“I didn’t ask.”
“Maybe not verbally. You?” She allows her gaze to flit over me. I like how it feels.
“I’m thirty-eight.”
Her brows lift.
“Good genes,” I say with a grin.
“Do you really come from a big family?” Her question is tentative, like she doesn’t want to give too much away.She remembers what I said.
“Yeah, I do.” My reply is kind of expansive as I lean back against the booth. “I didn’t tell you lies that night. Well, with the exception of ...”
“What you do for a living,” she whispers.
“My family is huge,” I put in quickly. God knows how this news will go down with them. It’ll give them something to yak about, forsure. Something to worry about. Something to bend my ear over. “I have three sisters and two brothers. All younger than me.”
“That must be nice,” she answers quietly. Softly.
“It’s grand. Sometimes. And other times, not so much.”
“I don’t. Have a family, that is.” Her gaze falls to her cup, and she looks about to pick it up before changing her mind. She pushes it away.
“Should I get you a refill?”
She refuses with a shake of her head. “But thanks.”
“No family at all?” I begin again.
Another headshake.
“There’s just you?”
“Just me left. But there was only ever me and my mom growing up.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
“I wouldn’t bother.” Her chin lifts. In defiance? “It wasn’t the easiest of childhoods, which I know now wasn’t my fault.”
Knowsnow? Something from the depths of my own upbringing flares to life in my head.Children of God are without blemish.My parents were very unimpressed when, aged eight, I’d plucked this Sunday school learning out of my brain. They also weren’t convinced it was adequate reason for the hole in their new TV. It’s been upcast plenty in family lore, but I didn’t spend my childhood suffering for it.
I don’t know what to say, except to point out the obvious—that I’m sorry, that it’s shit. But she’s rebuffed me already. So I reach out and put my hand over hers.
“I never knew my dad.” Her smile saysFuck your pity. But Jesus—I think I get it. She was leaving because that’s what she knows. And she was leaving first because that’s what she assumed I would do.Like history repeating itself.“I always thought I’d have a family. Before, you know.” Her eyes dart away. She means withhim, the bastard who dumped her and turned her life upside down. “And while this feels crazy, it also feels right. It’s not like this”—her words trail off as her hand drops to her stomach—“has willed itself into existence.”
“No, I get that.”
“But you don’t have to worry,” she says, looking up at me. “I take full responsibility. I don’t need you to step up.”
“Fuck that.” My hand tightens on hers, my voice low and vehement. These are my feelings, and they have nothing to do with her childhood, her past. “I want to be part of this. Don’t shut me out.”
“I didn’t—” She swallows thickly. Sets her shoulders. Composes herself. “I just meant I’m not out to trap you. That I get this is my decision.”
“I want to be part of this.”
“But I’m going back to the States. Monday.”
Something like panic bolts through me.
