“And as if by magic, Lizzie, we might just be in the best place for you to pick up some information,” she said to a horrified looking Lizzie, making Tasha laugh. “I meant leaflets and stuff, unless you want to sit in with me and quiz Mitch.”
“No! I'll read the leaflets while you're in there. I'm going to look like a teen mom with Connor in his stroller and reading up on birth control,” she exclaimed excitedly.
“Thank goodness your father isn't here.” Laughed Tasha, as they entered the elevator together. She laughed louder when she imagined her husband’s actual horror at his daughter’s words.
****
It was just over an hour later with a clean bill of health and a supply of the contraceptive pill that Tasha was being shown to a table in a nearby restaurant with Lizzie and Connor.
“Do you know how many hideous diseases can be sexually transmitted?” Lizzie sounded horrified.
“A few.” Laughed Tasha.
“I think you're right and we should stick to condoms,” announced Lizzie.
“I'm glad you've decided and have made your own mind up.” The truth was Tasha felt relieved more than glad that Lizzie had made her own mind up.
“You won’t tell Daddy, will you?” Lizzie asked nervously.
“I have no intention of telling your dad anything and hopefully he won’t ask,” Tasha reassured her.
“Thanks, Tash.” Lizzie grinned until Tasha's phone sounded a message alert.
“Bugger, I forgot to call your dad.” Tasha fished her phone from her bag as Connor began to cry and the waiter returned to take their order.
Lizzie leaned down and expertly released her brother from the security of his harness. She held him safely in her arms and began to chat to him, the familiarity of her voice immediately soothing him until he contentedly gazed up at her.
“Lizzie, I just need to reply to your dad's message.” Tasha smiled as the younger woman pulled out her own phone to message Dylan.
Tasha looked across at her son and stepdaughter and smiled at the image of them together, both of them relaxed and apparently happy. After the initial shock of being pregnant at all, Tasha’s next worry had been Lizzie and her reaction to a new baby, a sibling who would undoubtedly force her to share her father beyond Philip and Tasha.
The next worry had been whether the baby was going to be a boy or a girl and there was no doubt in Tasha’s mind that a brother would be easier to deal with in Lizzie’s mind. Another brother was semi-known territory, but a sister, a baby sister might have caused Lizzie to really question her role in Jim’s life at that point. After all she’d endured with Mickie, Lizzie needed some sense of stability and security, so it was fortunate that Connor had been a boy. Watching Lizzie jigging her brother in her arms with varying degrees of success as he began to become unsettled, Tasha smiled that everything was falling into place in her life.
As Lizzie’s attempts at pacifying her hungry brother failed, Tasha took him from her and discreetly began to feed him, still amazed that they made clothes with fake pockets that were essentially flaps for booby feeding, and replied to Jim.
“Tash?” started Lizzie as they began to eat their lunch of chicken salad, Tasha one handed as she held Connor in the other arm. “You know when we were with Mickie, at Philip's?” Her nervousness gained Tasha's undivided attention.
“Yes.” Tasha wondered where this was going and as much as she was trying to put all things Mickie behind her she wouldn’t if Lizzie had things she needed to work through still.
“The things she asked me—the things I told her—erm—does Daddy know about them?”
Tasha gently placed her cutlery down, not wanting Lizzie to think she was in anyway upset or annoyed with her. “Not really, I don't think. He knows Mickie asked you, us both some really personal stuff and that we replied and she had installed a video camera. The film is still stored as police evidence or has been destroyed I assume and although I told your dad everything about me and her, I never gave him details about you, just that she asked you some unpleasant things to goad me. Why do you ask?”
“I've thought about it loads since it happened and I guess I just wondered if he knew and if he was mad with me for the things I’d done with Dylan,” replied a sad and worried looking Lizzie. “You know how he gets about other people with us, boys kind of other people.
Moving her own chair closer to Lizzie's, Tasha took her hand and shook her head as she prepared to further reassure her stepdaughter. “Lizzie, what happened that night was awful and that was down to Mickie. Your dad was furious with her, but not you, or Juan or me, just her and himself a little. Even if he did know what had happened between you and Dylan he would not be mad with you, nor even Dylan, not really. He knows you’re growing up and he doesn't like it,” laughed Tasha. “He hates it, but because he has had lots of wives and girlfriends he knows exactly how boy's minds work when they think of girls and that drives him a little crazy, to think they might think that way about you, but he knows it's normal.”
