.

‘But you’re fifteen, Sorrel. What do you mean, you’re pregnant?’ Mum appeared dazed.

Jess held up the evidence of the pregnancy test, hiding behind the teapot, waving it crossly in Mum’s direction. ‘I drove down to the all-night pharmacy in the village.’

‘Oh? So everyone in the village now knows, do they?’

‘Does it matter? Anyway, it’s not me, is it?’ Jess tutted crossly.

‘Right? Joel, I suppose? The father of your child is a sixteen-year-old drug pusher in prison?’ Mum was close to tears. ‘What is the matter with this family that we all make such totally awful decisions about the men we choose?’

‘You’re as bad, Mum.’ Jess, knowing Dean was being dissed, was immediately on the defence.

‘I never said I wasn’t including myself,’ Mum snapped.

‘Hey, and what’s wrong with Fabian?’ The bloody awful mess Sorrel had got herself into was making me more than irritable. ‘I thought you liked him?’

Ignoring both Jess and me, Mum turned back to Sorrel. ‘Well, what do you want to do about it?’

Sorrel shrugged.

‘If you’re old enough to be having sex with this boy, then you’re old enough to make some decisions about what to do with the consequences.’ Mum was almost beside herself.

‘Mum, you can’t call a baby a consequence.’ I shook my head.

‘Well, what wouldyoucall it?’ She turned on me now, glaring in my direction.

‘I thought… you know… I thought…’ Sorrel started ‘…thought I could have it and then Jess – or even Robyn – could look after it. You know, until I was old enough to have it back.’

‘What?’ Jess, Mum and I spoke as one.

‘Lending it to me?’ Jess’s face flushed with anger. ‘Like a sodding library book that I have to return, once you decide you’re ready to send me a reminder? That you actually have a child?’

Mum and I tutted in unison.

‘I don’twantanother baby,’ Jess went on crossly. ‘If I’dwantedanother baby, I’d havehadanother baby.’

‘But, Jess, you like children; you’ve fostered children.’ Sorrel started to weep.

‘Short term, Sorrel. The last thing I want is another eighteen years of bringing up your child.’

‘And countmeout, Sorrel.’ I put up two hands against the very idea. ‘Can you imagine, going down to the cottage and telling Fabian, now that I’ve got him back, that actually there’ll be two of us moving in with him?’

‘This just goes to show how immature you are, Sorrel.’ Jess was on a roll.

‘OK, I’ll have an abortion, then.’

‘Ihatethat word.’ Jess closed her eyes. ‘Can you not say…’ she lowered her voice, visibly upset ‘…termination?’

‘A rose by any other name,’ I murmured.

‘Oh, don’t you start quoting your precious Shakespeare at us,’ Jess countered, glaring in turn at me.

‘Isn’t it against the law for a boy to have sex with someone under the age of legal consent?’ Mum folded her arms, sitting back in her chair.

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