Page 11 of Big Baby
Breather over.
The time was coming.
Plan was, tell them, ask for what I needed, and dip out. Check in after a day or so when they’d calmed down.
It’s not as if I were a teenager. This would be fine.
When we returned to the room laden with the bowls, Harry was glancing between us with such panic. I gave him a little head shake. I’d said nothing. Like the awful, selfish person I was, I said nothing.
“This is delicious,” Harry said once we’d all settled back in for the last course, looking at the woman he’d vowed to marry, while sitting opposite her sister he’d fucked nota few months ago. They were for sure together then, I remember Vicky telling me he’d proposed.
“What?” Victoria asked, and I assumed she was talking to him, but then I saw her eyes were on me. “You were scowling.”
“Oh.” I rearranged my face. “Sorry.”
“So what is with this return to the family?” Mom asked, not touching her cheesecake. Dad finished his and reached for hers, but she slapped his hand away. Her eyes were hard on me, like she was scanning me trying to figure it out. Why was she such a fucking bitch all the damn time?
I bet she’d guess right. It was so fucking typical.
“I actually have news,” I said with a gulp, gussying up. Tighten those ovaries, Zora, you’ve got this.
Mom rolled her eyes. “Of course she wants money. Taking your clothes off not paying the bills anymore?”
“It was paying just fine.” Oh, I so wanted to not do this, to kick off, curse her out and swan away with my head held high. But… I touched my stomach and sighed. “I was hoping for my college fund,” I said. I’d never gone to college, never spent a penny of it. But I knew it existed, they’d handed Victoria hers full of lots of lovely pride because she was going Ivy.
“What?” Mom said, voice flat.
“My college fund,” I repeated. “Can I… can I have it?” Ah, so fucking awkward. “I have a whole plan I wanted to show you, to get your… approval, I don’t know. But… I can’t— I need funding. My college fund will work. It’s what it’s there for, after all.”
“Your college fund?” Mom was close to laughter.
“Mother, please,” Victoria muttered, her face ashen.
“Katerina, let’s hear her out,” Dad piped up, finally. He’d always been warmer, just docile. Well under her thumb and happy that way. Never did anything to stop her demanding ways, but never demanded anything himself.
Mom narrowed her eyes. “Tell me why this change of heart, and maybe I’ll consider it.”
I spluttered. God, did I really have to do this?
“Okay, fine,” I said, and my heart squeezed when Victoria grabbed my hand under the table, bracing with me. Harry looked between us, bewildered, confused. The tension in the room was close to breaking.
“Zora…?” he said, his voice croaking.
Looking at him, I couldn’t look anywhere else, I opened my mouth. “I’m pregnant.” And it was out there. “I’m having a baby, and I want to give them the best start I can. The best way I can. I have time to get an education, to get a head start. And when they’re older, and I’m done, I can find a better job, a steady job…”
And… chaos.
Harry’s head hit the table, out cold.
“You did it,” Vicky said to me, giving me a hug at the door. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Do you think they’ll go for it?” I asked, enjoying her warmth while I still could. She was such a good big sister, and I would tell her about Harry very soon. Like, tomorrow soon. But after he’d conked out and no one could move him into a more comfortable position, the night was all but done.
He couldn’t have guessed it was his baby. He knew what I did, must have assumed I slept with dozens of men all around the same time I did with him. But it was. It was his. Maybe it was the look in my eye when I said those words straight to his face.
My father, the doctor, checked the patient out and managed to get him awake and stumbling to bed while Vic and I cleared the table. Mom took herself to the sofas and continued to scowl at everything while we worked, aghast at the drama Harry and I caused. A pregnancy and a collapse. Too many dramatics.
Then she beckoned me over, told me to send her a pitch for what course I wanted to do and where, and dismissed me. She dismissed me like I was far beneath her, like how she treated staff and anyone that didn’t fit her ideal. Which I suppose I didn’t.
